Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf
Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf
Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Notes 119<br />
cannot deny that if <strong>the</strong> supposed thought of <strong>the</strong> non-being of a sparrow is to be completely distinct, it<br />
requires nothing more than <strong>the</strong> thought of a sparrow <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> thought of its evident rejection or denial.<br />
<strong>The</strong> next letter makes this entirely clear. See note 28 above.<br />
31 In order to arrive at <strong>the</strong> concept of that which is not a thing (der Begriffe vom Irrealem), Marty<br />
was forced to imagine or invent special sources of abstraction.<br />
32 For example, I cannot intuit my seeing without also intuiting what it is that I see; what I see is <strong>the</strong><br />
primary object of <strong>the</strong> intuition, <strong>and</strong> my seeing of it is <strong>the</strong> secondary object.<br />
33 <strong>Brentano</strong> here refers to <strong>the</strong> view that, wherever <strong>the</strong> concept of “<strong>the</strong> correct” is applicable, <strong>the</strong>re<br />
must be an agreement or correspondence, <strong>and</strong> that this agreement or correspondence is a relation,<br />
not to a thing, but to a “state of affairs”, “proposition” (Russell), “objective” (Meinong), “content”<br />
(Marty), or, in <strong>the</strong> case of valuing, a relation to a “value” or to a “state of value”. But all <strong>the</strong>se<br />
supposed entities are fictitious.<br />
34 In a letter to O.Kraus dated 14 November, 1909, which is published in <strong>the</strong> Introduction to Vol. I<br />
of <strong>the</strong> Psychologie, <strong>Brentano</strong> writes:<br />
“It is paradoxical in <strong>the</strong> highest degree to say that what a man promises to marry is an ens<br />
rationis <strong>and</strong> that he keeps his word by marrying a real person. It would be just as paradoxical<br />
to say that, if everything real were to be destroyed, a process would continue on throughout<br />
infinity in which that which was yesterday would become that which was <strong>the</strong> day before yesterday,<br />
<strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>n become that which was <strong>the</strong> day before <strong>the</strong> day before yesterday, <strong>and</strong> so on.”<br />
35 In fact, <strong>Brentano</strong>’s epoch-making discoveries have opened up vast perspectives <strong>and</strong> we cannot<br />
even begin to envisage <strong>the</strong>ir significance for philosophy. To be sure, <strong>Brentano</strong> has already provided<br />
many important applications in a long series of essays, of which only a few have been published up to<br />
now (as appendices to Vols. II <strong>and</strong> III of <strong>the</strong> Psychologie). In carrying out <strong>the</strong>se analyses one constantly<br />
encounters new problems; we have been working on <strong>the</strong>se without interruption, since 1916 when we<br />
first began to underst<strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> new <strong>the</strong>ory. <strong>The</strong> later views are so revolutionary that <strong>the</strong>y require an almost<br />
continuous translation of traditional modes of expression; for <strong>the</strong>se modes of expression, like <strong>the</strong><br />
ordinary language in which <strong>the</strong>y originate, are almost completely permeated with fictions of <strong>the</strong> inner<br />
form of language. While <strong>the</strong> so-called phenomenology of Husserl sets <strong>the</strong> Ossa towering upon <strong>the</strong> Pelion<br />
of fictions, <strong>Brentano</strong>’s Phänomenognosie strips this ontological spook-world of its very foundations.<br />
36 <strong>The</strong> “non-being of a cow” contains <strong>the</strong> non-being of a two-year-old cow, of a white cow, of a cow<br />
with a herdsman, etc. Whatever is thought of as an essential physical or logical part of an object in a<br />
completely explicit idea of that object belongs to <strong>the</strong> “content” of that idea <strong>and</strong> could not be correctly<br />
denied if <strong>the</strong> object were correctly affirmed. And conversely: all those things which cannot correctly<br />
be denied of <strong>the</strong> object if <strong>the</strong> object is to be correctly affirmed would be included in any explicit idea<br />
of <strong>the</strong> object. If one correctly affirms <strong>the</strong> non-being of a cow, one cannot correctly deny <strong>the</strong> non-being<br />
of a white cow, of a two-year-old cow, etc. It is as if <strong>the</strong>se non-beings were contained in <strong>the</strong> non-being<br />
of a cow as parts <strong>and</strong> were thus such that <strong>the</strong>y would have to be thought of if that non-being were to<br />
be thought in complete distinctness. But this is only “as if”, for <strong>the</strong> idea of <strong>the</strong> “non-being of a cow”<br />
is a mere fiction. Actually a clear analysis of this pseudo-concept will show that it contains none of<br />
<strong>the</strong> things it would have to contain if we really could think of “ideal objects” such as non-being,<br />
impossibility, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> like.<br />
37 This extremely important <strong>the</strong>ory of <strong>the</strong> universality of all our intuitions, outer as well as inner,<br />
is set forth in detail in Vol. II of <strong>the</strong> Psychologie; see also Vol. III. Up to this time, it has been<br />
almost universally held that our sensations can present us with that which is individual; <strong>and</strong> similarly<br />
for inner perception. But <strong>Brentano</strong> returns to <strong>the</strong> Aristotelian doctrine here, however much he may<br />
deviate from Aristotle with respect to o<strong>the</strong>r fundamental points.<br />
38 See note 19 above concerning <strong>the</strong> third letter to Marty (2 September, 1906). As indicated <strong>the</strong>re,<br />
<strong>Brentano</strong> first set forth his <strong>the</strong>ory of temporal modes in 1894–95. In its initial version it was a <strong>the</strong>ory<br />
of <strong>the</strong> modes of judgement; later, around 1905, it also became a <strong>the</strong>ory of <strong>the</strong> modes of thinking.