BOOK REVIEWS

Liliana Albertazzi, Massimo Libardi, and Roberto Poli (editors), The School of Franz Brentano. Dordrecht, Boston/ London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996, 477 + xiv pp., $199.00 (hardback).

Review by: Amedeo Giorgi, Saybrook Institute

This is an important book for understanding a certain aspect of contemporary philosophy. The philosophers who edited the book have thematized the "school" of Franz Brentano, who was a strong force in the development of philosophy in Germany and Austro- Hungary during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the time of Brentano's dominance, philosophy was not yet split into continental and Anglo-American streams, yet, as the various authors of the individual chapters of the book show, Brentano's influences exist on both sides of the contemporary divide. It seems as though themes persist in Anglo-American philosophy, but whole movements and subschools persist on the continental side. As already indicated, this is an edited book with different con- tributors for each chapter. On the whole, the book provides an expert perspective on the individuals and topics covered, and, while it is not so interesting to list a table of contents, given the price of the book I think it is important for potential readers to know who is delivering what. There is an initial chapter on Franz Brentano by Libardi, followed by "Part I, The Pupils." The seven chapters in this section are as follows: "Anton Marty" by Albertazzi, "Carl Stumpf" by Karl Schuhmann, "Alexius Meinong" by Dale Jacquette, "Chris- tian von Ehrenfels" by Reinhard Fabian, "Edmund Husserl" by Albertazzi, and "Kazimierz Twardowski" by Poli. Part II, "Topics and Influences," contains the following nine chap- ters : "Act, Content, and Object" by Wilhelm Baumgartner, "Inten- tionality" by Johannes Brandl, "Higher-Order Objects" by Paolo Bozzi, "Logic in the Brentano School" by Peter Simons, "Logic and the Sachverhalt" by Barry Smith, "Truth Theories" by Poli, "Reism in the Brentanist Tradition" by Jan Wolenski, "Theories of Values" by Luigi

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Dappiano, and "From Kant to Brentano" by Albertazzi. Excepting specialists, for philosophers this work may bring a syn- thesis to a lesser known philosophical movement and, another pos- sible hope of the editors, it may further the dialogue between analytic philosophy and phenomenology since it places Brentano squarely between the two styles of philosophizing. In addition to the general topics mentioned above, the chapters include discussions concern- ing the meaning of Brentanian reism, Meinong's values in emotional presentation, the question of objectless presentations, modes of relations to objects, questions concerning the lived present, immanentism, and a thorough discussion of the relationship between Kant and Brentano. For psychologists, again excepting special interests, the chapters on Brentano, Husserl, von Ehrenfels, and Stumpf are probably most interesting. The latter two thinkers are probably more of historical interest although a reinterpretation of the Wurzburg School and its relationship to phenomenology is probably in order. For psychologists who know Husserl well, not much is added in this chapter, but those who do not know him well will gain from its reading. The chapter on Brentano is a sympathetic treatment, and one gets a different perspective on the man than one usually sees from Husserlians. What is said about Brentano's ideas for philosophy helps make clear the extent to which Husserl followed his guidelines. Accord- ing to the editors, Brentano held "the conviction that philosophy should be rigorous, scientific, exact and clear" (p. 9). Moreover, Brentano held that "description should take precedence over any kind of explanation as to the birth, development or articulation of a phenomenon" (p. 9). What the editors also stress, which is in- cluded in the Husserlian vision but not as much emphasized, is that "counter-examples should be provided" (p. 10) (in addition to ex- amples). These counter-examples were to be used to help establish the validity of the findings. This method is largely an Aristotelian method and it reflects the "general method of variation" (p. 11). Finally, the editors, in the first chapter concerning Brentano and his school, write an extremely interesting passage that has great rel- evance with respect to the practice of qualitative methods in psy- chology today. They write:

A final and important point to make in this regard is that the Brentanists were zealous drawers of distinctions. Instead of look- ing for analogies (typical of the hermeneutic school), they stressed differences and introduced distinctions. (p. 11)