Volume 13 (2015) - Brentano's Concept of Intentionality. New Assessments
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Table of contents
Guillaume FRÉCHETTE Introduction. Brentano’s Conception of Intentionality: New Facts and Unsettled Issues (9-21) Mauro ANTONELLI Franz Brentano’s Intentionality Thesis. A New Objection to the “Nonsense that was Dreamt up and Attributed to him” (23-53) Carlo IERNA Improper Intentions of ambiguous objects: Sketching a New Approach to Brentano’s Intentionality (55-79) Arkadiusz CHRUDZIMSKI Intentional Objects and Mental Contents (81-119) Klaus HEDWIG „eine wesentliche Umbildung“. Über die Transformation der Intentionalität bei Brentano (121-151) Cyril MCDONNELL Understanding and Assessing “Brentano’s Thesis” in Light of His Modification of the Scholastic Concept of Intentionality (153-181) Hamid TAIEB Relations and Intentionality in Brentano’s Last Texts (183-209) Ion TĂNĂSESCU The two Theories of Intentionality in Brentano and the Program of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (211-231) Klaus HEDWIG Buchrezension: María del Carmen Paredes Martín, Teorías de la intencionalidad (233-241) Wilhelm BAUMGARTNER Buchrezension: Ion Tanasescu (Hg.), Franz Brentano’s Metaphysics and Psychology. Upon the sesquicentennial of Franz Brentano’s Dissertation (243-257) Guillaume FRÉCHETTE - Introduction. Brentano’s Conception of Intentionality: New Facts and Unsettled IssuesBrentano Studien vol. 13 (2015), pp. 9-21
Mauro ANTONELLI - Franz Brentano’s Intentionality Thesis. A New Objection to the “Nonsense that was Dreamt up and Attributed to him”Brentano Studien, vol. 13 (2015), pp. 23-53.
Carlo IERNA - Improper Intentions of ambiguous objects: Sketching a New Approach to Brentano’s IntentionalityBrentano Studien vol. 13 (2015), pp. 55-79
Arkadiusz CHRUDZIMSKI - Intentional Objects and Mental ContentsBrentano Studien vol. 13 (2015), pp. 81-119.
Klaus HEDWIG - „eine wesentliche Umbildung“. Über die Transformation der Intentionalität bei BrentanoBrentano Studien vol. 13 (2015), pp. 121-151.
Cyril MCDONNELL - Understanding and Assessing “Brentano’s Thesis” in Light of His Modification of the Scholastic Concept of IntentionalityBrentano Studien vol. 13 (2015), pp. 153-181.
Hamid TAIEB - Relations and Intentionality in Brentano’s Last TextsBrentano Studien, vol. 13 (2015), pp. 183-209
Ion TĂNĂSESCU - The two Theories of Intentionality in Brentano and the Program of Psychology from an Empirical StandpointBrentano Studien, vol. 13 (2015), pp. 211-231.
Buchrezension: María del Carmen Paredes Martín, Teorías de la intencionalidad (233-241)Klaus HEDWIG
Buchrezension: Ion Tanasescu (Hg.), Franz Brentano’s Metaphysics and Psychology. Upon the sesquicentennial of Franz Brentano’s Dissertation (243-257)Wilhelm BAUMGARTNER
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Abstracts
MAURO ANTONELLI: Franz Brentano’s Intentionality Thesis. A New Objection to the “Nonsense that was Dreamt up and Attributed to him” Brentano’s thesis of intentionality has been traditionally interpreted as a theory of the “intentional relation”, i.e., of the (ordinary binary) relation between the mental act and its intentional or “immanent” object. This ob- ject is immanent in the sense that it is in fact contained in the mind, and with an ontological status that is distinct from that of the transcendent, existent or non-existent object. On the basis of Brentano’s Aristotelian- Scholastic sources, especially Aristotle’s perception theory and his theory of relativa, the author rejects the view of the immanent object as a con- sciousness-immanent, ontologically diminished entity and highlights the continuity which exists between Brentano’s earlier and later (the so-called reistic) view of intentionality. CARLO IERNA: Improper Intentions of ambiguous objects: Sketching a New Approach to Brentano’s Intentionality In this article I will begin by discussing recent criticism, by Mauro Antonelli and Werner Sauer, of the ontological interpretation of Franz Brentano’s concept of intentionality, as formulated by i.a. Roderick Chisholm. I will then outline some apparent inconsistencies of the positions advocated by Anto- nelli and Sauer with Brentano’s formulations of his theory in several works and lectures. This new evaluation of (unpublished) sources will then lead to a sketch of a new approach to Brentano’s theory of intentionality. Specifically, it will be argued that the notion of “intentional object” is inherently and un- avoidably ambiguous in every act of external perception, due to the fact that we can only have improper intentions directed at the external world. ARKADIUSZ CHRUDZIMSKI: Intentional Objects and Mental Contents In this paper I present a sketch of a theory of intentionality introducing special entities called intentional objects. Elaborated theories of this kind can be found in the works of Franz Brentano and Roman Ingarden. Nowadays those philosophers who are sympathetic to intentional objects are accused of planting an ontological jungle. All the problems of the theory of intentionality, it is claimed, can be resolved within the framework of a theory assuming a much more parsimonious ontology, like the theory of mental content proposed by the early Husserl or the so-called “adverbial” theory of intentionality. However, I show that the competitors of the the- ory of intentional objects face serious difficulties, the most important being that within their framework the relation between the representing entity (mental content or “adverbially specified” mental property of the subject) and the external target object has to be construed as primitive, while in the theory of intentional objects it can be easily defined. The consequence is that the partisans of mental contents and adverbialists are forced to re- quire a distinguished kind of epistemic access not only to the representing entity but also to this “representing relation”. This consequence, which is very seldom made explicit, seems indeed to be fatal. Intentional objects appear in this light not as products of an ontological extravagance but in- stead as entities that are indispensable, if we are to be able to explain the phenomenon of intentionality at all. Moreover, it turns out that we gain nothing if we introduce mental contents in addition to intentional objects. The approach to intentionality that I finally advocate postulates an external relation between a conscious subject and an intentional object, and is thus at bottom Brentanian. KLAUS HEDWIG: „eine wesentliche Umbildung“. Über die Transformation der Intentionalität bei Brentano In den letzten Jahren haben die Diskussionen über die Rechtfertigung von zwei Thesen der Intentionalität oder einer einzigen, in sich einheitlichen Intentionsfassung deutlich an Profil gewonnen, aber auch an dogmatischer Einseitigkeit zugenommen. Die vorliegende Interpretation geht davon aus, dass die intentionale Charakteristik des Bewusstseinsaktes werkimmanent dieselbe bleibt, während die begleitenden systematischen Kontexte sich ändern. In der frühen Einführung der Intentionalität (1874) interferieren psychologisch-relationale und ontologische Aspekte. Das bis- her wenig beachtete Ms. „Realität und Intentionalität“ (TS 14, 1893) grenzt gegen Ende der Wiener Zeit die Bereiche des Realen und Intentionalen neu voneinander ab und leitet in der Analyse der Relationsklassen eine Transformation ein. Dabei wird die frühe komplexe Fassung des Intentionalen auf eine einseitig reale, asymmetrische Bewusstseinsrelation zurückgeführt. Eine Konsequenz ist, dass sich die im engeren Sinn „intentionale“ Terminologie zunehmend auf das Korrelat des Denkens verlagert, auf das Gedachte, das „als Gedachtes“ in die Dimension der entia rationis fällt und später sprachlogisch eliminiert wird. Auf dieser Linie kann Brentano im Spätwerk die Denkrelation dann reistisch rechtfertigen. Der „Denkende“ als Fundament des Denkens bezieht sich auf etwas „Reales“, das er als „Objekt“ denkt, während im Terminus das Gedachte „als gedacht“ der Sprachkritik verfällt und – wie Brentano meint – spurlos verschwindet. Die “wesentliche Umbildung“, die sich in den mittleren Werken ankündigt, ist nicht als Bruch zu verstehen, sondern eine Transformation, in der die historischen, epistemologischen und ontologischen Lasten der frühen Intentionalität abgeworfen werden und im Gegenzug die einseitig reale Denkrelation als Grundstruktur des Bewusstseins hervortritt. CYRIL MCDONNELL: Understanding and Assessing “Brentano’s Thesis” in Light of His Modification of the Scholastic Concept of Intentionality This paper investigates Brentano’s modification of the Scholastic concept of intentionality in his elaboration of his thesis on the intentionality of consciousness. It argues that though ‘Brentano’s thesis’ cannot be fully understood without reference to the original Scholastic concept, Brentano also gives this concept new meaning in his elaboration of not one but two descriptive-psychological theses of intentionality, one concerning the intentional indwelling of an object in consciousness and another concerning the relatedness of psychical-act experiences to their objects, both of which are entirely unscholastic. HAMID TAIEB: Relations and Intentionality in Brentano’s Last Texts This paper will present an analysis of the relational aspect of Brentano’s last theory of intentionality. My main thesis is that Brentano, at the end of his life, considered relations (Relatives) without existent terms to be genuine relations (Relatives). Thus, intentionality is a non-reducible real relation (the thinking subject is a non-reducible real relative) regardless of whether or not the object exists. I will use unpublished texts from the Brentanian Nachlass to support my argument. ION TĂNĂSESCU: The two Theories of Intentionality in Brentano and the Program of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint The paper defends the following thesis: the intentionality passage from Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874) can be interpreted from two perspectives: intentionality as the most salient distinguishing feature separating the mental from the physical, and intentionality as a theory of the way in which mental acts, with their contents, are related to extra-mental objects. Fundamentally, the theory of intentionality from 1874 is an example of the former. Its role is that of allowing the establishment of psychology as a science. However, it can also be understood as a theory of intentionality in the second sense through a clarification of the relations it entails between the content and the object of the act. For this reason, it could be said that the act–content–extra-mental object distinction was already achieved in the 1874 work, at least at the level of sensory acts. The distinction between the psychical act, the content, and the object presented through this content was already made in the EL 80 Logik manuscript from 1869/70 at the level of nominal presentation, which provides a further argument for the above thesis. |
