Gianfranco Soldati

This paper deals with the experiential basis of deductive reasoning. It concentrates on the case of inferential knowledge in the first person. It first describes the specific kind of entitlement involved in such knowledge. A comparison is then made with inferential knowledge involving other indexical and demonstrative concepts. The entitlement involved in those cases is based on the fact that indexicals such as “here” and “now” are associated with experiential concepts. It is submitted that the concept associated to the expression “I” is an experiential concept application of which presupposes a special sensitivity to the identity of the self through time.

It is widely accepted that experience is given in the first person in a special way, different from the way it is presented in the third person. To say that an experience is given to the subject in a special way might be taken to mean that there is a special way a subject can come to know her own experience. The claim under scrutiny is that one cannot accept the idea that there is a special way a subject can come to know her own experience and yet reject the presence of phenomenal mineness. I label this contention the mineness link. I argue against it and propose an alternative. An argument against the mineness link is not as such an argument against phenomenal mineness. The present project might be understood as arguing for the epistemological inefficiency of mineness, rather than for its psychological unreality.

Brentano wrote that “the true method of philosophy is none other than that of the natural sciences.” Does this mean that he thought philosophy ought to operate in the same way as the natural sciences? Does it mean that he took the laws of his descriptive psychology to describe natural features of consciousness? Would intentionality thus be a natural feature of the mind, in the way digestion is a natural feature of the body? This paper argues against such a view. It first discusses the nature of Brentano’s descriptive psychology, which is said to be empirically based on inner perception. The laws of inner perception cannot be obtained by standard induction, since they are supposed to be exact (or strict) and exceptionless in the way mathematical theorems are. Inner perception is said to be evident in the sense that, in inner perception, experiences appear as they are. Even if this sort of evidence applies to each experience, it cannot serve as an inductive basis for the corresponding laws. How does Brentano move from the evidence delivered by each instance of inner perception to the exact laws of descriptive psychology? The paper argues that the laws of descriptive psychology are best understood as analytic statements, obtained through phenomenological analysis. Psychological concepts are analysed by inquiring into the way experiences appear in inner perception. Since experiences appear as they are, this sort of analysis reveals their nature. This, and not induction, grounds the claim that psychological laws are strict and exceptionless. Phenomenological analysis requires more than mere understanding: one must also be acquainted with the associated phenomena. Phenomenological analysis, contrary to the empiricist analysis of concepts, is not a priori. Brentano’s phenomenological analysis is compared with other forms of conceptual analysis. It is shown that it does not aim to deliver any form of metaphysical reduction (e.g., reducing all true statements to statements about experiences) or epistemological foundation (e.g., grounding all knowledge ultimately in inner perception). It is then shown how Brentano applies his methodology to intuitive judgements, as exemplified by formal axioms. The paper concludes with considerations on Brentano’s concept of truth, showing that his influential account of values (including truth) in terms of fitting response is a natural consequence of his general suggestion that central philosophical concepts—such as being, causality, and precisely truth—ought to be subjected to phenomenological analysis. This means that we must ask ourselves how truth appears to consciousness. Brentano thus questions the coherence of a concept of truth that could be applied without our understanding what it would take for it to be manifest in consciousness.

The article sets the temporal and theoretical framework of early phenomenology, focusing on Brentano and Husserl, and outlines its shift from psychology to ontology as a pivotal stage leading to the emergence of analytic philosophy. The author emphasizes that both early phenomenology and analytic philosophy were characterized by a pronounced anti-psychologism, with the naturalistic form of anti-psychologism tracing directly back to Brentano’s and Husserl’s phenomenology, distinct from the later transcendental variant. The nineteenth-century debate on the relationship between philosophy and psychology is examined, from Kant’s critique of empirical psychology to Brentano’s descriptive psychology and the development of early phenomenology. In conclusion, Soldati argues that the naturalistic yet philosophical account of consciousness offered by early phenomenologists provided the foundational premises for the birth of analytic philosophy.

There is a tendency, in contemporary epistemology, to treat ‘perceptual knowledge’ and ‘self-knowledge’ as labels for different and largely unconnected sets of philosophical problems. The project of this volume is to bring out how much is to be gained from treating the two topics as, on the contrary, intimately connected. One set of questions that comes into view when we do concerns the sense in which perceptual knowledge, as understood from the first-person perspective, seem to be ‘direct’. In a famous passage, Austin contrasted reliance on what we call ‘evidence’ with the way perceptual experience ‘settles’ questions. How should we understand the difference? In what sense is perceptual knowledge ‘direct’, in contradistinction to evidence-based, inferential knowledge? A connected set of issues has to do with the relationship between the epistemic authority of perception and self-consciousness. Is the way perceptual experience ‘settles’ questions inherently manifest to the perceiver? Is a perceiver’s awareness of (e.g.) seeing that p to be explained by reference to the very capacities at work in seeing that p? Or does it reflect the operation of some kind of second-order perceptual capacity? Consideration of these matters, in turn, prompts questions about the nature of the first-person perspective. ‘I can see that p’ is a first-person self-ascription. But does it express the distinctively immediate kind of knowledge commonly labelled first-person self-knowledge? How would an affirmative answer to this question bear on a philosophical understanding of the ‘first-person perspective’?

This paper deals with the nature of perceptual appearances. It argues that they are objective relational properties of external objects. In perceptual experience, we are acquainted with such appearances. These are not sense data, as usually understood, and they are not identical to the properties we attribute to external objects through the usage of qualitative concepts such as ‘red’, ‘square’ and ‘sweet.’ We use such concepts in order to describe properties that are manifest in perception, not in order to describe appearances. One and the same property, such as the bent shape of a stick, can appear in different ways in different contexts. None of those ways is more or less appropriate, because things simply appear the way they do. The choice of a certain context determines the normal conditions for the possession of qualitative concepts. Standard perceptual illusions are perceptual experiences. They mislead us, not because they are incorrect, but because they prompt us to use concepts that are not appropriate under the obtaining conditions.

In this paper we shall address some issues concerning the relation between the content and the nature of perceptual experience. More precisely, we shall ask whether the claim that perceptual experiences are by nature relational implies that they cannot be intentional. As we shall see, much depends in this respect on the way one understands the possibility for one to be wrong about the phenomenal nature of one’s own experience. We shall argue that once this very possibility is properly understood, the metaphysical claim that perceptual experiences are relational is compatible with the view that they are intentional. Before presenting the argument, we should try to articulate some elements of an intentionalist approach concerning the role of experience in our relation to ourselves and to our environment. The picture should offer a motivation for the arguments that follow. more about illusions etc (see Clatilde’s comments).

It is difficult to develop a coherent conception of time on the basis of our experience of time. The philosophical analysis of our experience of time is a central topic in phenomenology. So one might expect phenomenology to deliver a contribution to the solution of the most challenging puzzles of the philosophy of time. This paper deals with some methodological issues related to such an expectation. It opposes two main conceptions of the role of phenomenology in the philosophy of time. On the first conception phenomenology draws conclusions about the nature of time from the description of the qualitative features of our experience of time. On the second conception, phenomenology determines what we are rationally entitled to believe about the nature of time on the basis of the way we experience time. It is argued that if one aims at integrating different approaches in one’s philosophical conception of time, then it is the second conception one ought to choose.

In a theory of representational or intentional states content is generally supposed to play various roles. It has to be the bearer of a truth-value, it has to determine the way a representation is about something (its mode of presentation), and finally it has to be used in order to give intra- and interpersonal psychological explanations. It has been argued that no unique kind of content can play all these roles. What criterion should one adopt in order to draw the dividing line? We suggest that the divide be based on ontological considerations related to the way content depends on external factors. There is a fundamental difference, we submit, between object-dependent and property-dependent contents. The requirements concerning modes of presentation as well as cognitive significance can be met by one kind of content. This content, it will appear, is property-dependent, but never object-dependent.

rentano’s theory of inner perception, evidence and truth upsets some widespread assumptions in contemporary philosophy. It rests on an unusual notion of inner perception and on a nominal theory of judgement; it attributes a central role to evidence in epistemology and treats mental states as being intrinsically true. The present contribution aims first at presenting and elucidating some of Brentano’s views on these matters. In some crucial points Brentano’s position will be modified and hopefully en- hanced in a way that is compatible with the overall picture.1 Considerable space will be devoted to the examination of some of the most important objections that have been or might be raised against the position presented on Brentano’s behalf. If by far not invulnerable, the position un- der scrutiny should hopefully appear more challenging than what it is often taken to be.