This book covers the basic guidelines of Vittorio Benussi’s research during the period at Graz and at Padua. It does so in the light of a thorough study of his Nachlass. The book re-evaluates Benussi’s work as a historical piece, and shows how his work is still relevant today, especially in the areas of cognitive psychology and cognitive science. The volume deals with this original and ingenious - though largely ignored - scholar and discusses his work as a leading experimental (...) psychologist. Benussi’s contributions as discussed in this book were particularly relevant in the fields of visual and tactile perception, time perception, forensic psychology, hypnosis and suggestion, unconscious, and emotions. His classical papers are impressive in their originality, energy, range of approaches, experimental skill, the wealth of findings, and the quality of theoretical discussions. This book demonstrates that Benussi was ahead of his time and that his themes, experiments and research programmes are highly relevant to contemporary cognitive psychology. (shrink)

The paper argues against the growing tendency to interpret Brentano’s conception of inner consciousness in self-representational terms. This trend has received support from the tendency to see Brentano as a forerunner of contemporary same-order theories of consciousness and from the view that Brentano models intransitive consciousness on transitive consciousness, such that a mental state is conscious insofar as it is aware of itself as an object. However, this reading fails to take into account the Brentanian concept of object, which is (...) ultimately derived from ancient and medieval philosophy, as well as the secondary, elusive character that Brentano attributes to inner perception. According to Brentano, we have an aspectual but transparent consciousness of transcendent objects, whereas our awareness of our own mental acts is always complete but incidental, and ultimately opaque. Reversing the relationship between intentionality and consciousness faces difficulties at the textual interpretative level, but also raises theoretical problems, for it risks treating Brentano’s theory of mind as a form of subjectivism and idealism. (shrink)

Franz Brentano was a leading philosopher and psychologist of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the impact of his scholarship was so great that he became synonymous with a school of thought and a new approach in scientific philosophy. The Brentano School stood against the Idealistic and post-Kantian German tradition and Brentano played a crucial role in the founding of Austrian philosophy. He had an enormous impact on the work of Husserl and Heidegger, as well as on Moore’s _Ethics_ and Stout and (...) Russell’s analysis of mind. In particular, situated between the phenomenology movement and the analytic tradition, the concept of intentionality was redefined by Brentano and has been—and remains—a key concept of twentieth- and twentieth-first century philosophy of mind. But Brentano not only reshaped philosophy of mind; he was also a remarkable and innovative thinker in several other fields of philosophy, and recent debate in metaethics, metaphysics, and the history of analytic philosophy shows a strong resurgence of interest in Brentano’s thought. Published to coincide with the centenary of Brentano’s death, this four-volume collection, a new title from Routledge Major Works, provides an essential intellectual tool for the exegetical evaluation of all aspects of Brentano’s work. Bringing together early reviews and reactions from his contemporaries—many of which have never before been translated into English—as well as the best critical assessments of Brentano’s work, this ‘mini library’ provides Brentano scholars, historians of philosophy and psychology, and phenomenologists, with a rigorous historical appraisal of Brentano’s thought and influence. Brentano’s relationships with Husserl, Heidegger, and the phenomenological tradition are examined in depth, alongside investigations of key themes from his work on Aristotle, medieval and modern philosophy, philosophy of mind, logic, ontology, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history. (shrink)

Der Triestiner Vittorio Benussi (1878-1927), Mitglied der Grazer gegenstandstheoretischen und psychologischen Schule um Alexius Meinong, war einer der bedeutendsten Experimentalpsychologen seiner Zeit. Seine Pionierleistungen auf dem Gebiet der experimentellen Gestaltpsychologie gerieten jedoch bald durch die fortschreitende Durchsetzung der Berliner Schule der Gestalttheorie in Vergessenheit, so daß sein Werk bis heute weitgehend unbekannt geblieben ist. Benussis wissenschaftliche Tätigkeit, die sich durch eine streng experimentelle Vorgangsweise auszeichnet, erweist sich rückblickend als fruchtbarer Anknüpfungspunkt für die zeitgenössische Kognitionswissenschaft. Dies ermöglicht eine Neubewertung seiner wissenschaftlichen (...) Arbeit und jener aktpsychologischen Tradition, der er angehörte. Benussis Untersuchungen nehmen ihren Ausgangspunkt in der Voraussetzung der Intentionalität des Psychischen. Seine Arbeiten thematisieren das Problem des subjektiven Eingriffs in die Konstitution der Erfahrungsgegebenheiten, indem sie die Vorherrschaft des Subjektes über die elementaren Sinnesbedingungen betonen. In Benussis Gesamtwerk läßt sich ein einheitliches Programm erkennen: Ausgehend von der Gegenstands- und Produktionstheorie der Grazer Schule, entwickelt Benussi seinen eigenen theoretischen Standpunkt, der ihn - bewußt - der Phänomenologie Husserls nähebringt. Benussi verlagert schrittweise den Schwerpunkt seiner Forschungen von der gegenstandstheoretischen Perspektive zur Hervorhebung der latenten Subjektivität, die im Konstitutionsprozeß des Gegebenen wirksam ist. Leben und Werk Vittorio Benussis rückblickend zu betrachten, heißt sich mit einem Klassiker der Psychologie zu beschäftigen, dessen Modernität erst in der heutigen Zeit erkannt werden kann. (shrink)

Ausgehend von Franz Brentanos berühmter Intentionalitätspassage aus der Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt wird dargelegt, daß die vorherrschende ontologische Deutung seines sogenannten frühen Intentionalitätsgedankens unhaltbar ist. Unter Berücksichtigung von Brentanos Quellen, vor allem Aristoteles' Wahmehmungslehre und Theorie der Relativa, wird die Auffassung des sogenannten intentionalen bzw. immanenten Objektes als bewußtseinsimmanenter Entität abgelehnt und die Kontinuität hervorgehoben, die zwischen Brentanos früher und späterer, sogenannter reistischer Intentionalitätsauffassung besteht.

La thèse de l’« inexistence intentionnelle » formulée par Brentano a été traditionnellement interprétée comme une théorie de la « relation intentionnelle », autrement dit de la relation entre l’acte mental et son « objet immanent » ou « intentionnel », c’est-à-dire interne à la conscience. Se fondant sur la lecture du fameux passage sur l’intentionnalité de la Psychologie du point de vue empirique , le présent article démontre que l’interprétation ontologique de la théorie de l’intentionnalité du premier Brentano est (...) insoutenable, toute dominante qu’elle est. Pour ce faire, nous partirons des sources de la pensée de Brentano, en particulier de la théorie de la perception et des relatifs d’Aristote, pour rejeter la conception de l’objet immanent ou intentionnel comme entité immanente à la conscience et mettre en évidence la continuité qui existe entre la première conception de Brentano de l’intentionnalité et la seconde, consécutive à ce qu’on définit comme le tournant réiste de sa pensée.Brentano’s thesis of “intentional inexistence” has been traditionally interpreted as a theory of “intentional relationships”, i.e., of the relation between a mental act and its “immanent” or “intentional object”, within consciousness. Starting from the famous passage on intentionality in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint , the present paper shows that the dominant ontological interpretation of Brentano’s former theory of intentionality is untenable. Proceeding from the sources of Brentano’s thought, in particular from Aristotle’s theory of perception and of relatives, the conception of the immanent or intentional object as an immanent entity to consciousness is rejected. Instead, the continuity between Brentano’s former conception of intentionality and the subsequent one, following the so-called reistic turning-point in his thought, is highlighted. (shrink)