By providing a reconstruction of Brentano’s descriptive psychology research program, this part of our research project will contribute to revising common opinion on Brentano’s philosophy, which considers its Cartesianism as a constitutive and structural element of his contribution to philosophy. The reconstruction of DPRP, focusing on it’s development in late 1880s Vienna, will show that Brentano’s program encompassed not only his theory of parts and wholes of consciousness (A1b),[1] but also a specific methodology (A1a), an investigation into the structure of mental acts (A1c), and a detailed investigation into the contents of perception (A1d).
I. The methodology and core of DPRP (A1a) In his reflections on the methodology of descriptive psychology, we find the core elements of DPRP, united in what Brentano calls ‘the correct method of the psychognost’ (Brentano1995a, 31). This so-called method is more aptly characterized as a general framework for the study of mind, in which the ‘hard core’ of the research program is defined. It is tempting, after Smith and Kriegel, to see T1–T4 as defining the hard core of DPRP. However, as already mentioned, the hard core formulated in the three lectures is significantly more modest than T1–T4. It contains, among others, the following assertions: i) DPRP has a natural internalist inclination in the sense that it favours the first-person perspective as a starting point[2]; but this doesn’t mean that DPRP is concerned exclusively with immediately evident knowledge secured by inner perception.[3] Therefore, T1 doesn’t belong to its hard core; ii) In the Vienna lectures, consciousness is structured as a whole constituted of parts of different kinds (and not as a substance with its accidents); the account of consciousness developed in DPRP is metaphysically neutral regarding T3; iii) DPRP proposes an analysis of mind starting with the most simple mental operation¾experiencing¾and continues to more complex operations, like noticing, interpretation, inductive generalization, and finishing with deduction; it proceeds along the lines of Mill’s empiricism, which markedly influenced DPRP;[4] iv) The conception of intentional objects developed in DPRP is more nuanced (or perhaps more explicit) than that presented in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, where the intentional object is always described as an immanent mental content. In the lectures on descriptive psychology, and in the lectures on logic from the same period (EL 72), Brentano distinguishes between the mental correlate of an act and the intentional object, which is outside the mind.[5] This distinction makes the inclusion of T2 in the hard core of DPRP implausible. As such, the theory of intentionality involved in DPRP doesn’t imply the kind of solipsism often associated with a Cartesian conception of the mind. These principles, along with others, are clearly set out in the Vienna lectures. An investigation into them would contribute to defining DPRP more precisely, and would also form important propaedeutic research for investigations in A2.
II. The theory of parts and wholes (A1b) The theory of parts and wholes given in the Vienna lectures has been the object of various and fruitful discussion since the 1980s.[6] Besides central distinctions on the different concepts of parts proposed by Brentano,[7] his conception of parts in a modified sense, or ‘modificational quasi-parts’,[8] is relevant for DPRP, since it offers an account of some of the modalities involved in the structure of mental acts, like the perception of movements or of temporally extended processes (see A1c). Although there has been some discussion of this conception of parts in the secondary literature,[9] its role in DPRP has rarely been addressed.[10]
III. The structure of mental acts (A1c) While Brentano discusses his tripartite structure of mental acts¾presentations, judgments, and acts of love and hate¾at length in the Psychology, throughout his published work as a whole he rarely discusses the ways in which these acts are connected through time. But the Vienna lectures contain a significant amount of material relating to the structure of mental acts, as well as on the nature of their connection through time, which is dealt with under the category of unconscious dispositions. The presence of this category in DPRP suffices to challenge the fourth claim (T4) about Brentano’s Cartesianism. At first glance, this concern with (unconscious) dispositions doesn’t seem to fit Brentano’s treatment of arguments against unconscious consciousness in the Psychology, and nor does it fit his suspiciousness concerning talk of unconscious consciousness more generally. However, it seems that Brentano left the door open for discussions on unconscious dispositions in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, basing his refutation of the arguments in favour of unconscious consciousness on the necessity (and not on the possibility) of unconscious mental states. This will be investigated in more detail in the research project. Although Brentano rejects unconscious occurring mental states, he accepts unconscious non-occurring mental states, or, more generally, mental dispositions. These are dispositions to mental states, which are the traces left by past mental states. Brentano’s conception of the character of a person is, for instance, based on his/her dispositions to act in a particular way. These traces of past presentations can also be memories of past presentations or associations of ideas.[11] In DPRP, this category is particularly well integrated on the level of sensations. In Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, and in all his writings published during his lifetime, Brentano usually defends the classification of acts in presentations (including sensations), judgments, and acts of love and hate, according to which sensations are atomic elements of our mental lives, deprived of temporal extension. A consequence of this account is that time-consciousness, the perception of temporally extended processes, or even memory, differ structurally from the perception of present sensory contents or consciousness of the present moment. This consequence is never discussed in Brentano’s writings, but it has a prominent place in earlier Vienna lectures and in the lectures at stake here. In these lectures, Brentano develops the idea that sensations are always related to the so-called ‘proterose’, which is the dispositional trace left by earlier sensations. According to this account, hearing a melody is nothing but a sequence of individual sensations connected with one another by their respective proterose: as soon as the second note is perceived, the trace of the first note remains ‘dispositionally’ in the perception of the second note, and so on. This process is described as ‘original association’. If the process is supposed to accurately depict our perception of time and temporally extended processes, as Brentano believes, and if inner perception is only a perception of present (and not past) mental acts, (T1) cannot possibly be part of the hard core of DPRP. This conception of time-consciousness, and of the perception of temporally extended processes, has been very influential on phenomenological accounts of time-consciousness (most prominently in Husserl (1966)), but because of the lack of a comprehensive edition of Brentano’s lectures, the nature of this influence has rarely been investigated. In addition, while there have been a few publications on Brentano’s conception of time, none try to contextualize this conception in the more general framework of DPRP.[12] IV. The contents of perception (A1d) The most important part of DPRP, at least when we consider the quantity of materials developed by Brentano on this topic in his lectures, concerns what is often called today “the contents of perception”.[13] In his lectures, this category encompasses discussions on the nature of sensory perception, with an important focus on visual and auditory perception, but also other sensory modalities, which Brentano designates as the ‘feeling-sense’ (Spürsinn). It also encompasses discussion of visual illusions, the contents of memory, abstract presentations, imagination, and their intentionality. A reconstruction of Brentano’s insights on these topics would give a more nuanced picture of the motives that led him to introduce intentionality as a mark of the mental and on the position of intentionality in the economy of DPRP. To illustrate this, let me give three sample cases discussed in the Vienna lectures that challenge the received view in Brentanian studies, according to which the contents of perception are determined primarily by their intentionality¾not by phenomenal properties (e.g. intensity, saturatedness or brightness).[14] Case 1: Bodily sensations and bodily awareness. It is generally accepted that Brentano’s account of attention (or awareness) and consciousness in general is basically an account of inner awareness¾the consciousness of what is inside the mind, or has he puts it: inner perception. However, we shouldn’t take this to mean that issues concerning perception of sensory qualities and other physical phenomena weren’t relevant for him.[15] While he never explicitly acknowledges something like bodily awareness¾the specific awareness of one’s own body parts, as opposed to awareness of one’s own mental states¾he does discuss issues relating to felt locations of bodily sensations in depth in these lectures, especially in his critique of Hermann Lotzes’s local signs theory. According to Lotze, local signs are non-extensive elements of perception that allow for the transfer between elements of sensations and elements of the perceived object. They are conceived of as the ‘ways it is like’ (Weisen des Zumuteseins) of sensory experience and they account for both space and time perception (see Fréchette 2013a for a detailed account of local sign theory in relation to Brentano and early phenomenology). One of Brentano’s points against Lotze was that this account remains too speculative to be considered part of descriptive psychology. As a matter of fact, there are lengthy critiques of Lotze’s account in the lectures of 1888 and 1889, which also entail discussions of bodily sensations and the kind of awareness connected to them. An investigation into these lectures from this angle would help us revise the history of debate on bodily awareness, and would allow us to locate and consolidate Brentano’s place among the various accounts (historical and contemporary) of bodily awareness.[16] Case 2: The individuation of senses. Another aspect of Brentano’s descriptive psychology research programme consists in determining the criteria of individuation for the senses. In most of his writings, but especially in the Vienna lectures, Brentano defends the view that we have three sensory modalities: audition, vision, and ‘feeling-sense’ (Spürsinn).[17] As such, the higher senses (audition and vision) are deprived of hedonic tone (Gefühlston), which is exclusive to the lower senses, i.e. to feeling-senses. Pleasures and displeasures, which are acts of the third class in Brentano’s classification, are feelings, i.e., sensations with hedonic tone.[18] In Brentano’s view, this category also embraces the sense of innervation (Innervationssinn), a sense that, in his description, covers many cases of what is today called proprioception.[19] Although this classification of the senses has been registered in the secondary literature,[20] the motives behind it¾analogy or similarity of brightness (Helligkeit/ Dunkelheit) in respective sensory qualities[21] ¾have rarely been explored. As part of the reconstruction of DPRP, an account of Brentano’s criteria of individuation of the senses would not only complete the picture of this aspect of his research, it would also connect to historical and contemporary research on sense-perception and the individuation of the senses, offering a fruitful confrontation with the latter.[22] Case 3. Thesubjective character of experience. As we have seen, if Brentano rejects the idea of bodily awareness in the sense of a consciousness of physical phenomena, his view still accounts for the subjectivity of bodily sensations. Feelings of pleasure and displeasure, in Brentano’s terms, are subjective: what they refer to is not an object but an act, which is an inherent part of one’s subjectivity. This model of sensory phenomenology is an instance of Brentano’s more general model of inner consciousness, according to which what I am aware of in inner consciousness is not the object¾this table which I am presently seeing for example¾but the act through which this object is given to me: the seeing as such.[23] In this sense, pain and pleasure, like all other variants of hedonic tones concomitant to sensations, are kinds of self-consciousness. This account of the first-person perspective is developed at length in the Vienna lectures, especially in the first two, which remained essentially unexamined in Brentano (1982/1995a). In fact, it is only through these lectures that we can fully understand the meaning of Brentano’s statement that descriptive psychology, or ‘psychognosy’, is a science of the first-person perspective, an ‘autognosy’ (Brentano 1995a, 164). It seems that the lack of a comprehensive edition of Brentano’s lectures on descriptive psychology and phenomenology may have contributed to some scholars being misled into believing that Brentano’s concept of mental phenomena doesn’t imply a first-person perspective (Münch 1990, 170). On the contrary, most of the phenomenological descriptions used in the phenomenology lecture (Ps76) are from a first-person perspective,[24] in which the phenomenal properties of experience and its subjective character are taken into account. Furthermore, outer perception might not have the epistemic infallibility of inner perception, if we follow Brentano, but this doesn’t preclude the inherent subjective character of outer perception. These three cases, alongside the four aspects (A1a–A1d) discussed here, challenge the widespread Cartesian reading of Brentano’s descriptive psychology. While it is true that Brentano’s philosophy of mind and epistemology has Cartesian elements, it is hardly, as we have seen, a presupposition in his investigations into descriptive psychology. Sensory perception, time perception, time consciousness, and the role of dispositions are constitutive elements of descriptive psychology and their investigation is not conditioned by the Cartesian features described above (T1–T4). On the contrary, Brentano first saw descriptive psychology as a propaedeutic to all inquiries in ontology, in the system of metaphysics.[25] In Vienna, this developed into DPRP, a program complying in many respects with the description of scientific research programs, as we understand them after Lakatos. DPRP was visionary for its time, as shown in Brentano’s difficulties getting the material support necessary for conducting the experimental parts of DPRP.[26] Pace Kriegel, DPRP was not conditioned by a doctrinal philosophical system. As Brentano puts it in the first Vienna lecture, it was, rather, an authentic research program, which “requires … in particular a certain division of labor, as is almost never applied in the domain of philosophy. The reason lies in the situation [of philosophy]. [Only] a few chairs, and these represent a complex of disciplines. With the exception of them, however, there is hardly anyone who would be in the position of engaging professionally with philosophical matters. And how could someone who did so not be tempted by the applause given almost exclusively to the philosophical author of comprehensive works?”.[27]
[1] This is the usual meaning, that the secondary literature on descriptive psychology focuses on. See for instance Marek (1986), Albertazzi (1999), Smith (1992), Fisette (2010), Baumgartner (1986, 1988, 1991) and Baumgartner and Chisholm (1982).
[2] Experiencing is characterized as the first step of the method of the psychognost. See Brentano (1995a, 32), but even the two first sentences of the 1874 foreword to the Psychology from an empirical standpoint: “The title which I have given this work characterizes both its object and its method. My psychological standpoint is empirical; experience alone is my teacher” (Brentano 1995, xxv).
[4] See Hedwig (1988) and Fréchette (forthcoming) on this point.
[5] On this distinction in Brentano’s Vienna lectures, see Chrudzimksi (2000), Sauer (2006), Antonelli (2009), and Fréchette (2013).
[6] See for instance Mulligan and Smith (1985). On the literature on parts and wholes since Brentano, see Smith (1982), Simons (1988), Chisholm (1983;1987;1993), Baumgartner and Simons (1994), Libardi (1994), Baumgartner (2013), and Dewalque (2013).
[7] In a nutshell, in the Vienna lectures Brentano distinguishes between separable parts (a seeing and a hearing), one-sidedly separable parts (a judgment and a presentation), inseparable or distinctive parts (colour and extension, or seeing red and being conscious of seeing red), and logical parts (determinates and determinable) (Italics here mark the parts in question).
[10] See Mulligan & Smith (1985) for a critical discussion of this conception of parts.
[11] See for instance Brentano (1892/2010, 99f.; 1959, 54f.; 1995, 45).
[12] See for instance Götschl (1978), Chisholm (1981). On time-consciousness and the unity of consciousness in Brentano, see Dainton (2006) and (forthcoming).
[14] There are different varieties of such a view. In recent literature, see Massin (2013), Crane (1998) (2013), Naberhaus (2006), Tassone (2012), Bourget (2010, 39), Gennaro (2012, Ch. 5), or Bergmann (1967).
[15] The often quoted phrase that outer perception is not really a ‘perception’ (Wahr-nehmung) in the literal sense of the word ‘Wahrnehmung’, but a ‘false-taking’ (Falsch-nehmung) (See Brentano 1874, 119; 1995, 91) gave rise to diverse interpretations of Brentano’s conception of perception. It certainly contributed to the view that the epistemological priority of inner perception was the central claim of Brentano’s theory of perception, thereby taking him as a phenomenalist (see for instance Hickerson 2007, 35f.; for a more nuanced view on this aspect, see Crane (2014, 33) and Simons (1974/1995:xvii)). Radicalizing the phenomenalist reading of perception, scholars like Tassone (2012, 112) or Moran (2000, 54) even suggest that outer perception ‘is just a special case of inner perception’. This idea was also defended recently by Tassone (2012, 112) showing that, even today, there seems to be no consensus on exactly what Brentano’s account of perception was.
[16] In the same vein, the research project would consider an account such as de Vignemont (2011), who states that bodily awareness ‘was typically understood in terms of a bundle of internal bodily sensations’ until the beginning of the 20th century.
[17] In Brentano’s account it encompasses the ‘lower senses’, like touch, smell, and taste, which are in his view only different modalities of one single sense.
[18] This view was challenged by some of his students, see for instance Stumpf (1928, 110).
[20] See for instance Chisholm (1979) and Baumgartner (2009, XIf). Views on this point are not univocal. De Vignemont and Massin (forthcoming) seem to categorize Brentano’s criteria of individuation of the senses as intentionalist on the basis of the identity of the intentional objects of the respective senses.
[21] See Brentano Ps 76, Ps 77 and EL54; for a condensed account, see Brentano (1954), 204.
[22] Interesting and fruitful connections can be seen with philosophical and experimental discussion of cases of blindsight. See Weiskrantz (1986; 1997), Siewert (1998), and Nelkin (2011).
[25] See his introductory notes on the relationship between metaphysics, ontology, and phenomenology in the recently discovered manuscript from 1877 (Mx1). See Binder (2013) for details concerning this discovery. Elements from Brentano’s correspondence corroborate this idea, see for instance Brentano’s letter to Stumpf from May 5th, 1877, published in Brentano (1989, 71). On the relationship between metaphysics and descriptive psychology, see also M96, p. 31943 and p. 31730, and Baumgartner (1989).
[26] See, among others things, Brentano (1895)¾a pamphlet against the Austrian authorities published after his resignation in 1895.
[27] (Ps 76, 88/B18889). Original English translation.