Brentano and Intentionality: or How to Break Immanence from Within

LUIS NIEL

Brentano Studien

J.H. Röll Verlag

Año: 2020

0935-7009

The article focuses on Brentano?s conceptions of intentionality as developed throughout the different periods of his thought: first, in his early works on Aristotle and its operating notion of ?intentional? as something objective in sensations; second, in his ?intentionality passage?, which, based on a psychological approach, presents an immanentist account (likely Cartesian) of intentionality as a two-term relation between the mind and the immanent (or intentional) object; third, in his late ?reistic phase?, where, due to the ontological flaws of the psychological approach, a strong ontological commitment to the ?real thing? is presented which leads to a new conception of intentionality as a one-term relation (as something ?relativlich?) or as the directedness of the mind towards real things. I will first argue that Brentano?s early theory supports a form of intentional immanentism, which his later reistic account vainly attempts to break by introducing the ?real thing? into the intentional equation; this leads to many unsolved problems and flaws, expressed by the conceptual tension of an unclear differentiation of the concepts of thing, real, existence, and object. I will also argue that his first psychological-descriptive conception, which methodologically leaves aside existent things by inner perception, presents a more consist account of intentionality.