A Note on Stumpf’s History of Active Intellection

Taieb, Hamid

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-35304-9_8

A Note on Stumpf’s History of Active Intellection

Hamid Taieb⁵

Chapter
First Online: 11 March 2020

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Part of the book series: Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind ((SHPM,volume 23))

Abstract

Carl Stumpf, in his Spinozastudien, presents the Aristotelico-Scholastic thesis of the “parallelism” between mental acts and contents, i.e., the thesis that “the essential differences and divisions of the acts run in parallel to those of the contents, since they are determined in their specificity by the latter.” In his paper, Stumpf also distinguishes between passive and active accounts of intellection in the history of philosophy. Now, Stumpf, in his own theory of intentionality, has rather an active account of intellection: he holds that the contents of abstract presentations and judgments are “products” of these acts. Stumpf does not explicitly give a historical precedent for his position. In this note, I would like to discuss Stumpf’s historical narrative concerning the active accounts of intellection, as well as to complete this narrative with information about some prior philosophical positions resembling Stumpf’s own views on psychic products.

I am grateful to V´eronique Decaix for her comments on a previous version of this paper and I thank Nicole Osborne for having checked my English.

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Notes

1.
For an overview of the so-called “School of Brentano”, see Dewalque (2013).
2.
On these questions, see Fisette and Martinelli (2015) and Martinelli (2011).
3.
For more on Stumpf’s life, see the autobiographical information in Stumpf (1919a, 1924).
4.
Stumpf (1906, 1907).
5.
On the fact that Stumpf’s “states of affairs”, despite their name, are rather mental contents, see Chrudzimski (2015).
6.
See Stumpf (1906, 24–26, 28–33; 1907, 6–10). Note that for Stumpf, besides concepts and propositions, there are other kinds of products, namely “aggregates” (Inbegriffe), i.e., results of synthesis, and “values”.
7.
See notably the unpublished text of Pfänder quoted in Fr´echette (2015a, 151) and Reinach (1989, 526, n.1), the unpublished texts of Daubert quoted in Schuhmann (1987, 235–236), Ingarden (1931, 107–108, n.2), and Husserl (1974).
8.
See Witasek (1908, 222–246), quoted in Twardowski (1996, 164, n.5).
9.
Twardowski (1996).
10.
See Bühler (1908a,b, 1933), quoted in Fisette (2014, 125–126). For Bühler’s relation to the School of Brentano, see Cesalli and Friedrich (2014).
11.
On the notion of “product” in Stumpf, but also in Twardowski and the late Husserl, see Taieb (2018). For more on Stumpf’s influences on his contemporaries, see the relevant texts in Fisette and Martinelli (2015).
12.
Brentano (2013, 468), quoted in Fr´echette (2015b, 278).
13.
Martinelli (2011, 53).
14.
Stumpf (1919b, 10) and, for a presentation of Stumpf’s text, Martinelli (2011). On the question of the adequacy of Stumpf’s interpretation of Spinoza, see Martinelli (2001), referred to in Martinelli (2011, 51, n.1).
15.
See the references to Plato’s Republic and Theaetetus in Stumpf (1919b, 10–11).
16.
See Stumpf (1919b, 11) where the claim is also widened to emotions in Aristotle.
17.
On all this, see Stumpf (1919b, 12–16, 23), and the references given there.
18.
See Stumpf (1919b, 17–18; 1939–1940, 196), the latter quoted in Martinelli (2011, 62).
19.
See Stumpf (1919b, 11 and 20).
20.
Strikingly, Brentano says that the images or phantasms contain “concepts” (Begriffe), and that the possible intellect is “the possibility for all concepts” (die Möglichkeit für alle Begriffe).
21.
See Brentano (1867, especially 163–229), as well as the shorter presentations in Brentano (1986, 139–146, 151–153, 352–353).
22.
See Stumpf (1919a, 89–91; 1924, 5; 1869, 108, n.1); and, for information on the lectures on history of philosophy given by Brentano in Würzburg, Hedwig (1980, XXIV, n.3).
23.
See Stumpf (1919b, 20) discussing Ethics II, def. III.
24.
Francisco Su´arez, In De anima, III, ch. 4 (ed. S. Castellote, vol. 2, d. 5, q. 4).
25.
See mainly Duns Scotus, Ordinatio, I, d.3, p.3, q.2 (referred to by Su´arez as “d.3, q.7”, this question indeed being the seventh if the parts of the distinction are ignored) and Quod., XV. On these questions, see Cross (2014, above all 138–149) and Pini (2015, especially 96, n. 47).
26.
Francisco Su´arez, In De anima, III, ch. 4 (ed. S. Castellote, vol. 2, d. 5, q. 4). On these questions, see Aho (2007, especially 199–203). Besides, as pointed out by Aho (2007, 193–194), Su´arez, in his commentary on the De anima, holds that the agent intellect and the possible intellect are one and the same power.
27.
Stumpf (1919b, 21, n.1).
28.
See Stumpf (1919b, 15, n.1).
29.
See Aristotle, Met. IX.6.1048b18–36 and IX.8.1050a23–1050b2.
30.
On these questions, see Duns Scotus, Quod., XIII, a.3 and Pini (2015).
31.
Francisco Su´arez, In De anima, II, ch. 2, Opera III, n^∘15, quoted in Stumpf (1919b, 15–16, n.2). Cf. ed. S. Castellote, vol. 2, d. 3, q. 2, where the text is slightly different, but the idea is the same.
32.
See the presentation of these questions in Burns (1964) and Lec´on (2013), as well as the passages of Su´arez, Disputationes metaphysicae 42, 43, 48, quoted there. For an earlier account of immanent acts and actions, see Francisco Su´arez, In De anima, II, ch. 2 (ed. S. Castellote, vol. 2, d. 3, q. 2), quoted above, as well as In De anima, III, ch. 5 (ed. S. Castellote, vol. 2, d. 5, q. 5). On the fact that the commentary on the De anima precedes the Disputationes metaphysicae, and on Su´arez’s project to rewrite the commentary, see Aho (2007, 181–182).
33.
For Augustine, see De Trinitate, XI, II, 2 and Caston (2001). More broadly on the notion of “intention”, see Sol`ere (2007). On Scotus’ claim that “attention” belongs to the will, not to the cognitive powers, and thus that it is unable to render cognition itself active, see Ordinatio, I, d.3, p.3, q.2, Vat. III, n^∘470. For the relation between “intention” and “attention” in Su´arez, see Aho (2007, 201–203). See Stumpf (1919b, 48), for a brief mention of the Scholastic notion of “intention”, a notion, however, that Stumpf seems to apply to “intentional” acts in general, i.e., independently of their active or passive character.
34.
Stumpf refers to Jacob Martini, but the most famous passage on this distinction is in Su´arez, Disputationes metaphysicae (see disp. 2, sec. 1, n.1).
35.
Stumpf (1919b, 20, n.2), quoting Thomas Aquinas, “Declaratio quorundam articulorum contra Graecos etc.”; cf. in the Leonina edition De rationibus fidei ad Cantorem Antiochenum, 3.
36.
See notably Thomas Aquinas, Contra gentiles, I, 53; De potentia, q.8, a.1, resp.; ST, Ia, q.85, a.2.
37.
Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, q.8, a.1, resp.; ST, Ia, q.27, a.1. On these questions, see again Pini (2015).
38.
Thomas Aquinas, ST, Ia, q.85, a.2. On these two kinds of intellection, and on the third one, “reasoning”, i.e. the logical combination of judgments, see Perler (2002, 61) and Thomas Aquinas, In De interpretatione.
39.
See Augustine, De Trinitate XV, XII, 2 and Lonergan (1967).
40.
Stöckl (1865, 463–464). Stöckl (1865) is quoted in Stumpf (1919b, 15 n.1).
41.
Brentano (1980, 57–58). For the date of the lecture notes, see Hedwig (1980, XXIV, n.3).
42.
See Stumpf (1919a, 87–110; 1924, 6).
43.
Brentano (1924, 125, n.1).
44.
There is a brief reference to Augustine in Stumpf (1919b, 13), but not to the notion of “word”.
45.
See Brentano (1982).

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Hamid Taieb

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Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France
Véronique Decaix
Gothenburg University (FLoV), Gothenburg, Sweden
Ana María Mora-Márquez

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Taieb, H. (2020). A Note on Stumpf’s History of Active Intellection. In: Decaix, V., Mora-Márquez, A. (eds) Active Cognition. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35304-9_8

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