Table Of ContentFRANZ BRENTANO'S ANALYSIS OF TRUTH
FRANZ BRENTANO'S
ANALYSIS OF TRUTH
by
JAN SRZEDNICKI
University of Melbourne
•
MARTINUS NIJHOFF I THE HAGUE I 1965
ISBN-lg: 978-90-247-0148-3 e-ISBN-lg: 978-94-010-3535-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-3535-4
Copyright I965 by Martinus Nijhoft, The Hague, Netherlands
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
To the memory 01 my Father who gave me an interest
and early training in philosophy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book contains a large number of translated quotations. Thanks
are due to Professor ]. C. M. Brentano, and to the Brentano trust, for
the special permission to translate and include these. This permission
was explicitly given for the inclusion of these quotations in this book
only, and in the case of quotations from Wahrheit und Evidenz and
Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkt, and also in the case of
unpublished MSS., without prejudice to the rights of other translators
and editors of the text and the rights of any future editor or translator.
This book could not have been written without the help of many
people. Thanks are due to Professor A. Boyce Gibson for his patient
and helpful comments, further thanks are due to Professor D. A. T.
Gasking and Dr. A. C. ] ackson, who helped with suggestions and
discussion and to Dr. W. D. ]oske, who read and corrected the manu
script with great patience and thoroughness. From among people
outside Melbourne, I am most heavily indebted to Professor ]. C. M.
Brentano, son and literary heir of the philosopher. He has made
available a number of microfilms of F. Brentano's unpublished works.
These microfilms have now been donated by Professor Brentano to
the Baillieu Library of the Melbourne University. Besides the very
considerable expense and effort involved in this, Professor Brentano
has helped freely with suggestions and commentaries which, despite
his protestations of lack of philosophical competence, were no less
and possibly even more helpful than those of other people. Professor
Roderick M. Chisholm, of the Brown University, U.S.A., helped by
reading and commenting upon the translations from Wahrheit und
Evidenz. I received further kind help and suggestions from Professor
F. Mayer-Hillebrand of the University of Innsbruck, Professor S.
Korner of Bristol University, Professor L. Bodi of Monash University,
and Dr. Felix Meiner of the Meiner Verlag, Hamburg. Thanks are also
due to Professor Gilbert Ryle and Professor A. ]. Ayer for their
VIII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
encouragement, without which I might not have undertaken this
work. I wish to express my sincere gratitude for the help I have re
ceived from all these people. I would also like to take this opportunity
to thank Miss Alexandra Thomas, who typed and re-typed the manu
script, and read the proof.
ABBREVIATIONS
Aristotelian Society Proceedings ASP
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research PPR
Analysis Anal.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy AJP
Logic Semantics Metamathematics (Tarski) LSM
Wahrheit und Evidenz (Brentano-Kraus) W&E
Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkt (Brentano- Psych.
Kraus)
Die Lehre vom Richtigen Urteil (Brentano-Mayer- LRU
Hillebrand)
Die Philosophie Franz Brentanos (Kastil) Kas.
Die Ethik Franz Brentanos (0. Most) Most
Notes by O. Kraus in his editions of Brentano OK (1)
The Symposium on Truth (Austin, Strawson, Cousins) ASP Sym.
ASP, supp. vol. XXIV
Versuch tiber die Erkenntnis (Brentano-Kastil) VUE
Vom Ursprung Sittlicher Erkenntnis (Brentano-Kraus) USE
RE TRANSLATIONS
All translations included in this book are my own unless otherwise
specified. The translations are reasonably free, but care was taken
to make them faithful as well as readable. Many of the notes translated
were not meant for pUblication and are therefore difficult to follow and
translate. Sometimes I had to supplement them. Whenever the English
text required words or phrases not used in the original, they were
placed in parentheses (like this). Sometimes Brentano himself used
parentheses, but it should be clear from the text when this is the case.
In some cases I have indicated this explicitly. Points missing from the
translated text are supplied either in the commentary or in footnotes.
Both the books which provided most of the translated quotations,
namely Wahrheit und Evidenz and Psychologie vom Empirischen Stand
punkt (Second Edition), were edited by Oscar Kraus, and comprise
both early and later material. When quotations appear, it will be clear
from the context or covering remarks whether the quoted text is early
or late. Both these books are now being prepared in English translation.
I used double inverted commas" ... " to indicate quotations,
whether translated or not, and single inverted commas to form
inverted comma names like 'red'.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements VII
A bbreviations IX
Translations XI
Introduction xv
I. Introduction to Franz Brentano's Philosophy I
1. Problems of Interpretation I
2. General 10
II. The Early Position 18
1. About the concept of truth. Early criticism of the corre- 18
spondence theory
2. Arguments for the Existence of entia rationis 29
III. The Transition 36
1. Analysis of Linguistic Function 36
2. Arguments against the Existence of entia rationis 42
IV. The Transition and Background So
1. Mental Acts So
2. Judgements S8
3. An attempt to retain the correspondence theory with-
out entia rationis 67
V. Late position (critical part) 74
1. Criticism of the correspondence formula res 74
2. Criticism of the correspondence formula intellectus and
adequatio 81
VI. Late position (positive part) 87
1. Truth 87
2. Evidence 93
XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS
VII. Ramifications of the analysis of truth 99
I. Self-evident judgements, 'a priori' and' a posteriori' 99
2. The relation between self-evident and demonstrable 105
knowledge
Concluding Remarks 110
Appendices
A. The German text and the translation of Sprechen und Denken rr6
(EL. 66).
B. The German text and the translation of Wahrheit ist eine Art
von Ubereinstimmung (EL. 67) 122
C. The German text and the translation of Uber den Sinn und die
Wissenschaftliche Bedeutung des Satzes "Veritas est adequatio
rei et intellectus" (EL. 28) 128
D. The German text and the translation of Kurzer Abriss einer
allgemeinen Erkenntnistheorie, (Chapter IV) (EL. 96) 132
Bibliography 137
Index 148
