Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

The Equivocal Use of the Term “Existent” 47
23. Since only things—in the strict sense of this term—can be thought (I have in mind
whatever is such that, if it exists, it is a substance, an accident, or a collective of both), it
often happens that words which are names in the grammatical sense are not names in the
logical sense. When a word is a name only in the grammatical sense, it does not denote
anything in the way in which the word “man” can be said to denote something and to
indicate that the speaker is thinking about a man. But a word which is a name only in the
grammatical sense does indicate a thought to which some other word corresponds as a
name. “Necessary”, for example, indicates that the speaker is thinking of someone who is
judging apodictically (it also indicates in a certain way that the speaker himself is judging
apodictically). “Empty” indicates that he is thinking in a negative way of what is filled.
24. But if not all grammatical names are logical names, then the expression “there is”,
which may be used with either type of name, is equivocal. It is synsemantic in all of its
uses, though each time in quite a different sense. Similarly the word “von” in German may
be used, like “of ”, to indicate possession, or to indicate something having been brought
forth from something else, and also to indicate aristocracy or nobility.
25. “There is” has its strict or proper meaning when used in connection with genuine logical
names, as in “There is a God” or “There is a man”. In its other uses, “there is” must not
be taken in its strict sense. “There is an empty space” may be equated with “There are no
physical bodies located in such and such a way”; “There is something which is the object of
thought” (es gibt ein Gedachtes) may be equated with “There is something which thinks”
(es gibt ein Denkendes). 14 It would be a complete mistake to interpret “there is” when used
with mere grammatical names in the way in which we interpret it in “There is a God” and
“There is a man”. For there is nothing other than things, and “empty space” and “object of
thought” do not name things.
26. What holds of “there is” also holds of “there exists” and “there subsists”; these expressions
are also equivocal and have precisely the different meanings just distinguished. 15
27. Shall we now say that the concept of “the existent”, or “that which exists”, in its strict
or proper sense, is the same as the concept of thing or that of substance?
28. Not at all. If “the existent”, in its strict sense, is a name, it cannot be said to name
anything directly. It comes to the same thing as “something which is the object of a
correct affirmative judgement” or “something which is correctly accepted or affirmed”.
If “existent” is a name in the logical sense, i.e. a word which names a thing, a thing that is
judged affirmatively, it is a relational word. I use it to indicate that I am thinking of some
thing as corresponding to my thinking (and also, naturally, that I am thinking of myself as
thinking correctly). 16 But thing—compare and not a concept of anything
which, as such, is relative to someone thinking.
[“Substance” and “accident” do not denote that which is relative to someone thinking. If
the expression “an existent”, in its logical sense, could be thought of as a logical name, then
it would designate something relative to a thinking. For it indicates that there is something
which is objectively related to the person addressed, as well as to the speaker, in so far as