Brentano psychology

Brentano’s views on psychology influenced the way philosophy was made at the beginning of the 20th century. But did this influence spread as far as to give place to Freud’s revolutionary discovery of the psychoanalytical unconscious? There are reasons to believe that Brentano had a profound influence on Freud. An attentive analysis of Freud’s vocabulary as well as his arguments against “philosophical” objections supports this point rather convincingly. However, Freud was not a philosopher and Brentano’s historical influence does not suffice to transform the Freudian unconscious in a philosophical concept. It is the purpose of this paper to sketch a way to make a philosophical use of Freud’s unconscious by reconstructing the dialogue between Brentano and Freud on a conceptual level. Despite the explicit critique of the unconscious that we find in Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, I show that Freud never truly opposed Brentano. He rather took Brentano’s descriptive psychology a step further: he introduced a dynamic component to the analysis of the psyche that is complementary to Brentano’s descriptive psychology and could be considered a type of genetic psychology. See Freud, Sigmund ( The Claim of Psychoanalysis to Scientific Interest, ( The Interpretation of Dreams, ( A Note on the Unconscious in Psycho-analysis, ( The Unconscious and also ( A Difficulty in the Path of Psycho-analysis, ( The Ego and the Id, ( The Resistances to Psycho-analysis, ( An Outli...

A doctrine, first propounded by the German psychologist and philosopher Franz Brentano (1838–1917), according to which psychology should study not merely the elements of consciousness as in structuralism (2) but also mental acts and the way they are directed towards entities other than themselves. Brentano published his ideas in 1874 in his book Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint), and was an important forerunner of phenomenology. See also intentionality (1). Compare content psychology.

The manifestation of psychology as an academic discipline more than a 100 years ago was accompanied by a paradigm shift in our understanding of psychological phenomena—with both its light and shadow sides. On the one hand, this development allowed for a rigorous and experimentation-based approach to psychological phenomena; on the other, it led to an alienation from the experiential—or qualia—facets as the topics under inquiry were researched increasingly through third-person (e.g., behavioral or physiological) measures. At the turning point of this development stood an eminent but little known European scholar, Franz Brentano, who called for a synthesis of both third-person and first-person research methods in the study of psychological phenomena. On the occasion of his death, a hundred years ago on March 17, 1917 we wish to illustrate the historical background, introduce the reader to Brentano’s approach and work and discuss its relevance for experimental psychology today. • Antonelli, M. (2001). Seiendes, Bewusstsein, Intentionalität im Frühwerk von Franz Brentano [Being, consciousness, intentionality in the early work of Franz Brentano]. Freiburg im Breisgau: Alber. • Baumgartner, W., & Burkhard, F. P. (1990). Franz Brentano. Eine Skizze seines Lebens und seiner Werke [Franz Brentano. A sketch of his life and work]. In W. L. Gombocz, R. Haller, & N. Henrichs (Eds.), Internationale Bibliographie zur Österreichischen Philosophie (pp. 17–53). Amsterdam: Rodopi. • Bitbol, ...

I argue in this paper that Brentano’s grand project of philosophy as a science remained constant throughout his lifetime, from his habilitation thesis of 1866 to his last published writings. I suggest that this project has two main domains of application, namely, metaphysics and psychology. I focus on the application of the programme to psychology. According to my account, the project is based not only on the 1866 thesis that the method of philosophy is nothing other than the method of natural science (Thesis 4), as the standard reading of Brentano’s project suggests, but also on the thesis that philosophy should reject the distinction between speculative science and exact science (Thesis 1). I argue that the interplay between these two theses is present not only in Brentano’s early works, but also in his later lectures on descriptive psychology given in Vienna at the end of the 1880s. Not only does this explain why the grand project of philosophy remained constant, it also offers a more faithful account of the kind of investigation actually conducted by Brentano in the late 1880s – and later under the label of ‘phenomenology’, or descriptive psychology – than the one offered by the standard reading. Keywords • Brentano • Phenomenology • Descriptive psychology • Genetic psychology • Exactness The positive reading fits with the critique of Schelling’s view that philosophy should cut itself off from all domains of “ordinary knowledge” ( gemeines Wissen), as programmatically ...

The article presents the most important and almost forgotten theses of Franz Brentano's empirical psychology, which have significance for conceptualization and the method of psychological research. The psychology programme, introduced as early as 1874, remains on the fringes of mainstream empirical psychology, but it was the starting point for Kazimierz Twardowski and his students. The continuation and development of Brentano's thought in the twentieth century can significantly enrich and broaden psychology's theoretical and empirical perspective. This applies primarily to reductionism and the social dimension of mental phenomena. During the Second World War, many of Twardowski`s disciples emigrated abroad to other universities: Łukasiewicz moved to Royal Academy of Sciences in Dublin, Tarski became a professor of logic at Berkeley University, Hiż became a professor of linguistics at Pennsylvania State University, Mehlberg (moved to University of Chicago, Bocheński moved to the University of Freiburg, Poznański moved to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Sobociński moved to Notre Dame, Wundheiler moved to New York, Kalicki moved to Berkeley, and Lejewski moved to Manchester (Woleński, • Chrudzimski distinguishes two attitudes towards intentionality at Brentano's. The first view from 1874 expresses the principle: “Das Subjekt S stellt das Objekt O vor = Df. das Subjekt S steht in einer intentionalen Relation zum irrealen, immanent inexistierenden Objekt O”. The second stan...

• 1874 (Duncker & Humblot, in German) • 1924 (Philosophische Biblothek, in German) • 1973 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, in English) Mediatype Print ( Pages 350 (first edition) 415 (2005 Routledge edition) Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint ( Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte) (1874; second edition 1924) is an 1874 book by the Austrian philosopher [ citation needed], and it has been compared to the physician Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie and the Project for a Scientific Psychology of Summary [ ] This section needs expansion. You can help by ( November 2019) Discussing the philosopher existence of the idea, which existence the will does not want but which, nevertheless, is sensibly present.' Brentano suggests that Hartmann's definition of consciousness perhaps refers to "something purely imaginary", and certainly does not agree with Brentano's definition. Background and publication history [ ] Brentano was at work on Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint in 1873, while travelling in Europe after leaving the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint under the new title Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene, with the addition of remarks explaining his later views, where they differed from those he held in 1874. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint was first published as Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, but subsequent editions were published as Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, which is the more commonly cited name. The first editio...

BRENTANO, FRANZ BRENTANO, FRANZ (1838–1917), German-Austrian philosopher. A revolutionary figure in empiricist European philosophy at the turn of the century, Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano is most famously associated with his distinction between psychological and physical phenomena on the basis of the "aboutness" or intentionality of thought. Brentano championed an Aristotelian approach to philosophy and psychology. He developed ethics and value theory by means of the concepts of correct pro- and anti-emotions or love and hate attitudes, and he made important contributions to syllogistic logic (unpublished during his lifetime), epistemology or theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. His teaching prepared the way for rigorous approaches to philosophy of science and theory of meaning in the later work of the so-called Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists, as well as on Gestalt and other branches of experimental psychology, the theory of objects ( Gegenstandstheorie), and descriptive philosophical psychology or phenomenology. Lecturing first in Würzburg, Germany, and later in Vienna, Austria, Brentano's ideas touched many important thinkers who self-consciously considered themselves as constituting a Brentano School. The philosophers and psychologists of note who were part of the Brentano orbit included such leading lights of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as Alexius Meinong, Ernst Mally, Alois Höfler, Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Frans Weber, Kazim...