Franz Brentano and the psychology of intentionality

The study of intentionality is relatively recent in the history of philosophy. Although ancient and medieval philosophers such as Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Avicenna or Thomas Aquinas made references specific to human will, Franz Brentano, who lived in the 19th century, is generally considered the pioneer in this field of analysis.

In this article we will describe the main approaches to the psychology of intentionality (or "of the act") by Franz Brentano. For the German philosopher, intentionality is the main feature that distinguishes the phenomena psychological factors of physicists, who contain themselves instead of directing actions towards another external object.

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Biography of Franz Brentano

Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano (1838-1917) was a priest, philosopher and psychologist who was born in Prussia, in present-day Germany. His interest in scholastic philosophy and that of Aristotle led him to study this subject at various German universities and, later, to

train as a theologian and become a priest of the Catholic religion.

In 1873 he left the Church because of his discrepancies with the official theses; in particular, Brentano denied the dogma of papal infallibility, according to which the Pope is incapable of making mistakes. Later he married and devoted himself to university teaching. He died in 1917 in Zurich, Switzerland, where he moved after World War I broke out.

Brentano's fundamental work It is entitled "Psychology from the empirical point of view" and it was published in 1874. In it this author described the key role of intentionality in thinking and other processes of psychological character, and he affirmed that it is the main factor that distinguishes them from purely physical.

The proposals of this pioneer had a great impact on different approaches to psychology and other disciplines: logic, Wittgenstein's analytical philosophy and Russell, experimental psychology, structuralist and functionalist literary analysis, the Gestalt School and especially phenomenology, based on his psychology of the act.

The concept of intentionality

Brentano recovered the concept of intentionality in modern philosophy. For it was based mainly on the work of Aristotle and other classical authors; However, the approaches of Rene Descartes, which focused on knowledge rather than will, were the ones that inspired Brentano to highlight the relevance of this construct.

As defined by this author, intentionality is the common characteristic of all psychological phenomena. It is the property that directs an act or event to an object or goal located in the external world. Intentionality has an immanent character, that is, it is always present in the person's mind.

Physical phenomena are all those that occur in the outside world, such as sounds, visual stimuli and objects in the environment in general. On the other hand, among the psychological phenomena we find the perceptions of other physical ones, as well as the mental contents that are directed to them.

In this way all mental phenomena contain an object; for example, in the act of wishing it is necessary that there is an external entity that fulfills the role of receiver of such event. The same happens when we remember an event from the past, a specific place or information, when we feel love or hatred for another living being, etc.

However, and given that the mental object (the intention or "intentional existence") that accompanies any physical object has different characteristics for each person, it is not possible in any case that more than one goes towards exactly the same object, even if it is equivalent from a point of view physical.

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The psychology of the act

Brentano stated that psychology consisted of two branches: descriptive and genetics. The first one would focus on the description of mental phenomena in the first person, in a similar way to phenomenological psychology. Genetic psychology, like current cognitivism, would do so in the third person through empirical experiments.

This philosopher clearly defended the approach to psychology that he baptized as "descriptive." According to the theses of Brentano and his psychology of the act we should not analyze the objective experience associated with mental phenomena, but we would simply have to focus on describing how we experience it as richly as possible.

In this way, considering that the mind cannot be studied solely through its physical correlates, Franz Brentano took a position against our discipline could be part of the natural sciences. For this author, as for many others in the founding time and today, psychology would be closer to philosophy.

However, the psychology of Brentano's act has been criticized since its appearance (even by the philosopher's own disciples, much to his regret) for the lack of clarity of his approaches. In addition, introspective study methods are currently highly questioned because it is not possible to adequately systematize them.