Descriptive Psychology

Franz Brentano, Benito Mueller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415108119
• eBook ISBN: 9781134840526
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Franz Brentano (1838-1917) is a key figure in the development of Twentieth Century thought. It was his work that set Husserl on to the road of phenomenology and intentionality, that inspired Meinong's theory of the object which influenced Bertrand Russell, and the entire Polish school of philosophy. ^Descriptive Psychology presents a series of lectures given by Brentano in 1887; they were the culmination of his work, and the clearest statement of his mature thought. It was this later period which proved to be so important in the work of his student, Husserl. This is the first English translation of his work. Benito Muller has added a concise introduction which places Brentano within the history of philosophy and psychology, and locates his influence in contemporary thought.

Part I

THE TASK OF PSYCHOGNOSY

1

PSYCHOGNOSY AND GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY*

1. Psychology is the science of people's inner life [Seelenleben], that is, the part of life which is captured in inner perception [innere Wahrnehmung], It aims at exhaustively determining (if possible) the elements of human consciousness and the ways in which they are connected, and at describing the causal conditions which the particu lar phenomena are subjected to.

The first is the subject matter of psychognosy, the second that of genetic psychology.

2. The difference between the two disciplines is fundamental. It manifests itself, in particular, in two essential relationships:

(a) Psychognosy, one could say, is pure psychology, whereas it would not be inappropriate to refer to genetic psychology as physiological psychology.

(b) The former is an exact science, whereas the latter will presumably have to renounce forever any claim to exactness.

Both [of these points] can be set forth in a few words.

3.I am saying that only psychognosy is to be called pure psychology.

The meaning and the correctness of this [statement] may be shown by the following brief reflection.

4. The occurrence of both human consciousness and its different phenomena is, according to experience, tied to certain physiological events, which we have learnt to understand as physico-chemical processes. If, according to what we said, it is the concern of genetic psychology to acquaint us with the conditions under which specific phenomena occur, then it is evident that genetic psychology will never be able to achieve its task fully and properly without mentioning physico-chemical processes and without reference to anatomical structures.

5. Psychognosy is different. It teaches nothing about the causes that give rise to human consciousness and which are responsible for the fact that a specific phenomenon does occur now, or does not occur now or disappears. Its aim is nothing other than to provide us with a general conception of the entire realm of human consciousness. It does this by listing fully the basic components out of which everything internally perceived by humans is composed, and by enumerating the ways in which these components can be connected. Psychognosy will therefore, even in its highest state of perfection, never mention a physico-chemical process in any of its doctrines [Lehrsatz].

For, correct as it is to say that such processes are preconditions for consciousness, one must resolutely contradict the person who, out of a confusion of thought, claims that our consciousness in itself is to be seen as a physico-chemical event, that it itself is composed out of chemical elements.

6. Chemical elements are substances [Stoffe] which, by themselves, are unintuitive [unanschaulich], and which can only be characterized in relative terms by considering manifold direct and indirect effects on our consciousness. The elements of inner life, i.e. the different most simple constituents, by contrast, are without exception in tuitively contained in our consciousness.

In enumerating them, psychognosy can therefore leave out any reference to the physiological, the physico-chemical realm.

7. And the same evidently applies to the ways of connecting the elements of consciousness. These connections are as alien to those mentioned in chemistry, as the elements of consciousness are to chemical items.

8. Psychognosy is in this sense pure psychology and as such essentially different from genetic psychology.

9. I have emphasized yet another important difference. I claimed that psychognosy is an exact science, and that, in contrast, genetic psychology, in all its determinations, is an inexact one.

10. What do I mean by this? What is to be understood by an exact science, as opposed to an inexact one?

11. There has sometimes been talk of exact science as opposed to a so-called speculative science. The latter name was used, in particular, to honour the bold constructs of certain men, who admired a recent past as a marvel of philosophical genius.

I would be gravely misunderstood if, in our case, one were to think of this distinction.

No, this expression ‘speculative science’ is a gross misuse of the term science. A SCHELLINGian or HEGELian system is bare and void of all scientific character.

12. My distinction is completely different. There are sciences which can formulate their doctrines sharply and precisely. Others are forced to content themselves with undetermined and vague formulae. A mathematician doesn't say: the sum of the angles of a triangle is often, or usually, equal to two right angles. But he says that this is always and without exception the case.

Likewise, in mechanics, the law of inertia and so many other postulates and doctrines are formulated in a sharp and exact manner.

In contrast, we have, e.g., meteorology, even if it is only concerned with very simple things like the relative temperature of a summer or a winter month. ‘Often’, ‘mostly’, ‘on average’ are expressions which must be used to weaken the precision of meteorological claims, in order for them to be true. Meteorology is not capable of determining fully and taking into account the factors influencing meteorological events. Meteorological results thus often vary within wide margins.

13. My intention was to point out the similarity of this case to that of genetic psychology, insofar as it is disadvantaged compared to psychognosis.

14. [This is so] because the doctrines of psychognosy are sharp and precise. They might still show some gaps here and there – after all, the same holds in the case of mathematics. Doubts about their correctness might still arise here and there – and certainly we will often be tempted by incorrect views, and will sometimes hear important researchers contradict (fight) each other in their claims. Nevertheless, psychognostic doctrines do allow and [indeed] do demand a precise formulation:

like, e.g., that the phenomenon of violet = red-blue, even though quite a few people may be undecided whether to follow BRÜCKE or HERING in this case.

15. Genetic psychology is different. The laws of Becoming [Gesetze des Werdens] which it postulates are not strictly valid. They are subject to a more or less frequent occurrence of exceptions. Like meteorology, genetic psychology needs to diminish the precision of all its doctrines, by using terms like ‘often’ and ‘mostly’, in order for them to be true.¹

16. The same character can also quite clearly be attributed to the laws of psychical Becoming which have been formulated without giving the physiological preconditions, like, e.g., certain so-called laws of association of ideas [Ideenassoziation], which were already used in mnemonics in antiquity.

17. Some have talked, in this context, of a law of similarity and again of a law of continuity, according to which one thought revives [wieder erwecken] another. This happens very often, but in other cases it doesn't, and where it happens, it does so in such manifold different ways that no determined prediction can be based upon them. (Joh. MÜLLER² says that the laws themselves contradict each other.) The reason for this is that the most immediate preconditions for the return of thoughts are not, or, in any case, not exhaustively, identified in these laws.

18. More hopeful, with respect to full exactness, are those claims of genetic psychology in which physiological preconditions are given. But unfortunately we are presently, and presumably always will be, incapable of determining the immediate physiological antecedents of a psychical event, let alone determining them in an exhaustive manner. The lack of exactness will thus inevitably continue to exist.

Example: Stimulation of a retinal part by a light-ray of a certain frequency induces the phenomenon of blue. But this [is] not always [so], as it is not true in case of

(a) colour-blindness,

(b) interruption of the conductor, severance of the nerve,

(c) losing in competition [Besiegtwerden im Wettstreit],

(d) replacement by a hallucination.

(And who could claim that there are no other disturbances which bring about exceptions by creating an anomaly in the most immediate physiological preconditions, given that our examples make use only of the more distant of these preconditions.)

19. The necessary inexactness of genetic psychology could likewise be demonstrated by using any other doctrines which it puts forward.

20. To conclude, you now understand sufficiently the two differences, which – as I said – give an essentially different character to the doctrines of psychognosy and to those of genetic psychology,

(a) insofar as the one is pure psychology, and the other psychophysical,

(b) insofar as the claims of the one are exact, while those of the other [are not, and] presumably never will acquire the character of exactness.

21. We have thus divided psychology into psychognosy and genetic psychology. And we have clarified the meaning of this separation by pointing at two essential differences between these disciplines:

(a) Psychognosy is pure psychology, while genetic psychology is physiological psychology.

(b) Psychognosy belongs to the exact sciences, while genetic psychology is, and presumably will remain forever, incapable of formulating its doctrines other than in the imprecise manner of the inexact sciences.

At the same time I vehemently rejected the misguided view that, 5!6 in saying this, my intention was to discredit the scientific ! legitimacy of genetic psychology or to describe it as a hotbed of arbitrary speculations.

22. The division of the two disciplines will also be beneficial to the progress of psychological research, particularly if their natural order becomes clear. After all, division and ordering of difficulties is a crucial precondition to their resolution.

When DESCARTES first embarked on his brilliant career, he became engrossed in serious contemplation about the Method. The results of these he put down in the Discours de la méthode.

In this, four fundamental rules for research are put forward. Two of them have no other purpose than to recommend [on the one hand] the necessary division of difficulties and [on the other] that the individual difficulties are to be dealt with in an order which is fixed and, as far as possible, outlined by nature.

Instead of dividing psychognostic questions from questions pertaining to genetic psychology, psychologists, up to the present day, usually mix these questions in manifold ways. In doing so, they decidedly contravene DESCARTES‘ rules. And this grave contravention of the Method presumably contributed decisively to slowing down, or indeed completely frustrating, progress in psychology.

Having divided the disciplines, it will be clear without much reflection what their natural order is. Psychognosy is prior in the natural order.

In the same way as orognosy and geognosy* precede geology in the field of mineralogy, and anatomy generally precedes physiology in the more closely related field of the human organism, psychognosy, according to what has been determined so far, must be positioned prior to gene...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I The task of psychognosy
• Part II A survey of psychognosy
• Appendices
• Editors’ notes
• Index