Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

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The True and the Evident
logicians, fails to follow the lead of Aristotle on this point. He does not say that the existent
comprises everything of which the affirmative judgement is true. Instead of this, he goes
into a lengthy discussion of the concept of being and the existential proposition. But
Sigwart is on the wrong track altogether and his views on these questions—which he sets
forth again in the second edition of his Logik (pp. 88–95)—do not throw light on anything
at all.
“To be”, according to Sigwart, expresses a relation (pp. 88, 95). What kind of a relation?
At first consideration (see p. 92), one might suppose it to be a “relation to me as one who is
thinking”. But this will not do, for the existential proposition is said to assert precisely the
fact that “that which has being exists apart from its relation to me or to any other thinking
being”. But if the relation in question is not “a relation to me as one who is thinking”, what
could it be? We do not find out until page 94. Here we are told that the relation is (to be sure,
Sigwart adds: “in the first place”) an “agreement of the thing thought about with a possible
perception”; he also says it is an “identity” of the thing thought about with something
“perceivable”, or with “something which can be perceived by me” (pp. 94, 90n.).
We can see at once that his concept of existence is too narrow. For much of what
exists cannot be perceived; for example, a past and a future, an empty space, any kind of
deprivation, a possibility, an impossibility, and so on. 43 It is not surprising, therefore, that
Sigwart himself makes an effort to widen his concept. But what he does is very difficult
for me to understand. First, he seems to say that, in order for a thing to be counted as
existing, the thing need not be capable of being perceived by me; it is necessary only that
it be capable of being perceived by someone or other. At least this seems to be what he
means when, after saying that existence is an agreement between the thing thought about
and a possible perception, he goes on to say: “That which exists bears this relation not
only to me but also to everything else that has being.” Surely Sigwart does not mean to say
that everything that there is has the capability of perceiving everything. Perhaps he means
only that everything that exists stands in the relation of existence to every other being, in
which case his empty-sounding phrase might be taken to say that existence expresses the
judgement with that which is judged negatively. So, too, the correctness of the affirmative
judgement is correlated with the existence of that which is affirmatively judged, and that of the
negative judgement with the non-existence of that which is negatively judged. One may say that
an affirmative judgement is true, or one may say that its object is existent; in both cases one would
be saying precisely the same thing. Similarly for saying that a negative judgement is true, and
saying that its object is non-existent. We may say that, for every (simple) affirmative judgement,
either it or the corresponding negative judgement is true; and we may express precisely the same
logical principle by saying that, for every such affirmative judgement, either its object is existent
or its object is non-existent.
The assertion of the truth of the judgement, that there is a learned man, is thus correlative to
the assertion of the existence of its object, viz., a learned man. The assertion of the truth of the
judgement, that no stone is alive, is similarly correlative to the assertion of the non-existence of
its object, viz., a living stone. Correlative assertions, here as elsewhere, are inseparable. Compare
such correlatives as “A is greater than B” and “B is less than A”, or “A produces B” and “B is
produced by A”.