Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

Contents of Judgement, Propositions, Objectives, States of Affairs 69
centaur, if it were to exist, would be a creature whose upper parts are like those of a man
and whose lower parts are like those of a horse. We can agree with Kastil on this point
without agreeing that it is proper, in such a case, to speak of a description of a centaur. The
important question concerns the thought itself and not the way in which it is expressed.
Kastil would not hesitate to say that a person can speak of what it is that he is thinking about
even if that person does not believe that the thing in question exists. Perhaps he would be
willing to revise his mode of expression and to concede that, in such a case, it would be
better to say that one is describing, not a centaur, but someone who is thinking about a
centaur—someone who has a centaur as the object of his thought. For Marty does not deny
that a person thinking about a centaur has a centaur as object, and therefore Kastil would
not want to deny it either. As for Marty’s distinction between object and content, a single
example may be enough to illustrate his point of view. If someone judges “There are no
centaurs”, then the object of his judgement is a centaur. But the content of his judgement,
according to Marty, is what it is that he judges, i.e. that there are no centaurs—in short, the
non-being of a centaur. Marty then goes on to say that the non-being of a centaur, unlike the
centaur, is something that exists in reality. It is precisely here that Marty and I part ways.
I admit, of course, that in one good ordinary use we may talk in such a fashion, just as we
may say that there is an impossibility, or that there is a past, and so on. But, in my opinion,
when we do talk in this way, we are not using the expression “there is“in its strict or proper
sense. A psychological analysis of what occurs in such cases will show that “There is the
non-being of a centaur” expresses not an affirmation but a negation.
X
To F.Hillebrand, Innsbruck
Zurich, 21 May, 1916
Dear Friend,
Your impression of the work which Kraus has dedicated to Marty agrees with my own. 46
Of the two points you touch upon in particular, the correspondence theory has been the
topic of several letters I have exchanged with Kraus, but I have not had any real success.
I pointed out that a directly evident judgement is not merely one that is seen to be true; it
is also one that is seen to be logically justified, and in this respect it is to be distinguished
from a blind judgement which happens to be true. 47 If a judgement does not happen to be
logically justified, we can determine its truth only to the extent that we can compare it with
a judgement which is logically justified; we then find out whether the two judgements agree
with respect to object, tense, quality, and modality. In many cases, the question whether the
object of the thought or idea is in agreement with a thing existing in reality is completely
beside the point; and in the case of a negative judgement any such agreement would be
incompatible with the truth of the judgement. It is a pernicious metaphysical confusion
to suppose that, in these cases and in general, the truth of a judgement is a matter of the
judgement’s content being in agreement with an ens rationis subsisting outside the mind.
The ens rationis relating to the judgement “A tree is green” is supposed to be the existence
of a green tree; the one relating to “There is no carnivorous horse” is supposed to be the