Franz Brentano, son of Christian Brentano, and nephew of Clemens Brentano and Bettina von Arnim, was born on January 16, 1838, at Marienberg, near Boppard on the Rhine. He early embraced the study of philosophy and theology, both at Berlin, under Trendelenburg, and also at Munich. In 1864 he was ordained priest, and two years later became privat docent in the University of Würzburg. In 1873 he was appointed professor there, but in the same year resigned his office in consequence of his changed attitude towards the Church, and as an opponent of the Vatican Council. Somewhat later, in response to this change in his convictions, he separated himself definitely from the Church.
In 1874 Brentano received a call to the University of Vienna, and continued there teaching Philosophy until 1895, first as ordinary professor, and afterwards, having meantime renounced his professorship, as privat docent. The reasons which led him to retire from this post also, are set forth in his work, My Last Wishes for Austria (Stuttgart, 1895). After withdrawing from his post as teacher he took up his residence at Florence.
Brentano regards Aristotle as his real teacher in philosophy, and his two earliest publications, Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles (Freiburg, i. Br. 1862), and Die Psychologie des Aristoteles insbesondere seine Lehre vom νοῦς ποιητικός (Mainz, 1867), are a testimony to his comprehensive study and thorough knowledge of Aristotelian philosophy. Especially is he in agreement with the Stagirite regarding the high position he would assign to the application of the empirical method as the only one which, in regard alike to scientific and philosophical problems, is able by cautious and gradual advance, to attain to knowledge. These first principles of method, especially in their relation to psychological research, he has set forth and practised in his first systematic work, Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte (vol. i., Leipzig, 1874). It was also his regard for this method of inquiry which early imbued him with a special interest for the works of the most eminent English philosophers of modern times, not only John Locke and David Hume, but also Bentham, the two Mills, Jevons and others. A study of these writers led Brentano to enter at length in his Würzburg lectures into a critical and explanatory treatment of English psychology and logic, characterizing it as a source of instruction and inspiration at a time when other distinguished advocates of German philosophy looked askance at this attitude towards English thought, believing that by its contact with English writers the peculiar character of German thought might suffer. It will be observed that only the first volume of the Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint has hitherto appeared, and it seems hardly likely that the work in its present form will be continued, for further reflection convinced Brentano that descriptive[A] psychology, or Psychognosy, as of most importance in the examination and presentation of psychological problems, must be separated from genetic psychology,[B] a study necessarily half physiological in character; and that the former problem as the naturally earlier and least difficult study should first be as far as possible completed.
[A] i.e. the closest possible description and analysis of psychical events and their contents, on the basis of inner observation.
[B] i.e. the more difficult inquiry into the laws underlying the origin of phenomena.
Such psychognostical inquiries, although not yet in principle separated from genetic inquiry, occupy by far the greater part of the first volume of the Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint. Among the subjects there treated are: 1, the fundamental revision of the classification of psychical phenomena, and their division into the three main classes: ideas, judgments, and phenomena of love and hate; 2, and in particular, a new and more appropriate characterization of the judgment.
The insufficiency of the old doctrine according to which judgment consists essentially in a connexion of ideas, had already been shown by Hume, and more recently was strongly emphasized by Mill, though neither was able to arrive at perfect clearness respecting its real nature. Notwithstanding this, the affinity of Brentano’s doctrine of the judgment with that of Mill, led to a scientific correspondence, and later to arrangements for a personal interview, when, at the last moment, the plan was frustrated by the death of the great English investigator.
The new description of the judgment and its essential qualities form the basis for a reform of logic even in its most elementary stages, a reform which, in its essential features, is suggested in the above-mentioned work, and also touched upon in the Essay here translated; but this truer description of the phenomenon of judgment also throws light upon the description and classification of the modes of speech from the point of view of their function or meaning,—a classification based upon true and most essential distinctions. In comparison with phonetics this branch is still little developed. What is here said, was seen by eminent philologists like Fr. von Miklosich, the pioneer in the sphere of Slav comparative philology. In the appendix will be found an article bearing upon this view.