Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

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126 Notes 4 Brentano’s hope of leading Husserl back to the proper path was illusory. Husserl made no attempt to reply to these arguments, but concerned himself instead with more and more devices designed to rescue the universality of knowledge; one needs only to think of the “pure consciousness”. 5 Theoretical logic is what Husserl usually calls “pure logic”. 6 According to Brentano, all axiomatic knowledge is purely negative; there is no raison d’être for any scientific endeavour which is concerned only with the acquisition of such knowledge. To have any claim on the interests of research, a discipline must lead us to positive knowledge of the world. 7 In this letter, as well as in certain later writings, Brentano is inclined to reduce all axiomatic knowledge to the principle of contradiction. But he vacillates on this point; compare his Versuch über die Erkenntnis. But the problems that are here discussed do not require that this question be settled. 8 This should be supplemented by: “if we were capable of having strict concepts of these things”. 9 Editor’s italics here and subsequently. 10 Compare the pertinent formulations in earlier essays of this book. 11 Husserl did not reply to any of these considerations. 12 This has abundantly been taken care of in the preceding. 13 According to Brentano, the laws of metamathematics need not be considered from the theoretical point of view, since they have no application to reality and thus convey no knowledge about it. But these laws may have practical importance, to the extent that they lead to new and useful methods of calculation. 14 Brentano is here concerned with this question: from the theoretical standpoint, which classifies disciplines by reference to their objects, where do these metamathematical problems belong? We need not decide whether mathematics and our knowledge of it pertain merely to the application of the law of contradiction, or whether mathematics has autonomous axioms of its own (compare the Versuch über die Erkenntnis); the point is that this knowledge is of theoretical interest only to the extent that it affords an insight into some reality or other. If there are no real objects with which such mathematics is concerned, then it is of theoretical and scientific interest only to the extent that there are acts of consciousness which are concerned with it. Hence from the theoretical point of view it is to be classified as belonging somewhere within psychology, in analogy with our knowledge of the analytic theory of colours. If the classification is not in fact made this way, the reason lies in the predominance of the practical and technological interest and in the considerations concerning the division of work, to which Brentano refers below. Compare G.Katkov, “Bewusstsein, Gegenstand, Sachverhalt eine Brentanostudie,” Archiv f. die ges. Psychologie, Vol. 75, pp. 471 ff. 15 Compare A.Marty, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. I: “Was ist Philosophie?” 16 The passages published here are from a dictation designated as a letter to Husserl. The beginning and end are missing. 17 Compare Brentano’s Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles (Freiburg 1862), pp. 21 ff. 18 In the lecture notes on ontology which Brentano used during the time he was at Würzburg, he writes: “The remarkable passage (Summa Theologica, Part I, Q. 3, art. 4) in which Thomas is at least very close to the truth, reads: ‘Reply to Objection 2. To be can mean either of two things. It may mean the act of being (actum essendi), or it may mean the composition of a proposition effected by the mind in joining a predicate to a subject. Taking to be in the first sense, we cannot understand God’s existence or His essence; but only in the second sense. We know that this proposition which we form about God when we say God is, is true; and this we know from His effects.’ What the ‘is’ expresses in the statement ‘God is’ it also expresses in any other existential statement—no more and no less; it does not denote anything. Aristotle himself saw this clearly and said as much (De Interpretatione, I, and later De Anima, III, 6, and Metaphysics, IX, 10). In the last passage, he restricts himself to an obviously inexact characterization, which holds only in the majority of cases, for he acknowledges a truth to which it does not apply.”
Notes 127 19 In saying “at most”, Brentano means to convey this: to speak of the existence of the so-called “impossibility of a square circle”, we need not even accept or affirm one who rejects such a circle with evidence. In saying that there is the impossibility of a square circle, we are not accepting or affirming anything at all; we are denying or rejecting one who has knowledge of such a circle and whose knowledge of it is not an apodictic denial. 20 In a letter to O.Kraus, dated 9 January, 1915, Brentano makes the following comment on this passage in Aristotle: “I will add one brief remark to my reply to your four questions; it concerns the often cited principle of the adaequatio rei et intellectus. We can best see how this principle occurred to Aristotle, by looking at De Anima, III, 6. The formulation there is not entirely happy; a judgement is said to be true provided that it combines what is combined in reality or separates what is separated in reality (and false if it combines what is separated in reality, or separates what is combined in reality). Suppose I attribute to a subject some predicate which corresponds to nothing actual; it could be said, only in an entirely loose and improper sense, that the predicate exists in separation from the subject. The matter becomes worse as the chapter proceeds. Aristotle goes on to say—perhaps as a result of that unhappy formulation—that where there is no combining of subject and predicate, error is out of the question. Here he speaks as though the thing I think about and affirm is the thing simply as thought about and affirmed by me. And he excludes rejection or denial, as well as the possibility that affirmation might be in error. He here confounds so-called phenomenal truth with truth in the strict sense of the term, while previously, in speaking of affirmative and negative predication, he distinguished that which is combined and separated in our mind from that which is combined and separated in reality. But if we are mindful of our own limitations, we will hardly wish to cast a stone at this great thinker.”
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Routledge Revivals The True and the
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Translated from the German WAHREIT
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x Contents To Anton Marty, 2 Septem
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xii Preface fortune to be able to c
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INTRODUCTION by OSKAR KRAUS I. ON T
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xvi Introduction to the confusion.*
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xviii Introduction of view—just a
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xx Introduction 9. The dictations o
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xxii Introduction These irrealia, o
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xxiv Introduction 13. Ehrenfels has
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xxvi Introduction The motivation be
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I ON THE CONCEPT OF TRUTH (Lecture
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4 The True and the Evident 9. What,
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6 The True and the Evident 16. In t
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8 The True and the Evident No furth
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10 The True and the Evident of cert
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12 The True and the Evident this ex
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14 The True and the Evident be give
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16 The True and the Evident referen
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II BEING IN THE SENSE OF THE TRUE (
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III DESCARTES’ CLASSIFICATION OF
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22 The True and the Evident somethi
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24 The True and the Evident Psychol
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26 The True and the Evident Unfortu
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28 The True and the Evident logicia
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30 The True and the Evident which i
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32 The True and the Evident There i
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34 The True and the Evident Are we
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36 The True and the Evident way. On
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38 The True and the Evident It is c
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40 The True and the Evident is basi
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Part Two TRANSITION TO THE LATER VI
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44 The True and the Evident concept
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46 The True and the Evident 13. But
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48 The True and the Evident each of
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50 The True and the Evident 8. Such
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I ON THE SO-CALLED “IMMANENT OR I
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II ENS RATIONIS AND ENS IRREALE To
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III IN OPPOSITION TO THE SO-CALLED
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58 The True and the Evident When do
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60 The True and the Evident I have
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62 The True and the Evident the con
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64 The True and the Evident to supp
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66 The True and the Evident degree
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68 The True and the Evident concept
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70 The True and the Evident non-exi
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Part Four THE LATER VIEW AS SET FOR
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74 The True and the Evident 6. And
Page 98 and 99: 76 The True and the Evident 14. Any
Page 100 and 101: II ON THE MEANING OF “VERITAS EST
Page 102 and 103: 80 The True and the Evident that re
Page 104 and 105: 82 The True and the Evident in whic
Page 106 and 107: 84 The True and the Evident would s
Page 108 and 109: 86 The True and the Evident 6. If e
Page 110 and 111: VI ON THE EVIDENT (Fragment of 12 J
Page 112 and 113: APPENDICES
Page 114 and 115: 92 Appendix 1: On the General Valid
Page 116 and 117: 94 Appendix 1: On the General Valid
Page 118 and 119: 2 ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ERRONEOUS DO
Page 120 and 121: NOTES by Oskar Kraus
Page 122 and 123: 100 Notes between saying (i) that i
Page 124 and 125: 102 Notes and futural thinking are
Page 126 and 127: 104 Notes 20 Later Brentano declare
Page 128 and 129: 106 Notes he held instead that the
Page 130 and 131: 108 Notes any kind of a thing, and
Page 132 and 133: 110 Notes given in some way or othe
Page 134 and 135: 112 Notes 15 “Meaning” is here
Page 136 and 137: 114 Notes The Rehmke school refuses
Page 138 and 139: 116 Notes in the sentence “The tr
Page 140 and 141: 118 Notes 24 Compare the letter abo
Page 142 and 143: 120 Notes 39 Brentano’s expressio
Page 144 and 145: 122 Notes these consequences, which
Page 146 and 147: 124 Notes someone who is judging wi
Page 150 and 151: INDEX abstracta, 63-4, 71, 162, 178
Page 152 and 153: 130 Index Husserl, E., xv, xvi, xvi
Page 154 and 155: 132 Index propositions; see content
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