BRENTANO, FRANZ

German philosophical psychologist influential in the development of phenomenology; b. Marienberg, near Boppard, June 16, 1838; d. Zürich, Switzerland, March 17, 1917. Brentano's parents were devout Catholics; his uncle, Clemens Brentano, was a noted romantic poet; his brother, Lujo, was a political economist and professor at the University of Munich. Franz entered the Dominican Order in his youth but left as a novice. In 1864 he was ordained and in the same year was attached to the University of Würzburg, first as a lecturer in philosophy, later as a full professor (1872). Though he was deep in doubt concerning certain dogmas of the Church, he was asked to prepare a brief on papal infallibility for a meeting of the German bishops before vatican council i. When the dogma of infallibility was proclaimed, Brentano resigned his professorship and abandoned his priesthood. In 1874 the University of Vienna offered him a professorship, which he surrendered in 1880 when he married. He remained in Vienna for 15 years as an unsalaried lecturer, until approaching blindness forced him to retire. He spent his remaining years traveling in Italy and Switzerland.

Thought. Three major influences were operative in Brentano's thinking. First, he became acquainted with the philosophies of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the scholastics during his seminary training. From these Brentano adopted many principles, as well as his orderly, analytic approach to philosophy. Second, he refused to accept the a priori principles of German idealists, being opposed to any form of dogmatism. Third, impressed with the discoveries of the physical sciences, he attributed progress in science to empirical methodology and urged that such methodology be adopted by the philosopher. Under these influences, Brentano set out to construct a "scientific" philosophy that would start with no "categories" or "forms." On the analogy of mathematics' being basic to the physical sciences, he sought to determine a similar science that would be basic to philosophy, and settled upon psychology.

Arguing that psychological phenomena can be objectively studied only in their proper setting, which is experience, Brentano proposed to construct a "psychology from an empirical standpoint." He avoided the subjectivist extreme of studying experience through introspection alone; rather, he proposed that in each man there is an experience of "inner perception," an awareness that is both immediate and infallible. By analyzing this "inner perception," Brentano hoped to describe and categorize the contents of experience.

For Brentano, all psychological phenomena possess an "intentionality," a property not found in physical phenomena. His was not the Thomistic theory of an idea's "intentional inexistence" in the mind (see intentionali ty; species, intentional). Instead, Brentano merely stated that psychological phenomena have a "referenceto-an-object"; ideas, desires, feelings are essentially concerned with things external. By his "inner perception," man is immediately aware that each psychic phenomenon refers to or "intends" an outside object. Thus every such phenomenon must be conscious; unconscious phenomena are self-contradictory.

In Brentano's view, psychic phenomena are of three types: (1) mere representations, (2) judgments, and (3) feelings of love and hate. These phenomena are not static concepts; Brentano saw them all as "activities" that refer differently to objects. An analysis of each type uncovers a basic truth. (1) Representations are the primary phenomena; thus every psychological phenomenon is, at least originally, a representation. (2) Judgments are objectively true or false; yet certain judgments are experienced by all men as self-evident. (3) All acts of love and hate possess the value of good or evil; analogously, certain of these volitional acts are experienced as naturally good or evil. It was on this analogy of self-evident value that Brentano based his ethics.

Influence. Brentano prepared the ground for phenomenology by enlarging the scope of empiricism: man not only viewed the elements of experience; he was aided by a certain intuition. His notion of "intentional reference" is his most important contribution to the philosophy of E. husserl, who called Brentano "my one and only teacher in philosophy." His analogue of self-evidence applied to moral philosophy is at least indirectly reflected in the value-qualified beings of M. scheler. However, his impact on philosophy was as a teacher, not as an author. His major works are Psychologie des Aristotles (1867), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (Leipzig 1874), and Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (Leipzig 1889).

Bibliography: c. rosso, Enciclopedia filosofica, 4 v. (Venice-Rome 1957) 1:796–799. a. scholz, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 2:670. h. spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement (The Hague 1960–) v. 1. a. kastil, Die Philosophie Franz Brentanos (Bern 1951). b. smith, Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano (Chicago 1994). r. m. chisholm, Brentano and Intrinsic Value (Cambridge 1986).

[c. p. svoboda]