Arkadiusz Chrudzimski

Franz Brentanos (1838-1917) Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte aus dem Jahre 1874 gehört zu den Klassikern der Philosophie und der Psychologie. Mit diesem Werk, das den Ausgangspunkt sowohl für die phänomenologische Tradition als auch für die heutige Philosophie des Geistes markiert, konnte sich Brentano im damaligen philosophischen Panorama durchsetzen - sein Name ist auch heute noch unauflöslich mit diesem Werk verknüpft. Die Entdeckung bzw. Wiederentdeckung der Grundstruktur psychischer Phänomene, d. h. deren Intentionalität, stellt wohl den wichtigsten Beitrag Brentanos zum Aufbau einer Analytik des Geistes dar.

Wittgenstein's Tractatus [6] contains some very striking theses. We read, e.g., that \in a sense" we could not be wrong in logic, and that the whole subject matter of the theory of modalities could be reconstructed on the ground of the insights in the mechanism of the linguistic reference. Yet in the light of the last sentences of Tractatus the whole semantics turns out to be principally ineffable. In our paper we will try to clarify these matters. We show how these theses could be made plausible in the context of the transcendental method of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

In this paper I focus on the concept of neutrality taken in the meaning typical for political discussions concerning e.g. the religious neutrality of the state. I take it for granted that the huge majority of educated people belonging to the so called “western culture” would agree that the most important institutions of our social life – such as schools, courts, and parliaments – should be neutral in this sense. But on the other hand it is extremely difficult to formulate a set of precise and reliable criteria allowing us to exclude particular statements, arguments or kinds of discourse as violating this principle of neutrality. The sad truth is that the term “neutrality”, even if restricted to the meaning that is relevant to this paper, is rather vague. Nevertheless I want to propose three types of criteria that can be helpful in attaining this goal. They will be termed: (i) content criterion, (ii) epistemic criterion, and (iii) pragmatic criterion. It seems that if we apply all these criteria together, we will be able to secure a reasonable degree of neutrality in our public debates.

In a paper entitled A Semantical Version of the Problem of Transcendental Idealism, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz gives a very impressive analysis of transcendental idealism. He approaches the matter using the tools of formal semantics developed by Alfred Tarski and draws a rather surprising conclusion. According to Ajdukiewicz, the idealist position, claiming that the world around us is ontologically dependent on our cognitive activity can be shown to be implausible on purely logical grounds. It is worth taking a closer look at this insightful argument, since Ajdukiewicz’s analysis, if sound, has a relevance reaching far beyond purely historical questions concerning the right interpretation and proper assessment of past idealist doctrines. These days various species of idealism are thriving under such labels as ‘anti realism’ or ‘pragmatism’. Ajdukiewicz’s venerable paper goes to the very core of many contemporary metaphysical discussions.

Die oberflächengrammatische Form einer Beschreibung der inten-tio-nalen Beziehung (eines intentionalen Kontextes) suggeriert, daß wir es mit einer Relation zwischen dem Subjekt und dem Objekt zu tun haben. Angesichts der logischen Anomalien der intentionalen Kontexte (das Scheitern der Regel der Existenz- Gene-rali--sierung) postulieren jedoch viele Philosophen spezielle Entitäten, die den intentionalen Zugang zum eigentlichen Referenzobjekt vermitteln. Wir untersuchen drei Intentionalitätstheorien dieser Art: (i) eine Meinongsche Theorie; (ii) eine Brentanosche Theorie; und (iii) eine Repräsentationstheorie sensu stricto. Alle Theorien akzeptie-ren die These, daß die vermittelnden Entitäten nur in der Weise repräsentieren können, indem sie eine Beschreibung des (eventuellen) Referenzobjektes involvieren. Die Unterschiede zwischen ihnen betreffen drei Fragen: (i) ob zwischen den Eigenschaften, die die vermittelnden Entitäten haben, und den-jenigen, die den (eventuellen) Referenzobjekten zukommen, das Verhältnis der Identität besteht; (ii) ob die Weise, in der die Eigenschaften „gehabt" werden, in beiden Fällen die gleiche ist; und (iii) ob die Weise, in der es die betreffenden Entitäten gibt, immer ontologisch verpflichtend ist.

In Reinach’s works one finds a very rich ontology of states of affairs. Some of them are positive, some negative. Some of them obtain, some do not. But even the negative and non-obtaining states of affairs are absolutely independent of any mental activity. Despite this claim of the “ontological equality” of positive and negative states of affairs, there are, according to Reinach, massive epistemological differences in our cognitive access to them. Positive states of affairs can be directly “extracted” from our experience, while to acquire a negative belief we must pass through a quite complicated process, starting with certain positive beliefs. A possible and reasonable explanation of this discrepancy would be a theory to the effect that these epistemological differences have their basis in the ontology of the entities in question. Our knowledge of the negative states of affairs is essentially dependent on our knowledge of the positive ones precisely becausethe negative states of affairs are ontologically dependent on the positive ones. Such a theory has, in fact, been formulated by Roman Ingarden. According to him, negative states of affairs supervene on some positive ones and on certain mental acts of the conscious subjects.

The most striking feature of Meinong's theory of intentionality is his thesis that every mental act has its reference‐object “beyond being and non being”. This theory seems, at first, to be a clear example of the so called object‐theory of intentionality, as it introduces special “postulated” entities in the target‐position of the mental act. Closer examination, however, reveals in Meinong's works important elements of the mediator‐theory. Meinong speaks of auxiliary incomplete objects situated “between” the subject and the object of reference and “mediating” the intentional access to the reference‐object. Moreover, even if the object of reference is of the simple nominal form, the mediating structure involves essentially propositional entities. In the paper we attempt to give a set‐theoretical interpretation of Meinong's theory in the frame of which we could eventually do without the incomplete mediating objects. Yet, some general epistemological considerations suggest the indispensability of such incomplete mediating structures.

At least since Hume we have a serious problem with explaining our moral valuations. Most of us – with notable exception of certain (in)famous esoteric thinkers like Nietzsche or De Sade – share a common intuition that our moral claims are in an important sense objective. We believe that they can be right or wrong; and we believe that if they happen to be right, then they are binding for each human being conducting a similar action in similar circumstances. Now Hume drew our attention to the fact that our valuations do not follow from descriptions of the actions in question. There seems to be nothing in the “descriptive content” of the world around us that could make them true or false and in face of that it becomes very puzzling how they ever could be right, objective or committing. As we all know Hume’s solution proclaims emotions as the basis of our moral valuations. Calling something right or wrong should be in the first place understood as an expression of our emotional attitude toward it. This move explains a part of the initial puzzle, but it also leaves us with a certain unpleasant consequence. It seems that in the strict sense emotions could be neither rational nor true, and consequently we can hardly imagine any conclusive moral argument. De gustibus non disputandum est. Our feeling of objectivity vis a vis our moral valuations has to be classified as a kind of illusion and what follows is a kind of moral relativism or scepticism. Some philosophers are happy with this conclusion, but some others find it untenable. Brentano and his followers belonged to the second group. They generally accepted Hume’s claim that emotions constitute the basis of our moral valuations but developed interesting strategies to avoid his relativistic conclusions.

Ontology is doubtless the most important part of Roman Ingarden’s (1893-1970) philosophy. Contrary to Husserl, Ingarden always believed that any serious philosophical investigation must involve an ontological basis and he tried to formulate a solid ontological framework for his philosophy. There are several reasons why this ontology deserves our attention. For those who are interested in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, Ingarden’s ontology could be treated as an ingenious attempt to analyse the conceptual structure and hidden ontological assumptions of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. For those who want to understand the immanent dialectics of the post-Brentanian development of the ontology of intentionality, Ingarden’s conception of the purely intentional object could be a very valuable tool. But Ingarden’s ontology has also independent value, and hence it is also interesting for those who pursue ontology for its own sake. In this paper, I will investigate the basic scheme of Ingarden’s ontology, including pure qualities, individual real objects, purely intentional objects and ideas. This schema will prove to be in many aspects generated by his phenomenological, i.e. descriptive and anti-reductionist, ideology.

The book is an analytic exposition of Brentano's early theory of intentionality. In spite of the immense influence of this theory it is the first separate monograph on this topic. The book is based in great part on the unpublished manuscripts where one can find substantially better articulated formulations then those expressed in the already published `standard' works. Our analysis concentrates mainly on the ontological and epistemological problems of Brentano's immanent object. We highlight an interesting ambiguity of this concept and try to outline the inner logic of its evolution. It turns out that Brentano's early philosophy of intentionality should be conceived not as a single, well defined theory but rather as a bundle of kindred but not always fully consistent and sometimes even competing ideas. Primary audience for the work are philosophers interested in Brentano's philosophy, theory of intentionality and its epistemology and ontology, phenomenologists and cognitive scientists. Das Buch bietet eine analytische Darstellung von Brentanos früher Theorie der Intentionalität. Trotz der großen historischen Bedeutung dieser Theorie bildet es die erste Monographie zu diesem Thema. Das Buch basiert zum größten Teil auf den unveröffentlichten Manuskripten, in denen man die Formulierungen findet, die viel besser artikuliert sind als jene, die in den publizierten Standard-Werken Brentanos zu finden sind. Unsere Analyse konzentriert sich in erster Linie auf die ontologischen und epistemischen Probleme des Brentanoschen immanenten Objekts. Wir besprechen eine interessante Mehrdeutigkeit dieses Begriffs und skizzieren die innere Logik seiner Entwicklung. Es stellt sich heraus, daß die frühe Philosophie der Intentionalität Brentanos nicht als eine einheitliche, eindeutig bestimmte Theorie, sondern eher als ein Bündel von verwandten, jedoch nicht immer völlig koherenten und manchmal sogar konkurrierenden Ideen interpretiert werden soll. Das Buch wendet sich in erster Linie an die Philosophen, die sich für die Philosophie Brentanos, für die österreichische Philosophie, für die Theorie der Intentionalität und ihre Epistemologie und Ontologie interessieren. Es wird ferner auch für die Phänomenologen und die Forscher im Bereich der cognitive science interessant sein.

Das Buch bietet die erste systematische esamtdarstellung der Ontologie Brentanos. Es zeigt, daß es in Brentanos ontologischem Denken drei Perioden gibt: die frühe "konzeptualistische" (1862-1874), die mittlere "deskriptiv-psychologische" (1874-1904) und die späte "reistische" (1904-1917). Diese drei Perioden werden in ihrer Kontinuität und komplizierten Dialektik unter Rückgriff auf unveröffentlichte Manuskripte Brentanos dargestellt. Dabei wird von dem logischen Handwerkszeug der zeitgenössischen analytischen Ontologie Gebrauch gemacht. Das Buch wendet sich nicht nur an Brentano-Forscher, sondern an alle an ontologischen Fragen Interessierten. Die Analysen zur Ontologie der Intentionalität sind insbesondere für Phänomenologen und für Forscher im Bereich der cognitive science von Interesse.

Ingarden’s official ontology of states of affairs is by no means reductionist. According to him there are states of affairs, but they are ontologically dependent onother entities. There are certain classical arguments for the introduction of states of affairs as extra entities over and above the nominal objects, that can be labelled “the problem of composition,” “the problem of relation” and “the problem of negation.” To the first two Ingarden proposes rather traditional solutions, while his treatment of negation proves to be original and interesting. Ingarden doesn’t deny the existence of negative states of affairs altogether, but he (i) accepts only a restricted group of them and (ii) ascribes to them an extremely weak mode of being. Negative states of affairs are construed as supervenient entities, and their supervenience-basis involves two factors: on the one hand the appropriate positive states of affairs, and on the other hand certain mental acts of conscious subjects. They enjoy thus a curious “half-subjective” mode of being.

In this paper I propose a certain classification of entities which are introduced in various theories of intentionality under the label ‘intentional objects’. Franz Brentano’s immanent objects, Alexius Meinong’s entities ‘beyond being and non-being’, or Roman Ingarden’s purely intentional objects can serve as examples of such entities. What they all have in common is that they have been introduced in order to extensionalise the so called ‘intentional contexts’ (‘intentional’ with ‘t’). But not all entities which function this way deserve the name of intentional objects. In particular, neither Frege’s senses nor mental contents of the early Husserl are to be classified as intentional objects in my sense. Roughly speaking, to be properly called ‘an intentional object’ a postulated entity must be supposed to function as a quasi-target of the subject’s intention. In other words: intentional objects are supposed to stand ‘before the subject’s mind’, so that they, in a sense, ‘replace’ the common sense objects of reference. It turns out that the intentional objects that were introduced in the history of philosophy make up groups which, from the ontological point of view, are very heterogeneous. Nevertheless it is possible to formulate certain systematic criteria of classifying them.

In Reinach’s works one finds a very rich ontology of states of affairs. Some of them are positive, some negative. Some of them obtain, some do not. But even the negative and non-obtaining states of affairs are absolutely independent of any mental activity. Now in spite of this claim of the “ontological equality” of positive and negative states of affairs there are, according to Reinach, massive epistemological differences in our cognitive access to them. Positive states of affairs could be directly “extracted” from our experience while to acquire a negative belief we must pass a quite complicated process starting with certain positive beliefs. A possible and reasonable explanation of this discrepancy would be a theory to the effect that these epistemological differences have their basis in the ontology of the entities in question. Our knowledge of the negative states of affairs is essentially dependent on our knowledge of the positive ones precisely because the negative states of affairs are ontologically dependent on the positive ones. Such a theory has been in fact formulated by Roman Ingarden. According to him negative states of affairs supervene on some positive ones and on certain mental acts of the conscious subjects.

About 1904 Meinong formulated his most famous idea: there are no empty (non-referential) terms. Russell also did not accept non-referential singular terms, but in “On Denoting” he claimed that all singular terms that are apparently empty could be explained away as apparent singular terms. However, if we take a more careful look at both theories, the picture becomes more complex. It is well known that Russell’s concept of a genuine proper name is very technical; but this is also true of Meinong. Also, according to Meinong we can refer “directly” only to a very special category of ontologically simple objects. However, a very important difference is that, in the domain of Meinongian objects, a _plurality_ of objects always corresponds to each description. Thus, if Meinong were right, there could be _no definite descriptions_. If we narrow the domain of reference to _existent_ objects, we can secure the uniqueness of the reference object by specifying a collection of predicates that is contingently satisfied by only one (existing) object. But if we operate in the domain of all _possible_ objects, we have to specify _all_ properties that are had by the object in question. It turns out that such a “Leibnizian” specification amounts to the complete description of a possible world.