o THE INTENTIONALITY THESIS AND ITS DEVELOPMENTSphilosophy,... N 2(26), june - 2013 THE INTENTIONALITY THESIS AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS: FROM BRENTANO TO MEINONG, HUSSERL, EHRENFELS AND MALLY Winfried Löffler (*) ccording to Otto Neurath and via his prominent pupils – was one of Rudolf Haller, philosophy in the most influential philosophers in Austria in the 19th and early European philosophy of all times. It is 20th had a very special character, and true that one important root of it is one of the main roots of modern analytic philosophy is the Austro - analytic philosophy: It was open to Polish one which essentially goes the sciences, it was anti-idealistic and back to Brentano, his pupils (like realistic in its ontological tendencies, Meinong and Twardowski) and it had an empiricist tendency and it second-generation-pupils (like Mally, went back to the longer influence of Łukasiewicz, and Tarski).(*)Furthermore, Catholic scholastic philosophy and the Brentano’s influence contributed to Leibniz - Wolff rationalism. This in the appointment of Ernst Mach as turn has to do with the Catholicism of professor in Vienna, and this endorsed the Habsburg emperors, and it a science-friendly climate among prevented a stronger reception of the philosophers and a broader audience. philosophies of Kant and the German Interestingly, also the phenomenological Idealists. Barry Smith proposed an movement – today often seen in harsh addition to this thesis: The central opposition to analytic philosophy – figure for this so - called “Austrian originates in Brentano and his school. philosophy” was Franz Brentano Edmund Husserl writes that without (1838 - 1917); he served as a professor his teacher Brentano, he would not in Vienna from 1874 to 1880 and then have turned into a philosopher, and as a private docent till 1895. Personally, even Martin Heidegger – the paradigm I have certain doubts in detail about anti-analytic philosopher – confesses the Neurath-Haller thesis (which I that without reading Brentano’s first cannot elaborate in this short paper), book on Aristotle he would not have but it cannot reasonably be doubted that Brentano – personally as well as (*) Assoc. Prof., Dr., University of Innsbruck, Austria. 42 WINFRIED LöFFLER written a line of philosophy. Brentano Even if controversial and sometimes is often perceived as a philosopher, misunderstood, the intentionality but he is regularly mentioned also in thesis stood at the beginning of very textbooks on psychology as one of the different philosophical projects. fathers of modern psychology: Unlike 1. Franz Brentano – a brief portrait his predecessors, Brentano defined of a difficult figure psychology as the science of the Brentano displays the features of a psychic or mental phenomena, and not typically “Austrian” philosopher only the science of the soul. He thereby to a certain extent: He was definitely paved the way to modern, empirical influenced by Aristotle, Leibniz and psychology. the Catholic Neo-Scholasticism, but Brentano’s most prominent and he got this orientation already in best - known piece of doctrine is the Germany, beginning as a schoolboy so-called “intentionality thesis”. But when he read Thomas Aquinas and interestingly, this thesis underwent then during his university studies. He various modifications and also came from Germany to Vienna in misunderstandings: it was modified 1874 at a time when his principal by the late Brentano himself, it was works were already written: two modified by some of his prominent books on Aristotle and the first pupils, and it was heavily misunderstood volume of the Psychology from an by a good part of the Brentano Empirical Standpoint. He was definitely reception from the 1970s onwards. open to the natural sciences: In his Nevertheless, it proved fruitful for fourth habilitation thesis, he claimed subsequent philosophical thought in that the true method of philosophy many respects. My plan for this paper was no other than the method of the is this: natural sciences, but he was in no In section 1, I will sketch a portrait way a naturalist or a defender of any of Brentano as a philosopher; in section kind of scientism like the Vienna 2, I want to explain the intentionality Circle. “The method of the natural thesis as it was understood by the sciences” meant for him just an early Brentano and demarcate it from empirically founded procedure of some misunderstandings, and in sections deduction and induction, very different 3 to 7 I’ll give a brief survey of what in any case from the speculations developed out of this thesis among his of the German Idealists which he pupils and second-generation-pupils. strongly opposed. Concerning realism 43 THE INTENTIONALITY THESIS AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS... and objectivism, Brentano took a via his unpublished manuscripts. difficult stance: On the one hand, he Some fields in Brentano’s thought, was indeed a strong realist and e.g. ontology, are extremely hard to objectivist, in ethics as well as in understand since he repeatedly changed ontology, on the other hand he held his opinions, sometimes within weeks that all philosophy had to start from or months. Many of those manuscripts introspection, that means the inner were published only posthumously perception of our mental life. Clearly, by some editors, but partly in a such a position runs into a sort of questionable style: Some of the “bridging the gap” problems: How can editors combine older and younger we secure that our mental phenomena texts, and some have a tendency to display the external world correctly? propagate the opinions of the late Brentano applied various ways to fill Brentano. Hence, these opinions are the gap: In ethics, but also elsewhere, interpreted into the earlier texts, and he strongly used the idea of evident the result is sometimes confusing. A correctness: There is something like historico-critical edition, which hopefully evidently correct loving or hating. In manages to avoid these problems, is ontology, epistemology and philosophy currently in the making, a few of religion, he often works with volumes have already appeared. A probabilities and inferences to the little indication of the difficulties to best explanation: The best and most get an overall picture of Brentano is probable explanation for our perceptions the fact that there is to the present is the existence of an external world, day no bigger and comprehensive the most probable explanation for the account of his philosophy. There are structures in the world is the numerous studies on special topics existence of God. and a couple of brief overviews, but as Brentano’s immense influence cannot far as I know, nobody has risked so go back to his few published books. far to write a broad, balanced monograph Indeed, Brentano published little in about the whole thought of Brentano. his lifetime. After 1874, Brentano Especially his philosophy of religion is seemed to suffer under an inability to widely overlooked. finish bigger texts. He re-thought Why, then, was Brentano so problems again and again, modified influential? It was not via his books, his positions again and again, and so but rather via his own personality a big part of his work is only accessible and his pupils, and the pupils of these 44 WINFRIED LöFFLER pupils in turn. I mentioned names psychology by defining it as the like Meinong, Husserl and Twardowski science of the psychic or mental before as direct disciples, and Heidegger, phenomena. This in turn led him to Tarski, Mally, and Łukasiewicz as the question how such phenomena indirect pupils. But there are many could be defined. After discussing a others. One example is Carl Stumpf, couple of inappropriate attempts, one of the founders of modern Brentano proposes his famous definition psychology, who was among his first which has been cited again and again: students in Würzburg, another one is Every mental phenomenon is Thomas Masaryk, the later president characterized by what the Scholastics of Czechoslovakia who provided for a of the Middle Ages called the Brentano archive at Prague to save intentional (or mental) inexistence of his writings. According to personal an object, and what we might call, recollections, Brentano must have though not wholly unambiguously, been an absolutely impressive and reference to a content, direction fascinating personality as a teacher towards an object (which is not to be and philosopher, and especially his understood here as meaning a thing), detailed, step-by-step style of or immanent objectivity. Every mental analysis and his frequent rethinking phenomenon includes something as of problems seems to have fascinated object within itself, although they do his audience. A rather controversial not all do so in the same way. In feature of his personality, however, presentation something is presented, seems to have been his intolerance in judgement something is affirmed or towards other standpoints, especially denied, in love loved, in hate hated, towards former disciples who changed in desire desired and so on. This their minds, like Meinong and intentional in-existence is characteristic Husserl. Interestingly, both of these exclusively of mental phenomena. No former disciples developed their physical phenomenon exhibits anything alternative positions out of the same like it. We could, therefore, define piece of doctrine, namely the mental phenomena by saying that intentionality thesis. And this is the they are those phenomena which topic of the following section. contain an object intentionally within 2. Brentano’s intentionality thesis themselves(1). I mentioned before that Brentano All mental phenomena, so we is among the fathers of modern learn, display a certain directedness 45 THE INTENTIONALITY THESIS AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS... or “aboutness”, they are directed to an that Brentano is a projectionist or immanent object. It is this claim which phenomenalist? can duly be labeled as “the intentionality Not really. Peter Simons once called thesis” or the “Brentano thesis”. Brentano a “methodological phenomenalist”, Some clarifications are in place here.