Difference between revisions of "Franz Brentano" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
m ({{Contracted}})
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{Contracted}}
 
{{Contracted}}
 
[[Image:Franz Brentano.jpeg|thumb|right|200px|Franz Brentano]]
 
[[Image:Franz Brentano.jpeg|thumb|right|200px|Franz Brentano]]
'''Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano''' ([[January 16]], [[1838]], [[Marienberg am Rhein]], near [[Boppard]] [[March 17]], [[1917]], [[Zürich]]) was an influential figure in both [[philosophy]] and [[psychology]].  His influence was felt by other figures such as  [[Alexius Meinong]], [[Edmund Husserl]], and [[Kazimierz Twardowski]] who followed and adapted Brentano's views.
+
'''Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano''' (January 16, 1838, Marienberg am Rhein, near Boppard – March 17, 1917, Zürich) was a philosopher and psychologist.  His contributions ranged over wide areas of philosophy, but the primary contribution was a philosophy of mind in a broad sense.  He received influences from [[Aristotle]], [[Scholasticism]], and [[positivism]] of nineteenth centuryBrentano was a charismatic teacher and had a number of notable students including [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Alexius Meinong]], Christian von Ehrenfels, Kasimir Twardowski, and others.
  
 +
A number of his ideas such as the concept of [[Intentionality|intentiality]] which he derived from the Scholasticism and the concept of philosophy as a study of consciousness gave direct impacts on Husserl.  Early Husserl’s formulation of [[phenomenology]] was based upon these ideas from Brentano. 
 
==Life==
 
==Life==
Franz Brentano studied [[philosophy]] at the universities of [[Munich]], [[Würzburg]], [[Berlin]] (with [[Adolf Trendelenburg]]) and [[Münster]]. He had a special interest in [[Aristotle]] and [[scholastic philosophy]]. He wrote his dissertation in [[Tübingen]] ''On the manifold sense of Being in Aristotle''.  
+
Franz Brentano grew up under [[Roman Catholicism]] and studied [[philosophy]] at the universities of [[Munich]], [[Würzburg]], [[Berlin]] (with Adolf Trendelenburg) and Münster. He had a special interest in [[Aristotle]] and [[Scholasticism|scholastic philosophy]], and wrote his dissertation in Tübingen ''On the manifold sense of Being in Aristotle'' which later gave impacts on [[Martin Heidegger]].
  
Subsequently he began to study [[theology]] and entered the seminary in Munich and then Würzburg, preparing to become a Roman Catholic priest (ordained [[August 6]], [[1864]]). In [[1865]]–[[1866]] he wrote and defended his [[habilitation]] essay and theses and began to lecture at the [[University of Würzburg]]. His students in this period included, among others, [[Carl Stumpf]] and [[Anton Marty]].
+
Subsequently he began to study [[theology]] and entered the seminary in Munich and then Würzburg, preparing to become a Roman Catholic priest (ordained August 6, 1864). In 1865–1866, he wrote and defended his habilitation essay and theses and began to lecture at the University of Würzburg. His students in this period included, among others, Carl Stumpf and Anton Marty.
  
Between [[1870]] and [[1873]] Brentano was heavily involved in the debate on [[papal infallibility]]. A strong opponent of such [[dogma]], he eventually gave up his priesthood. Following Brentano's religious struggles, [[Carl Stumpf|Stumpf]] (who was studying at the seminar at the time) was also drawn away from the church.
+
Between 1870 and 1873, Brentano was heavily involved in the debate on [[papal infallibility]]. A strong opponent of such [[dogma]], he eventually gave up his priesthood. Following Brentano's religious struggles, [[Carl Stumpf|Stumpf]] (who was studying at the seminar at the time) was also drawn away from the church.
  
In 1874 Brentano published his major work: "Psychology from an empirical standpoint" and from [[1874]] to [[1895]] he taught at the [[university of Vienna]]. Among his students were [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Alexius Meinong]], [[Christian von Ehrenfels]], [[Rudolf Steiner]] and many others (see [[School of Brentano]] for more details). While he began his career as a full ordinary professor, he was forced to give up his Austrian citizenship and his professorship in [[1880]] to be able to marry. He was permitted to return to the university only as a ''Privatdozent''.
+
In 1874 Brentano published his major work: "Psychology from an empirical standpoint" and from 1874 to 1895 he taught at the University of Vienna. Among his students were [[Edmund Husserl]], [[Alexius Meinong]], [[Christian von Ehrenfels]], [[Rudolf Steiner]] and many others. While he began his career as a full ordinary professor, he was forced to give up his Austrian citizenship and his professorship in 1880 to be able to marry. Austro-Hungarian Empire did not allow a marriage of someone who had been an ordained priest.  He was permitted to return to the university only as a ''Privatdozent''.
  
After his retirement he moved to [[Florence]] in [[Italy]] and at the outbreak of the [[World War I|First World War]] he transferred to [[Zürich]], where he died in [[1917]].
+
After his retirement he moved to [[Florence]] in [[Italy]] and at the outbreak of the [[World War I|First World War]] he transferred to [[Zürich]], where he died in 1917.
  
 
==Work and thought==
 
==Work and thought==
 
===Intentionality===
 
===Intentionality===
Brentano is best known for his reintroduction of the concept of [[intentionality]]—a concept derived from [[scholastic philosophy]]—to contemporary [[philosophy]] in his lectures and in his work [[Franz Brentano/Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte|Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte]] (''Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint''). While often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" or the relationship between mental acts and the external world, Brentano defined it as the main characteristic of ''psychical phenomena'', by which they could be distinguished from ''physical phenomena''. Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act has a content, is directed at an object (the ''intentional object''). Every belief, desire etc. has an object that they are about: the believed, the wanted. Brentano used the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the status of the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature
+
Brentano is best known for his reintroduction of the concept of [[intentionality]]—a concept derived from [[Scholasticism|scholastic philosophy]]—to contemporary philosophy in his lectures and in his work [[Franz Brentano/Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte|Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte]] (''Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint''). While often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" or the relationship between mental acts and the external world, Brentano defined it as the main characteristic of ''psychical phenomena'', by which they could be distinguished from ''physical phenomena''. Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act has a content, is directed at an object (the ''intentional object''). Every belief, desire etc. has an object that they are about: the believed, the wanted. Brentano used the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the status of the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish psychical phenomena and physical phenomena, because physical phenomena lack intentionality altogether.
to distinguish psychical phenomena and physical phenomena, because physical phenomena lack intentionality altogether.
 
  
 
===Theory of perception===
 
===Theory of perception===
 
He is also well known for claiming that ''Wahrnehmung ist Falschnehmung'' ('perception is misception' or literally 'truth-grasping is false-grasping') that is to say perception is erroneous. In fact he maintained that external, sensory perception could not tell us anything about the ''de facto'' existence of the perceived world, which could simply be illusion. However, we can be absolutely sure of our internal perception. When I hear a tone, I cannot be completely sure that there is a tone in the real world, but I am absolutely certain that I do hear. This awareness, of the fact that I hear, is called internal perception. External perception, sensory perception, can only yield hypotheses about the perceived world, but not truth. Hence he and many of his pupils (in particular [[Carl Stumpf]] and [[Edmund Husserl]]) thought that the natural sciences could only ever yield hypotheses and not universal, absolute truths as in pure [[logic]] or [[mathematics]].  
 
He is also well known for claiming that ''Wahrnehmung ist Falschnehmung'' ('perception is misception' or literally 'truth-grasping is false-grasping') that is to say perception is erroneous. In fact he maintained that external, sensory perception could not tell us anything about the ''de facto'' existence of the perceived world, which could simply be illusion. However, we can be absolutely sure of our internal perception. When I hear a tone, I cannot be completely sure that there is a tone in the real world, but I am absolutely certain that I do hear. This awareness, of the fact that I hear, is called internal perception. External perception, sensory perception, can only yield hypotheses about the perceived world, but not truth. Hence he and many of his pupils (in particular [[Carl Stumpf]] and [[Edmund Husserl]]) thought that the natural sciences could only ever yield hypotheses and not universal, absolute truths as in pure [[logic]] or [[mathematics]].  
 +
===Philosophy as a Rigorous Science===
 +
Brentano attempted to formulate philosophy as a “rigorous science.”  He found the rigor in natural sciences in their methodology.  Similarly to [[positivism]], Brentano argued, empirical evidence was necessary for the validation of knowledge.  He took a field of consciousness as the area of philosophical studies and “direct experience” as the evidence.  While extra-mental events were dubious to a cognitive subject, experientially given were certain without question.  This terrain of thought, that certainty was limited to what was given to mind and extra-mental events were dubious, was similar to [[Descartes]].  In contrast to [[Bhaviorism|behabiorist]] psychology which was build on the analyses of external behavioral patters of human actions, Brentano developed descriptive psychology as a descriptive study of mental phenomena based upon the [[introspection]].
  
Although this may seem strange in view of the above, Brentano held the firm belief that the method of philosophy should be the method of the natural sciences.
+
==Brentano and Husserl==
 +
Husserl was the founder of [[Phenomenology]], a major philosophical movement in the [[Continental philosophy|continental tradition]] in the twentieth century philosophy.  A number of ideas in Brentano directly influenced the formulation of phenomenology by Husserl.  
  
==Bibliography==
+
Early Husserl conceived philosophy or phenomenology as a “rigorous science.”  Similarly to Brentano, Husserl took the field of consciousness as the area of studies, and developed phenomenology as an extension of descriptive psychology.  While Brentano conceived philosophy in parallel to psychology, Husserl made a clear distinction between them.  Husserl defined philosophy or phenomenology as a study of “essence” in the given mental phenomena.  For Husserl, natural sciences were the studies of natural facts, philosophy or phenomenology was a study of essences given in experiences.  Brentano explicitly criticized Husserl’s essentialist orientation.
  
 +
The concept of intentionality, philosophy of time as a study of internal time consciousness were also central to Husserlian phenomenology.  Both of these ideas were developed by Brentano and Husserl integrated them into his phenomenology. 
 +
 +
==References==
 
===Major works by Brentano ===
 
===Major works by Brentano ===
 
+
* (1874) ''Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint'' (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt)
* (1874) ''[[Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint]]'' (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt)
 
 
* (1889) ''The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong''
 
* (1889) ''The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong''
* (1911) ''[[Aristotle and his World View]]'' (Aristoteles und seine Weltanschauung)
+
* (1911) ''Aristotle and his World View'' (Aristoteles und seine Weltanschauung)
* (1911) ''[[The Classification of Mental Phenomena]]'' (Die Klassifikation von Geistesphänomenen)  
+
* (1911) ''The Classification of Mental Phenomena'' (Die Klassifikation von Geistesphänomenen)  
 
* (1976) ''Philosophical Investigations on Space, Time and Phenomena'' (Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum)
 
* (1976) ''Philosophical Investigations on Space, Time and Phenomena'' (Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum)
 
* (1982) ''Descriptive Psychology'' (Deskriptive Psychologie)
 
* (1982) ''Descriptive Psychology'' (Deskriptive Psychologie)
 +
===Selected works in English===
 +
====Primary Sources====
 +
*Brentano, Franz Clemens ''Aristotle and his world view'' Berkeley : University of California Press, 1978
 +
 +
*--------, ''Descriptive psychology'' New York : Routledge, 1995
 +
 +
*--------, ''On the several senses of being in Aristotle'' Berkeley : University of California Press, 1975
 +
 +
*--------, ''Psychology from an empirical standpoint''New York, Humanities Press, 1973
 +
====Secondary sources====
 +
*Chisholm, Roderick M. ''Brentano and intrinsic value'' New York : Cambridge University Press, 1986
 +
 +
*Jacquette, Dale. ''The Cambridge companion to Brentano'' New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004
  
==See also==
+
*McAlister, Linda L. ''The Philosophy of Brentano'' Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Humanities Press, 1977
*[[List of Austrian scientists]]
+
 
*[[List of Austrians]]
+
*Rancurello, Antos C. A'' study of Franz Brentano; his psychological standpoint and his significance in the history of psychology'' New York, Academic Press, 1968
 +
 
 +
*Smith, Barry. ''Austrian philosophy: the legacy of Franz Brentano''  Chicago : Open Court, 1994
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
Line 44: Line 64:
 
** [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brentano-judgement/ Entry on Brentano's Theory of Judgement]
 
** [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brentano-judgement/ Entry on Brentano's Theory of Judgement]
 
* [http://www.formalontology.it/brentanof.htm The Ontology of Franz Brentano] Contains a list of the English translations of Brentano's works
 
* [http://www.formalontology.it/brentanof.htm The Ontology of Franz Brentano] Contains a list of the English translations of Brentano's works
 +
===General Philosophy Sources===
 +
*[http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
 +
*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
 +
*[http://www.epistemelinks.com/  Philosophy Sources on Internet EpistemeLinks]
 +
*[http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/index.htm Guide to Philosophy on the Internet]
 +
*[http://www.bu.edu/wcp/PaidArch.html Paideia Project Online]
 +
*[http://www.gutenberg.org/ Project Gutenberg]
  
[[Category:1853 births|Brentano, Franz]]
 
[[Category:1917 deaths|Brentano, Franz]]
 
 
[[Category:19th century philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
 
[[Category:19th century philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
 
[[Category:20th century philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
 
[[Category:20th century philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
 
[[Category:German philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
 
[[Category:German philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
[[Category:German-language philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
+
[[Category:philosophy and religion]]
[[Category:Austrian philosophers|Brentano, Franz]]
+
[[Category:philosophy]]
 
 
[[cs:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[de:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[es:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[eo:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[fr:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[is:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[it:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[nl:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[ja:フランツ・ブレンターノ]]
 
[[pl:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[pt:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[ru:Брентано, Франц]]
 
[[sk:Franz Brentano]]
 
[[tr:Franz Brentano]]
 
 
 
  
 
{{Credit|71672967}}
 
{{Credit|71672967}}

Revision as of 03:42, 2 November 2006

Franz Brentano

Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano (January 16, 1838, Marienberg am Rhein, near Boppard – March 17, 1917, Zürich) was a philosopher and psychologist. His contributions ranged over wide areas of philosophy, but the primary contribution was a philosophy of mind in a broad sense. He received influences from Aristotle, Scholasticism, and positivism of nineteenth century. Brentano was a charismatic teacher and had a number of notable students including Edmund Husserl, Alexius Meinong, Christian von Ehrenfels, Kasimir Twardowski, and others.

A number of his ideas such as the concept of intentiality which he derived from the Scholasticism and the concept of philosophy as a study of consciousness gave direct impacts on Husserl. Early Husserl’s formulation of phenomenology was based upon these ideas from Brentano.

Life

Franz Brentano grew up under Roman Catholicism and studied philosophy at the universities of Munich, Würzburg, Berlin (with Adolf Trendelenburg) and Münster. He had a special interest in Aristotle and scholastic philosophy, and wrote his dissertation in Tübingen On the manifold sense of Being in Aristotle which later gave impacts on Martin Heidegger.

Subsequently he began to study theology and entered the seminary in Munich and then Würzburg, preparing to become a Roman Catholic priest (ordained August 6, 1864). In 1865–1866, he wrote and defended his habilitation essay and theses and began to lecture at the University of Würzburg. His students in this period included, among others, Carl Stumpf and Anton Marty.

Between 1870 and 1873, Brentano was heavily involved in the debate on papal infallibility. A strong opponent of such dogma, he eventually gave up his priesthood. Following Brentano's religious struggles, Stumpf (who was studying at the seminar at the time) was also drawn away from the church.

In 1874 Brentano published his major work: "Psychology from an empirical standpoint" and from 1874 to 1895 he taught at the University of Vienna. Among his students were Edmund Husserl, Alexius Meinong, Christian von Ehrenfels, Rudolf Steiner and many others. While he began his career as a full ordinary professor, he was forced to give up his Austrian citizenship and his professorship in 1880 to be able to marry. Austro-Hungarian Empire did not allow a marriage of someone who had been an ordained priest. He was permitted to return to the university only as a Privatdozent.

After his retirement he moved to Florence in Italy and at the outbreak of the First World War he transferred to Zürich, where he died in 1917.

Work and thought

Intentionality

Brentano is best known for his reintroduction of the concept of intentionality—a concept derived from scholastic philosophy—to contemporary philosophy in his lectures and in his work Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint). While often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" or the relationship between mental acts and the external world, Brentano defined it as the main characteristic of psychical phenomena, by which they could be distinguished from physical phenomena. Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act has a content, is directed at an object (the intentional object). Every belief, desire etc. has an object that they are about: the believed, the wanted. Brentano used the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the status of the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish psychical phenomena and physical phenomena, because physical phenomena lack intentionality altogether.

Theory of perception

He is also well known for claiming that Wahrnehmung ist Falschnehmung ('perception is misception' or literally 'truth-grasping is false-grasping') that is to say perception is erroneous. In fact he maintained that external, sensory perception could not tell us anything about the de facto existence of the perceived world, which could simply be illusion. However, we can be absolutely sure of our internal perception. When I hear a tone, I cannot be completely sure that there is a tone in the real world, but I am absolutely certain that I do hear. This awareness, of the fact that I hear, is called internal perception. External perception, sensory perception, can only yield hypotheses about the perceived world, but not truth. Hence he and many of his pupils (in particular Carl Stumpf and Edmund Husserl) thought that the natural sciences could only ever yield hypotheses and not universal, absolute truths as in pure logic or mathematics.

Philosophy as a Rigorous Science

Brentano attempted to formulate philosophy as a “rigorous science.” He found the rigor in natural sciences in their methodology. Similarly to positivism, Brentano argued, empirical evidence was necessary for the validation of knowledge. He took a field of consciousness as the area of philosophical studies and “direct experience” as the evidence. While extra-mental events were dubious to a cognitive subject, experientially given were certain without question. This terrain of thought, that certainty was limited to what was given to mind and extra-mental events were dubious, was similar to Descartes. In contrast to behabiorist psychology which was build on the analyses of external behavioral patters of human actions, Brentano developed descriptive psychology as a descriptive study of mental phenomena based upon the introspection.

Brentano and Husserl

Husserl was the founder of Phenomenology, a major philosophical movement in the continental tradition in the twentieth century philosophy. A number of ideas in Brentano directly influenced the formulation of phenomenology by Husserl.

Early Husserl conceived philosophy or phenomenology as a “rigorous science.” Similarly to Brentano, Husserl took the field of consciousness as the area of studies, and developed phenomenology as an extension of descriptive psychology. While Brentano conceived philosophy in parallel to psychology, Husserl made a clear distinction between them. Husserl defined philosophy or phenomenology as a study of “essence” in the given mental phenomena. For Husserl, natural sciences were the studies of natural facts, philosophy or phenomenology was a study of essences given in experiences. Brentano explicitly criticized Husserl’s essentialist orientation.

The concept of intentionality, philosophy of time as a study of internal time consciousness were also central to Husserlian phenomenology. Both of these ideas were developed by Brentano and Husserl integrated them into his phenomenology.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Major works by Brentano

  • (1874) Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt)
  • (1889) The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong
  • (1911) Aristotle and his World View (Aristoteles und seine Weltanschauung)
  • (1911) The Classification of Mental Phenomena (Die Klassifikation von Geistesphänomenen)
  • (1976) Philosophical Investigations on Space, Time and Phenomena (Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum)
  • (1982) Descriptive Psychology (Deskriptive Psychologie)

Selected works in English

Primary Sources

  • Brentano, Franz Clemens Aristotle and his world view Berkeley : University of California Press, 1978
  • --------, Descriptive psychology New York : Routledge, 1995
  • --------, On the several senses of being in Aristotle Berkeley : University of California Press, 1975
  • --------, Psychology from an empirical standpointNew York, Humanities Press, 1973

Secondary sources

  • Chisholm, Roderick M. Brentano and intrinsic value New York : Cambridge University Press, 1986
  • Jacquette, Dale. The Cambridge companion to Brentano New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004
  • McAlister, Linda L. The Philosophy of Brentano Atlantic Highlands, N.J. : Humanities Press, 1977
  • Rancurello, Antos C. A study of Franz Brentano; his psychological standpoint and his significance in the history of psychology New York, Academic Press, 1968
  • Smith, Barry. Austrian philosophy: the legacy of Franz Brentano Chicago : Open Court, 1994

External links

General Philosophy Sources

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.