•  181
    Two Concepts of Trope
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 64 (1): 137-155. 2002.
    The concept of a trope (understood as an individual property and not as a figure of speech) plays an important role in contemporary analytical metaphysics. It is, however, often far from clear what the logic of this concept really is. Indeed, there are two equally important intuitions underlying the concept of trope, two intuitions that generate two quite different conceptual frameworks. According to the first intuition, a trope is a particularised property – a property taken as an individual as…Read more
  •  120
    Internal, External and Intra-Individual Relations
    Axiomathes 15 (4): 487-512. 2005.
    In this paper I argue that there are in fact external relations in Russell’s sense. The level at which we are forced to acknowledge them is, however, not the level of relations between concrete individual objects. All relations of this kind, which I will call “inter-individual” relations, can be construed as supervenient on the monadic properties of their terms. But if we pursue our ontological analysis a little bit deeper and consider the internal structure of a concrete individual, then we wil…Read more
  •  107
    Varieties of intentional objects
    Semiotica 2013 (194). 2013.
    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 a…Read more
  •  92
    Brentano and Aristotle on the Ontology of Intentionality
    In Fisette Denis & Fréchette Guillaume (eds.), Themes from Brentano, Rodopi. 2013.
    It is often claimed that Brentano’s rediscovery of intentionality has been strongly influenced by Aristotle. Brentano himself stressed repeatedly his affinity to Aristotle and this self-interpretation 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. Yet if we carefully compare the picture of intent…Read more
  •  85
    Brentano’s Ontology: From Conceptualism to Reism
    In Dale Jacquette (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Brentano, Cambridge University Press. pp. 197-220. 2004.
    It is often claimed that the beginnings of Brentano’s ontology were Aristotelian in nature; but this claim is only partially true. Certainly the young Brentano adopted many elements of Aristotle’s metaphysics, and he was deeply influenced by the Aristotelian way of doing philosophy. But he always interpreted Aristotle’s ideas in his own fashion. He accepted them selectively, and he used them in the service of ends that would not have been welcomed by Aristotle himself. The present paper is an ex…Read more
  •  82
    Résumé -/- Dans son premier livre (Philosophie de l’arithmétique 1891), Husserl élabore une très intéressante philosophie des mathématiques. Les concepts mathématiques sont interprétés comme des concepts de « deuxième ordre » auxquels on accède par une réflexion sur nos opérations mentales de numération. Il s’ensuit que la vérité de la proposition : « il y a trois pommes sur la table » ne consiste pas dans une relation mythique quelconque avec la réalité extérieure au psychique (où le nombre tro…Read more
  •  72
    Wittgenstein’s Tractatus 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 principaly ineffable. In our paper we will try to clarify these matters. We show how these theses could be made plausible in …Read more
  •  71
    Negative States of Affairs: Reinach versus Ingarden
    Symposium. The Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy 16 (2): 106-127. 2012.
    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 direc…Read more
  •  70
    Varieties of Intentional Objects
    Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 17 (194): 23-32. 2008.
    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 suchentities. 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 whi…Read more
  •  67
    Die Theorie der Intentionalität bei Franz Brentano
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 57 (1): 45-66. 1999.
    Bei Brentano finden sich zwei deutlich voneinander abweichende Lehren von der Intentionalität. Beide Theorien der Intentionalität werden im Detail analysiert und mit Freges Theorie von Sinn und Bedeutung verglichen. Die frühe Lehre, wie sie Brentano in seiner Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt einführt, ist eine Objekt-Theorie, bei der gewisse irreale Entitäten als Objekte der Intention fungieren, mit den bekannten kontraintuitiven Aspekten und logischen Anomalien als Folge, die von Brentano…Read more
  •  67
    In these works we find a rich arsenal of ontological tools which is interesting even for those philosophers who are not interested in the subtleties of the ...
  •  66
    Content, rationality and mental causation
    Axiomathes 14 (4): 307-340. 2004.
    In this paper I will address the question of rationalizing mental causation which is involved in the processes of epistemic justification. The main problem concerning mental causation consists in the apparent incompatibility of the three following claims: (i) the subject's mental states (in particular his belief states) are realized by neural states of the subject's brain; (ii) the justifying character of belief transition consists in the fact that there are certain broadly logical relations bet…Read more
  •  63
    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 tre…Read more
  •  61
    Die Ontologie der Intentionalität (Zusammenfassung)
    The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 12 121-126. 2007.
    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 Intentionalitätstheor…Read more
  •  61
    Brentano, Marty, and Meinong on Emotions and Values
    In W. Huemer & B. Centi (eds.), Value and Ontology, Ontos-verlag. pp. 12--171. 2009.
    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…Read more
  •  60
    Reinach’s Theory of Social Acts
    Studia Phaenomenologica 15 281-302. 2015.
    Some forty years before J.L. Austin, Adolf Reinach developed a highly articulated theory of speech acts. In this paper I present Reinach’s theory, and show some similarities and differences between his approach and the nowadays standard approaches, derived from Austin and Searle. Reinach’s work contains in fact all the cornerstones of the speech act theory. Still when comparing his theory with these contemporary approaches we can find at least two important differences. The first difference conc…Read more
  •  57
    Die theorie der intentionalität meinongs
    Dialectica 55 (2). 2001.
    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 …Read more
  •  54
    Truth, Concept Empiricism, and the Realism of Polish Phenomenology
    Polish Journal of Philosophy 2 (1): 23-34. 2008.
    The majority of Polish phenomenologists never found Husserl’s transcendental idealism attractive. In this paper I investigate the source of this rather surprising realist attitude. True enough the founder of Polish phenomenology was Roman Ingarden - one of the most severe critics of Husserl’s transcendental idealism, so it is initially tempting to reduce the whole issue to this sociological fact. However, I argue that there must be something more about Ingarden’s intellectual background that imm…Read more
  •  53
    Quine claimed that to be is is to be a value of a bound variable. In the paper we assume that this claim contains an important philosophical insight and investigate its background. It is argued that there are two dimensions involved in Quine’s slogan: (i) the distinction between existing and non-existing objects and (ii) the question of the systematic ambiguity of being that can be traced back to Aristotle. At the first sight it is tempting to construe Quine’s criterion according to the first di…Read more
  •  53
    The thought of Alexius Meinong (1853–1920) has a distinguished position within the conceptual space of ontology. He was the first philosopher who tried systematically to develop a quasi-ontological discipline which was intended to be much more general than the metaphysics in the traditional sense. Metaphysics investigates being qua being; and this constitutes only a small part of the domain of the theory of objects (Gegenstandstheorie) as Meinong conceived of it. For – so reads one of Meinong’s …Read more
  •  53
    The history of twentieth century philosophy is characterised by the gap between analytic and continental philosophy -- even though both have their roots in a tradition referred to as 'Austrian' or 'Central-European' philosophy. The essays in this volume show in historical and systematic studies, how a reassessment of this 'Central-European' tradition can build an interesting bridge between phenomenology and analytic philosophy and, thus, create a new foundation that allows for an original perspe…Read more
  •  49
    Meinong’s Version of the Description Theory
    Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 27 (1): 73-85. 2007.
    Abstract: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 …Read more
  •  43
    In his ontological works Kurt Grelling tries to give a rigorous analysis of the foundations of the so-called Gestalt-psychology. Gestalten are peculiar emergent qualities, ontologically dependent on their foundations, but nonetheless non reducible to them. Grelling shows that this concept, as used in psychology and ontology, is often ambiguous. He distinguishes two important meanings in which the word “Gestalt” is used: Gestalten as structural aspects available to transposition and Gestalten as …Read more
  •  43
    In der Geschichte der Philosophie finden wir viele Intentionalitätstheorien, die spezielle Gegenstände zur Erklärung des Intentionalitätsphänomens einführen. Solche Theorien wurden in erster Linie von Philosophen eingeführt, die durch Franz Brentano beeinflusst waren. Gegenstände, um die es hier geht, werden üblicherweise intentionale Gegenstände genannt. Eine Theorie der intentionalen Gegenstände, die vom ontologischen Standpunkt aus betrachtet besonders detailliert ausgearbeitet ist, hat Roma…Read more
  •  37
    Die intentionalitätstheorie Anton martys
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 62 (1): 175-214. 2001.
    The point of departure for Anton Marty's theory of intentionality is Franz Brentano's ontology of intentionality as outlined in the unpublished manuscript of his logic-lectures from the second half of the 1880's. This rich ontology comprises immanent objects, immanent propositional contents and states of affairs. The late Marty rejects all immanent entities in Brentano's sense and explains intentionality in terms of counterfactualconditionals.However,contraryto the late Brentano,he insists on th…Read more
  •  33
    Drei Versionen der Meinongschen Logik
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 59 (1): 49-70. 2005.
    Alexius Meinong nimmt in der Geschichte der Ontologie eine ausgezeichnete Stellung ein. Er war der erste Philosoph, der in systematischer Weise eine quasi-onto¬logische Disziplin entwickelte, die im Vergleich zu der Disziplin, die man traditionell Metaphysik oder Ontologie nennt, viel allgemeiner sein sollte. Die Metaphysik untersucht das Seiende als Seiendes, und die seienden Entitäten bilden – so die These Meinongs – nur ein kleines Fragment dessen, was man unter dem Namen „Gegenstands¬theorie…Read more
  •  31
    Roman Ingarden
    In Antonio Cimino & Vincenzo Costa (eds.), Storia della fenomenologia, Carocci Editore. 2012.
    Roman Ingarden (1893-1970) apparteneva a quegli allievi di Husserl che si designano come “fenomenologia di Gottinga”. Si tratta della prima generazione di fenomenologi, nella quale rientravano, fra gli altri, anche Adolf Reinach, Hedwig Conrad-Martius ed Edith Stein. I ricercatori di questo gruppo erano influenzati soprattutto dalle Ricerche logiche di Husserl e reagirono un po’ stupiti alla sua successiva svolta idealistica. Per quanto riguarda lo stesso Ingarden, egli incontrò Husserl solo dop…Read more