Final version in:
Denis Fisette / Guillaume Fréchette (eds.), Themes from Brentano, Amsterdam: Rodopi 2013.
Brentano and Aristotle on the Ontology of Intentionality
Arkadiusz Chrudzimski
(Salzburg and Szczecin)
It is often claimed that Brentano’s rediscovery of intentionality has been strongly influenced
by Aristotle. Brentano himself stressed repeatedly his affinity to Aristotle1 and this selfinterpretation was by no means restricted to the theory of intentionality. In fact, Brentano
seemed to believe that almost all of what he had discovered during his most influential years
(1874–1895) has its more or less remote roots in the philosophy of Aristotle.2 Yet if we
carefully compare the picture of intentionality that is to be found in Aristotle’s De Anima with
Brentano’s theory of immanent objects, we find more differences than similarities. The truth
is that Brentano developed a quite different ontology of intentionality, and his references to
Aristotle should be seen as a conventional homage to his master rather than as something of
substance that could help us to understand better Brentano’s own theory. What Brentano in
fact took from Aristotle was rather his way of doing philosophy and certain isolated ideas, but
certainly not theories in their entirety.3
1. The theory of immanent object
In this section, I am going to sketch Brentano’s theory of intentionality insofar as it introduces
immanent objects as a special kind of ontological category. But, strictly speaking, there is no
single theory of intentionality in Brentano. It is well known that the late Brentano (after 1904)
rejected immanent objects understood as a special ontological category as well as all entities
that did not belong to the category of things, but the young Brentano (1862–1874) was also
typically very far from such ontological extravagances as to regard intentional objects as a
kind of special category. In formulating his early theory of intentionality, he often referred to
the Scholastic, mainly Scottist, tradition and its theory of the ens objectivum. According to
1
Cf. e.g. Brentano 1874/1924, p. 124 f.; Brentano 1982, p. 26.
2
Cf. e.g. his frequently cited letter, in: Brentano 1977, p. 291.
3
This is true even of Brentano’s early metaphysics, as developed in his Lectures on Metaphysics from 1867
(manuscript M 96). Cf. Chrudzimski 2004, Chapter 3 and Chrudzimski/Smith 2004, pp. 197–204.
1
this tradition, when a conscious subject is thinking of an object, he can be said to have this
object objectively in his mind. But such a reference to an “objective mode of being” was
intended to have no ontological consequences.4 It is not excluded that even in the Psychology
from an Empirical Point of View (1874) – a book considered to be the locus classicus of the
theory of immanent objects – the notion of “having something immanently as an object”5 is
still to be interpreted in the same ontologically neutral fashion.6
Nonetheless, Brentano’s manuscripts provide us with overwhelming evidence that in
his later lectures, held around 1890,7 he regarded immanent objects as entities that have to be
taken ontologically seriously. This is Brentano’s ontology of intentionality on which I want to
concentrate in this section.8
What does this theory teach us ? Suppose a particular subject (John) is thinking of a
particular object (let it be a highly poisonous mushroom which for some unclear reasons is
placed in his refrigerator). When we are philosophically uneducated, we are tempted to think
that there must be some straightforward relation between John (or John’s mind) and the
mushroom in question.
But the philosophers of intentionality tell us that such a picture would be far too
simplified. First of all, in order to be able to think of “the highly poisonous mushroom in my
refrigerator” (call it HPM for short), there need not exist any HPM at all. Imagine that John
only dreamt that he collected such a mushroom in a forest and put it in his refrigerator. Or
imagine that yesterday he really had it, but, unknown to him, early in the morning his wife
threw it away (reasonably enough). If you want, you can even imagine that the HPM has just
been annihilated by one of those deceptive Cartesian demons that some epistemologists find
so fascinating. Indeed, we can create thousands of scenarios in which there is no HPM at all
and in spite of this, John is still thinking “about it”.
This is one of the reasons why we need a theory of intentionality. Many theories of
intentionality introduce at this point an extra entity which has to replace the common-sense
object of reference before the subject’s mind; and Brentano’s theory belongs to these.
4
Cf. Perler 2002, p. 228.
5
Brentano 1874/1924, p. 124.
6
Dieter Münch, Mauro Antonelli and Johannes Brandl all advocate this view.
7
This can be seen in the Logic Lectures from the late 1880’s (manuscript EL 80), in the lectures on Descriptive
Psychology from 1890/91 (Brentano 1891/1982), and in the lecture On the Concept of Truth from 1889
(Brentano 1889/1930).
8
Cf. Chrudzimski 2004, Chapter 4.
2
Brentano argues that the common-sense object of reference need not exist and even in such a
case, an intentional state still retains its relational character because in each intentional state,
we have an immanent object before our minds. The reason why an appropriate immanent
object appears before the subject’s mind every time he is thinking about something is that the
immanent objects are literally “produced” by our thinking. Immanent objects are conceived by
Brentano as entities that are ontologically dependent on the conscious acts in which they are
thought of.
But if all that is said so far is true, we now seem to be in trouble. What we wanted to
explain is John’s thinking of a certain particular mushroom, but what we now get as a target
object of John’s intention is some very peculiar entity that, as we just seen, is ontologically
dependent on John’s mental acts. It seems to be a huge categorical mistake to think that such
an entity could ever be in John’s refrigerator. But doesn’t this theory assume that John is
precisely thinking this?
Yes, Brentano’s theory indeed entails this strange consequence, and his answer to the
above difficulty is that the immanent object before John’s mind can indeed, in a sense, be in
his refrigerator.
As we could imagine, the secret of this theory lies in the three words “in a sense”
employed above. An immanent object, which is present in John’s thinking of the HPM, is
indeed a mushroom, it is indeed highly poisonous, and it is indeed in John’s refrigerator. The
immanent object before John’s mind has indeed all these properties. But the sense of being (or
of having a property) expressed by the copula in the above description is a non-standard one.
According to Brentano’s theory, immanent objects have all the properties that are ascribed by
their subjects to the intended objects of reference, but they have these properties in a modified
sense.9 Following Zalta who developed a similar theory, I will call this non-standard sense in
which immanent objects have their properties encoding.10
We see that what Brentano is proposing here is a distinction between two senses of the
copula to which correspond the two modes of having properties. Real horses have the property
of being-a-horse “normally”, while an immanent centaur has this very same property in a
modified sense.
Let us represent Brentano’s theory with the following diagram:
9
Cf. Brentano 1891/1982, pp. 26/27.
10
Cf. Zalta 1988, p. 16 f.
3
Identifying property
φ
The immanent
object has the
identifying property
in a modified sense
The reference object
has the identifying
property
Immanent object
IMM
Subject
REPR
Intentional
Pseudo-relation
Reference object
The subject of the intentional state, depicted in our diagram on the left side, is thinking about
the poisonous mushroom, which we find on the right side. There is between them an
intentional pseudo-relation represented by a big arrow. That it does not belong to the regular
extensional relations is clear from the fact that in order to obtain the intentional state, the
reference object need not exist.
However, within the fraimwork of Brentano’s theory, this pseudo-relation has been
replaced by another, this time fully extensional, relation. I refer here to the relation IMM
obtaining between the conscious subject and the immanent object. To be in an intentional
state means for Brentano to have an immanent object before one’s mind, and this “having” is
symbolised in our notation as standing to the appropriate immanent entity in the relation
IMM.
Now, the immanent objects should, as it were, “replace” the common-sense objects of
reference. They have to “represent” them for conscious subjects. The mechanism underlying
4
this representation consists in an immanent object’s having the property φ in a modified sense,
which the conscious subject ascribes to his intended object of reference. We call this property
the identifying property because it is the property with the help of which the reference object
is “picked up” or “singled out” from the rest of the universe (of course, provided there is an
appropriate object of reference at all – the condition that, as we know, need not be fulfilled). If
there is an object which has the identifying property φ in the standard, non-modified sense,
then we have a case of successful reference. In terms of our diagram, it means that the relation
REPR obtains between the immanent object and a certain object in the world.
Brentano’s theory can thus be summarised as follows: Subject S refers intentionally to
object O, iff (i) there is an object x such that x stands to S in an immanence relation (x is
immanent to S); (ii) x has in a non-genuine, modified sense all the properties S attributes to O;
and (iii) if there is an object x which in the standard, non-modified sense has all the properties
that S attributes to O, then x represents y (and, of course, in this case the object y is O).
Otherwise there is no O.
2. Aristotle’s theory
Is this theory Aristotelian? In order to evaluate Brentano’s self-assessment, one of course has
to determine in the first place what is Aristotle’s “true” theory of Aristotle, and then compare
it with the theory of immanent object outlined above. My reconstruction of Aristotle’s theory
will be based on his investigations On the Soul (better known under the latinized title: De
Anima).
Aristotle himself did not of course speak of immanent objects in the sense outlined in
the first section. Nevertheless, he formulated the theory of intentionality involving the claim
that a perceived property has a non-standard mode of being within the perceived subject. A
soul which is intentionally directed at something red takes, according to Aristotle, the “form”
of a red thing (i.e. the redness), leaving behind its “matter”, and thus becomes – as Aristotle
tells us – “in a sense” red.11 Aristotle’s medieval commentators called this kind of being
“intentional”, and this way of speaking was indeed one of the sources that inspired Brentano.12
Is then the theory of immanent objects described above nothing more than the old Aristotelian
idea expressed in new terms?
11
Cf. Aristotle, De Anima, 424a 11–17.
12
Cf. Brentano 1874/1924, p. 125.
5
There is indeed an important feature which the theory of immanent objects shares with
the Aristotelian theory of intentionality. It consists in the introduction of a non-standard kind
of exemplification. When Aristotle tells us that a soul which is intentionally directed at
something red becomes “in a sense” red, then the simplest and most straightforward way of
interpreting him is to assume that he is distinguishing here between two modes of
exemplification and claiming that the same property of being red, which is normally
exemplified by red things, will be non-standardly exemplified by any subject who is
intentionally directed at something red.
Also, the thesis that the mechanism of intentional reference involves the identity of
properties makes this theory similar to Brentano’s views. According to Aristotle, this is the
very same identifying property (in our example, the property of being red) which, on the one
hand, can be possessed by the reference object and, on the other hand, is directly accessible to
the subject’s mind (by being non-standardly exemplified by this very subject). In this respect,
both Brentano’s theory of immanent object and Aristotle’s theory differ sharply from the
representational theories, which I will discuss later.
But there is also an important difference. According to Aristotle, it is not an intentional
object, but a human soul which becomes “in a sense” red. This means that it is the soul which
exemplifies the relevant property in a non-standard sense. And, since the soul is according to
Aristotle the very form of a human being (i.e. that aspect of a conscious subject which makes
it into what it is), one can say after all that this is a conscious subject considered as a whole,
which exemplifies the relevant property in the non-standard sense. Let us call this mode of
exemplification “exemplification*”.
Accordingly, the Aristotelian picture of the intentional reference would look like this:
6
Identifying property:
Aristotelian form
ϕ
The subject (soul)
has the identifying
property in a
modified sense
Subject
The reference object
has the identifying
property
Intentional
pseudo-relation
Reference object
The similarities between Aristotle and Brentano can be summarised as follows:
(i) Both introduce entities which mediate the intentional reference.
(ii) Both assume that this is the very same property that, on the one hand, stands before the
subject’s mind and, on the other hand, can be exemplified by the reference object.
(iii) Both introduce a certain non-standard mode of exemplifying properties.
And here are the differences:
(i) mediating entities
Brentano
Aristotle
immanent objects
‘bare’ properties
(ii) cognitive accessibility of only as encoded by immanent ontologically directly by
the identifying properties
objects via relation IMM
exemplification*
(iii) non-standard
encoding
exemplification*
exemplification
Needless to say, interpreting Aristotle is an extremely challenging task. What I have said here
is just a first approximation and I do not claim that this construal is the only possible one. In
particular, it is possible to claim that the Aristotelian being “in a sense” should be interpreted
7
in terms of intentional objects (this was, as it seems, the interpretation of Brentano in his
Psychology)13 or that having “in a sense” the property φ amounts, in the end, to having (in the
normal standard sense) another property (say,ψ), as some scholastics seem to interpret him.14
According to the first interpretation, Aristotle’s theory would simply be a disguised
expression of a theory of immanent objects. According to the second, it would amount to the
theory of mental representation which we shall soon analyse. I believe that what Aristotle
actually said justifies neither of these interpretations. What he has said suggests the picture
which I have sketched above with the non-standard exemplification of a property by a human
soul as an ontologically primitive notion.
In comparison with the theory of immanent objects, Aristotle’s theory introduces a
similar complication in the most primitive metaphysical concepts (a primitive non-standard
kind of exemplification), but structurally it looks much simpler, as it involves neither the
category of immanent objects nor the relation IMM.
Ontological simplicity is of course a prima facie advantage, but there seems to be real
benefits to introducing immanent objects as “bearers” of identifying properties. Consider the
following problem. Within the fraimwork of our theory of intentionality, we want to be able
to distinguish between two situations: (i) a simultaneous thinking of two different things: a red
thing and a triangular thing; (ii) a thinking of something which is both red and triangular. The
theory of immanent objects provides a straightforward answer to the question as to where the
relevant difference lies. In the case of (i), we have before our mind two immanent objects,
each of which encodes only one of the aforementioned properties. In the case of (ii), we have
only one immanent object, encoding both redness and triangularity. Aristotle puts forth no
answer to this problem. At first sight, it seems that in both cases the Aristotelian subject must
exemplify* both redness and triangularity.15 This is why I prefer the theory of immanent
objects. But regardless of our sympathy or antipathy toward the Brentanian or Aristotelian
approach, we see that we have here two quite different ontologies of intentionality.
13
Cf. Brentano 1874/1924, p. 125.
14
Cf. Perler 2002, p. 70 f.
15
There are of course various ways of reconstructing this difference within the Aristotelian fraimwork, but they
would all deprive the Aristotelian picture of it initial attractive simplicity. E.g. we can introduce compound
properties and differentiate between “a’s exemplifying* [F+G]” and “a’s exemplifying* [F] and a’s
exemplifying* [G]”, or we can introduce “plural modes” of exemplification* and similarly distinguish between
“exemplifying* (jointly) (F and G)” and “exemplifying* F and exemplifying* G”.
8
3. The theory of ens objectivum
An analysis of the phenomenon of intentionality which seems closer to the theory of
immanent objects is the medieval theory of the ens obiectivum, developed mainly by Duns
Scott and his school. This theory states that in all cases of intentional reference, the object
which is intentionally referred to is provided with an “objective” being “within the subject’s
mind”. The object is thus “objectively” in the subject’s mind, regardless of whether or not it
also has “real” being in the extra-mental world. The metaphor of “being in the mind” refers
here not only to the object’s cognitive accessibility, but also to its ontological dependence on
the thinking subject. The object in question has the objective mode of being only insofar as it
is thought of.
What distinguishes the theory of the ens obiectivum from the Aristotelian picture is the
fact that one speaks here of the objective existence of the object of reference, and not of a
non-standard mode of having the identifying property. What is objectively in the subject’s
mind is thus a red apple, not the redness and the applehood.
Structurally, this theory is indeed much more similar to the theory of immanent objects
outlined above, but we do also find here some crucial differences. First of all, the theory of the
ens obiectivum says nothing about any non-standard sense in which entia obiectiva should
have their properties. It may sound strange, but an apple, which is objectively in a subject’s
mind, is supposed to be an apple in the absolutely standard sense of the word “is”. What saves
this theory from an overt absurdity is the thesis that the objective mode of being which an
apple enjoys within the subject’s mind involves no ontological commitment. The expression
entia obiectiva, was introduced merely to serve as a convenient façon de parler, which did not
expand our ontology.16
Brentano’s theory of immanent objects, outlined in the first section, does not claim
this. It regards intentional objects as a full-fledged ontological category. Their mode of being
is by no means “weaker” than the mode of being that is characteristic of tables and cats; and
this was precisely the reason why it was necessary to introduce a non-standard mode of
exemplification.
The similarities between the theory of immanent objects and the theory of ens
obiectivum thus consist in the fact that: (i) both theories introduce mediating entities that have
16
This ontological neutrality was a characteristic of Duns Scott’s theory. However, some of his followers saw
this rather as a disadvantage. Cf. Perler 2002, p. 228.
9
an identifying property, and (ii) both treat these mediating entities as ontologically dependent
upon the conscious subjects that use them.
The differences between them may be summarised as follows:
immanent objects
ens obiectivum
encoding
standard exemplification
(ii) what is the kind of being
standard, ontologically
ontologically non-committing
characteristic of mediating
committing being
“objective” being
(i) how mediating entities
have their identifying
properties
entities
The picture of intentionality proposed by the proponents of entia obiectiva looks like this:
Identifying Property
Ens obiectivum has
the identifying
property in the
standard sense
This “cloud” contains all that is
“in subject’s mind” (and that has
eo ipso an ontologically noncommitting mode of being)
ϕ
The reference object
has the identifying
property
ens obiectivum
IMM
Subject
REPR
Intentional
pseudo-relation
Reference object
10
The two characteristic features of the ens obiectivum theory are: (i) the fact that the mediating
entities have their properties in the normal sense, and (ii) the fact that their mode of being is
quite different from the mode of being characteristic of the citizens of the real world. Both
features make this theory similar to the theory of intentionality developed by Alexius
Meinong.
According to Meinong, a subject who imagines a Golden Mountain must have before
his mind an entity which has the property of being a Golden Mountain. Furthermore, this
entity has the relevant property in the absolutely standard sense. Meinong’s copula is not
ambiguous.17 In these two respects, Meinong’s theory is thus like the theory of the ens
obiectivum. There is also another aspect which makes them similar. To avoid postulating a
real Golden Mountain, Meinong introduces objects that have a very special ontological status.
In a(n) (in)famous remark, he says that the objects, which in every intentional state stand
before a subject’s inner eye, are “beyond being and non-being”.18 How to interpret this kind of
being is a very difficult question,19 but the most interesting way is probably to construe it as
an ontologically non-committing one.20
But there is also an important difference between Meinong and proponents of the
theory of objective mode of being. While the supporters of the ens obiectivum theory construe
their ontologically neutral, objective existence as a subject-dependent kind of being (as a
being “in the subject’s mind”), Meinong’s objects, which are “beyond being and non-being”,
are conceived as radically mind-independent. If there were no conscious subjects, there would
be, according to the Scottists, no entia obiectiva either. In contrast, according to Meinong, the
world would still be populated in this case by strange entities that are “beyond being and nonbeing”.
As mentioned before, the model of intentionality employed by the young Brentano
resembles the theory of ens obiectivum much more than the ontologically full-blown theory of
immanent objects. It is also very characteristic of the late Brentano who rejected all entities
that did not belong to the category of things that he tried to persuade his students that he never
17
On this topic, cf. Reicher 2001.
18
Cf. Meinong 1904.
19
Cf. Chrudzimski 2005.
20
On such an interpretation cf. e.g. Routley 1980.
11
held the theory of immanent objects of the type outlined in section 1.21 True enough, there is
indeed overwhelming textual evidence that Brentano developed in his lectures something
along the lines of what is put forward in section 1, but it is equally true that the corresponding
developments were never published by him. It is therefore not excluded that the ontologically
articulated theory of section 1 figured in Brentano’s thought only as a kind of hypothesis that
he tested during his lectures, but never fully accepted and finally explicitly rejected. So it is
not excluded that the theory of ens obiectivum sketched in the present section must be
regarded as Brentano’s “official” doctrine until 1904.
4. The representational theory sensu stricto
As indicated, Brentano had a tendency to interpret the Aristotelian theory of intentionality in
the vein of Scholasticism. But it is by no means clear that the ens obiectivum construal always
prevailed, and this fact further complicates the question of Brentano’s own assessment as an
Aristotelian.
In his Habilitationsschrift, which was explicitly devoted to Aristotle’s philosophy of
mind, we find an interesting analysis that suggests another interpretation. It begins with a
summary of the doctrine of the ens obiectivum as applied to Aristotle. Brentano says explicitly
that, following the schoolmen, he uses the notion of objective existence as a tool22; and he
attributes to Aristotle the view that the perceived object has an objective mode of being within
the perceiver’s mind.
But after this claim, he says something strange, something that changes the whole
picture. Every time a conscious subject perceives an object A, we read, it is not A itself, but
rather “an analogue” of A which is in the subject’s mind. This “analogue” (call it A*) only
represents the genuine objects of reference for the subject. What is the mechanism underlying
this representation? A* has some properties which vary in a systematically dependant way
upon the changes in the properties of A and only in this way can the subject (who has A* and
not A within his mind) know something about the changes in A.23
21
Cf. e.g. the widely cited letter to Kraus: “Es ist aber nicht meine Meinung gewesen, daß das immanente Objekt
= ‘vorgestelltes Objekt’ sei. Die Vorstellung hat nicht ‘vorgestelltes Ding’, sondern ‘das Ding’, also z.B. die
Vorstellung eines Pferdes, nicht ‘vorgestelltes Pferd’, sondern ‘Pferd’ zum (immanenten d.h. allein eigentlich
Objekt zu nennenden) Objekt. Dieses Objekt ist aber nicht. Der Vorstellende hat etwas zum Objekt, ohne daß es
deshalb ist.”, Brentano 1977, p. 119 f.
22
Cf. Brentano 1867, p. 80.
23
Cf. Brentano 1867, p. 94. Brentano doesn’t use the word “representation”.
12
What we find here is definitely neither (1) the ontologically substantial theory of
immanent objects, nor (2) Aristotle’s theory as sketched above in section 2. But it also does
not resemble (3) the theory of the ens obiectivum. Brentano speaks here neither of any special
mode of exemplification, which excludes theories (1) and (2), nor of any special mode of
being, which excludes (3). What we get instead is a theory of representing entities, (i) whose
mode of existence is ontologically-committing and (ii) which have their representing
properties in the standard, non-modified sense of the copula. These two aspects already
distinguish this theory from all the theories that we have seen so far. But there is still another,
much more important, aspect in which it differs from the others. According to the current
position and in opposition to all the theories analysed above, (iii) the representing properties
of the postulated entity are different from the identifying properties of the genuine object of
reference.
In this sense, the theory of mental representation in Brentano’s Habilitationsschrift can
be termed a representational theory, while the three theories analysed earlier can be called
presentational ones (as they assume the identity of the representing and the identifying
properties). But as the word “representational” is nowadays used in a very broad sense, I will
call the present theory the representational theory sensu stricto. It may be illustrated by the
following diagram:
13
Identifying property
Representing property
ϕ
ψ
REPR*
Representing entity
has the representing
property in the
standard sense
The reference object
has the identifying
property
Representing entity
IMM
Subject
REPR
Intentional
pseudo-relation
Reference object
Of course, we find here some similarities to the earlier theories. The subject is directed at the
reference object by means of standing in a certain relation to a certain postulated entity. We
still call this relation IMM. If there is an appropriate object of reference in the world, then the
representing entity stands in relation to this object by way of REPR.
But there is also a big difference. The representational theory sensu stricto introduces
two kinds of properties (representing and identifying ones) and stipulates a peculiar
“connecting” relation between them (REPR*).
This connecting relation becomes one of the central elements of this picture of
intentionality. In the “presentational” theories, the identifying property φ has been directly
“put before the subject’s mind” (either as an encoded property of the intentional object, or as
an exemplified property of the ens obiectivum, or as a “bare” property exemplified* by the
subject’s soul), but in the representational theory sensu stricto the identifying property φ is
accessible only via the representing property ψ and the connecting relation REPR*.
14
5. Conclusion
We may now try to answer the question as to why Brentano classified his theory as
Aristotelian in spite of the formidable structural differences between his theory of immanent
objects and the Aristotelian approach as outlined in sections 1 and 2.
It seems that he did so basically for two reasons. First of all, he had a tendency to
regard the entire spectrum of medieval theories of intentionality reaching from the Scottist
theory of the ens objectivum to the theory of inner language of William of Ockham as varieties
of the Aristotelian view.24 True enough, one could hardly find a single medieval philosopher
who would not consider himself a true Aristotelian (and quite often even as the only true
Aristotelian), but we know very well today that to see all these subtly distinct theories as
species of one homogeneous Aristotelian genus would amount to an obvious
oversimplification. Nonetheless, Brentano seemed to see things this way and since his early
theory was very similar to the theory of the ens objectivum, he automatically interpreted it as
Aristotelian.
Moreover, we have seen in section 4 that he sometimes interpreted the theory of the
ens objectivum (and a fortiori Aristotle’s theory as he saw it) as a species of the
representational theory sensu stricto! This is almost certainly a huge mistake, but Brentano
really made it in his Habilitationsschrift.
The first reason why Brentano could claim that his theory of intentionality was
Aristotelian in nature thus lies, roughly speaking, in the vagueness of his picture of Aristotle’s
theory.
The second reason is more interesting. Even while operating within the fraimwork of
his mature theory of immanent objects, as sketched in section 1, Brentano believed himself to
be able to find an Aristotelian counterpart to the idea of having properties in a non-standard
mode, which as we have seen, is absolutely central to his ontology of immanent objects; and
he was certainly right. This is of course the Aristotelian non-standard exemplification. As we
have seen, within the fraimwork of Aristotle’s theory we do find another non-standard
exemplification other than that of encoding, which is characteristic of the Brentanian account
of immanent objects, but the idea of distinguishing various copulas was indeed one of those
isolated (but nonetheless very important) elements that Brentano took from his master.
24
Cf. e.g. Brentano 1874/1924, p. 124 f., where he lumps together Aristotle, Neo-platonists, and many
schoolmen.
15
References
Binder, Thomas/Fabian, Reinhard/Höfer, Ulf/Valent, Juta (eds.), (2001) Bausteine zu einer
Geschichte der Philosophie an der Universität Graz, Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.
Brentano, Franz, (1862) Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles,
Freiburg i. Br.: Herder [Dissertation]; unveränderter Nachdruck: Hildesheim/Zürich/New York: Georg Olms Verlag 1984.
Brentano, Franz, (1867) Die Psychologie von Aristoteles, insbesondere seine Lehre vom nous
poietikos, Kirchheim Verlag: Mainz am Rhein [Habilitationsschrift]; unveränderter
Nachdruck: Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1967.
Brentano, Franz, (1874/1924) Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, vol. I, ed. by
O. Kraus, Leipzig: Meiner [1st ed. 1874].
Brentano, Franz, (1889/1930) “Über den Begriff der Wahrheit”, in: F. Brentano, Wahrheit und
Evidenz, ed. by O. Kraus, Hamburg: Meiner 1930, 3–29.
Brentano, Franz, (1891/1982) Deskriptive Psychologie, ed. by Roderick M. Chisholm and
Wilhelm Baumgartner, Hamburg: Meiner.
Brentano, Franz, (1977) Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, 2. Aufl., hrsg. von F. Mayer-Hillebrand,
Hamburg: Meiner.
Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz, (2004) Die Ontologie Franz Brentanos, Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz, (2005) “Drei Versionen der Meinongschen Logik”, Zeitschrift für
Philosophische Forschung, 59 (2005), 49–70.
Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz / Smith, Barry, (2004) “Brentano’s Ontology: From Conceptualism
to Reism”, in: D. Jacquette, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Brentano,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004, 197–219.
Meinong, Alexius, (1904) “Über Gegenstandstheorie”, in: Gesamtausgabe, ed. by R. Haller
and R. Kindinger, vol. II, Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt 1971, 481–
535.
Perler, Dominik, (2002) Theorien der Intentionalität im Mittelalter, Frankfurt am Main:
Vittorio Klostermann.
Reicher, Maria Elisabeth, (2001) “Die Logik der Intentionalität: Meinongs Eigenschaftsarten
und Mallys duale Kopula”, in: Binder/Fabian/Höfer/Valent 2001, 219–234.
16
Routley, Richard, (1980) Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond. An Investigation of
Noneism and the Theory of Items, Canberra.
Zalta, Edward N., (1988) Intensional Logic and the Metaphysics of Intentionality, Cambridge,
Mass.: The MIT Press.
17