Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint

Introduction

Brentano published this first volume in 1874, the year he moved from Würzburg to Vienna; of six planned books only two appeared. He wants to make psychology a science grounded in inner perception, which, unlike deliberate inner observation, accompanies every mental act. The famous passage in Book II defines mental phenomena by the “intentional inexistence” of an object: each contains something as its object, though not always in the same way. On this basis Brentano divides mental acts into presentations, judgements and phenomena of love and hate. Through Husserl, Meinong and Twardowski the concept of intentionality entered phenomenology and later analytic philosophy of mind.

Connections

Builds on

• On the Soul (De anima)c. 350 BCE · Aristotle

Taken up in

• On Gestalt Qualities1890 · Christian von Ehrenfels
• On the Content and Object of Presentations1894 · Kazimierz Twardowski
• Logical Investigations1900 · Edmund Husserl