Franz Brentano And The Psychology Of Intentionality
The study of intentionality is relatively recent in the history of philosophy. Although ancient and medieval philosophers such as Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas made specific references to the human will, Franz Brentano, who lived in the 19th century, is generally considered the pioneer in this field. of analysis.
In this article we will describe the main approaches of The psychology of intentionality (or “of the act”) by Franz Brentano. For the German philosopher, intentionality is the main feature that distinguishes psychological phenomena from physical ones, which contain themselves instead of directing acts towards another external object.
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano (1838-1917) was a priest, philosopher and psychologist who was born in Prussia, in present-day Germany. His interest in scholastic philosophy and that of Aristotle led him to study this subject at several German universities and, later, to train as a theologian and become a priest of the Catholic religion.
In 1873 he left the Church because of his disagreements with the official theses; In particular, Brentano denied the dogma of papal infallibility, according to which the Pope is incapable of making mistakes. Later he married and dedicated himself to university teaching. He died in 1917 in Zurich, Switzerland, where he moved after the First World War broke out.
Brentano’s fundamental work It is titled “Psychology from the empirical point of view” and was published in 1874. In it this author described the key role of intentionality in thinking and other psychological processes, and stated that it is the main factor that distinguishes them from purely physical phenomena.
The proposals of this pioneer had a great impact on different approaches to psychology and other disciplines: logic, the analytical philosophy of Wittgenstein and Russell, experimental psychology, structuralist and functionalist literary analysis, the Gestalt School and especially phenomenology. based on their psychology of the act.
The concept of intentionality
Brentano recovered the concept of intentionality in modern philosophy. For it It was based mainly on the work of Aristotle and other classical authors ; However, René Descartes’ approaches, which focused on knowledge instead of will, were what inspired Brentano to highlight the relevance of this construct.
According to this author’s definition, Intentionality is the common characteristic of all psychological phenomena. It is the property that directs a specific act or event towards an object or goal located in the external world. Intentionality has an immanent character, that is, it is always present in the person’s mind.
Physical phenomena are all those that occur in the outside world, such as sounds, visual stimuli and objects in the environment in general. On the other hand, among psychological phenomena we find the perceptions of others of a physical nature, as well as the mental contents that are directed to them.
Thus all mental phenomena contain an object ; For example, in the act of wishing it is necessary that there be an external entity that fulfills the role of recipient of such an event. The same thing happens when we remember an event from the past, a place or specific information, when we feel love or hate for another living being, etc.
However, and given that the mental object (the intention or “intentional existence”) that accompanies any physical object has different characteristics for each person, it is not possible in any case for more than one to be directed towards exactly the same object, even if this is equivalent from a physical point of view.
The psychology of the act
Brentano stated that Psychology consisted of two branches: descriptive and genetics. The first of them would focus on the description of mental phenomena in the first person, in a similar way to phenomenological psychology. Genetic psychology, like current cognitivism, would do so in the third person through empirical experiments.
This philosopher clearly defended the approach to psychology that he called “descriptive.” According to Brentano’s theses and his psychology of the act, we should not analyze objective experience associated with mental phenomena, but we would simply have to focus on describing the way we experience it in as rich a way as possible.
In this way, by considering that the mind cannot be studied solely through its physical correlates, Franz Brentano positioned himself against our discipline could be part of the natural sciences. For this author, as for many others in the founding era and today, psychology would be closer to philosophy.
However, Brentano’s psychology of the act has been criticized since its appearance (even by the philosopher’s own disciples, much to their chagrin) for the lack of clarity of its approaches. Furthermore, introspective study methods are currently highly questioned because it is not possible to systematize them adequately.
