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The Intentionality of Sensation and the Problem of Classification of Philosophical Sciences in Brentano’s empirical Psychology

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Abstract

In the well-known intentionality quote of his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano characterises the mental phenomena through the following features: (1) the intentional inexistence of an object, (2) the relation to a content, and (3) the direction toward an object. The text argues that this characterisation is not general because the direction toward an object does not apply to the mental phenomena of sensation. The second part of the paper analyses the consequences that ensue from here for the Brentanian classification of mental phenomena: in Brentano’s psychology one can distinguish two concepts of mental phenomena—the mental phenomenon in a broad sense and the mental phenomenon in a narrow sense; the former concept allows the separation of the mental from the physical, while the narrow concept allows the distinguishing of the main classes of mental phenomena. The third part of the paper shows that, with respect to sensation, the absence of a direction toward an object is compatible with both Brentano’s early taxonomies of philosophical sciences, and his early program for the establishment of a new, empirical and non-speculative philosophy. For this reason, I hold that intentionality is important for the foundation of both psychology, and empirical philosophy.

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Notes

  1. For the sake of fluency, the following abbreviations will be used: PES for Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint (1995a), DP for Descriptive Psychology (1995b) and LI for Logical Investigations (2001). In this article I analyse further the problem of intentionality of sensation, which I addressed the last time in Tănăsescu (2013). That article underlies the present paper.

  2. In what follows, I shall use the phrases ‘physical phenomenon’ and ‘phenomenal content of consciousness’ as different names for the immanent object of sensation, and I shall consider it as mind-dependent. For a different approach of this issue, see Hickerson (2007, 38 f.), and the note 26 below.

  3. See on this issue Tănăsescu (2015a).

  4. See for this purpose the critical remarks of Tim Crane about this reading grid (Crane 2006, 21 ff.). I specify at the same time that the thesis presented here about the meaning of the intentionality quote from the perspective of the program of Brentano’s psychology goes into an entirely different direction than Crane’s analysis.

  5. For these reasons, I shall deliberately bracket important research devoted by contemporary philosophers (Chisholm 1989; Fréchette 2012) to the intentionality of sensation, since other interests than the present paper drive them.

  6. The three classes constitute different modes of existence of the object in consciousness or different modes of the relation to a content (PES, 197). This shows from the very beginning that Brentano’s classification of the mental states is based on two of the characteristics listed in the intentionality quote (see infra, Section 2).

  7. The intentionality quote refers very clearly to the relation with a content or to the immanent objectivity of the mental act. See also DPs where Brentano explicitly holds: “The realities which fall into our perception are psychical, i.e. they display an intentional relation, a relation to an immanent object” (DP, 139).

  8. The sensory qualities are signs of the physical causes they symbolise (PES, 19, 98 ff.). This distinction deserves to be noted because it constitutes one of the main differences of the way in which the content of sensation is approached in the 1874 work in comparison to the lectures on descriptive psychology later held by Brentano at the University of Vienna. In these lectures, the content of sensation is exclusively approached in connection to the mental act it belongs to (DP, 111–129).

  9. I am not entering here into the discussion of the problem of inner perception for Brentano; I am limiting myself only to the presentation of his main theses about this problem, to which he dedicates 3 chapters from the second book of his Psychology. I must also mention that in the 1911 edition of the chapters regarding the classification of the mental phenomena of 1874, Brentano will doubt the fact that the secondary relation of the act with itself always contains within it a feeling: “Indeed, I believe the entire broad classes of visual and aural sensation to be completely free of affective character” (PES, 276; on this problem see Rutte 1987; Brandl 2011).

  10. Unlike the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition in which the intentional existence of the form in the soul is a reliable image of the real form, the intentional existence of the physical phenomena that Brentano talks about in his Psychology takes into account only their existence as contents of consciousness, thus their existence only as phenomena, and no guarantee of their real existence could be offered (PES, 9 f., 92 ff., 98 ff.).

  11. Brentano (1969), 12 ff. For Brentano, any categorical judgment can be reduced to an existential judgement (‘A is B’ to ‘AB is’) and the existential judgment is the basic form of the judgment (PSE, 210–221).

  12. PES, 10 f.

  13. De an. II, 424a17-21, III, 431b30-432a1; on this problem, see Sorabji (1991), 226 f., 247 f., and Caston (1998), 249 f., 254 ff., 291 ff.

  14. In his habilitation thesis, Brentano already distinguishes between being materially contained in something, and being improperly, objectively (as a form or as an object in late scholastic terms) contained in the sense organ: “Material, as a physical property, the warmth is in the warm body; as an object [objectively, I.T.] the warmth […] is in the one who feels” (Brentano 1867, 80; my translation); see too PES, 88; on the traditional interpretation of the intentionality quote see Hedwig (1978–1979, 1990–1991), Albertazzi (2006), Sauer (2006) and Antonelli (2012).

  15. In the 1874 work sensation is dealt with separately from perception that presupposes the consideration as existent of that which is felt; the relationship between them is described by the law of founding mental phenomena: because the judgments of outer perception consider as existent the object that appears, they are founded upon the sensation of the respective object (PES, 92 f., 209 f.). In Descriptive Psychology, Brentano already leans toward another position, one that does not consider outer perception as an act founded upon sensation anymore, but distinct from it; he holds that blind belief or the assertoric accepting in the sensed (seen, heard, etc.) object proper to outer perception is included in the fundamental act of the sensation (DP, 92 ff.). Things have not stopped here, however. Right after 1902, Brentano will give up for a short time the tripartite classification of mental phenomena, eliminating the class of presentations and considering that there exist only two fundamental classes of mental acts, judgements and emotional phenomena. One of the main arguments at the basis of this renunciation is constituted precisely by the fact that he did not interpret anymore (for instance, in his text from 1903 Von der Natur der Vorstellung) the indissociability of sensation from belief in the existence of the sensed object through the lens of the law of founding mental phenomena, but considered it as a sign of the fact that sensation is not a stand-alone act, but must be integrated in the perceptual act itself. For reasons as yet unclarified, Brentano will subsequently give up this idea and will tacitly come back to the tripartite classification of mental phenomena—in 1911, he republished the chapters about the classification of mental phenomena from his 1874 work, adding a large appendix keeping the classification from the 1874 work and presenting the most important changes occurring in his views in the meantime (see on this problem Brentano 1987a, 25–33, and Brandl’s introduction to this text (Brandl 1987)).

  16. As said, the sensible qualities are signs of the physical causes the action of which over sense organs produce their appearance in consciousness. This distinction corresponds to the Husserlian distinction between the experienced sensory content, the content given in the unity of consciousness, and the properties of the perceived object evinced through them (LI, II, 82 f.).

  17. See the following quote where Brentano does not use the term Richtung (direction), but the verb corresponding to it: “Ferner haben wir gesehen, wie bei manchen Sinnesempfindungen das begleitende Gefühl von Lust und Unlust nicht bloss mit der Empfindung selbst, sondern sogar mit dem immanenten Gegenstande der Empfindung, mit dem physischen Phänomene verwechselt wurde, auf welches der Empfindungsact als auf sein primäres Object gerichtet ist.” (“Furthermore we have seen above that in certain sensations the accompanying feeling of pleasure or displeasure has been confused not only with sensation itself, but even with the immanent object of sensation, i.e., with the physical phenomenon to which the act of sensation is referred as to its primary object.” (My italics) PES, 112; see too PES, 158.).

  18. Although in Brentano’s (1874) work he admits that the study of sensations represents a field in which the research of his empirical psychology intersects the research of Fechner’s psychophysics, he has no doubts that the sensations are mental phenomena stricto sensu (PES, 6 ff., 98 ff.). This idea is in fact clearly confirmed by the following statement in Descriptive Psychology: “A sensation (Empfindung), I say, is a fundamental presentation of real physical phenomena (objects) [(Gegenstände)].” (Brentano 1982, 139; DP, 148, translation slightly modified).

  19. See, in this respect Husserl’s LI and Chisholm (1967).

  20. I am not approaching here the issue of Brentano’s taxonomy of sciences, I am only noticing that in other of his early taxonomies he admits, among the two sciences already mentioned, metaphysics as a fundamental philosophical discipline (see, on this issue, Tiefensee’s extensive analysis (Tiefensee 1998); for a concise and significant overview of Brentano's account of philosophy as science in the context of the 19th century and on the significance of his work for contemporary philosophy, see Poli (1998), Albertazzi (2006, ch. 3) and also Tassone (2012).

  21. Contemporary exegesis pays no particular attention to this work that approaches mainly issues of method, focusing instead on the second part of the 1874 work, that may be well accounted for from the standpoint of contemporary philosophy of mind.Tassone (2012, 77–107) departs from this trend.

  22. Contemporary authors have repeatedly emphasized that Brentano took from Comte the idea of a range of phenomena based on their increasing complexity (see, for instance, Hickerson 2007, 26–31). The cited fragment shows that the idea is true with respect to relations between physical, chemical, and physiological phenomena. But with regard to mental phenomena, they do not constitute for Brentano a mere superior complication of physiological phenomena. On the contrary, they constitute an ‘absolutely heterogeneous’ realm, and their distinctive feature is the fact that they intentionally contain an object. The intentionality of the mental should therefore not be conceived as a mere aspect of the superior complexity of mental phenomena, but as an aspect of their radical distinction with respect to the preceding phenomena in Comte’s taxonomy of phenomena.

  23. Although from a different standpoint, Fréchette (2012, 114) has already argued that referring to imaginary objects (centaurs) does not constitute the paradigmatic case in approaching Brentano’s intentionality. However, for accuracy, we should add that, despite the high significance that contemporary scholars attache to the imaginary objects issue in PES (Chisholm 1967), Brentano refers to them only once in his 1874 work (PES, 218 f.; cf., by contrast, the great number of references to the physical phenomenon issue (PES, 9 ff., 19, 60 f., 83, 97  ff. et passim).

  24. This view still appears occasionally in the 1874 work (PES, 98 ff.).

  25. Ryan Hickerson’s sophisticated attempt to consider physical phenomena as physical forces that cause sensations, and appear in them as their content (Hickerson 2007, 22, 38 f., 42 f.) meets two objections: Brentano distinguishes them, and considers confounding them an error (PES, 98 f.); the intentional inexistence does not pertain to physical causes acting upon the sense organs and producing sensation, but to physical phenomena as content of sensations.

  26. I am not going here into the details of an issue that I have addressed elsewhere (Tănăsescu 2015b). I shall confine myself only to notice that in the lecture on logic from 1870 there are some very clear statements showing that with respect to concepts, as well as sensations, mental act refers to extra-mental objects through the relation with immanent objects: “The name designates in a way the content of a presentation as such, that is, the immanent object; in another way it designates that which is presented by the content of a presentation. The former is the meaning of the name. The latter is what the name names. About this we say the name belongs to it. It is that which is the exterior object of the presentation, if it exists. We name things by means of the meaning” (EL 80.13.018).

  27. This approach is also maintained in Brentano’s Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie (1907).

  28. For linguistic corrections and specialized comments, I am particularly indebded to Susan Krantz Gabriel. The paper is dedicated to the memory of Marius Dumitru (1982–2014).

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Tănăsescu, I. The Intentionality of Sensation and the Problem of Classification of Philosophical Sciences in Brentano’s empirical Psychology. Axiomathes 27, 243–263 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-016-9300-8

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