In Rens Bod, Jaap Maat & Thijs Weststeijn (eds.), The Making of the Humanities. Volume III: The Making of the Modern Humanities. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 543-554 (2014)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
On July 14, 1866 Franz Brentano stepped up to the pulpit to defend his thesis that “the true method of philosophy is none other than that of the natural sciences”. This thesis bound his first students to him and became the north star of his school, against the complex background of the progress and specialization of the natural sciences as well as the growth and professionalization of universities. I will discuss the project of the renewal of philosophy as science in the School of Brentano and how this aimed to provide a scientific foundation for the humanities independently from the natural sciences, while preserving the unity of science.
Through his well-known re-introduction of the concept of intentionality as criterion to distinguish internal and external perception, Brentano was able to supply an empirical foundation for the Geisteswissenschaften. While philosophy would use the method of natural science, its domain would not be nature, but consciousness: a full-blooded science of the mind that did not require a reduction to the physical in order to be scientific. Brentano’s science of consciousness was empirical, but not experimental, and relied on subjective methods, but was not introspective.
Brentano’s students Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Alexius Meinong, Christian von Ehrenfels, Edmund Husserl and others came to occupy important chairs in philosophy throughout Europe. While they were certainly not all orthodox followers, they adapted and spread his theories far and wide in the schools and movements they founded and influenced: Gestalt psychology, Prague linguistics, phenomenology, etc..
Moreover, the 19th century idea of scientific research as a collaborative and collective achievement led to a division of labor in Brentano’s school. Each of his students was meant to work out a part of the greater whole: Stumpf, the philosophy of sound and music; Marty, language; Meinong the history of philosophy; Husserl, mathematics; etc. Yet all of them also contributed to the shared project of the renewal of philosophy as science and discussed the (foundational) relation of philosophy to other sciences in programmatic works.
Though often forgotten and overlooked due to contingent historical circumstances, the scientific paradigm of the School of Brentano was very fruitful and highly influential in philosophy and the human sciences in general, throughout the second half of the 19th and into the 20th centuries. Yet it is relevant then as now to preserve the independent scientific dignity of the humanities.
|
Keywords | Franz Brentano School of Brentano History of philosophy History and philosophy of science History and philosophy of the humanities |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Buy the book |
Find it on Amazon.com
|
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
The Function of General Laws in History.Carl Gustav Hempel - 1942 - Journal of Philosophy 39 (2):35-48.
The Specificity of the Scientific Field and the Social Conditions of the Progress of Reason.Pierre Bourdieu - 1975 - Social Science Information 14 (6):19-47.
‘Style’ for Historians and Philosophers.Ian Hacking - 1991 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 23 (1):1-20.
View all 46 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School.Uriah Kriegel (ed.) - 2017 - London and New York: Routledge.
Brentano's Project of Descriptive Psychology.Seron Denis - 2017 - In U. Kriegel (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School. New York: Routledge. pp. 35-40.
Similar books and articles
La science de la conscience selon Brentano.Carlo Ierna - 2014 - In C.-E. Niveleau (ed.), Vers une philosophie scientifique. Le programme de Brentano. Demopolis.
Brentano and Husserl on the History of Philosophy.Balazs M. Mezei - 1998 - Brentano Studien 8:81-94.
The History of Intentionality: Theories of Consciousness From Brentano to Husserl.Ryan Hickerson - 2007 - Continuum.
Brentano and Mathematics.Carlo Ierna - 2012 - In Ion Tănăsescu (ed.), Franz Brentano's Metaphysics and Psychology. Zeta.
Mathematics, Experience and Laboratories: Herbart’s and Brentano’s Role in the Rise of Scientific Psychology.Wolfgang Huemer & Christoph Landerer - 2010 - History of the Human Sciences 23 (3):72-94.
Themes From Brentano. [REVIEW]Wolfgang Huemer - 2015 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23 (2):391-393.
The Continuing Relevance of 19th-Century Philosophy of Psychology: Brentano and the Autonomy of Psychological Methods.Uljana Feest - 2014 - In M. C. Galavotti & F. Stadler (eds.), New Directions in the Philosophy of Science, The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective 5. Springer. Springer. pp. 693-709.
Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano.Arkadiusz Chrudzimski - 2001 - Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Schema of the Brentano School Intellectual Progeny.Arnaud Dewalque - 2013 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12 (3):445-445.
A Letter From Edmund Husserl to Franz Brentano From 29 XII 1889.Carlo Ierna - 2015 - Husserl Studies 31 (1):65-72.
Franz Brentano on the Ontology of Mind.Kevin Mulligan & Barry Smith - 1985 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (4):627-644.
The Unpublished “History of Philosophy” (1866–1867) by Franz Brentano.Pietro Tomasi - 2007 - Axiomathes 17 (1):99-108.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2015-06-10
Total views
30 ( #378,201 of 2,497,789 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #428,370 of 2,497,789 )
2015-06-10
Total views
30 ( #378,201 of 2,497,789 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #428,370 of 2,497,789 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads