Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf
Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf
Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
24<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>True</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Evident</strong><br />
Psychologie. This work, which is almost completed, will be a fur<strong>the</strong>r development, <strong>and</strong> not<br />
just a continuation, of my Psychologie vom empirischen St<strong>and</strong>punkt. 31<br />
I will now add <strong>the</strong> following remarks in opposition to what Windelb<strong>and</strong> has to say.<br />
(1) He writes, on page 172, that according to me “love <strong>and</strong> hate” is not an appropriate<br />
designation for this third class of psychological phenomena; indeed, he attributes to me a<br />
quotation to this, effect. But he is entirely mistaken <strong>and</strong> has made a serious oversight—as<br />
he could verify for himself if he were to re-read Volume I, page 262, of my Psychologie.†<br />
(2) On page 178, he says that, according to me, <strong>the</strong> only classification of judgements<br />
which pertains to <strong>the</strong> act of judging itself is <strong>the</strong> classification according to quality; but this<br />
too is a mistake <strong>and</strong> one which is entirely unjustified. My own belief is just <strong>the</strong> contrary.<br />
Thus, unlike Windelb<strong>and</strong>, I believe that <strong>the</strong> distinction between assertoric <strong>and</strong> apodictic<br />
judgements <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> distinction between evident <strong>and</strong> blind judgements both pertain to <strong>the</strong><br />
act of judgement itself, <strong>and</strong> that <strong>the</strong>se distinctions are of basic importance. And <strong>the</strong>re are<br />
still o<strong>the</strong>r distinctions—for example, <strong>the</strong> distinction between simple <strong>and</strong> compound acts<br />
of judgement. 32 For it is not possible to resolve every compound judgement into entirely<br />
simple elements. <strong>The</strong> same can be said of certain compound concepts, as Aristotle had<br />
seen. What is it to be red? To be coloured red. What is it to be coloured? To have <strong>the</strong> quality<br />
of being coloured. In each case <strong>the</strong> concept of <strong>the</strong> genus is contained in that of <strong>the</strong> specific<br />
difference; <strong>the</strong> separability of <strong>the</strong> one logical element from <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r is thus one-sided. And<br />
we find <strong>the</strong> same situation, I believe, with respect to certain compound judgements. J.S.Mill<br />
said that to classify judgements as simple <strong>and</strong> complex would be like classifying horses<br />
as single horses <strong>and</strong> teams of horses.* But Mill is quite wrong in ridiculing this traditional<br />
classification; for his argument would apply equally well to <strong>the</strong> distinction between simple<br />
<strong>and</strong> compound concepts.<br />
(3) Still ano<strong>the</strong>r mistake—which almost everyone has made <strong>and</strong> which I too had<br />
made in <strong>the</strong> first volume of <strong>the</strong> Psychologie—is that of supposing that one’s “degree of<br />
conviction”, so-called, is a kind of intensity analogous to <strong>the</strong> intensity of pleasure <strong>and</strong><br />
pain. Were Windelb<strong>and</strong> to accuse me of this mistake, his accusation would be entirely just.<br />
Instead, however, he criticizes me because I say that <strong>the</strong> so-called intensity of conviction is<br />
only analogous, <strong>and</strong> not equivalent, to <strong>the</strong> strict sense of intensity which applies to pleasure<br />
<strong>and</strong> pain, <strong>and</strong> because I say that <strong>the</strong> supposed intensity of conviction <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> real intensity<br />
of feeling are not comparable with respect to magnitude. This is one of <strong>the</strong> consequences<br />
of what Windelb<strong>and</strong> takes to be his improved <strong>the</strong>ory of judgement!<br />
If a man’s belief that 2+1=3 had a degree of conviction which was literally an intensity,<br />
consider how powerful it would be! And if, as Windelb<strong>and</strong> would have it (p. 186), <strong>the</strong><br />
belief were a feeling in <strong>the</strong> strict sense of <strong>the</strong> word, <strong>and</strong> not merely something bearing a<br />
certain analogy to feeling, consider <strong>the</strong> havoc <strong>and</strong> violence to which <strong>the</strong> nervous system<br />
would be submitted! Our doctors might well tell us that, for <strong>the</strong> sake of our health, we<br />
should avoid <strong>the</strong> study of ma<strong>the</strong>matics. 33 (Compare what J.H. Newman has to say about <strong>the</strong><br />
so-called degree of conviction in An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent—an interesting<br />
work which has received but little notice in Germany.)<br />
† [Second edition, Vol. II, p. 35 ff.]<br />
* J.S.Mill, Logic, Vol. I, Chap. 4.