Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

xxvi Introduction
The motivation behind such hyperpsychologistic fictions is commendable enough, for
it is the old Platonic striving to secure what is called the absolute and general validity
of truth. 10 Elsewhere Husserl objects to Sigwart’s assertion that it is a fiction to regard a
judgement as being true unless there is some mind or other that thinks that judgement.†
There is a perfectly good sense in which “Two and two are four” may be said to be an
eternal truth, holding whether or not anyone happens to be thinking about it. But the point
is not what Husserl and the dogged defenders of “the realm of eternal truths” have had
in mind. In saying that “Two and two are four” is an eternal truth, we are expressing an
apodictic judgement—namely, that it is impossible for there to be anyone judging with
insight, judging as one ought to judge, and in so doing judging that two and two are not
equal to four.
† Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. I, p. 127.