IMMANENT REALISM SYNTHESE LIBRARY STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Editor-in-Chief: VINCENT F. HENDRICKS, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark JOHN SYMONS, University of Texas at El Paso, U.S.A. Honorary Editor: JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University, U.S.A. Editors: DIRK VAN DALEN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University of Groningen, The Netherlands TEDDY SEIDENFELD, Carnegie Mellon University, U.S.A. PATRICK SUPPES, Stanford University, California, U.S.A. JAN WOLEN´SKI, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland VOLUME 333 IMMANENT REALISM AN INTRODUCTION TO BRENTANO by LILIANA ALBERTAZZI Trento University, Rovereto Branch, Italy and Mitteleuropa Foundation, Bolzano, Italy A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN-10 1-4020-4201-9 (HB) ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4201-0 (HB) ISBN-10 1-4020-4202-7 (e-book) ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4202-7 (e-book) Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springeronline.com Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2006 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed in the Netherlands. To Bruno Giordano Albertazzi, my father For his independence, consistency and imagination In memoriam Contents Acknowledgements ix Terminological note xi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. A LIFE, A NOVEL 5 CHAPTER 2. BRENTANO AND ARISTOTLE 43 CHAPTER 3. PSYCHOLOGY FROM AN EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT 83 CHAPTER 4. METAPHYSICS AND THE SCIENCE OF THE SOUL 123 CHAPTER 5. A WOODWORM IN THE INTENTIONAL RELATION 155 CHAPTER 6. FICCIONES 189 CHAPTER 7. CONTINUA 233 CHAPTER 8. REVERSE ARISTOTELIANISM: METAPHYSICS OF ACCIDENTS 269 CHAPTER 9. OTHER WRITINGS: ETHICS, AESTHETICS AND HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 295 CHAPTER 10. A HISTORY OF BRENTANO CRITICISM 313 CHAPTER 11. A WAGER ON THE FUTURE 335 BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES 341 REFERENCES 355 INDEX OF NAMES 373 vii Acknowledgements I wish to express my thanks to J. Jan Koenderink, Osvaldo da Pos, Lia Formigari, Edgar Morscher, and Roberto Poli for their comments and criti- cism. Their patience with my questions and their care for my work have been truly invaluable. I would also gratefully mention the atmosphere of the Mit- teleuropa Foundation, at which many chapters of the book have been conceived and written, while thinking of the future development of Franz Brentano’s ideas in cognitive science research. ix Terminological note There follows a list of some choices made in regard to the English transla- tion of Brentano’s terminology. The choices have been made on theoretical grounds and they sometimes do not correspond to the currently available English translations of Brentano’s texts. In the case of quotations, if I have made changes to the already-existing translation, I have said so in the footnotes. I have translated Intentionale Inexistenz as ‘intentional in/existence’, using the typological device to emphasise the Latin aspect of inhabitatio in the men- tal existence of psychic phenomena, while I have used ‘inherence’ for Einwohnen. I have translated Seele as ‘psyche’, thereby respecting its Aristotelian ori- gin, and preferring it to ‘mind’. Appearance has been preserved to denote ‘physical’ phenomena. Vorstellung has been translated as ‘presentation’, indicating the act or the psychic phenomenon. Its meaning is clearly distinguished from that of Darstellung (representation); in fact, the German prepositions vor and dar refer to different spatial relationships, from the exterior to the interior and vice versa. Specifically, the concept of Vorstellung refers to the concrete act of pre- sentation here and now in the time of presentness. The concept of Darstellung, vice versa, is related both to the concept of representance (Stellvertretung) that is, the function of symbolising objects and states of affairs which in particular characterises the representative function of language (Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache) and to the concept of communication (Mittheilung). I translate intentionale Beziehung as ‘intentional reference’ rather than as ‘intentional relation’, in order to emphasise the ontological character of psy- xi xii Immanent Realism chic reference to things by acts. I have used ‘relation’ (Relation) for other cases. Vielheit has been rendered as ‘multiplicity’, and sometimes as ‘plurality’ if connected with the etymological meaning of ‘many’, Vielfachheit as ‘being multiple’, Vielfältigkeit as ‘multiformity’, in order to convey the different meaning of the entity and the different nature of the continua in Brentano. As to Brentano’s works, for each of them I first give the German title and its English translation in brackets. In the case of works translated into English, their successive quotations bear the English title. Finally, as far as quotations in Greek language are concerned, given the variety of accents used in the English translations of Brentano’s works, I have chosen to use a transliteration of the words without accents. INTRODUCTION “Psychology, in so far as it is descriptive, is far in advance of physics” (Franz Brentano) This ‘Introduction to Brentano’ is primarily aimed at conceptual interpre- tation even though it has been written with scrupulous regard to the texts and sets out its topics according to their chronological development. I have con- cerned myself at length with historical questions on other occasions, as when editing the Italian versions of the three volumes of Brentano’s Psychologies published by Laterza in 1997. Again for Laterza, and in accompaniment to the Psychologies, I have written a short Introduzione a Brentano (Introduction to Brentano) of which this book is the development. Before these publications, I have sought to outline the origin and influence of the theses put forward by the school of Brentano, and subsequently those of the school of Meinong with colleagues (L. Albertazzi et. al. ed., The School of Franz Brentano, Dordrecht, Kluwer 1996, and L. Albertazzi et. al. ed., The School of Alexius Meinong, Aldershot, Ashgate 2001). I have concentrated on these matters long enough to realize that it is still premature to attempt an exhaustive monograph on Brentano. Apart from the few texts published by Brentano during his lifetime, his writings – and espe- cially those published posthumously by his pupils – are in a parlous state. And at the moment there seems to be no way out of the impasse. This book is not an introduction to all the themes treated by Brentano, since this would be beyond its scope. Moreover, even less does it claim to be definitive. The idea of writing this introduction to the thought of Brentano sprang from a theoretical exigency, namely to argue for a more defendable form of 2 Immanent Realism realism, and from the conviction that, at the moment, a categorial apparatus able to handle the problems raised by contemporary science is lacking, in par- ticular in cognitive science. The various forms of direct and indirect realisms are, in my opinion, inadequate to deal with the problems addressed by con- temporary cognitive science. I believe, instead, that Brentano’s immanentist realism, with its sophisticated architecture, is a framework that can be applied and developed in various areas of scientific inquiry: for example, psycho- physics and theory of perception, semantics, aesthetics, and more generally, the theory of consciousness (see L. Albertazzi ed., Unfolding Perceptual Con- tinua, Amsterdam, Benjamins Publishing Company 2002). Brentano’s realism can oppose both the theory of Cartesian Theatre and the neuroreduc- tionist proposal as well, and it is also a framework able to establish the scientific legitimacy of metaphysics (see L. Albertazzi ed., The Dawn of Cog- nitive Science. Early European Contributors, Dordrecht, Kluwer 2000). The book therefore pays close attention to Brentano’s writings on psychology and metaphysics. No reader of Brentano can fail to be astonished by the multiplicity of the disciplinary references to be found in his thought and writings. Consequently, although this introduction privileges themes of psychology and metaphysics, it also takes account of Brentano’s other writings, especially those on language. Moreover, few readers of Brentano will be able to resist the appeal of a multistable personality of such complexity that it would furnish material for a novelist or a film-maker. Brentano was an original, consistent, independent, multiform scholar of talent, the protagonist of historical and cultural events in Europe which marked the beginning of the twentieth century, and he was the founder of a school that characterized an entire generation of philosophers and experimental psychologists. Brentano was also a classicist, and understanding his thought also requires a solid knowledge of the history of philosophy. A naïve approach to Brentano has given rise to diverse ‘Brentanos’ in the historiographical account. From time to time he is an Aristotelian, a Thomist and a mediaeval relic, an experi- mental psychologist, a linguist, a theologian, a forerunner of analytic philosophy and/or of folk psychology, even a writer of riddles or an inventor of a new opening move in chess, and so on, according to the reader’s sectorial interest. Apart from a chapter on criticism, I have tried not to read Brentano through his interpreters. This book is not a inquiry into the history of philoso- phy. As his writings show, the novelty of Brentano’s thought is such that it is Introduction 3 worth attempting to present it in its original articulation, bearing his concep- tual categories well in mind. Between the period when Brentano was writing – the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – and today, an entire century has passed in which his conceptual and categorial referents have been lost, swept away by an essentially reductionist mainstream paradigm.