Hermann Lotze and Franz Brentano Nikolay Milkov Abstract: Franz Brentano was not a solitary figure who now know that in the case of Frege it was as an active propounded his philosophy in lonely isolation from other player in the culture of nineteenth-century German phi- contemporary philosophers in Germany, as some neo- losophy that he propounded the innovations in symbolic Brentanists have claimed over the last years. The aim of logic for which he is famous. The same holds for Franz this paper is to correct such misconceptions by establish- Brentano and the introduction of his philosophical psy- ing that Brentano developed his philosophical psychology chology, as we shall see presently by probing and assess- while actively engaged in the rich intellectual-historical ing the historical, epistolary, and textual evidence. and academic context of his time – in particular, under the As opposed to the image of the neo-Brentanists, influence of Hermann Lotze. Specifically, Brentano: (i) Brentano in no way saw himself as an intellectually and adopted from Lotze the idea that judgment is not just an institutionally isolated thinker, and he certainly never rep- association of ideas but an assertion of content; (ii) he resented himself as such. In his most important work, also embraced Lotze’s idea that the content of perception Psychology from an empirical Standpoint, Brentano ad- is something given; (iii) Brentano notion of intentionality, mitted that “his view, at least from one side or the other, too, was inherited from Lotze; (iv) as well as the method had already begun” to be developed by other authors be- of descriptive psychology; (v) finally, Lotze and Brentano fore him (1874, 4). Moreover, Brentano explicitly refers shook hands admitting that perception and knowledge are to John Stuart Mill, Alexander Bain, Gustav Theodor intrinsically connected with emotions. At the same time, Fechner, Hermann von Helmholtz, and above all there were at least two points at which Brentano disagreed Hermann Lotze – each a near contemporary of Brentano – with Lotze: (i) he criticised Lotze’s local sign theory of as thinkers to whom he owed his greatest intellectual perception as well as Lotze’s atomism. These were clearly debts (1874, 3). constructivist theories inspired by Kant. (ii) Brentano also In fact, Brentano regularly took up and critiqued the criticized Lotze’s principle of teleomechanism. It was in- doctrines advanced by the philosophers of his time, both fluenced by the German Idealists. German and more widely European. It is not the case, however, as is too often asserted, that he limited contact Keywords: Brentano, Descriptive Psychology, Intention- to empiricists and positivists (such as Auguste Comte). ality, Judgment, Lotze This is clear from the fact, for example, that when he traveled to Great Britain in the spring of 1872 he not only planned to pay a visit to J. S. Mill (the visit didn’t take 1. The Neo-Brentanists place because of Mill’s unexpected death) but also met with the leading evolutionary theorist and political liberal Franz Brentano was not a solitary figure who propounded of the period, Herbert Spencer. What’s more, beyond be- his philosophy in lonely isolation from other contempo- ing actively engaged with the broad range of the latest rary philosophers in Germany, as some neo-Brentanists philosophical thinking, Brentano was also a serious, life- have claimed over the last thirty to forty years. The aim in long student of scholastic and classical philosophy. what follows is to correct such misconceptions by estab- That the roots of Brentano’s “revolution in philoso- lishing that Brentano developed his philosophical psy- phy” strike more deeply than commonly recognized in the chology while actively engaged in the rich intellectual- philosophical currents of his day is further evidenced by historical and academic context of his time – in particular, what he took for granted in his writings. This is most not- under the influence of Hermann Lotze. ably seen when spelling out the ways his positions on The misleading image of Brentano as a solitary various topics related to the views of leading nineteenth- genius promulgated by the likes of Neo-Brentanists such century German philosophers whose doctrines were so as Barry Smith is analogous to the picture of Gottlob widely familiar in the literature of the time that he felt it Frege passed off as historical truth by influential Neo- unnecessary to identify them by name. A telling example Fregeans – Michael Dummett, for one. In both cases, we is Jakob Friedrich Fries, who anticipated Brentano’s re- find a distinguished thinker portrayed as the reclusive, jection of the widely held notion that perception consists solitary man of genius. Thanks, however, to the re- in a combination of ideas. Fries also anticipated Brentano searches of Hans Sluga, Gottfried Gabriel, and others, we by identifying “assertions” with perception, a consequen- University of Paderborn, Institut für Humanwissenschaften Philosophical Readings X.2 (2018), pp.115-122. Paderborn, Detschland DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1209453 email: [email protected] NIKOLAY MILKOV tial epistemological move that Alfred Kastil (1912, 52 f.) Lotze’s influence on Brentano has previously been first pointed out over a century ago, and one we shall take remarked, if briefly, in the literature. Three decades ago, up in due course (in § 3.1). It was evidently Lotze who Ernst Wolfgang Orth identified Trendelenburg and Lotze was the medium of Fries’s influence on Brentano on this as Brentano’s “teachers.” As Orth put it, “Brentano’s head. Such shared thought-determinations and theoretical philosophical significance consists in that he made the outlooks attests to how interrelated were the various cur- strength of this influence paradigmatically clear in the en- rents of nineteenth-century German philosophy, multiple tire spectrum of its aspects” (Orth 1997, 18). It is not sur- lines of influence that enabled Kastil, who edited three prising that Brentano would have learned much from volumes of Brentano’s writings (1921, 1925, 1933), to Trendelenburg, having studied with Trendelenburg in trace a variety of similarities between Fries and Brentano, Berlin. Among other evidence of Trendelenburg’s influ- findings he presented in the pages of the neo-Friesian ence is Brentano’s deep and abiding interest in Aristotle, journal Abhandlungen der Fries’schen Schule, New Se- something reflected in the latter’s doctoral dissertation on ries. Aristotle (1862). This was Brentano’s first publication and he dedicated it to Trendelenburg. But there is also no mystery to how Lotze at Göttingen 2. An overview of the relationship between Lotze and could prove a shaping influence on Brentano during the Brentano latter’s formative period. The young Brentano read widely and deeply, both in the German thinkers of his age Turning directly to the relationship between Lotze and and in ancient, medieval, and modern Western European Brentano, one reads in a recent assessment that between authors. Hence early on in his philosophical career Bren- the two philosophers, “there was, to be sure, great mutual tano found that, despite “some mistakes” (charges of respect … as indicated by the fact that Brentano sent two Brentano we consider in the sequel), Lotze was unques- of his pupils, Anton Marty and Carl Stumpf, to study with tionably, in his view, the most brilliant contemporary Lotze, and also by the fact that Lotze played an important German philosopher. “Lotze will always show himself to role in Brentano’s call at the University of Vienna in be the most important thinker that he indisputably is,” 1874.”1 Despite the impression that these particulars may Brentano would write to his former student and close convey, however, one hardly finds anything like a sym- friend Carl Stumpf on June 6, 1868 (Kaiser-el-Safti 2014, metry in the relationship between Lotze and Brentano. p. 16). Indeed, Brentano came to regard Lotze above his While Lotze certainly admired the younger man, he re- Berlin mentor, Trendelenburg. garded him as merely one of an entire cohort of rising It was Stumpf who cultivated the contact between his figures in German philosophy whose professional ad- two philosophical masters, Lotze and Brentano. Stumpf vancement he, Lotze, felt merited his advocacy. It is true had earned his doctorate under Lotze’s supervision in that Lotze formally endorsed Brentano’s effort to secure Göttingen in 1868, and received his venia legendi under an appointment as a professor of philosophy at the Uni- him in 1870. Between 1870 and 1873, Stumpf was a lec- versity of Vienna. However, one should not read too turer (Privatdozent) at the University of Göttingen, during much into this token of support on Lotze’s part. Brentano which years Lotze became for him a “faithful fatherly ad- simply met the intellectual criteria that prompted Lotze to viser” (1917, 5). It is not surprising, then, that it was to support the professional advancement of young philoso- Lotze that Stumpf dedicated his first book, Über den psy- phers with whom he was personally acquainted. Julius chologischen Ursprung der Raumvorstellung (1873), a Baumann, Lotze’s younger colleague in Göttingen, enu- work that would receive high praise by the likes of Wil- merated Lotze’s criteria: “Has the person the knowledge liam James and Bertrand Russell. Indeed, Lotze and his that is to be presupposed in philosophy today, does he student and soon-to-be colleague were on such close also have a command of the scientific methods, and is he terms that during the summer holidays of 1869, Lotze had deadly serious in his philosophical interests? On the basis considered traveling out to spend time with Stumpf (and of these criteria, he has, for example, recommended Bren- Brentano) at Würzburg or in Aschaffenburg (Lotze 2003, tano for Vienna.” (Baumann 1909, 179) 541).