Brentano's Mind 9780191765636, 9780199685479

Table of contents :
Part I The Nature of Mental Phenomena

1 Some Marks of Mental Phenomena
2 Brentano’s Thesis Revisited
3 Intentionality Primitivism

Part II The Structure of Consciousness:

II.1 The Structure of Perceptual Consciousness
4 The Regress and the Duplication Argument
5 One Act, Several Conceptual Parts

II.2 Primary and Secondary Consciousness
7 Brentano on Awareness and Observation
8 Attention, Adumbration, and a Neglected Mark of the Mental

II.3 The Intentionality and Structure of Affective Consciousness
9 The Intentionality of Enjoyment
10 The Structure of Enjoyment
11 The Nature of Enjoyment

II.4 The Structure of Synchronic Consciousness
12 Brentano’s Mental Monism

A Brief Conclusion

End Matter
References

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Brentano's Mind | Oxford Academic

Abstract Brentano is one of the ‘grandfathers’ of philosophy of mind. His work in uenced analytic philosophers like Russell and Chisholm as well as phenomenologists like Husserl and Sartre and continues to shape debates in the philosophy of mind. Brentano made intentionality a central topic in the philosophy of mind by proposing that ‘directedness’ is the mark of the mental. The book’s rst part investigates Brentano’s intentionalism and attempts to improve or develop it. I argue that there is no plausible version of this doctrine and reject it in favour of a mark of the mental proposed by Brentano’s student Husserl: mental phenomena have no appearances. The book’s second part develops and defends Brentano’s metaphysics of awareness. Awareness of a mental activity and this mental activity are not distinct mental acts, the rst representing the second. They are one and the same activity directed on several objects. Brentano’s basic insight is that intentionality is plural: directedness is always directedness on some objects. I will assess Brentano’s arguments for this view and argue that the plural conception of intentionality solves thorny problems about perceptual consciousness (II.1). I will go on to articulate Brentano’s distinction between awareness and observation in the proposed framework (II.2). In the next part (II.3) I use enjoying an activity as a model for awareness of it and explore the intentionality and nature of pleasure. The book’s nal part (II.4) extends the plural view to the conscious mental life of a thinker at a time (the unity of synchronic consciousness): it is one mental act with many objects.

Keywords: Brentano, intentionality, consciousness, unity of consciousness, pleasure, pain Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Oxford University PressScholarship uses cookiesOnline to enhance your experience on our website. By selecting Collection: Oxford are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. More infor found in our Cookie Policy. https://academic-oup-com.pbidi.unam.mx:2443/book/27336

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Brentano's Mind | Oxford Academic

Contents Front Matter Copyright Page  Epigraph  Acknowledgements  List of Figures  List of Abbreviations of Brentano’s Main Works  Shorter Works by Brentano  Introduction  View chapter

Part I The Nature of Mental Phenomena Mark Textor 1 Some Marks of Mental Phenomena  View chapter 2 Brentano’s Thesis Revisited  View chapter 3 Intentionality Primitivism  View chapter

Part II The Structure of Consciousness: II.1 The Structure of Perceptual Consciousness Mark Textor 4 The Regress and the Duplication Argument  View chapter 5 One Act, Several Conceptual Parts  chapterPress uses cookies to enhance your experience on our website. By selecting OxfordView University are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. More infor 6 A Relation ‘that relates itself to itself’, Some Regress found in our Cookie Policy. Threats, and a Mystery 

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II.2 Primary and Secondary Consciousness Mark Textor 7 Brentano on Awareness and Observation  View chapter 8 Attention, Adumbration, and a Neglected Mark of the Mental  View chapter

II.3 The Intentionality and Structure of A ective Consciousness Mark Textor 9 The Intentionality of Enjoyment  View chapter 10 The Structure of Enjoyment  View chapter 11 The Nature of Enjoyment  View chapter

II.4 The Structure of Synchronic Consciousness Mark Textor 12 Brentano’s Mental Monism  View chapter A Brief Conclusion  View chapter

End Matter References   Press uses cookies to enhance your experience on our website. By selecting OxfordIndex University are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time. More infor found in our Cookie Policy.

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Copyright Page  https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.002.0003 Published: August 2017

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Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

p. iv

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Mark Textor 2017 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2017 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the

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address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America

Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934971 ISBN 978–0–19–968547–9 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Epigraph  https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.002.0004 Published: August 2017

Pages v–vi

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p. v

In a unitary mental activity […] there is always a plurality of relations and a plurality of objects.

p. vi

Franz Brentano

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Acknowledgements  Published: August 2017

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

Keith Hossack’s paper ‘Self-Knowledge and Consciousness’ made me revisit Brentano’s work in 2002. I am grateful to him for many discussions over the years about Brentano and related topics. Brentano’s philosophy is deeply indebted to Aristotle. It was therefore immensely helpful to me to run three MA seminars on Brentano and Aristotle with MM McCabe. Many thanks to her and the seminar participants for helping me to develop my half-baked ideas. Christoph P sterer organized a doctoral seminar in Zurich in 2011 on Aristotle and Brentano that I cotaught also with MM I am grateful to Christoph for organizing the event and all participants for feedback. Hamid Taieb’s comments were particularly helpful. I am also grateful to Hamid for email discussions over the last years. Aristotle was also the starting point of a research seminar on pleasure that I organized together with Joachim Aufderheide in 2016. I am grateful to him, Anthony Price, Christopher Taylor, Jake Wojtowicz, and the other participants for many suggestions. I tried out ideas from the book in talks and several seminars in 2014 and 2015. I gave talks on parts of the book at the University of Glasgow, the University of Kent, and the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature and gave two workshops on Brentano in Salzburg in 2013 and 2014. Many thanks to the audiences at these occasions. Special thanks go to Nick Allott, Johannes Brandl, Barry Dainton, Dag nn Føllesdal, Guillaume Fréchette, Chris Gauker, Eliot Michaelson, Julian Murzi, Anders Nes, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Charles Siewert, Will Small, and Dan Zahavi. I am grateful to Jennifer Corns and Stephan Leuenberger for written comments and email discussion. Christian Beyer and Dolf Rami organized two graduate seminars at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in 2014 and 2015 on topics of the book that were immensely helpful in shaping the book. Many thanks to Christian, Dolf, and the participants—especially Maik Niemeck and Tobias Klauck—for discussion and feedback. In 2014 I organized together with Uriah Kriegel seminars on Brentano in London and Paris. Many thanks to p. x

the participants—I

remember in particular Oliver Black, Bill Brewer, and Bob Hale—for their

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contributions. Francisco Pereira and Leandro de Braso invited me to give a seminar on the topic of the book at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago de Chile in 2014. The seminar helped me a lot to get clear about central questions and I am grateful to all participants for feedback. In 2015 I gave the Brentano Lectures in Liège. I am grateful to Arnaud Delwaque for the excellent organization. In the discussions after the lectures Arnaud, Federico Boccaccini, Bruno Leclerc, and Denis Seron gave me a lot to think about. Many thanks to them.

Bill Brewer, Julien Dutant, Sacha Golob, Bob Hale, Nils Kürbis, Halvard Lillehammer, Rory Madden, Daniel Morgan, and again Keith Hossack for their input. I presented later drafts in a work-in-progress group in She

eld. Many thanks to Luca Barlassina, Jeremy Dunham, Jessica Leech, and Kathy Puddyfoot for

comments and suggestions. Many thanks to Giulia Felappi who commented on the whole rst draft. I am also grateful to Jake Wojtowicz for comments on three chapters of the almost nal draft, Tom McClelland for comments on a predecessor of what is now chapter 4, Nick Allott, Holly Lawford-Smith, David Owens, and Joe Saunders for comments on what became chapters 10 and 11, Luca Barlassina for comments on chapter 7, and Oliver Black for a very helpful discussion about in nite regresses. Kevin Mulligan pointed me to parts of the literature that I did not know and to Guillaume Fréchette for sending me manuscripts and transcriptions that were hard to get, thank you. I am grateful to various funding bodies for not funding the book project. The rejection of my application for funding drove me on to nish the book and not dally about. The readers for the press gave me constructive comments. In the light of their comments I reorganized the book. Thank you. I would like to thank Peter Momtchilo

for his support of the project, smooth organization of the refereeing

process, and his help in homing in on a title for the book. Many thanks also to Drew Stanley for his thoughtful copy-editing. p. xi

The greatest thanks I owe to Jessica Leech. She was (and is) a constant source of philosophical inspiration and moral support. I gladly dedicate the book to her. A previous version of chapter 7 was published in Philosphers’ Imprint 15 (2015), 1–19. I am grateful to the editors of Philosphers’ Imprint for allowing me to reuse the paper here. Parts of Chapter 12 overlap with my ‘From Mental Holism to the Soul and Back’, published in The Monist 100 (2017), 133–54. I am grateful to the guest editor of this issue of The Monist, Uriah Kriegel, and Oxford University Press for the permission to

p. xii

reprint these parts here.

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I have presented early drafts of chapters in work-in-progress groups in London. I am grateful to Jon Barton,

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List of Figures  https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.002.0007 Published: August 2017

Pages xiii–xiv

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

0.1 How not to picture the multiple relation of belief  5 0.2 How to picture the multiple relation of belief  5 0.3 Awareness as a multiple relation  6 12.1 Many-Acts-With-Two-Objects-Each  247 p. xiv

12.2 One-Act-Many-Objects  248

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List of Abbreviations of Brentano’s Main Works  https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.002.0008 Published: August 2017

Pages xv–xvi

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

DP Descriptive Psychology, trans. by B. Müller, London: Taylor & Francis e-Library 2002. Page references in brackets to Deskriptive Psychologie, ed. by R. Chisholm and W. Baumgartner, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1982. FCE The Foundation and Construction of Ethics, trans. by E.H. Schneewind, London: Taylor & Francis e-Library 2009. Page references in brackets to Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik, ed. by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Reprint Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1978. GÄ Grundzüge der Ästhetik, ed. by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, 2nd edition, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1988. L Logik (EL 80). Online:  http://gams.uni-graz.at/archive/objects/o:bag.el.80-html-norm/methods/sdef:HTML/get LRU Die Lehre vom Richtigen Urteil, ed. by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Bern: Franke 1956. LS 1b Von der Seele. Harvard, Houghton Library. Transcription by Guillaume Fréchette. OKRW The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, trans. by R. Chisholm and E.H. Schneewind, London: Routledge and Keegan Paul 1969. Page references in brackets to Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, ed. by O. Kraus, Reprint Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1969. OSSBA On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle, trans. by R. George, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press 1976. Page references in brackets to Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach

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Aristoteles, Freiburg i.B: Herdersche Verlagshandlung. PA Die Psychologie des Aristoteles: Insbesondere seine Lehre vom Nous Poietikos, Mainz: Franz Kirchheim 1867. p. xvi

PES Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, ed. by L.L. McAlister, trans. by A.C. Rancurello, D.B. Terrell, and L.L. McAlister, 2nd edition, London: Taylor & Francis e-Library 2009. Page references in brackets to Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkt, 2nd edition (1924) in two volumes, ed. by O. Kraus, Reprint

PS 53 Psychologie (Ms. of the planned volume III of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint). Harvard, Houghton Library. RP Religion und Philosophie: Ihr Verhältnis zueinander und Ihre gemeinsamen Aufgaben, ed. by F. MayerHillebrand, Bern: Franke Verlag 1954. SN Vom Sinnlichen und Noetischen Bewusstsein, ed. by O. Kraus, Reprint Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1968. TE The True and Evident, ed. by R. Chisholm, trans. by R. Chisholm, I. Politzer, and K. Fischer, London: Taylor & Francis e-Library 2009. Page references in brackets to Wahrheit und Evidenz (WE), ed. by O. Kraus, Reprint Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1974. US Untersuchungen zur Sinnespychologie. In his Schriften zur Sinnespsychologie, Vol. II of Franz Brentano Sämtliche Verö entlichte Schriften, Erste Abteilung: Schriften zur Psychologie, ed. by T. Binder and A. Chrudzimski, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag 2009. VE Versuch über die Erkenntnis, ed. by A. Kastil, 2nd enlarged edition by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1970. 1867–1917 Franz Brentano—Carl Stumpf: Briefwechsel 1867–1917, ed. M. Kaiser-El-Safti, with the help of T. Binder, Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2014.

Other Abbreviations DPM Marty, A. 2011. Deskriptive Psychologie, ed. by M. Antonelli and J. Marek, Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann.

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Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1971.

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Shorter Works by Brentano  https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.002.0009 Published: August 2017

Pages xvii–xviii

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

Brentano, F. 1883. Miklosisch über subjektlose Sätze. Reprinted in PES [II, 183–99]. Brentano, F. 1887–90. Abstraction and Relation. Trans. by R. Rollinger in Fisette, D. and Fréchette, G. (eds.), Themes from Brentano. Amsterdam: Rodopi 2013, 431–49. Page references in brackets to ‘Abstraktion and Relation’, ibid. 465–83. Brentano, F. 1889. Vom Relativen. M 32. Harvard, Houghton Library. Brentano, F. 1906a. Vom Object. In his Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, ed. by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1966, 330–40. Brentano, F. 1906b. Vom Begri

des Schönen. In GÄ, 123–38.

Brentano, F. 1907. Loving and Hating. In OKRW, 137–61. German in F. Brentano, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, ed. by O. Kraus, Reprint Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1969, 142–69. Brentano, F. 1912/13. Substance. In his The Theory of Categories, trans. by R. Chisholm and N. Guterman, The Hague: Nijho

1981, 101–25. German in F. Brentano, Kategorienlehre, ed. by A. Kastil, Reprint

Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1974, 129–66. Brentano, F. 1914. The Real is the Temporally Continuous. There is no Internal Proteraesthesis. In his Space, Time Continuum, trans. by B. Smith, London: Routledge 2010, 62–7. German in F. Brentano, Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum, ed. by S. Körner and R. Chisholm, Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1976, 105–13. Brentano, F. 1916. Was an Reid zu loben. Ed. by R. Chisholm and R. Fabian. Grazer Philosophische Studien 1 (1978), 1–18. Brentano, F. and Bergmann, F. 1946. Briefe Franz Brentanos an Hugo Bergmann. Philosophy and p. xviii

Phenomenological Research 7, 83–158.

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CHAPTER

Introduction  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0001 Published: August 2017

Pages 1–10

Abstract The introduction outlines and motivates the main questions of the book. I will engage with two philosophical questions—‘What is the nature of mind?’ and ‘What is the structure of consciousness’— through Brentano’s work. My interest is not so much to nd a plausible reading of Brentano’s often dense and di

cult texts, but to evaluate the arguments and views that can be distilled from them for

truth. I will argue that Brentano’s answer to the rst question is in interesting ways wrong. Intentionality is not the mark of the mental. I will argue that Brentano’s student Husserl succeeded where Brentano failed: he developed a mark of the mental. Brentano’s answer to the second question is defensible and illuminating. The relation between a mental act and awareness of the mental act is identity. There is one metaphysically simple event or process that can be brought under di erent partial concepts because it is directed on several objects, among them itself.

Keywords: Brentano, intentionality, mental, Husserl, mark of the mental, metaphysics of consciousness, plurals Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

0.1 The Nature of Mental Phenomena and Intentionality Some things have at least one of the following abilities: they can perceive, feel, desire, or know. Other things have none of these abilities. The di erence between things that have some of the abilities mentioned and those that have none is of fundamental importance to us. We empathize with, have compassion and distinctive concern for, things that feel; we ought to respect things that have desires and reasons for their desires, and so on; we trust things that know, etc. We don’t show the same concern for things that lack any of these abilities listed here. You can misplace a button, but you can’t wrong, disrespect, or hurt it.

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What uni es the abilities that physical objects lack, yet beings that we respect, reason with, or feel concern for have? The abilities or, more broadly, powers, have distinctive manifestations. They are manifested in activities—perceiving, willing, recognizing, etc. What do these activities have in common? Drawing inspiration from Aristotle, Brentano gave a bold, suggestive, and in uential answer. When you perceive, you perceive something; when you feel, you feel something; when you desire, you desire something; when you judge, you judge something; and so on. The exercises of the abilities under consideration are events or acts and processes are directed on something. This thesis and the connected slogan ‘Intentionality is the mark of the mental’ are together known as Brentano’s Thesis. p. 2

1

Brentano’s Thesis has been interpreted, mined, and discussed by many philosophers. Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, called intentionality the: miraculous property to which all mysteries of metaphysics and reason can be traced back in the explicit cogito […]. (Husserl 1913b, 168; my translation) ‘Brentano’s problem’ or ‘Brentano’s chestnuts’ (Fodor) is the problem to give an account of the miraculous 2

property in non-mental terms. ‘Pulling Brentano’s chestnuts out of the re’ has been a central project of prime importance among naturalistic philosophers of mind. Brentano also provides inspiration for philosophers of mind that don’t pursue this agenda. For example, Crane argues that: our conception of the mind is uni ed by the idea of intentionality, the mind’s directedness on its objects. Intentionality is the distinctive mark of all and only mental phenomena. (Crane 2001, 2) Intentionalists are guided by this view of the nature of mind in their research. Brentano’s Thesis has been criticized for di erent reasons. I want to set aside right at the beginning two reasons that I will not consider in detail in the book. First, in his Analysis of Mind, Russell described himself as a former follower of Brentano: Until very lately I believed, as [Brentano] did, that mental phenomena have essential reference to objects, except possibly in the case of pleasure and pain. Now I no longer believe this, even in the case of knowledge. (Russell 1922, 15) In love something is loved and in fear something is feared, but one can’t continue ‘in pain something is…’. Therefore Russell took pleasure and pain to be a problem for Brentano’s Thesis. However, his reason for giving up Brentano’s Thesis is independent of this problem for Brentano: The reference of thoughts to objects is not, I believe, the simple direct essential thing that Brentano and Meinong represent it as being. It seems to me to be derivative, and to consist largely in beliefs: beliefs that what constitutes the thought is connected with various other elements which together make up the object. (Russell 1922, 18; original emphasis) p. 3

According to Russell, many mental phenomena are only directed upon an object in a derivative sense. For example, my fear of Lucifer is directed upon something in virtue of my belief that there is something

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processes—Brentano called them ‘acts’—that are of or directed on an object or objects. All and only mental

corresponding to the properties and stereotypes I associate with the name ‘Lucifer’. Hence, Brentano’s Thesis comes out wrong on Russell’s account. Some mental acts are not intentional; they are only properly 3

connected with beliefs that are satis ed by objects or not.

However, the crucial premise in Russell’s objection seems to be false. It is plausible that one can perceive 4

something without having beliefs about it. I can see John without believing that John is thus-and-so. If you have convinced me that I am in the grip of a drug that makes me hallucinate, I will not form beliefs about my to be distinct from their surroundings. Similarly, I might admire Sherlock Holmes in the full knowledge that there is no such person or imagine for the purposes of a thought experiment a frictionless surface. In such cases there is no belief or knowledge from which my attitudes inherit their object-directedness. Second, there seem to be mental states and acts that are not directed on anything—what is distinctive about them is a felt quality. Frequent examples are moods like ennui or depression. I take modern champions of Brentano’s Thesis to have provided a good response to this objection. The felt quality of a mental act is itself 5

determined by what the act is about.

I will therefore not engage with this objection, but with the problem of what intentionality is in the rst place. In the rst part of the book, consisting of chapters 1–3, I will discuss Brentano’s Thesis. I will try to understand Brentano’s Thesis better by seeing how he responded or could have responded to the objection that not only mental phenomena are intentional. It has been argued that there are physical phenomena that are directed on something and that certain sentences ascribing physical phenomena pass the tests for 6

intentional sentences. Paradigm cases are powers. In order to say what a power is one needs to say what the p. 4

manifestations of the power are. For example, magnetism is the

power to attract metal of speci c kinds.

Some philosophers argue that powers (or the objects that have them) are directed on their manifestations. 7

There is mental as well as physical intentionality.

Brentano had a response to this problem. In outline it goes as follows. Intentionality is a primitive property. The metaphor of directedness is only supposed to guide one to apprehend this feature when introspecting one’s thinking and perceiving. When one does so, it becomes apparent that every mental phenomenon is directed on two objects, one of them being the act itself. No physical power exhibits these features. Hence, Brentano’s Thesis links consciousness and directedness. This brings me to the second main topic of the book.

0.2 The Structure of Consciousness Some things are not only able to perceive, to feel, to desire, and to know. They are also able to be aware or conscious of their perceiving, feeling, etc. Is the ability to be aware of one’s feeling an additional ability to that of being able to perceive, feel, etc.? Again drawing inspiration from Aristotle, Brentano gave a bold, suggestive, and in uential answer. No, it is not. For example, perceiving and awareness of perceiving are in fact the same activity. They are one activity that has several objects. What distinguishes mental acts and processes from physical events and processes is that only the former are directed on (at least) two objects, one of these objects being the act or process itself. Brentano’s view that mental acts are directed on themselves as well as other objects is supposed to be independently plausible. In Psychologie Brentano elaborated an argument that, if convincing, shows that conscious perceiving cannot be factorized into ontologically independent mental acts. A comparison with Russell’s multiple-relation theory of judgement will bring out the crucial feature of Brentano’s view.

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environment on the basis of my perception. Yet, I can see objects in my environment when they look to me

Judgement, many will say, is a two-place relation between a thinker and a proposition, the referent of a clause like ‘that Desdemona loves Cassio’. Russell could not nd a satisfactory answer to the question of what uni es some things to one proposition if the proposition is false. He took false propositions therefore to be ‘curious shadowy things’ better to be dispensed with. If one dispenses with false propositions, one p. 5

ought

also to dispense with true propositions. If there are no propositions, judgement cannot be a two-

place relation between a thinker and a proposition; it is a mental relation of variable adicity between a is one relation with four terms: Othello, Desdemona, Love, and Cassio. Russell explained further: When we say that it is a relation of four terms, we do not mean that Othello has a certain relation to Desdemona, and has the same relation to loving and also to Cassio. This may be true of some other relation than believing; but believing, plainly, is not a relation which Othello has to each of the three terms concerned, but to all of them together: there is only one example of the relation of believing involved, but this one example knits together four terms. (Russell 1912, 73) So there are not three dyadic relations (as represented in Figure 0.1).

Figure 0.1

How not to picture the multiple relation of belief Instead, the judgement is one relation that has four terms; the same relation relates all of them. A better representation of Othello’s judgement is Figure 0.2.

Figure 0.2

How to picture the multiple relation of belief Now, Russell’s multiple-relation theory of judgement and belief is controversial. However, it is not controversial that there are relations and properties that t Russell’s description. According to Brentano, perceptual awareness is such a multiple relation. Taking a leaf from Russell’s book, we can say that Brentano argued that awareness of perceiving a, is not two cases of awareness, but one case of the relation of awareness with several objects (see Figure 0.3).

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thinker and some things, particulars, and universals. When Othello judges Desdemona to love Cassio, there

Figure 0.3

p. 6

Awareness of perceiving is one mental act that presents some objects. It presents all of them, without presenting each of them in particular, just like a plural term refers to some objects. In conclusion, perceiving x is not distinct from awareness of perceiving x. This claim is the key claim of Brentano’s view of the structure of consciousness. We know the facts about consciousness, but not the structure of consciousness. For instance, we don’t need a justi cation to trust the deliverances of consciousness or, as Brentano said, inner perception: What is clearly needed instead is a theory about the relation between such perception and its object, which is compatible with its immediate evidence.…[S]uch a theory is no longer possible if perception and its object are separated into two distinct mental acts, of which the one would only be an e ect of the other, say. (PES, 109 [I, 199]; my emphasis) Brentano will argue that there is only one relation that ts the bill: identity. Perceiving x and awareness of perceiving x are the same act under di erent descriptions. Brentano’s main contribution to our 8

understanding of consciousness is his development of this identity-view.

0.3 Aim of the Book The primary aim of this book is not historical. I will engage with two philosophical questions—‘What is the nature of mind?’ and ‘What is the structure of consciousness’—through Brentano’s work. My interest is not so much to nd a plausible reading of Brentano’s often dense and di

cult texts, but to evaluate the

arguments and views that can be distilled from them for truth. I will argue that Brentano gave a defensible p. 7

and illuminating answer to the second question, while his answer to the

rst question is in interesting

ways wrong. Intentionality is not the mark of the mental. I will argue that Brentano’s student Husserl succeeded where Brentano failed: he developed a mark of the mental. My overall goal is to bring out something true and philosophically illuminating in Brentano’s thinking about the mind, in a historically informed way. I don’t aim to capture and defend every detail of his philosophy of mind or reconstruct the historical development of his views. I will set aside those aspects of Brentano’s thought that don’t contribute to a viable philosophical view. The philosophical view that will emerge in this book will, I hope, preserve the spirit and often enough the letter of Brentano’s work.

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Awareness as a multiple relation

0.4 Plan of the Book The book has two parts. The rst part is devoted to Brentano’s Thesis, the second part to the structure of consciousness. The rst part begins, unsurprisingly, with chapter 1. In it I will outline the marks of the mental that played and consciousness. Brentano endorsed these criteria, yet took intentionality to be most distinctive of mental phenomena. The chapter will also introduce key concepts of Brentano’s philosophy such as inner perception and acknowledgement. Chapter 2 is a guided tour through di erent ways one can construe the notion of intentionality and, consequently, Brentano’s Thesis. I will argue that on none of the proposed understandings of intentionality is Brentano’s Thesis true. I will also review replacements of Brentano’s Thesis that characterize the mental with concepts in the neighbourhood of intentionality: intentional sentence, correctness, aspectual shape. The result is again negative. None of these replacement theses is true. In chapter 3 I use these negative ndings to shed light on Brentano’s Intentionality Primitivism. Brentano did not take talk of directedness to be explanatory, but merely as giving hints or clues. We can only learn what intentionality is by instantiating and attending to it. While Primitivism is the right view of intentionality, I will argue that even an Intentionality Primitivist can’t defend Brentano’s Thesis. The second part of the book will develop Brentano’s view that, ultimately, the mental life of a thinker at a p. 8

time consists in only one mental act

that has many objects, and not in many acts that each have one

object. This ties in with a question about faculties. Do we have many perceptual faculties—sight, touch, hearing, taste—and an introspective faculty—inner sense—or is there one universal faculty that ‘multitasks’? In chapter 4 I will draw on Aristotle and Hamilton in order to introduce the main arguments and their problems for the monistic view of perceptual consciousness that denies a plurality of mental acts and faculties. I will reconstruct and defend Brentano’s main argument: the Duplication Argument. The conclusion of the Duplication Argument is that conscious perceiving is one mental act that is directed on several objects, among them itself. I expand on this conclusion in chapter 5. First, I show how the idea that one mental event has several intentional objects constitutes the basis for the division of the act into conceptual parts. Second, I compare and contrast Brentano’s view of perceptual consciousness with contemporary self-representational views. I will argue that Brentano’s view has the virtues without inheriting the vices of alternative views. Chapter 6 addresses objections to Brentano’s view of perceptual awareness. The main concern is the threat of revenge regresses to which Brentano’s view is supposed to give rise. I answer this and other objections in detail. Chapter 7 is devoted to a pressing question for Brentano and his followers. If awareness of perception and perceiving are the same phenomenon, how is it possible that we seem not to be aware of our perceiving when consciously perceiving something? Aristotle and Brentano try to accommodate this observation by introducing the notion of ‘en parergo’. When we perceive something, we are aware of our perceiving ‘on the side’. Aristotle’s talk of perceiving one’s mental activity ‘on the side’ suggests that someone who loses himself, for example, in a melody is still aware of his perceiving, but in a way that does not ‘register’ with the perceiver. Brentano therefore ranked the objects of perception: when one hears a tone, for instance, the tone is the primary, the hearing is the secondary object. If this is to be more than a name for the problem, one needs (a) an account of perceiving (thinking) on the side that explains why the objects one is aware of on the

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an important role in the history of philosophy before Brentano: non-spatiality, Cartesian privileged access,

side tend to escape one’s notice and (b) an independent reason why one does (can) only perceive (think) of one’s current mental activity on the side. Brentano aimed to provide such a reason when he argued that one p. 9

cannot observe

9

one’s current mental activity. Brentano’s arguments for this thesis inform Stumpf’s and

Husserl’s further work and hence constitute an important strand of the phenomenological tradition. In chapter 8 I return to marks of mental phenomena. Brentano’s thesis that inner perception cannot become observation suggests a new take on this topic. I will argue that Brentano’s student Husserl has succeeded in processes does not exhibit constancy phenomena. In a nutshell, Husserl ‘claimed that the mental has no “adumbration”, no “appearance”’ (Stumpf 1939, 342; my translation). I will conclude the chapter by defending this view of the nature of mind against its critics and put it in relation to Brentano’s Thesis. I will argue that Husserl’s ‘no appearance’ view and Brentano’s ‘en parergo’ view complement each other. Chapters 9 to 11 are about enjoyment. Why three chapters on enjoyment? Brentano sees, rightly as I will argue, a very close connection between enjoyment and consciousness: The feeling belongs to the act as a most intimate accessory [aczessorium] in a way very similar to the cognition [Erkenntnis]. For instance, Aristotle (Eth. Nic. X) describes the hedoné of the fully accomplished act as its teleióites […]. (Brentano 1867–1917, Letter to Stumpf 8.5.1871, 49; my translation) Enjoying hearing a melody stands to hearing a melody as awareness of hearing a melody stands to this perceptual activity. The structure of consciousness and the structure of enjoyment are mutually illuminating: thinking about consciousness provides the conceptual tools for understanding enjoyment and enjoyment provides an independent model for the structure exempli ed in consciousness. (If the reader nds Brentano’s view of consciousness di

cult to believe, I recommend reading chapters 9 to 11 before the

part on consciousness.) Chapter 9 defends Brentano’s view that we enjoy activities in the primary sense, chapter 10 that enjoyment has several objects, among them itself, and chapter 11 that enjoyment is, among other things, a self-related love. The book concludes with chapter 12 on synchronic consciousness. The Duplication Argument is a good p. 10

reason to believe that a single conscious perception is self- and other representing. But we never have

a

single perception at a time. We simultaneously consciously see, hear, taste, smell, etc. Are these distinct mental acts such that each of them represents itself and a physical object, but no other mental act and physical object? Brentano rejected this atomistic conception. There is at any time just one mental act that presents many physical objects and itself. Later Brentano gave this view up in favour of a substance ontology. Instead of one mental act with plural reference, there is one mental substance that has many accidents, each of them a mental activity. I will argue for Brentano’s original proposal and defend it against the objection he later levelled against it.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

For an overview of work on intentionality present and past see Moran 2013. See Moran 1996, 1–2. See also Searle 1983, 34. See Dretske 1969, 18 . See Byrne 2001. See Crane 1998 for a defence of Brentanoʼs thesis against purported counterexamples of non-intentional mental phenomena. See, for example, Martin and Pfeifer 1986, Molnar 2004, Place 1996, and Nes 2008. See Molnar 2004, 61.

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turning this suggestion into a criterion of the mental. He argues that our awareness of mental events and

Hossack (2002, 174) credits Brentano with an identity view and goes on to develop a di erent identity view. See PES, 99 [I, 181]. 8 9

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Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

1 Some Marks of Mental Phenomena  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0002 Published: August 2017

Pages 12–43

Abstract Brentano, following Mill, conceived of psychology as the science of mental phenomena. In the framework of this conception of psychology, he made proposals about how to distinguish physical from mental phenomena. The chapter introduces and assesses three such proposals: Non-Spatiality, Inner Perception, and Consciousness. Brentano’s Inner Perception turns out to be immune to objections that are often directed against epistemic marks of the mental. His Non-Spatiality and Consciousness turn out to be controversial and subject to regress threats, respectively. The chapter prepares the stage for a discussion of Brentano’s Thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental. It also introduces key concepts of Brentano’s philosophy.

Keywords: Descartes, Hume, awareness, homonomy, introspection, descriptive psychology, nonspatiality, indubitability, self-intimation Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

1.1 Introduction Brentano, following Mill, conceived of psychology as the science of mental phenomena. In the framework of this conception of psychology, he made proposals about how to distinguish physical from mental phenomena. In this chapter I will introduce and assess three such proposals: Non-Spatiality, Inner Perception, and Consciousness. Brentano endorsed all of them and has his particular take on each of them. Especially Inner Perception is immune to objections that are often directed against epistemic marks of the mental. However, this chapter serves not to defend the plausibility of these marks. Its main function is to prepare the stage for Brentano’s Thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental. It will also introduce key concepts of Brentano’s philosophy.

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Search in this book

1.2 Awareness as Inner Perception What is psychology the science of? Brentano’s answer to this question emerges from his criticism of the traditional view that psychology is—the name gives it away—the science of the soul. Brentano’s outline of 1

the science of the soul mentions two main theses:

(2) Psychology is the study of distinctive features and laws of souls. p. 13

Brentano argued that one should reject (1) and (2) because there is no mental substance. Why should one reject mental substances? Just as in sensation we encounter the phenomena of warmth, colour, and sound, we encounter in inner perception the phenomena [Erscheinungen] of thinking, feeling, and willing. We don’t notice [bemerken] an entity that has them as properties. It is a ction, which has no reality at all or, if it existed, its existence could not be certi ed. 2

(PES, 8 [I, 15–16])

Awareness is a form of perception. The objects we are aware of are the objects investigated by psychology. The soul—a bearer of mental properties—is not among these objects. Hence, it is a ction and there is no 3

science of the soul.

The main work in this argument is done by the notion of awareness. Brentano appeals to his readers’ own awareness and trusts that they can convince themselves of the truth of his claims. What are the things you are aware of? I think and hope that your list will look like Brentano’s: you are aware of ongoing perceiving, willing, thinking. The details of Brentano’s argument need defence and clari cation. Let’s start by explaining and motivating Brentano’s claim that awareness is a form of perception, inner perception. In view of the many disanalogies between seeing colours and shapes, hearing sounds, etc. and being aware of seeing colours and shapes, 4

hearing sounds, etc. this needs elaboration and defence. p. 14

In which sense is awareness a kind of perceiving? The starting point for Brentano’s answer is suggested by the German word for perceiving: Wahrnehmen. He gives weight to the fact that this word is composed out of 5

‘true’ (wahr) and ‘taking’ (nehmen). Seeing something, hearing something, touching something, etc. are all taking something to be true. Now this is not quite right: Of the objects I perceive [wahrnehme] I recognize that they are. Every unbiased person will immediately concede this. Because of this the name [Wahr-nehmung] is connected to “truth” [“Wahrheit”]. (GÄ, 73; my translation and emphasis) The ‘are’ (‘is’) is the ‘are’ (‘is’) of existence. When we perceive something, we take it to be. If one construes ‘taking to be’ as judging that something is (exists), this intentionally broad conception of perception is in trouble. I can see John without judging that he is, for instance, if I don’t trust my eyes. Brentano uses this problem to motivate a non-propositional view of judgement which covers inner perception or awareness. Consider the rst perceptions of a young infant. The infant’s awareness of perceiving cannot consist in a predicative judgement to the e ect that, for example, a hearing exists or occurs:

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(1) Mental phenomena are properties of something that is itself not a property: a mental substance.

Would it be conceivable […] that the very rst sensation a child has is accompanied not only by a presentation of the act of sensation, but also at the same time by a perception of this act? By a cognition [Erkenntnis] that it [the act] exists? By a judgement which connects the concept of existence as predicate with the mental phenomenon as subject? I believe that everyone recognizes how improbable, indeed how impossible such a supposition is. (PES, 109–10 [I, 200])

motivated to make such an assumption in the rst place? Because if we are aware of something, we are not neutral with respect to it. We don’t take something to be true; we take it to be. How can one articulate this commitment to the objects one is aware of without saying that one judges that they are (occur)? Brentano appealed to his readers’ own introspective knowledge for the answer: p. 15

No one who pays attention to what goes on within himself when he hears or sees and perceives his act of hearing or seeing could be mistaken about the fact that this judgement of inner perception does not consist in the connection of a mental act as subject with existence as a predicate, but consists rather in the simple acknowledgement [Anerkennung] of the mental phenomenon which is present in inner consciousness. 7

(PES, 110 [I, 201]; my emphasis)

Acknowledging seeing a blue patch is thinking of seeing a blue patch in a particular mode: the positing or 8

acknowledging mode. But I don’t predicate a property, existence, of it. Acknowledgement is a non9

10

propositional act. One perceives something if one takes it to be without ascribing a property to it.

But have we not just given a name to the problem of how there can be non-propositional ‘acceptance’? For example, Bell (1990, 12) argues that Brentano’s proposal ‘remains unintelligible in the absence of any account of what it is to a

rm or deny something’, where the quanti er ‘something’ ranges over objects and

events. How can one acknowledge or reject an object like a seeing? 11

One way to make Brentano’s proposal intelligible is to consider the mental state of believing-in.

English

has the intensional transitive construction ‘S believes in A’ as well as the propositional one ‘S believes that p’. ‘Believe in’ takes as complements singular terms (‘Santa Claus’), plural terms (‘dwarves’), and mass terms (‘dark matter’). The same distinction can be found in German (‘glauben an’ versus ‘glauben, daß’). Sometimes ‘believe in’ is used to express a positive evaluative attitude (‘I believe in love’), but often we use p. 16

12

it to convey our ontological commitments.

Here is a dramatic example that illustrates the ontological

use of ‘believe in’: Holding on to the world is mostly an act of faith: you see a little bit in front of you and you believe in the rest of it both in time and space. If you’re scheduled for a jump to Hubble on Tuesday, you believe in you, in Hubble, in the jump, and in Tuesday. (Hoban 1996, 30) Gendler Szabó (2003, 591f.) argues that believing that A(s) exists is not the same mental state as believingin A(s). I will not rehearse his argument here, but simply rely on the reader’s grasp of the concept of beliefin. Acknowledgement of an object is the episodic and factive counterpart to this mental state. If one acknowledges an object, one comes to believe in it such that one cannot be wrong in this belief-in. So far we have not made the notion of non-propositional denial intelligible, but for our purposes this is not necessary.

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6

Indeed, not many will assume that a just born child judges that it is perceiving. But why should one be

Is the introduction of acknowledging as a non-propositional attitude an ad hoc move? No, Brentano 1883 discussed independent linguistic evidence that some judgements are not predicative. Consider a ‘subjectless’ sentence such as ‘It is raining’. Prima facie, one does not express a predicative judgement if one utters 13

such a sentence with assertoric force.

We arrive then at the following view of perception: a perception is an acknowledgement of a contingent 14

particular that is not motivated by an (alethic) reason.

Awareness is inner perception because it is

evident if it could not exist without its object, and there neither is, nor needs to be, a justifying reason for it. In contrast, outer perception is not immediately evident. A problem with this view of perception is that one can perceive an object for a while, while 15

acknowledgement seems to be an achievement that is not extended over time.

However, Armstrong (1968,

215) points out that there are continuous performances that are also continuous achievements like holding a p. 17

heavy weight aloft for a while. When one

is aware of hearing a melody for a while, there is a continuous

achievement of acknowledging the hearing it. If one describes this process in non-success terms one will describe it as a presenting of the hearing. In this sense Brentano can say that a perceptual presentation is 16

the fundament or basis of a perception.

1.3 The Objects of Inner and Outer Perception We have now motivated Brentano’s conception of awareness as inner perception. The objects of psychology are the objects we perceive in awareness, that is, acknowledge with immediate evidence. A bearer of properties, says Brentano, is not among the objects of inner perception. Can this negative claim be supported? Brentano appealed to an analogy with outer perception. In outer perception, that is, in seeing, hearing, etc., we are aware of, for example, the whiteness of a ower, the coldness of the steel, but we are not aware of the ower that is white (the steel that is cold). The bearer of the properties seen is not an object of perception. Similarly, in inner perception we are aware or conscious of seeing a blue patch, hearing a sound, etc., but we are not aware of something that sees blue or hears a sound. However, Brentano’s analogy between inner and outer perception does not strengthen his point about the objects of awareness. For objects that possess perceivable qualities have in virtue of such qualities distinctive looks. It seems hard to deny that, intuitively, this quali es such objects as things we can see. I see the red cube, in part, because it looks red and cube-ish to me. So why are we not aware of an object that is a bearer of mental properties or subject of mental changes in awareness? In order to answer this question we need to look more closely at inner perception or awareness. Brentano writes: The general character of everything mental, as it falls in our experience [wie es in unsere Erfahrung fällt], is the having of objects. (Brentano 1906a, 339; my translation and emphasis) In contrast, the general character of physical phenomena, as they are given to us in perception, is the possession of extension and/or location: p. 18

[Inner perception] does not show us localized, spatially extended things, but mental processes [psychische Vorgänge], consciousness of something [Bewusstsein von etwas]—i.e., we perceive ourselves as having something as object.

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acknowledgement of mental particulars with immediate evidence. An acknowledgement is immediately

(FCE, 85 [136]; my translation and emphasis) Brentano’s characterization of the objects of outer perception is plausible enough. Prima facie, physical phenomena like colours seem to be somewhere and to ll space. I cannot see a colour without seeing a spatial extent that is lled by it. In visual perception we experience physical objects together with the space 17

they ll.

Similar things go for sound: when I hear a sound I hear it coming from a direction. In section 1.5

we will see that this is controversial for theoretical reasons. However, the intuitive plausibility of these

But what does it mean to say that inner awareness shows us consciousness of something or, in Brentano’s less minimal description, that we perceive ourselves ‘as having something as an object’? Brentano frames this thesis as a thesis about the objects of inner perception or awareness. This makes the thesis hard to explain and argue for. For awareness is distinct from introspection or inner observation: awareness is not under our control, while introspection is. When I observe my mental life, that is, focus my attention on it, I am no longer aware of it (more in chapter 7). The dialectical problem for Brentano is that one can argue for the thesis that in inner observation mental activities are given as having objects, but there is no straightforward way to move from there to the related claim that in inner perception mental activities are given as having objects. Let’s rst see why the thesis about inner observation is plausible. Imagine that you listen to a note and you want to attend to your listening. You cannot attend to your listening and discern its properties without attending also to the note you listen to. Just try to attend only to your listening and you will see that you fail. 18

You need also to attend to the note you listen to. The same goes if your mental activity is not veridical.

If

you are auditorily hallucinating, you can attend to your ‘seeming listening’ only if you also attend to what you seem to listen to. This cries out for further clari cation: how can one attend to a something that does p. 19

not

exist? I will come back to this question when discussing Brentano’s notion of an intentional object in

chapter 2. 19

In sum: if I attend to my mental acts and activities, I must also attend to an object.

How do mental acts

appear to us when we focus our attention to them? They appear to us as having objects. Attending to their objects goes hand in hand with attending to them. The connection with Brentano’s Thesis—intentionality is the mark of the mental—is obvious: when we try to establish what the distinctive features of mental acts and activities are we need to attend to them. We cannot attend to them without also attending to some object that appears to us in this activity. My awareness of listening to a note is, for example, an awareness of a process, namely an ongoing consciousness of a particular sound. When we pay attention to our seeing, hearing, etc. these activities seem to us to be of objects. Brentano’s Thesis generalizes this observation. All mental acts and activities, whether veridical or not, seem to be of objects. When we observe mental activities, we attend to them as well as to their objects and we can do the former only by and in doing the later. This recommends Brentano’s Thesis as a mark of the mental: it is the mark of the mental that will strike every thinker as initially plausible because that is how he experiences his mental life when he attends to it. It makes it also plausible that a bearer of mental properties is not an object of introspection. When attending to a mental activity like listening to a note we attend to it as well as to its object and we can do the former only by and in doing the latter. But there is no further object that one can 20

attend to in introspective awareness.

However, this conclusion is, as already noted, di erent from Brentano’s thesis about inner perception. The p. 20

21

di erence is important because we may be aware of objects that we cannot introspectively attend to.

This

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points about perception seems hard to deny.

is exactly the position Brentano defended in later work: we cannot observe or introspectively attend to mental substances, but we are aware of them together with their mental activities: If our self intuitively appears to us as thinking and willing, it appears to us with accidents, but someone would err who believed that the appearance would not contain a substance intuitively given.

Yes, a mental substance is given in awareness. But we cannot explore or discover any of its properties by paying attention to it. Why? According to Brentano’s later view, the mental substance is given in every inner perceiving. But noticing something in particular requires variation: we can only notice processes if they are interrupted. Leibniz gave a vivid illustration: [We fail to notice impressions] because these impressions are either too minute and too numerous, or else too unvarying, so that they are not su

ciently distinctive on their own. But when they are

combined with others they do nevertheless have their e ect and make themselves felt, at least confusedly, within the whole. This is how we become so accustomed to the motion of a mill or waterfall, after living beside it for a while, that we pay no heed to it. 22

(Leibniz 1765, 53–4; my emphasis)

After a while the miller will no longer notice the noise of the mill because it is always present. If the noise were interrupted, he would notice its present absence and thereby its former presence. This is compatible with the fact that the miller still hears the noise of the mill, yet does not hear it on its own, but only together with other sounds. I will frequently come back to the contrast between singular and joint perceiving. For the purposes of this chapter it is important that we are, if Brentano is right, with respect to our self in a similar situation as the miller with respect to the sound of the mill: our self is never absent in inner perception and p. 21

23

can therefore not be attended to.

And this claim

about attention and noticing is the interesting one for

the purposes of the kind of psychology Brentano wants to pursue: It is certain that not everything that is perceived is also noticed. But what is not noticed is not existent [vorhanden] for descriptive psychology. (GÄ, 38; my translation) Hence, although the soul is in a sense an object of awareness, our knowledge of it will be knowledge of truths 24

about it that we infer from other truths.

I will support this further in the next section.

Is there a more interesting sense in which a mental substance and not just mental processes are objects of awareness? Let us take again listening to a note. The listening is an exercise of a power and there is a source or basis of this power. Can one not say that one is aware of the power and/or its source in virtue of being 25

aware of hearing the note?

Let’s consider a parallel case. It is right to say ‘NN hears the car’ if, and only if, NN hears the noise the car makes. In order for this to be right NN need not arrive at the judgement that there is a particular car or be able to identify the car by the noise it makes. All it takes to hear the car is to hear the sound that is in fact made by it. Similarly, you may see the car by seeing a small part of it. I think Brentano should simply concede this point. Yes, if there is a soul, one is aware of it in virtue of being aware of processes that are manifestations of its powers. But again one is not able to notice or attend to properties of a soul when one is aware of, for example, listening to a sound, although the listening may be an exercise of a power of a soul. I am only able to notice or attend to properties of the listening and the

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(VE, 33; my translation and emphasis)

objects listened to, if there are any. For without making inferences I can come to know neither that what I perceive are manifestations of a power of a substance nor any further properties of it. One way to sharpen, although not explain, the notion of what one is aware of is to appeal to intuitions about 26

what one can demonstratively refer to or think about. p. 22

When I am aware of listening to a note I can

demonstratively refer to the note and my listening, but prima facie not to

the soul, if there is one, that

listens. However, an appeal to demonstrative reference can only settle the question about the objects of to another. I can point to a book and say ‘He will give a reading tonight’, referring to the author. Similarly, Brentano’s opponent who thinks a soul is given in awareness will argue that one can demonstratively refer to one’s soul by attending to and demonstrating the listening. However, one can only do so when one has ‘a 27

correspondence in mind’ (Quine).

Deferred ostension requires us to know (believe) that there is a relation

between the object we can attend to and the object referred to. If we use the demonstrative without such background knowledge the objects we can demonstrate are the ones that are given in perception or awareness. A person who has not endorsed a view about the metaphysics of mind cannot demonstratively refer to souls etc. The things she can demonstratively refer to are the things given in awareness. Brentano’s claim that only mental processes are given in awareness can, then, be supported: only they, and not a soul, if any, o er themselves up for non-deferred demonstrative reference when we attend to our mental life.

1.4 The Subject Matter of ʻPhenomenology of Mindʼ With this in mind let us restate Brentano’s argument: we don’t observe a mental substance; we only observe mental processes and events. Hence, a mental substance is a ction and psychology cannot be the science of mental substances. Brentano’s conclusion does not follow: a mental substance may be a useful theoretical posit or something whose existence we infer. This is a live option known to Brentano. While writing Psychologie Brentano read 28

the Scottish philosopher William Hamilton.

In Hamilton’s Lectures of Metaphysics Brentano will have read

the following: p. 23

In the First branch,—the Phaenomenology of mind,—philosophy is properly limited to the facts a orded in consciousness, considered exclusively in themselves. But these facts may be such as not only to be objects of knowledge in themselves, but likewise to furnish us with grounds of inference to something out of themselves. As e ects, and e ects of a certain character, they may enable us to infer the analogous character of their unknown causes; as phaenomena, and phaenomena of peculiar qualities, they may warrant us in drawing many conclusions regarding the distinctive character of that unknown principle, of that unknown substance, of which they are the manifestations. (Hamilton 1860, I, 124–5) Brentano’s Psychologie is a work of what Hamilton labels ‘phenomenology of mind’; Brentano himself will talk of ‘descriptive psychology’. It limits itself to the investigation of objects of consciousness (awareness), mental phenomena. But, as Hamilton says, phenomenology furnishes us with grounds for inference to unknown causes or grounds. The soul is such an inferred posit. So classifying the soul as a ction is unwarranted. Brentano’s rejection of the soul is a sign that he does not allow for inferences to unknown causes or grounds in descriptive psychology. In this point he follows Mill whom he took to be the leading proponent of

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awareness if supplemented with further considerations. For we frequently demonstrate one thing and refer

‘psychology as a purely phenomenological science’ (PES, 10 [I, 20]; my emphasis). The ‘purely’ is an important restrictor here. Mill wrote in his System of Logic: What the Mind is, as well as what Matter is, or any other question respecting Things in themselves, as distinguished from their sensible manifestations, it would be foreign to the purposes of this treatise to consider. Here, as throughout our inquiry, we shall keep clear of all speculations phenomena—of the various feelings or states of consciousness of sentient beings. (Mill 1843, 849) For Mill, ‘mental phenomena’ has a Kantian ring. It contrasts with ‘things in themselves’. Mental phenomena are events and processes (not, as Mill claims, states) we are conscious of. A purely phenomenological science investigates their properties and the laws that govern them. It does not give explanations that invoke something that is not an object of awareness—a thing in itself—such as a mental substance. Physics as a phenomenal science does the same: it searches for the laws of physical phenomena, observed states or events, without explaining the observed states in terms of something unobserved or unobservable: matter or physical substance. p. 24

Brentano follows Mill’s methodological lead. The study of mental phenomena systematizes and classi es what we are conscious of without aiming for an explanation of properties of these things in terms of theoretical posits that are not objects of consciousness. Brentano’s rejection of the soul is an application of this methodological policy. It is not a mental phenomenon, that is, an object of awareness, but something inferred from facts we can know when attending to what we are aware of. As we have seen, this conception must be restated in terms of inner observation. I will not take a stand on the question of whether Mill’s methodology is a fruitful psychological research strategy, but discuss in the following sections whether it yields fruit in articulating marks of the mental. If phenomenology of mind restricts itself to describing and systematizing objects of awareness, or better, the objects we can introspectively attend to, and their properties without making inferences, it cannot classify them as properties of souls or anything else. For this would require Brentano to conceive of the object of awareness as related to a theoretical posit. How are the objects of consciousness given to us in awareness? Brentano already answered this question in the previous quote on p. 18: awareness shows us object-directed processes, things that unfold in time. Not all objects of awareness are processes. Some are events, things that happen or occur at a time, such as judging that p. Events and processes may be changes in objects, but they need not be. A thunderstorm is a process that has events as its temporal parts, but our 29

ordinary conception of process does not take it to have a bearer or subject.

Hence, the assumption that the

objects of awareness are mental processes and events does not commit the phenomenologist to mental substances and properties of them. Brentano gives his readers a list of mental phenomena to give them a sense of the intuitive extension of ‘mental phenomenon’: Every idea or presentation which we acquire either through sense perception or imagination is an example of a mental phenomenon. By presentation I do not mean that which is presented, but rather the act of presentation. Thus, hearing a sound, seeing a coloured object, feeling warmth or cold, as well as similar states of imagination are examples of what I mean by this term. I also mean p. 25

by it the thinking of a general concept, provided such a thing actually does occur.

Furthermore,

every judgement, every recollection, every expectation, every inference, every conviction or opinion, every doubt, is a mental phenomenon. Also to be included under this term is every

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respecting the mind’s own nature, and shall understand by laws of the mind those of mental

emotion: joy, sorrow, fear, hope, courage, despair, anger, love, hate, desire, act of will, intention, astonishment, admiration, contempt, etc. (PES, 60 [I, 111–12]) Brentano’s list contains mental states such as conviction, opinion, hope, desire, and doubt. These states are 30

not objects of awareness like mental events and processes such as perceptions and judgements.

For

manifestations. Brentano argued with respect to the soul that it is not an object of awareness. Therefore it is a ction. The same argument seems to apply to mental states: they are not objects of awareness. Therefore they are ctions. But Brentano does not draw this conclusion. Quite the opposite: mental states are mental phenomena. Is he justi ed to classify mental states as mental phenomena? To anticipate: the problem reveals a tension between Brentano’s marks of mental phenomena. On the one hand, mental states are not ‘perceived’ in awareness and we have no infallible knowledge of them. Hence, by these marks, they are not mental phenomena. On the other hand, mental states are prima facie intentional: they are directed on something. All mental phenomena on Brentano’s list have this feature. One sees a colour, hears a sound, one loves the beauty of Helena, etc. One doubts John’s resolution or believes him to be brave. Hence, by this mark mental states are mental phenomena. If Brentano gives weight to intentionality as the mark of the mental, he must reject the other marks of the mental that we will encounter in this 31

chapter.

They are not marks of the mental but, if they are defensible, marks of conscious events and

processes. In this chapter I will treat the marks to be discussed as such and not raise the problem of mental states further. It is important to highlight that, according to Brentano’s Psychologie, we are only aware of mental processes p. 26

and events. We are aware neither of a mental subject nor that we (ourselves) are perceiving, thinking, etc. For Brentano is often taken to propose that perceiving x is the same mental act as awareness that oneself 32

perceives x. For example, Rosenthal writes:

[Brentano] maintains that my hearing a sound and my thought that I hear it are one and the same mental act. And he goes on to insist that the very content of that perception must be contained in the content of any higher-order thought about it […]. (Rosenthal 2005, 65; my emphasis) But this is not the view Brentano argued for in Psychologie; he argued that hearing a sound and awareness of present hearing are the same act. Similarly, Frank (2015, 51), referring to Psychologie, criticizes Brentano’s theory of ‘self-consciousness’ as subject to an objection by Shoemaker. But this objection concerns ‘awareness of oneself as an object’. In Psychologie Brentano only talked about awareness of perceiving something, not about awareness that one perceives. Criticizing the Brentano of Psychologie for giving an implausible account of subject-involving awareness misses its target. Is there really no subject that is aware of mental processes and events? What about the de se character of awareness? If something x is aware of an event or process, x is also what undergoes this event or process. In a de se attitude a subject self-ascribes a property: the fact that the property ascriber is the same as the object to which the property is ascribed is supposed to be due to the nature of self-ascription, not the property 33

ascribed.

If this is right, don’t we need a mental subject that self-ascribes properties?

Prima facie, No. Brentano can phrase the crucial feature of the attitudes involved more carefully to prevent the introduction of a mental subject that has the power to self-ascribe attitudes to such a subject: awareness is of events and processes and the nature of awareness guarantees that the awareness and the events and processes given therein belong to the same thing. For Brentano, this thing is not a mental subject that has

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example, I am not conscious of my beliefs, only of the judgements or emotions that are their

properties. Awareness and its object are distinguishable, but non-separable parts of one unity of consciousness. I will explore the topic of the unity of consciousness further in chapter 12.

p. 27

1.5 Purely Phenomenological Marks of the Mental physical phenomena can only be drawn with respect to properties that we can recognize when we are aware of and attend to mental events and processes. Consider, for example, Brentano’s overview over distinctive features of mental phenomena in the unpublished third volume of Psychologie. He listed no fewer than nine facts that distinguish mental from physical phenomena: 1. All mental phenomena are presentations or have presentations as their foundation. 2. Each mental phenomenon is consciousness, that is, it has a relation to a content. 3. Each mental phenomenon is a presenting, a judging, or loving or hating. 4. All mental phenomena are conscious. The consciousness of each mental phenomenon is threefold and [from this fact follow] these three laws: 5. Each mental phenomenon is presented with an intensity that equals its own (or the intensity of the presentation on which it is founded). 6. Each mental phenomenon is acknowledged with complete certainty and evidence. 7. Every mental phenomenon is loved or hated; more precisely, it is the object of a feeling of pleasure or displeasure whose quality and quantity don’t show a uniform regularity because they are determined by a number of factors. 8. No mental phenomenon appears spatially extended. […] 9. All mental phenomena which are simultaneously conscious are partial phenomena of one real-unitary phenomenon. In other words they belong as divisives to one reality. (PS 53, 53122–3; my translation) All of these distinctive properties of the mental concern features we can recognize by attending to and systematizing our awareness of mental acts and processes without appeal to an object or property one cannot be aware of. Prima facie, (9) is the exception to the rule. For the real-unitary phenomenon, whatever it is, seems not to be something that is given in awareness. But, as we will see in chapter 12, even (9) will turn out to concern an object of awareness, namely joint awareness of many things together.

p. 28

A mark of mental phenomena is, then, a property such that: (i) necessarily all and only mental phenomena possess it, and (ii) that (i) is the case can be recognized merely by attending to the objects we are aware of and systematizing the knowledge gained in this way. Such a mark is entirely rooted in how we are aware of mental events and processes. In an important sense the conception of the mental it delivers will be recognizable by beings with a mental life as articulating their experience of the mental. It will leave open the questions of whether mental processes or events have an underlying nature or not, whether they are identical to physical events or not, and even whether they are processes that are changes in a subject or not.

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If we apply the methodological policy of pure phenomenology of mind, a distinction between mental and

Is there such a mark of the mental? In the next sections I will start setting up the terms of the debate over marks of the mental by revisiting the three traditional marks of the mental—non-spatiality, privileged access, and consciousness—in the light of Brentano’s comments. In the next chapter I will move on to his distinctive contribution to this topic, namely that intentionality is the most distinctive mark of the mental.

In section 1.3 we have seen that Brentano suggested that mental phenomena are not given in awareness as located or extended. In contrast, even extensionless non-mental objects like geometrical points are somewhere and we perceive them as boundaries that appear to us to be somewhere. Hence, Brentano claims: [Mental phenomena] are all distinguished from [physical phenomena] in that they appear nonspatial [unräumlich erscheinen]. 34

(Brentano 1907, 138 [142]; my translation and emphasis) p. 29

In short: Non-Spatiality: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, one can be aware of x without being aware of an extension and/or spatial location. Non-Spatiality does not imply that mental phenomena are not in space. For one can be aware of them without being aware of their location. Just as outer perception does not reveal all properties of a physical 35

object to us, awareness might not reveal spatial properties to us.

However, Non-Spatiality will not appeal to everyone. Brentano reported that a ‘large number of not unimportant psychologists’ contest Non-Spatiality and argue that physical phenomena originally appear to 36

be without extension and location.

Brentano listed, among others, Herbart and Platner. According to

Herbart, visual perception is intrinsically non-spatial: The resting eye sees no space. […] The apprehension of space does not lie in the very rst, immediate perception […]. (Herbart 1825, II, 127; my translation) The apprehension of space is only acquired later. If, as Herbart argued, ‘the resting eye sees no space’, but only colour, Non-Spatiality is false. When our eyes are at rest we see colours, but the colour is not seen as somewhere or covering an extent of space. Yet, whether colours are mental phenomena is controversial. Brentano himself takes them to be physical. Platner made the same point with respect to touch. Here is a telling quote from him: The sense of touch by itself alone is entirely ignorant of everything that pertains to extension and space, knowing nothing of spatial separation […] In actuality time serves the person born blind instead of space. Nearness and distance mean for him nothing more than the shorter or longer time, the lesser or greater number of tactile feelings, that is required for him to pass from one such sensation to another. (Platner 1793, vol. 1, p. 400, quoted in Smith 2000, 485) The properties we perceive by touch are physical properties of bodies. But initially they don’t appear spatially located or extended when the sense of touch reveals them to us. Consider a blind man who explores

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1.6 The Non-Spatiality Mark

p. 30

a three-dimensional object by feeling along its edges. His awareness of the

property of having cubic shape

is supposed to be temporal: rst it feels like this, then if one moves around it will feel like this… In order to decide whether our sense of sight or touch originally presents us with objects as localized or extended, we need to refute the views of Herbart and the like. But this would make the mark of the mental dependent on empirical research in psychology and no longer enable it to determine the subject matter of 37

psychology on the basis of our awareness of our mental life.

A di erent mark of the mental is needed to

A further challenge for Non-Spatiality are pains and bodily emotions. If the dentist works on my left wisdom tooth, I will feel pain somewhere in my mouth. It will hurt there very much. Pains seem, therefore, to be located and are, according to Non-Spatiality, physical phenomena. A highly unwanted consequence. Brentano o ered a description of such examples that is compatible with Non-Spatiality. First some background. According to Aristotle, philosophically important words such as ‘is’ or ‘justice’ have many 38

related meanings among which some are conceptually central.

Aristotle speaks of ‘homonymy’; I will

follow the current literature and use ‘polysemy’ for this phenomenon. Aristotle’s as well as Brentano’s 39

model for a polysemous word is the adjective ‘healthy’.

We say that (i) people are healthy, (ii) someone’s

complexion is healthy, (iii) drinking milk is healthy, (iv) milk is healthy, and so on. The meaning of ‘healthy’ di ers in (i) to (iv), but in order to explain or at least gloss the sense of ‘healthy’ in (ii) to (iv) we need to appeal to the sense it has in (i). A complexion, for example, is healthy, roughly speaking, if it looks like a complexion that is a natural sign of health in a person. Hence, the meaning of ‘healthy’ in (i) is the p. 31

focal

meaning. I will come back to this model in chapter 8 when discussing enjoyment.

Brentano argued that this model applies to ‘pain’ and ‘pleasure’: In our case, the physical phenomenon itself is called pleasure or pain after the feeling of pleasure or pain which accompanies the appearance of the physical phenomenon, and there, too, in a modi ed sense of the words. It is as if we would say of a harmonious chord that it is a pleasure because we experience pleasure when we hear it, or, too, that the loss of a friend is a great sorrow for us. Experience shows that equivocation is one of the main obstacles to recognizing distinctions. And it must necessarily be the largest obstacle here where there is an inherent danger of confusion and perhaps the extension of the term was itself the result of this confusion. Thus many psychologists were deceived by this equivocation and this error fostered further errors. (PES, 65 [I, 119]) The perceiving of physical properties of body parts is painful; we perceive them with displeasure. These physical properties are also called ‘pains’ because they are perceived in this way. Compare: a harmonious sound is a pleasure because we take pleasure in hearing it. (I will come back to the di erent related meanings of ‘pleasure’ and ‘enjoy’ in chapter 9.) If ‘pain’ refers to a physical property of body parts as well as to the painful perceiving of this property, the proposed counterexample is spurious. We need to disambiguate sentences such as ‘I have a pain in my foot’ and say that a physical property that is perceived with pain is located in my foot. Only the physical property is located. Hence, Non-Spatiality is not under threat. How convincing is this response to the problem for Non-Spatiality? Brentano’s response is di

cult to

motivate. We have no independent linguistic reason to say that ‘pain’ is polysemous. When we hear someone say that food is healthy, for instance, we can easily give a rough paraphrase of what is said in which health is ascribed to food consumers. But even if we press people who say that their right wisdom tooth hurts, they won’t be moved to gloss what they say by something like ‘My perceiving the damage of this tooth is painful’. They will, I con dently predict, insist that the pain is in their right wisdom tooth.

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supplement Non-Spatiality.

Hence, we have no independent reason to say that ‘pain’ or any other expression has di erent meanings in such sentences as: (S1) The pain was in my tooth and felt intense. p. 32

Why not take utterances of sentences such as (S1) to be straightforwardly true? Pains are things that have a location and feel a certain way.

Brentano himself used these and other problems of Non-Spatiality to motivate his proposal that intentionality is the mark of the mental. I will devote the whole next chapter to intentionality. But I will rst explore another historically important mark of the mental that seems to be able to overcome the problems connected to Non-Spatiality.

1.7 Cartesian Marks of the Mental Descartes is our starting point. In his Second Meditation he considered the question of which things he still knows with certainty even if he supposes that all his faculties—memory, perception, rational insight, reasoning—deceive him. It turns out that there are things that he cannot be deceived about, namely that he thinks when he does (Descartes 1641, 19 [28]). He suggested further that thinking covers a variety of activities such as doubting, understanding, a

rming, denying, willing, and so on. When these activities are

ongoing, we have a way of knowing that they are ongoing that is immune to sceptical doubt. In contrast, we can be deceived that we are walking, when we are walking; sitting when we are sitting; etc. Many philosophers have taken Descartes to suggest an epistemic conception of the mental: mental phenomena are those phenomena of whose existence and occurrence we can have such privileged knowledge. Below I will look at di erent ways to spell out what this epistemic privilege is supposed to consist in. The epistemic conception provides an answer to the problem from the previous section. Pain in the strict sense is a mental phenomenon, since we can still know that we feel pain even under the supposition that an evil demon deceives us. The localized property is physical: we cannot know that there is a property related to pain somewhere in our body if the sceptical hypothesis is true. ‘Pain’ is therefore ambiguous: it refers to the mental act of perceiving a physical property with displeasure and the property perceived. The idea that the mental has an epistemic nature has shaped the way philosophers after Descartes conceive p. 33

of the distinction between the mental and physical and it ts what Brentano demands from a mark of

the

mental. It articulates our conception of the mental in terms of epistemic features of our awareness of them. While many philosophers have mined the idea that the distinction between the mental and the physical is an epistemic one—knowledge of the mental has properties that knowledge of the physical lacks—there is no agreement about the epistemic properties that distinguish the mental from the physical. Consider three representative ways of construing the Descartes-inspired conception. First, Ryle: The states and operations of a mind are states and operations of which it is necessarily aware, in some sense of ‘aware’, and this awareness is incapable of being delusive. The things a mind does or experiences are self-intimating, and this is supposed to be a feature which characterizes these acts and feelings not just sometimes, but always. It is part of the de nition of their being mental that their occurrence entails that they are self-intimating. If I think, hope, remember, will, regret, hear a noise, or feel a pain, I must, ipso facto, know that I do so. (Ryle 1949, 152; my emphasis)

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Without an independent justi cation of the polysemy thesis Brentano’s Non-Spatiality is controversial.

An act or process is mental if, and only if, it is self-intimating, i.e. if the act or process takes place, one eo ipso knows that it does. Physical processes are not self-intimating: my blood sugar level may be rising, yet I can fail to know that my blood sugar level is rising. This way of distinguishing between the mental and physical does not capture mental states. I may believe that the shortest way home is via a certain route, without knowing that I believe that this is so. But, as explained before, I will set this problem aside in this section.

Descartes’s badly argued hunch, the one which made him able to see pains and thoughts as modes of a single substance, was that indubitability was the common factor they shared with nothing physical […]. (Rorty 1979, 54) When I have convinced myself that an evil demon might have deceived me every time I formed a belief, I will rationally doubt whether p while previously I believed p. However, if I think that p, I cannot doubt that I 40

think that p; if I see x, I cannot doubt that it seems to me that I see x. Third, Farkas: p. 34

My proposal is that the mental realm is nothing but the subject matter of the cognitive capacity that endows me with special access: that is, the area that is known by me in a way that it is known by no one else. (Farkas 2008, 22; original emphasis) Prima facie, you can know that I am pleased by looking at my face and drawing the right conclusions, but I can know that I am pleased without any reasoning and observation. Farkas suggests that mental features can be known by the subject whose features they are simply by attending to them (2008, 18–19). All three ways of eshing out the Cartesian suggestion take the di erence in knowledge to concern propositional knowledge; i.e. knowledge that something is the case. We know that we are seeing, when we are seeing (Ryle); we know and cannot doubt that we are seeing, when we are seeing (Rorty); I know that I am thinking in a way that no one else knows it (Farkas). It is plausible to assume that knowing that one sees requires one to predicate a property of oneself in thought. But it is a controversial assumption that all ‘things’ which see, feel, etc. are able to have propositional knowledge that they do so or even could have such knowledge. Newborn infants, for example, have no mental acts because they don’t have propositional knowledge. The di erent developments of Descartes’s guiding idea turn this controversial assumption into a conceptual truth. For this reason they should be rejected.

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Second, Rorty:

1.8 Inner Perception as an Epistemic Mark of the Mental Descartes himself is not subject to the criticism that counts against his followers. Radner makes a good case that he did not think about the distinction between the mental and physical in terms of propositional 41

knowledge, but non-propositional awareness of events and processes.

Brentano followed suit. As we have

already seen in section 1.2, awareness is a form of inner perception. Inner perception is not propositional; it independent example. John can see the light 42

green.

turning green, an event, without seeing that the light turns

Why? Because seeing that something is the case is coming to judge that it is the case by seeing and

John might not come to judge that the light is turning green by seeing, although he sees the light turning green. All it takes is that the event of the light turning green looks some way to him. Brentano applied this thought to awareness. The objects of awareness are mental events such as judging that something is the case or mental processes such as seeing, hearing, etc. If one is aware of seeing, seeing will appear to one in a certain way, but one need not know a fact pertaining to it. Brentano’s epistemic mark of the mental is based on this idea. Inner perception has a special subject matter—(a) all and only mental phenomena are or at least can be perceived in this way—and it has a distinctive epistemic property—(b) it is immediately evident. Brentano uses (b) to characterize (a): It is a further common characteristic of all mental phenomena that they are only perceived in inner consciousness. […] One could believe that such a de nition says little, since it would seem more natural to take the opposite course, de ning the act by reference to its object, and so de ning inner perception of mental phenomena. But inner perception has still another characteristic, apart from the special nature of its object, which distinguishes it: namely, that immediate, infallible selfevidence, which pertains to it alone among all the cases in which we know objects of experience. Thus, if we say that mental phenomena are those which are grasped by means of inner perception, we have accordingly said that inner perception is immediately evident. 43

(PES, 70 [I, 128])

This remark can be understood in two ways: Epistemic-B1: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, one can perceive x with immediate 44

evidence; and:

Epistemic-B2: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, x is perceived with immediate evidence. p. 36

The move to inner perception, that is, immediately evident acknowledgement, solves the problems that arose for the Cartesian criteria discussed in the previous section. Even the gold nch can be aware of seeing something. No concepts and no predication are required. Acknowledgement is not propositional, hence Brentano’s marks don’t have the vices of the Cartesian criteria. Acknowledgement has an epistemic dimension, therefore Brentano’s marks are epistemic criteria. They also meet the constraints he imposed on marks of the mental as they concern features of mental events and processes we can recognize by attending to our awareness of them.

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neither consists in nor yields knowledge that something is the case. To see the point consider an p. 35

1.9 Confused, but Evident Perception Epistemic criteria of the mental have a bad press in contemporary philosophy of mind. A strong reason to reject them is that awareness of our own mental phenomena does not provide us with infallible knowledge 45

of our current mental life.

Brentano wholeheartedly agreed. Yes, inner perception is immediately evident,

but this does not prevent us from going wrong about our mental life. He adopted Descartes’s terminology to

Not everything which is apprehended is apprehended explicitly and distinctly. Many things are apprehended only implicitly and confusedly. I believe I have demonstrated in my Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie that the notes combined in a chord and the color elements of a compound color are always really apprehended, but often not distinguished. (PES, 216 [II, 140]) To see Brentano’s point, imagine that you hear the Tristan Chord that is made up of the notes F, B, D#, and G#. When one hears the chord distinctly, Brentano argues, one indistinctly hears each note of the chord. What is (in)distinct perception? S perceives y distinctly if, and only if, S’s perception of y rules out that y is 47

confused with other objects. p. 37

him

 S hears, for instance, F, indistinctly if S’s auditory experience does not allow

to distinguish F from the surrounding tones. S’s perception does not put him in a position to know

that F ≠ B, that F ≠ D#, and that F ≠ G#. Why, then, should one say that F is heard, but only indistinctly? If F is not distinguished in my experience at 48

all, I don’t hear F, I only hear the chord. I hear the notes jointly, but not each of them.

The chord, but not

the tones that compose it, is distinguished in my experience. Hence, talking about ‘indistinct perception’ seems misleading; one does not perceive the parts in this case at all. However, Brentano makes an important additional point: one can perceive a whole and its parts may be, to a certain degree, marked out in one’s experience: One speaks of fusion when simultaneous tones are not easily recognized as a plurality [nicht leicht in ihrer Mehrheit erkannt werden]. Fusion has several degrees decreasing to the case where the fusion is zero, for the plurality is obvious to everyone although one may not be able to distinguish the individual components and to describe their di erence in pitch. (US, 150, my translation) There are cases in which the degree of fusion is 0: the trained musician will simply hear F, B, D#, and G# and his experience will present him with four distinct tones. If the chord is not played properly, even the untrained ear may hear a plurality of tones, but not be able to easily distinguish them. If the chord is played perfectly and you have no musical training, your hearing the chord will not enable you to recognize that you hear several tones. In such a case it seems hard to justify the claim that you hear each of the tones, but only indistinctly. However, there are cases where the notes are not perfectly fused. If the notes D# and G# are di

cult to

distinguish, they appear distinct to you, but the di erences between them are so small that you are easily 49

misled about the fact that they are distinct.

For example, if your experience had been slightly di erent,

you might easily have judged that the tones are not distinct, although they are. In this situation you indistinctly hear D# and G# because the way they appear in your experience does not su

ce for knowledge

of their distinctness. Nonetheless D# and G# still sound di erent to you. Compare this to the case of the chameleon. Imagine you look at a scene with a perfectly camou aged chameleon. You don’t see the chameleon; you only see the scene containing it. As Tye puts it:

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46

express the de cits of inner perception. Inner perception is evident but indistinct and confused:

p. 38

[The chameleon is not] marked out or di erentiated in the phenomenology of your experience. You cannot mentally point to [it]. You have no clue from your experience that [it] is there. (Tye 2009, 260; my emphasis) The situation is di erent when you hear the Tristan chord: if the notes are not perfectly fused, you do have a clue that the note F is there. There are degrees of di erentiation. Something may be more or less distinguishable and to yield knowledge. For example, your hearing of the chord may enable you to venture a guess (form a partial belief about the matter); you would not rule out on the basis of your experience that they are di erent. Hence, Brentano can justi ably say that F is heard, but only indistinctly. So far these considerations suggest that one can hear more notes than one is able to distinguish and recognize. How does this bear on the infallibility of awareness? Brentano answers: If this is true of physical phenomena, something analogous is true of the mental activity which refers to it. Thus we have in this case, and in many others elsewhere, mental activities which are not explicitly perceived in all of their parts. Inner perception is, rather, confused, and although this imperfection does not impair its evidence [die Evidenz nicht beeinträchtigt], it has nevertheless given rise to various errors. 50

(PES, 216 [II, 141]; in part my translation) He moves from:

(i) our perception of physical objects is confused to: (ii) our awareness of the perception of physical objects is confused. How? Someone who is not musically trained may indistinctly hear each of the following notes simultaneously: F, B, D#, and G#. But she cannot come to know that indistinct hearing of each of these notes is going on. The notes are not marked out su

ciently in the phenomenology of her experience to come to a

judgement that might not easily have been wrong. If she is not easily able to distinguish the notes on the p. 39

basis of

her hearing, she is also not easily able to distinguish the hearing episodes that are directed upon

the notes. Here we have then a case where one hears F and B, but one does not know that one does so. A fortiori, one does not know with immediate evidence that hearing of F and hearing of B is presently going on. In a case where the notes are not perfectly fused, one is conscious of hearing F, for instance, but one does not know that hearing F is going on because one is not easily able to distinguish F from the other notes. The notion of indistinct or confused awareness allows Brentano to respond to Leibniz’s argument that not all our mental acts are conscious. Leibniz called perceptions that escape our notice ‘minute’: To give a clearer idea of these minute perceptions which we are unable to pick out from the crowd, I like to use the example of the roaring noise of the sea which impresses itself on us when we are standing on the shore. To hear this noise as we do, we must hear the parts which make up this whole, that is the noise of each wave, although each of these little noises makes itself known only when combined confusedly with all the others, and would not be noticed if the wave which made it were by itself.

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di erentiated in your phenomenology. It may be di erentiated enough to appear to you, but not to be easily

(Leibniz 1765, 54; my emphasis) Leibniz describes this as a case of perception without noticing. More controversially he takes it to show that 51

consciousness is not a mark of the mental.

Let’s look closer at Leibniz’s example. The rst thing to notice is that we are dealing with a case of perceiving many things together. Imagine you see a crowd of people. Leibniz wants to say that one sees the nothing over and above the members. How can this be? Extrapolating from the wave example Leibniz’s answer is that the perception of the crowd is constituted by many perceptions of the crowd members. When you perceive many things together—you perceive them—it is frequently the case that you don’t perceive each of the things that make up the plurality. When you perceive A, B, C, D together, you need not and often will not perceive A on its own, B on its own, etc. You are aware of seeing them: the members of the crowd. p. 40

Therefore one can say that you are aware of seeing the particular

crowd member A together with the

others, but not on its own. One cannot move from: S sees them and: A is one of them to: S sees A if one understands ‘S sees A’ as ‘S sees A and nothing else’. S sees A among other things, but only together with the other crowd members. When you are aware of perceiving A, B, C, D together, you need not and often will not be aware of perceiving A on its own. Together they stand out for you; but each of them on its own doesn’t. If one perceives some things together without perceiving each of them, Leibniz says that we don’t notice each of them. The same goes for awareness: if we are aware of several perceptions without being aware of each of them, they are not all individually noticed. We have then a confused awareness of them. Since confused awareness is still awareness this gives us no reason, as Leibniz seems to suggest, that there are mental acts we are not aware of. There are some impressions that we don’t notice, but we are aware of them jointly with others. As we will see in chapter 7 Brentano takes this idea about what it is to notice something as his starting point for the distinction between awareness and observation. A pressing question is how confused awareness— joint awareness of some mental acts—can be evident. To repeat: Inner perception is, rather, confused, and although this imperfection does not impair its evidence […]. (PES, 216 [II, 141]) The answer is that we distinctly perceive the chord and therefore distinctly perceive our hearing of the chord. The hearing of F, B, D#, and G# together is distinct, we distinguish it easily in hearing from other things we hear. But we cannot easily distinguish F and therefore hearing F when we are aware of hearing of F, B, D#, and G# together.

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crowd, but not each of its members. But you can’t see the crowd without seeing the members. The crowd is

We can perceive our hearing F, B, D#, and G# together with immediate evidence, but we don’t perceive hearing F with immediate evidence and we don’t perceive hearing B with immediate evidence. I acknowledge hearing F, B, p. 41

D#, and G# together and my acknowledgement of them together

could not exist if any one of them did

not exist. But my acknowledging one of them in particular is not infallible. For I can easily be mistaken about it even when I am aware of it together with the other notes. If the notes in a chord are too ‘close’, we can’t distinguish them from each other and therefore can’t come to know of hearing F, although we do hear existence of a certain mental act in particular, a fortiori, we can’t know of it with immediate and infallible evidence. Hence, there are mental acts that we acknowledge together with others, but not on their own. Does this show the epistemic marks are mistaken? No, Brentano has not committed himself to the view that something is mental if, and only if, it is acknowledged with immediate evidence on its own. It is su

cient if

it is acknowledged jointly with other things with immediate evidence. Are Brentano’s epistemic marks then defensible? Let us rst consider: Epistemic-B1: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, one can perceive x with immediate evidence. The possibility to be acknowledged with immediate evidence is a modal property of an object. Something will possess this property in virtue of other non-modal properties. So one should expect that these properties are the fundamental mark of the mental. Hence, Epistemic-B1 can be a mark of the mental, but it suggests that there is a more fundamental mark. What about Epistemic-B2? Epistemic-B2: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, x is perceived with immediate evidence. Brentano endorsed Epistemic-B2: No presentation [Vorstellung] without knowledge of the presentation […] and no thinking without any emotion. Yesterday I have found this recognized with the most determination by a number of writers, among them Hamilton and Lotze. (Brentano 1867–1917, 49; my translation) 52

When I hear a note, I not only can, but I do acknowledge my hearing with immediate evidence. p. 42

Prima facie, Epistemic-B2 leads to an in nite regress. Is my acknowledging my hearing a mental event? If so, it is according to Epistemic-B2 acknowledged with immediate evidence. What about my acknowledging my hearing? Is it a mental event? If so, there needs to be an acknowledging of my acknowledging hearing and so on. The regress is vicious because nite beings like me and you cannot make in nitely many acknowledgements. Chapters 4 and 6 will show that and how Brentano can escape this and similar regresses.

1.10 The Consciousness Mark In connection with the epistemic marks Brentano puts forth a non-epistemic mark of the mental:

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it and are aware of it together with the other acts that make up hearing the chord. If we can’t know of the

Every mental act is […] accompanied by a twofold inner consciousness, by a presentation which refers to it and a judgement about it, the so-called inner perception which is an immediate, evident cognition [Erkenntnis] of the act. (PES, 111 [I, 203]) This mark seems simply to be:

Brentano calls a presentation of something x also consciousness of x. In this terminology, we can say that according to Brentano every mental act is conscious. In contrast, physical phenomena can go unrepresented. Consciousness does not bring with it any epistemological problems, yet it also faces a regress problem. The main problem with Consciousness is that it is contested among psychologists and that their disagreement does not reveal a conceptual confusion among the disagreeing parties. Posing the question ‘Is every mental act conscious?’ is not a sign that one is confused or lacks one of the concepts expressed: [A] person who raises the question of whether there is an unconscious consciousness is not being p. 43

ridiculous in the same way he would be had he asked

whether there is a non-red redness. An

unconscious consciousness is no more a contradiction in terms than an unseen case of seeing. (PES, 79 [I, 143]) Brentano considers it an open question whether every mental phenomenon is a consciousness or not. It has to be decided by psychological research. For instance, the question of whether there are unconscious perceptions is a hypothesis that has to be assessed on its explanatory merits. In Psychologie, Brentano worked therefore through a number of examples to show that they can be explained equally well or even better without the assumption of unconscious mental phenomena. However, if this is right, Consciousness does not specify a property that can be used to distinguish the subject matter of psychology independently of psychological research. The same goes for Epistemic-B2. We need to explain away the appearance that there are unperceived mental events. Hence, neither mark is suitable as a mark of the mental. Yet, both may be true and specify the nature of mental phenomena. However, both Consciousness and Epistemic-B2 pose a regress threat. Hence, Brentano needs to develop a view of consciousness that shows this threat to be unmotivated. I will return to this problem in chapter 4. In the next two chapters I will investigate whether the notion of intentionality provides a less problematic and more plausible phenomenological mark of the mental.

Notes 1 2

3

See PES, 4 [I, 8]. ʻEigenscha enʼ is incorrectly translated as ʻactivitiesʼ. I have translated ʻErscheinungenʼ as ʻphenomenaʼ; it seems just a stylistic variant to ʻPhänomenʼ in Brentano. McAlister et al. translate ʻEin Wesen, dem sie als Eigenscha en anha eten, bemerken wir nichtʼ (my emphasis) as ʻBut we never encounter that something of which these things are propertiesʼ and leaves out ʻbemerkenʼ. However, ʻbemerkenʼ (noticing) is, as we will see, important. In PES, 12 [I, 24] Brentano referred to Humeʼs famous remark that ʻ[f]or my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perceptionʼ (Hume 1739/40, 252; my emphasis). When one attends to oneʼs pain, love of a taste, hearing a sound, etc., nothing but the pain, love, etc. are observed. If only Humean perceptions are observable, we have no awareness of a substance that feels,

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Consciousness: x is a mental act if, and only if, x is presented, that is, there is a presentation of x.

4 5 6

8 9

10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34

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7

loves, etc. Kant (1783, §46) followed suit. Russell (1912, 27) adopted Humeʼs argument, but his conclusion is tentative. Sometimes we are acquainted with the complex of being acquainted with something. Are we acquainted with a self? It would be ʻrash to speak positivelyʼ with respect to this question. See Shoemaker (1994, Lecture 1) for a detailed assessment of the view that awareness is a form of perception. See especially GÄ, 73 and PES, 162 [II, 50]. The English translation of ʻFürwahrnehmenʼ as ʻa irmationʼ obscures this point. Among the few who make this assumption is William Hamilton who takes consciousness of perceiving to be judging that perceiving (presently) occurs; see section 4.4. I have translated ʻAnerkennungʼ as ʻacknowledgementʼ, not as ʻa irmationʼ. One can acknowledge an object, but one canʼt a irm it. Bergmann (1908, 5) stresses the importance of this notion for Brentanoʼs view of inner perception. For an overview of Brentanoʼs theory of judgement see Brandl 2000/2014. Brentanoʼs answer has been misconstrued in the literature. Janzen (2008, 127) says that a thinkerʼs acknowledgement of his seeing ʻconsists simply in a irming that his act of seeing is occurringʼ. This would make acknowledgement propositional and require the exercise of some concepts. But Brentano appealed to acknowledgement precisely to avoid the problems connected to perceiving-that something is the case or going on. Bell (1990, 20) misses this point when he (mis)construes Brentanoʼs perceptions as ʻacts of taking something to be thusand-soʼ. For a contemporary view of awareness in terms of belief-in objects see Hellie (2007, §2.1) and the references there. See Gendler Szabó (2003, 585) who uses ʻbelieving inʼ as a term of art, but in a way that ʻroughly corresponds to one of its natural English uses—that which places it into the loose class of ontologically-committal terms such as “accept” or “acknowledge”ʼ. See the development of the notion of thetic judgement in Kuroda 1972. See GÄ, 73. I defend Brentanoʼs view of perception against further objections in Textor 2007a and 2007b. See 2007b for an answer to the question of how perceiving can be acknowledging if we sometimes ʻdonʼt trust our eyesʼ. See GÄ, 74. See Martin 1992, 199. See Soteriou 2013, 196. The so-called transparency thesis is that when one tries to attend to oneʼs perceiving, one always fails. For one can only attend to the object that appears to one. Moore (1903, 450) is usually taken as the source of the transparency thesis. Kind (2003, 229) shows that this is controversial. Natorp (1888, 17) anticipated Mooreʼs main point. On Brentano and Natorp see Stumpf (1919, 17–18). The thesis endorsed by Brentano and his students is weaker: when one succeeds to attend to oneʼs perceiving, one also attends to the object that appears to one. See Mehta (2013, 366) and Soteriou (2013, 192–3) for related theses. For a di erent argument for the same conclusion see Shoemaker 1994, 255. Hume talked in the quote in note 3 about observation, roughly, attending to something for a certain purpose. If awareness and observation are di erent activities, subject to di erent constraints, there is room for an awareness of a bearer of mental properties, that is not observation. Drawing inspiration from Brentanoʼs later work, Chisholm 1969 argued that we can observe a self. I assess and evaluate the argument for Brentanoʼs change of mind in Textor 2017. See reference in Rachels 2004, 255. Stumpf (1939, 209 and 341) also analyses the mill example. See DP, 61 [57]. See also DPM, 35. Marty goes so far as to argue that we cannot know the distinctive properties of souls. See Jackson 1977, 15f. Kriegel (2009, 225f.) uses this notion in the theory of consciousness. For criticism of Jackson see Campbell 2004. See Snowdon 1990, 143 . For discussion and elaboration see Nunberg 1979, 156. See his letter to Stumpf (8.5. 1871) in Brentano 1867–1917, 49. Brentano frequently refers to Hamilton in Psychologie. In his famous aphorism Lichtenberg uses the example of thunderstorms and lightning to shed light on the subjectless view of awareness. See Zöller 1992, 417 . For a di erent argument for this conclusion see Shoemaker 1994, 260. Philosophers like Strawson (1994, 168) take ʻmentalʼ states not to be intentional in the proper sense and conclude that they are not mental. While Brentanoʼs Thesis in its original form does not support this view, I will discuss in chapter 3 a version which does. See also Smith 1986, 150. See, for instance, Lewis 1979, 138 . See also Recanati 2009, 258 . See also RP, 190.

35 36 37

38

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

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39

See RP, 223. See PES, 66 [I, 123]. Smith 2000 makes a strong case on the basis of empirical research that Brentanoʼs non-spatiality mark is plausible: objects look even to infants to be somewhere. Stumpf (1873, 112–15) argues against Herbart by appeal to a priori intuition: just as something cannot look coloured to one without seeming to have an intensity, it cannot look coloured without looking to be extended. See Shields 2002 for a systematic study of homonymy in Aristotle. Brentano 1862 investigated and distinguished the many ways in which we say that something is. In lexical semantics Pustejovsky builds on Aristotle, see the motto of Pustejovsky 1995. a b See Metaphysics 1003 34– 1. Shields (2002, 37–9) discusses Aristotleʼs treatment of ʻhealthyʼ under the heading ʻAssociated Homonymyʼ. For Brentanoʼs discussion of ʻhealthyʼ and the like see PES, 65 [I, 119]. While initially promising, indubitability does not hold only of mental acts and processes. It is also indubitable that everything is self-identical. See Farkas 2008, 16–17. See Radner 1988, 443 . Radner sees close parallels between Descartes and Brentano. For further discussion see Parsons 1987–8, 28. My translation. The English translation renders ʻmit […] wenig gesagtʼ as ʻnot very meaningfulʼ, while what Brentano says is that the definition is not very informative. This mark of the mental is proposed by Levison (1983, 399) who stresses like Brentano that the object of awareness is neither a fact nor a proposition (about oneself). See Schwitzgebel 2008. See Moran 1996, 19. He takes Brentano never to have clarified the underlying distinction between noticing and perceiving. This section tries to provide the necessary clarification. See SN, 25. See Tye 2009, 260–1. SN, 27. The English translation has Brentano talk about ʻdegreesʼ of evidence of inner perception. I cannot find anything that suggests such degrees in the German. See Simmons 2001 for a detailed assessment of Leibnizʼs position for his Non-Cartesian view of the mind. Freud famously argued that there are unconscious mental phenomena: unconscious drives and beliefs that cause us to act in certain ways. Brentanians have shown little interest in counterexamples of this type. Brentano discussed von Hartmannʼs philosophy of the unconscious (von Hartmann 1870); Brentanoʼs editor Kraus remarked tellingly in his notes to Psychology: ʻUnconscious determinations (Freud) are compatible with this [the view that every consciousness of something is itself conscious]ʼ (PES, 81, n. 2 [I, 147, n. 2]). Unconscious drives, etc. are dispositions to act, feel, etc. but the person who is so disposed is not able to self-ascribe them on reflection. Just as mental dispositions are not counterexamples to Brentanoʼs marks, unconscious drives, etc. are not counterexamples.

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

2 Brentano’s Thesis Revisited  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0003 Published: August 2017

Pages 44–71

Abstract In Psychologie, Brentano introduced a new mark of mental phenomena: all and only mental phenomena are intentional. No physical state or property is intentional. Under the label ‘Brentano’s Thesis’ this mark of the mental has guided philosophical research both by phenomenologists and by analytic philosophers of mind. This chapter reconstructs the view of intentionality that underlies Brentano’s Thesis and nds it under-explained. Brentano clearly struggled to convey to his readers what he took to be the common feature of the mental. The chapter goes on to assess attempts to explain intentionality in independently intelligible terms by such philosophers as Chisholm, Crane, and Molnar, and nds them all wanting.

Keywords: Brentanoʼs Thesis, intentionality, intentional object (correlate), correctness conditions, aspectual shape, Chisholmʼs Thesis, Heidegger, physical intentionality, Reid, interrogative attitudes Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

But here again we have a term [‘intentionality’] and concept taken so much for granted that no one lingers with it for long and, even in a preparatory stage, assumes it is the solution to the problem as if it were surely the key to all doors. On the contrary, we should make what is itself meant by the term into the problem. (Heidegger 1928, 132)

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Search in this book

2.1 Introduction In chapter 1 we looked at three important marks of the mental: Non-spatiality, Privileged Access, Consciousness. Brentano in fact endorsed all of them, but for the reasons outlined he took them to be dialectically ine ective. The plausibility of these marks depended on deciding important questions in psychology, but the mark of the mental should distinguish the subject matter of psychology from the

In Psychologie, Brentano therefore introduced a new criterion of the mental: all and only mental phenomena are intentional. No physical state or property is intentional. Under the label ‘Brentano’s Thesis’ this mark of the mental has been extensively discussed in the literature and it has guided philosophical research both by phenomenologists and by analytic philosophers of mind. In this chapter I will reconstruct Brentano’s view of intentionality that underlies his Thesis. I will argue that Brentano’s Thesis comes out false on all accounts that explain intentionality in independent terms.

2.2 Brentanoʼs Thesis: Intentionality as the Most Distinctive Mark of Mental Phenomena We can home in on Brentano’s Thesis by considering a related mark of the mental that he o ered his readers: p. 45

We make use of a de nition we used earlier when we said that the term ‘mental phenomena’ applies to presentations as well as to all the phenomena which are based upon presentations. It is hardly necessary to mention again that by ‘presentation’ we do not mean that which is presented, but rather the presenting of it. This act of presentation forms the foundation not merely of the act of judging, but also of desiring and of every other mental act. Nothing can be judged, desired, hoped or feared, unless one has a presentation of that thing. (PES, 61 [I, 112]) I think a fair summary of this passage is: Foundation: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, x is a presentation or is founded on a presentation. Foundation is only illuminating if we have a prior grip on presentation and the relation of foundation. It is not necessary to explain the foundation relation for our purposes. Let’s consider therefore the notion of presentation. ‘Presentation’ (Vorstellung) can mean a datable mental act, a presenting, or a product of such an act. In the previous quote Brentano made clear that he has the presenting reading in mind. Presenting cannot be analytically de ned. But he gave an intuitive gloss of the notion: Even the ‘being present’ of any single one of the things mentioned is ‘being presented’ in our sense. And such things occur whenever something appears in consciousness, whether it is hated, loved, or regarded indi erently, whether it is acknowledged [anerkannt] or denied or there is a complete withholding of judgement and—I cannot express myself in any other way than to say—it is presented. As we use the verb ‘to present’, ‘to be presented’ means the same as ‘to appear’. (PES, 62 [I, 114])

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subject matter of physics without depending on results in psychology.

One cannot love a, imagine a, or acknowledge a without presenting a. Brentano, therefore, takes presenting 1

to be the most fundamental mental act. Every other mental act includes a presentation. Is Foundation a satisfactory mark of the mental? Compare, for instance, Foundation to the following criterion of the physical: something x is a physical object if, and only if, x is an atom or an arrangement of atoms. Is an atom a physical object? If so, we need to say why. But this mark of the physical does not provide p. 46

an answer; it begs this question. Similarly, Foundation is a mark of the mental that characterizes the mental acts. Brentano’s Thesis speaks to this problem. Brentano took intentionality to be the most distinctive 2

[kennzeichnende] mark of mental phenomena. He introduced it as follows: Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we would call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a real thing [eine Realität]), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is acknowledged [anerkannt] or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. This intentional inexistence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. We can, therefore, de ne mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves. 3

(PES, 68 [I, 124–5]; I have modified the translation)

Brentano’s Thesis is, in his own words, that all and only mental phenomena ‘contain an object intentionally in themselves’. If we understand this talk of intentional containment of an object through Brentano’s examples, his thesis seems attractive. The thesis resonates with the way feelings, thoughts, etc. are given to us when we have them: they seem to us, as Brentano frequently glosses it, ‘of something’ (see section 1.3). We can, the argument goes, convince ourselves of the truth of Brentano’s Thesis by attending to our own mental life. When we are aware of our perceiving, the objects perceived seem to be localized and/or spacially extended, while the perceiving itself is neither localized/nor extended, but it is given as having a localized and/or extended object. Intentionality can therefore serve as a mark of the mental: it articulates our conception of the mind independent of and prior to research in psychology (see section 1.5). At the same p. 47

time no in nite regress of mental acts looms

nor do we need to decide whether our original experience of

objects has spatial content. Essentialists believe that we can de ne things, not just words referring to things. According to Brentano, mental phenomena are things that one cannot de ne without appealing to objects they are of. It belongs to the nature of a mental phenomenon to have an inexisting object: The fact that there is no consciousness without any intentional relation at all is as certain as the fact that, apart from the object upon which it is primarily directed, consciousness has, on the side, itself as an object. This is, in an essential way, part of the nature of every psychical act. (DP, 26 [24]; my emphasis) The British phenomenologist Ryle stressed the combination of essentialism and rst-person character in Brentano’s Thesis:

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mental via a relation, foundation, to presentations. But it does not justify singling out presentations as

[The intentionality of acts of consciousness] is not a mere hypothesis or a mere empirical generalization, but a property which can directly be ascertained to belong to the very nature of consciousness. (Ryle 1929/30, 92–3; my emphasis) What is not to like about Brentano’s Thesis? Unfortunately a lot. The sense in which all mental acts and Brentano’s Thesis. He felt this problem himself. The famous intentionality quote contains three characterizations of the distinctive feature of the mental that are not equivalent. All and only mental phenomena: (i) have a relation to a content; (ii) are directed towards an object that may not be real; (iii) have an immanent object. In Psychologie Brentano seems to prefer (iii) over (i) and (ii) as he uses (iii) to formulate Brentano’s Thesis. His editor Kraus commented that later Brentano considered this version to be a mere unclear description of 4

the fact that one has something as an object or that one is concerned with an object. Brentano himself took the terminology employed in the intentionality quote to be ‘not completely unambiguous’. Fifteen years later Brentano tries to characterize intentionality by the ‘very misinterpretative’ expression ‘consciousness’: p. 48

The common characteristic of everything mental consists in what one often has called with an unfortunately very misinterpretative expression [‘]consciousness[’], that is, by a comportment of the subject [subjektischen Verhalten], in an, as one designated it, intentional relation to something, that may perhaps not be real, but is nonetheless inwardly given as an object. 5

(OKRW, 14 [16]; my translation)

Brentano clearly struggled to convey to his readers what he took to be the common feature of the mental. In this chapter I will explain why he struggled in this way. Let us start by having a close look at the idea that intentional inexistence is a mark of the mental.

2.3 Intentionality as Inexistence What is ‘inexistence’? In a footnote to the earlier quote regarding it, Brentano referred his readers to Aristotle’s De Anima: Aristotle had already spoken of this mental indwelling. In his books On the Soul he says that what is sensed as so sensed is in the sensing subject; that the sense receives what it senses without the matter, and that what is thought is in the understanding. (PES, 68 n. ‡ [I, 125 n. 3]) What Aristotle thinks about ‘mental indwelling’ is a controversial matter, but the basic idea can be gleaned 6

from De Anima. Assume with Aristotle and the scholastics that a substance is matter ‘shaped’ by form. When one perceives a substance, the senses receive its sensible form without its matter. Sensible forms are, roughly, properties that can be predicated of objects. If something has the sensible form of brownness it is

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processes are ‘of something’ is metaphorical and any way to spell it out in independent terms falsi es

brown. In the literature on Aristotle, Literalists take Aristotle to propose that the soul literally receives the form. For example, my sense of sight becomes brown when I see brown. In contrast, Spiritualists hold that 7

the form has a special kind of being in the sense organ. The form intentionally inexists in my soul. Brentano is on the side of the Spiritualists. For example, seeing green is ‘in a manner of speaking’, but not literally, 8

green. p. 49

Literalism beggars belief. But even if one could nd a way to make it plausible, it opens the door for physical perceiving perceptible forms without the matter, as wax receives the seal of the signet ring without the iron or gold’ (424a17–20; Shields’s translation). The wax literally takes on part of the shape of the signet ring. Is this not the same kind of reception of a form without the matter that makes for intentionality? If not, why not? Spiritualism can answer this question: the wax and the ring indeed share a form, but forms are not literally in the soul, they only intentionally inexist. But without an independent explanation of the notion of ‘intentional inexistence’ this is nothing more than a label for the problem under consideration. With these problems in mind, let us look at Brentano’s Thesis. In what sense does an object inexist in a mental phenomenon? When I fear a monster, I don’t become one and saying that I become one in a certain sense seems unhelpful. In analytic philosophy and phenomenology, Brentano’s inexistence characterization is standardly understood in the following way: I1. Every mental act has an immanent object. I2. The immanent object exists if, and only if, the act exists. I3. Not all mental acts have real objects. I4. The immanent object is the object the act is directed on. I1 to I4 are often complemented by a historical narrative about the development of Brentano’s views. After Psychologie, Brentano realized that I2 is implausible. Therefore he rejected I1 to I4 and developed a view of 10

intentionality that dispenses with immanent objects.

According to I2, intentional objects depend for their existence on mental acts, but they are not instantiated in mental acts. This seems to be progress. However, what is then the relation between the intentional object p. 50

and the real object that is prima facie presented in a mental act?

Brentano seems to have no answer to

this question. Husserl therefore attacked the view that there are immanent objects: It is a serious mistake if one makes a real distinction between the ‘merely immanent’ or ‘intentional’ objects on the one hand and ‘real’ and ‘transcendent’ objects on the other hand that may correspond to the former. (Husserl 1913a, II/1, 424; my translation) If intentionality consists in having an immanent object, Husserl argued, my hearing F is not about the tone F, a transcendent object, but the immanent or intentional object. This seems to be counterintuitive and to prevent one from giving a plausible account of perception and thought. Chisholm (1967, 201) and Smith understand Brentano in a similar way. For example, Smith interprets Brentano’s remarks about intentionality as follows: the mind or soul is windowless; our acts of thought and sensation are directed in every case to what exists immanently within it, i.e. to these acts themselves, or to immanent data of sense, or to

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9

intentionality. Aristotle opened chapter 2.12 of De Anima by saying that ‘perception is what is capable of

immanent entities of other sorts (for example to concepts, the descendants of Aristotle’s forms). (Smith 1995, 41)

11

The problem with I4 is that Brentano himself emphatically denied ever having held it:

When I talked about an ‘immanent object’, I added the expression ‘immanent’ in order to avoid a misunderstanding because some call object that which is outside the mind. In contrast, I talked about an object of presentation, which the presentation has even if there is nothing corresponding to it outside the mind. But it has not been my view that the immanent object = ‘presented object’. (Letter to Marty 17.3.1905, reprinted in TE, 52 [87]; my translation) Brentano goes on to protest against this ‘dreamt up foolishness’ (angedichtete Albernheit) (TE, 53 [89]). Brentano’s protest is understandable. If one rereads the intentionality passage it is indeed not clear that he p. 51

committed himself to I4. A mental

act may be ‘directed towards an object that may not exist’ and ‘have

an immanent object’ without the object it is directed on being the immanent object. For example, a mental act can be directed towards an object in virtue of having an immanent object. I4 identi es the immanent object of a mental act with the object it is directed on; Brentano distinguished them. How and why? A look at Brentano’s lectures on descriptive psychology will help us to answer these 12

questions.

In these lectures he called the immanent object ‘intentional correlate’. The term ‘immanent

object’, Brentano (DP, 24 [22]) explained, was only used to fend o

misunderstandings. (Brentano’s choice

of terminology was not entirely successful.) Brentano’s characterization of intentional correlates is suggestive: As in every relation, two correlates can be found here. The one correlate is the act of consciousness, the other is that [thing] which it is directed upon. Seeing and what is seen [Sehen und Gesehenes], Presenting and what is presented [Vorstellen und Vorgestelltes], Wanting and what is wanted, Loving and what is loved, Denying and what is denied etc. (DP, 23–4 [21]) The original text does not use interrogative clauses to specify the intentional correlate. But it seems very natural to use them to describe any kind of perceiving or thinking. When I seem to see something there is my seeming to see and what I seem to see. p. 52

13

The use of the interrogative clause to characterize the intentional correlate is important.

Vendler (1972,

94) distinguishes between two kinds of interrogative clauses. Sometimes a clause like ‘what John saw’ is a relative clause equivalent to ‘that which John saw’. On a second reading, ‘what John saw’ refers to an answer to a question. For example, when I say ‘Peter knows what John saw’ I ascribe to Peter knowledge of an answer to the question ‘What did John see?’

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2.4 The Foolishness of Equating Immanent Object and Presented Object

If we read ‘what is seen’ as a relative clause, it denotes an object like an event or a particular. For example, what John saw may be his neighbour’s dog. In this reading, ‘what is seen’ denotes the object presented in the act, not the intentional correlate. Every mental act has a correlate, but some have no object they present. John’s fear, for instance, has an intentional correlate—what John fears—even if there is no object that John fears. Hence, we must understand the ‘wh’-phrases, in general, in the interrogative sense. Sam may, for example, know what John fears, namely a monster. The answer to the question can be true; yet singular or presentation expressed by these terms, not on their reference. This observation suggests that the intentional correlate of a mental act is a mode of presentation that purports to present an object. We specify these modes of presentation indirectly when we specify the object which the act is directed upon. In section 4.8 we will see that this construal of immanent object sits well with Brentano’s theory of awareness, according to which the immanent object is perceived when one perceives. When you are aware of hearing F you are also aware of what is presented to you, that is, one is aware of a way of perceiving a note which one would specify by a singular term purporting to refer to a note. One cannot be aware of hearing F without being aware of what is heard in this sense. If the immanent object is not the presented object, what is the relation between them? In his lectures on descriptive psychology Brentano gives an answer to this question that does not sit well with the idea that the 14

immanent object is a way of thinking. Consider one of Brentano’s examples: p. 53

‘Seen colour’ contains, in a manner of speaking, colour, not as a distinctional part in the strict sense, but as a part to be obtained from it by modifying distinction. (DP, 29 [27]) The seen colour (the intentional correlate) is a distinctional part of a particular seeing: one can distinguish it from other things given in awareness when one is aware of seeing. This distinctional part has a further part: the seen colour contains the real colour as a distinctional part. We can distinguish the colour by attending to the intentional correlate. But while the seen colour is a distinctional part of the act of seeing, the colour is part of the seen colour merely in a modi ed sense of ‘part’. This takes us back to the Aristotelian saying that only ‘in a manner of speaking’ is the colour in the perceiver. The colour is part of the intentional correlate but ‘only in a manner of speaking’. In general, the immanent object is supposed to contain the presented object in some sense. But in which sense? When addressing this question Brentano gave his readers a number of images: Whoever presents an object absorbs the object into himself in a sense [nimmt den Gegenstand in gewissem Sinne in sich auf]. Thus, in the case of presenting, we speak of what is taken up (conceptus): concept in the broadest sense, in which it agrees [deckt] with [the] presentation. That which is ‘presented to oneself’ and that which is ‘absorbed [Aufgenommene]’ and ‘grasped’ are expressions which mean the same and [do so] by drawing on related sensory images. (Brentano 1887–90, 467–8 [434]; in part my translation) ‘Conceptus’ or ‘conceptio’ means literally embryo. Just as the embryo is the result of taking up or absorbing sperm, a concept or presentation in the widest sense is the result of absorbing an object in a sense. These pictures are not helpful. The best Brentano is able to say about the object presented seems to be that it is in some sense part of the immanent object. In his unpublished logic lectures Brentano suggests that the immanent object of a presentation is a mediator:

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general terms used to answer it can fail to refer. The truth of the answer depends on the mode of

13.018[1] The name refers in a certain sense to the content of a presentation as such, the immanent object. 13.018[2] In a certain sense the name refers to that which is presented by the content of the presentation. 13.018[3] The rst is the meaning of the name. (L; my translation) The mediator understanding of the immanent object is problematic for well-known reasons. For example, it seems to give rise to an in nite regress. For if we need to think of an immanent object in order to think of a presented object, we need another act with another immanent object to think of the rst immanent object and so on. In sum: Brentano does not provide a characterization of the distinction between the immanent and the presented object and their relation in independently intelligible terms. In chapter 3 I will argue that this is not a vice, but a virtue. Brentano is an Intentionality Primitivist: ‘intentionality’ is a label for a metaphysically and conceptually primitive property of mental acts. In the following sections of this chapter I will review attempts to reformulate Brentano’s Thesis that aim to avoid Intentionality Primitivism by giving an explanation of intentionality in di erent terms. To anticipate: I will nd them all wanting.

2.5 Reidʼs Thesis What happens if one does not make a distinction between immanent and presented object? In order to answer this question we can look at Reid’s work. He relied on the intuitive notion of having an object that we acquire by thinking about perception, but did not distinguish between immanent and presented object. Consider the following quote from his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man: Most of the operations of the mind, from their very nature, must have objects to which they are directed, and about which they are employed. He that perceives must perceive something; and that which he perceives is called the object of his perception. To perceive without having an object of perception, is impossible. The mind that perceives, the object perceived, and the operation of perceiving that object, are distinct things, and are distinguished in the structure of all languages. In this sentence, ‘I see, or perceive the moon’; I is the person or mind; the active verb see denotes the operation of that mind; and the moon denotes the object. (Reid 1785, 26; original emphasis in italics, my emphasis in boldface) For Reid, the object of a mental act is the topic of the mental act, what Brentano called ‘the primary object’ or ‘the presented object’. The object of seeing the moon is the moon, Earth’s natural satellite, not an intentional correlate of seeing. We learn ‘object of perception and thought’ from examples and by analysing talk about perception. p. 55

In the previous quote Reid seems only to endorse the view that most, not all, mental operations have objects. However, he also held: (a) ‘In every operation of the mind […] in every thing we call thought there must be conception: […]’ (Reid 1785, 296); (b) In conception we conceive of something: ‘It is true, thought cannot be without an object; for every 15

man who thinks must think of something; […]’ (Reid 1785, 132).

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p. 54

Hence, every mental operation has an object. Prima facie, Reid held, then, that not every mental operation has an object as well as that every mental 16

operation has an object.

Is there really a glaring inconsistency in Reid? No, to resolve this prima facie

tension let us consider a mental operation that might seem like an exception to the rule that operations of the mind have objects. Consider his example of taking pleasure in the smell of the rose:

feel, considered by itself without relation to any external object, is merely a sensation […]. Its very essence consists in being felt; and when it is not felt, it is not. There is no di erence between the sensation and the feeling of it; they are one and the same thing. […] [I]n sensation there is no object distinct from that act of the mind by which it is felt; and this holds true with regard to all sensations. (Reid 1785, 194) 17

Some exegetes read this and similar passages as an endorsement of an adverbial view of sensation.

Smelling an odour is feeling a particular way; feeling pain has no object. However, although the agreeable feeling is without relation to any external object, Reid said that ‘there is no object distinct from the act of the mind’ (emphasis added), suggesting that the only object is the act of the mind: the feeling itself. This supports Buras’s argument that Reid holds a view according to which sensations such as pain have an object, namely, themselves. There is therefore a plausible way of reading the rst quote from Reid that makes good sense of the self-referential nature of sensations, namely: p. 56

It is essential for most mental operations to have an object (i) on which they are directed and (ii) about which they are employed. Reid used ‘employ’ here in the sense of ‘devote e ort or attention to’. This thesis is compatible with the view that it is essential for all mental operations to have an object. Yes, every mental act has an object, but some are not employed about their object. For a sensation is not employed about itself; we don’t attend to it when we have it. To sum up, Reid subscribed to what I will call ‘Reid’s Thesis’: Reid’s Thesis: x is a mental operation if, and only if, it is of the essence of x to have an object. Please note again that in Reid’s Thesis the object of a mental operation is the object on which it is directed and not its intentional correlate. David claimed that: Brentano’s famous thesis of the intentionality of the mental was laid down long before, by Thomas Reid in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man […]. (David 1985/6, 587) This claim is too sweeping. Brentano and Reid proposed di erent views of intentionality: every mental act has an immanent object (Brentano) versus every mental act has an object that it presents (Reid). Reid’s view of intentionality di ers also in other respects from Brentano’s. According to Brentano, every mental phenomenon has at least two objects. In contrast, Reid argues that sensations are only selfreferential; they just have themselves as their object. In his appraisal of Reid’s philosophy, Brentano himself noted this di erence:

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When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both sensation and perception. The agreeable odour I

While Reid does not distinguish between a primary and secondary object in sensation, he seems to do so in all other operations of thought and hence, comes at least very close to the assertion of the universality of the dual relation. (Brentano 1916, 5; my translation) Isn’t Reid’s thesis manifestly false? Fearing something is a mental operation. I can fear the river monster object. Is this a refutation of Reid? He had a simple answer: I acknowledge that a man cannot perceive an object that does not exist; nor can he remember an object that did not exist; but there appears to me no contradiction in his conceiving an object that neither does, nor ever did exist. (Reid 1785, 321) p. 57

When one fears the river monster, one fears a non-existent animal (Reid 1785, 321). When one admires Sherlock Holmes, one admires a non-existent thing, and so on. Reid avoided intentional correlates etc. and allowed mental acts to have real objects in a straightforward sense. But Reid’s Thesis requires a liberal sense of reality; it can only be true if there are non-existents. While Meinong followed Reid, many philosophers writing after Brentano tried to capture intentionality 18

without assuming non-existent objects.

In sections 2.6–2.10 I will assess the main attempts to formulate

Brentano’s Thesis so that it avoids the assumption of non-existents.

2.6 Chisholmʼs Linguistic Surrogate for Intentional Inexistence Inspired by Brentano, Chisholm 1955/6 and 1957 took ‘directed on something that need not exist’ to be distinctive of the mental. He aimed to expound this paradoxical-sounding slogan in a way that does not give rise to the ontological problem of non-existent objects. How? Chisholm proposed that we replace the notion of intentionality, a feature of mental acts, with the notion of an intentional sentence. Here is Chisholm’s ‘linguistic’ version of Brentano’s thesis: Let us say (1) that we do not need to use intentional language when we describe non-psychological, or ‘physical’, phenomena; we can express all that we know, or believe, about such phenomena in language which is not intentional. And let us say (2) that, when we wish to describe certain psycho-logical phenomena – in particular, when we wish to describe thinking, believing, perceiving, seeing, knowing, wanting, hoping and the like – either (a) we must use language which is intentional or (b) we must use a vocabulary which we do not need to use when we describe nonpsychological, or ‘physical’, phenomena. (Chisholm 1955/6, 129) Place (1996, 95) aptly describes this as Chisholm’s ‘linguisti cation of intentionality’. The linguistic surrogate for intentionality is the notion of an intentional sentence. Intentional sentences are distinguished 19

from non-intentional ones by a number of tests: p. 58

Existence-Neutrality I: Neither ‘A ϕ-s b’ nor ‘A does not ϕ b’ entails either ‘b exists’ or ‘b does not exist’. (Chisholm 1955/6, 126) Chisholm (1957, 171) added two further tests to capture propositional attitudes like belief:

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even though there is no such thing. Fearing, then, is a mental operation that does not by its nature have an

[L]et us say, of any noncompound sentence which contains a propositional clause, that it is intentional provided that neither the sentence nor its contradictory implies either that the propositional clause is true or that it is false. In short: Existence-Neutrality II: Neither ‘A ϕ-s that a is F’ nor ‘It is not the case that A ϕ-s that a is F’ implies

And: Opacity I: ‘A ϕ-s that a is F’ does not entail that ‘A ϕ-s that b is G’ even if a = b and every F is a G (and vice versa). (Chisholm 1957, 171) However, Opacity I only applies to propositional attitude sentences. What about sentences like ‘John fears Lucifer’ or ‘Peter admires Sherlock Holmes’? They are not in the scope of this test, but seem to report mental acts. However, one can easily enough nd a related test: Opacity II: ‘A ϕ-s a’ does not entail that ‘A ϕ-s b’ even if a = b. Chisholm and Quine debated whether one must use intentional sentences to describe mental states. (In which sense of ‘must’?) Here I will be concerned with the question of whether Chisholm’s linguisti cation of intentionality helps to defend Brentano’s Thesis. Chisholm’s replacement for Brentano’s Thesis is: Brentano’s ThesisL: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, x can only be reported in an intentional sentence. Brentano’s ThesisL is refuted by counterexamples. First, Kenny (1963, 198f.) made a strong case for the view that there are sentences that describe mental phenomena but which don’t pass the tests for intentional sentences. The sentence ‘S heard the shot’ implies that there was a shot S heard. S’s hearing a shot is non-intentional by Chisholm’s standards and therefore not a mental act. But this seems highly counter-intuitive. By focusing on making room for intentional p. 59

sentences

whose singular terms don’t refer, Chisholm excluded factive mental states from having an

object and, by Brentano’s lights, from being mental states in the rst place. Bird (2007, 121 n.) argues that perception sentences of the kind under consideration are not intentional. However, if ‘intentional sentence’ tries to capture what Brentano understood by ‘intentionality’, this is wrong. If my hearing a shot does not ‘have an object’, which mental act has one? I assume that Bird takes intentional sentences to be non-factive. But why should the intentionality, if any, of the sentences under consideration depend on their non-factivity? A proponent of Brentano’s ThesisL might argue that the sentence ‘S heard the shot’ is true if, and only if, S had an auditory experience which was caused in the right way by the shot. The paraphrase has an existenceneutral mental part ‘S has an auditory experience’ and an existence-committing physical part, the causal condition. Whether such paraphrases can be given in all cases is controversial. More importantly, existence-neutrality cannot be central to the concept of intentionality that Brentano had in mind as the mark of mental phenomena. According to Brentano, every mental act is conscious. Is consciousness describable in existence-neutral sentences? I cannot see how. Consider: John is aware of hearing something.

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that a is F, nor that it is not the case that a is F.

The sentence implies that there is a hearing John is aware of. Because awareness is a factive mental state, Chisholm must either reject that we must use intentional sentences in his sense when describing mental phenomena—we can’t even use them to describe cases of awareness—or that Existence-Neutrality is a mark of intentional sentences. Neither consequence is attractive. Second, similar problems arise for the Opacity criteria even if we can paraphrase factive perceptual verbs 20

away. Consider the following example:

(2) A = the tallest man alive. (3) S sees the tallest man alive. p. 60

(1) and (2) imply (3). Any plausible paraphrase of ‘S sees A’ must preserve this implication. For it is part of our understanding of this sentence that such entailments hold. Hence, there are sentences that one needs to describe mental phenomena which are non-intentional. To sum up, Chisholm’s linguistic replacement for Intentionality spells out ‘directedness’ in terms of inferential properties of sentences. If we take logical criteria to be su

cient conditions, consciousness turns

out to be a physical state. The approach has also no room for factive mental attitudes such as acquaintance or self-presentation.

2.7 Intentionality and Correctness Conditions One of Brentano’s characterizations of intentionality was that it is a relation to a content. When discussing Brentano’s notion of intentionality, Heidegger used hallucinations to bring out in what sense intentionality is ‘something relational’: He [the person undergoing a hallucination] perceives these objects, although they are not present [vorhanden]. We have here a directedness on objects, without them being present. They are, as we, the others, may put it, only supposedly given to him as present. […] Only because the hallucinating perceiving as perceiving has in itself the character of being directed-on is it possible that the hallucinating subject can supposedly mean something. […] The intentional relation does not arise through the real presence of objects, but it lies in the perceiving itself, may it be erroneous or not. Perceiving must be perceiving-of something for me to be able to err about something. (Heidegger 1927, 84–5; my translation) Consider Martin who hallucinates pink rats. If a mental act were a relation between a subject and some objects, there would be no such relation in Martin’s case. Hence, we could not say that he errs or that he is under the mistaken impression that there are pink rats. In order to do so, the mental act must present something, whether this object exists or not. If it does not present or is not directed upon something, it cannot be mistaken. Heidegger concluded: The expression ‘relation of perception’ does not mean a relation, in which perception can enter as one relatum, which can attach to the otherwise relation-free perception, but a relation which is the perceiving as such. (Heidegger 1927, 85)

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(1) S sees A.

Now, the conclusion that Heidegger drew from his discussion takes us back to square one. Perception, and p. 61

other mental acts, are essentially

relations, yet they can obtain even when there is only one relatum.

Heidegger has not dissolved the puzzle, but merely restated it. However, one can draw a di erent moral from the analysis of the hallucination example. When I am hallucinating my senses deceive me, I err about my surroundings. I can only err if I am in a mental state that can, to use a neutral expression, get things right or wrong. This suggests that the crucial feature of having conditions of being correct or incorrect such that these conditions are part of the nature of the act. Later in his lectures, Heidegger (1927, 95) seems to label this ‘intentional sense of direction’. Some mental acts can mis re or succeed independently of whether there is an object they are about. This suggests to take possession of something that determines correctness to be the key feature of the mental. The characterization of intentionality in terms of correctness is accepted by several philosophers of mind. 21

Siewert is a representative example.

He mistrusts the ‘directedness’ metaphor for the reasons outlined in

the previous sections: It seems we are obliged to say something about what kind of ‘directedness’ or ‘aboutness’ is at issue here, and to say what sorts of things we’re to suppose that thought and language are directed toward, or about. And this sets us hurtling into a notorious thicket of puzzles […]. (Siewert 1998, 188) These puzzles, many will agree, are better avoided. Siewert tries to do so by giving up the ‘directedness’ metaphor. He replaces it with the idea that ‘many of our intentional features are ones with respect to which we are assessable for truth or accuracy’ (ibid. 189). This change is supposed to make intentionality less puzzling. The idea that some mental states and events are intrinsically assessable as correct and/or accurate is plausible and we have a good intuitive grip on it. A belief may be assessed for truth/falsity at a time; a perception for accuracy; and so on. The proposal also excludes cases of so-called ‘physical directedness’. Prima facie, there are physical objects, 22

events, and processes that are directed. The falling rock is directed towards the plateau below etc. p. 62

distinctive way are mental acts and processes directed upon

In which

something? The movement of the rock in the

direction of the plateau below is not assessable for truth or accuracy; my belief about this movement is so assessable. Accuracy is added to correctness in order to capture mental acts and states that represent in a similar way to pictures. As Crane explains: Accuracy is not truth, since accuracy admits of degrees and truth does not. (The same can be said of correctness.) A picture, for example, can be more or less accurate, but a picture is not true or false. (Crane 2009, 458) Now, Siewert only claimed that many, not all, of our intentional features have correctness or accuracy conditions. Can one use correctness and/or adequacy conditions to turn Brentano’s Thesis into a mark of the mental? Let us have a look at: Brentano’s ThesisC: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, x has conditions of correctness and/or accuracy as part of its nature. Let’s rst note that Brentano’s ThesisC is not a thesis Brentano himself would endorse. For:

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intentionality shared by all mental acts and states is not having an object or being a relation to a content, but

Psychological acts that belong to the rst class [presentations] cannot be said to be either correct or incorrect. (OKRW, 10 [19]; my emphasis) Presentations have an object, says Brentano, but in contrast to, for instance, acknowledgement and rejection, they are neither correct nor incorrect. Why? Presentations may represent incompatible properties is di erent from the fact that the mental acts themselves are incompatible. In contrast, acknowledgement and rejection are incompatible mental acts; their incompatibility does not reduce to the incompatibility of their objects. For these acts can be directed on the same object. If they are directed on the same object, only one of them can be correct. A proponent of the view that intentionality is possessing correctness conditions owes us, then, an argument that presentations have correctness conditions. He needs to motivate a notion of correctness that applies to all and only mental acts. The attempt to nd a notion of correctness that applies to all mental acts leads quickly to a proliferation of kinds of correctness conditions. Consider a list of representative examples of mental states and acts: (i) your judgement that it will rain (ii) your love of rain p. 63

(iii)

your wondering whether it will rain (when it will rain)

(iv) your awareness of your hearing a note (v) your toothache. 23

These are all unproblematic examples of mental phenomena.

Examples (i) and (ii) have correctness

conditions. A judgement that p is correct, if and only if, it is true that p. A love may also be evaluated as correct or incorrect, but its correctness conditions concern the value of the love’s object (see chapter 11). If the conditions are of di erent kinds, the threat is that one ends up with a heterogeneous list of dimensions 24

of correctness.

The pressing question is whether there is one distinctive kind of correctness that applies to

all and only mental states or acts. Proponents of Brentano’s ThesisC have, to my knowledge, not tackled this question. Brentano’s ThesisC becomes even harder to defend when we turn to (iii). Consider wondering, puzzlement, 25

or being in a quandary.

Such interrogative (Mulligan) or question-directed attitudes (Friedman) have been

neglected in the literature on intentionality. Is my wondering whether it will rain correct or incorrect? Mulligan (2007, 207) answers Yes. My wondering whether p is correct if, and only if, it is questionable whether p. It is certainly wise or prudent to raise the question whether p if it is doubtful or uncertain whether p. But is one’s wondering whether p correct in this situation? If we turn to a non-propositional interrogative attitude such as my wondering who assassinated JFK, things get even more di

cult. It can

only be questionable whether p; it can’t be questionable who did something, when something happened, etc. What would be a correctness condition for wondering who assassinated JFK? It seems that interrogative attitudes, in general, have no conditions of correctness. However, they have conditions under which they are ‘relieved’: Crucially, they each, in some sense, presuppose ignorance on the relevant matter and are resolved or satis ed when a particular kind of new knowledge comes in. Curiosity, wondering, inquiry, investigation, and agnosticism are all relieved by coming to know (or something similar). (Friedman 2013, 145)

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properties, for example, the colours red and blue. But the fact that two presentations represent incompatible

p. 64

My wondering who assassinated JFK is relieved and ceases when I come to know who did it. In this respect interrogative attitudes are similar to desire. But not all mental phenomena have conditions under which they are relieved. Love is an example. There is nothing which will relieve my love for something, although my love may cease at some point. More about this in section 11.9. Can one explain interrogative attitudes like wondering or suspending judgement away in terms of attitudes that have correctness conditions? Let us consider a prima facie plausible proposal. S wonders whether p if, counterexample to this proposal. Negative sceptics wonder whether p, yet take investigation to be pointless 26

and hence permanently suspend belief.

They desire to be in a state of complete ignorance, not to come to

know whether p. It seems therefore that we should take interrogative attitudes seriously and if we do so, this causes problems for Brentano’s ThesisC. On to (iv). The clearest problem for Brentano’s ThesisC is the same as the problem for Chisholm’s Brentano’s ThesisL: primitive factive mental acts like acquaintance, consciousness of something, or the factive state of knowledge have no conditions of correctness. These attitudes and states are not evaluable as correct or incorrect because they constitute epistemic achievements. Take the examples closest to Brentano’s heart. Your awareness of a present mental act only exists if the act exists, but it is neither correct nor incorrect, neither accurate nor inaccurate, neither tting nor un tting. Someone who asked ‘Are you correctly aware of your pain?’ is in the same boat as someone who asked ‘Do you correctly know that London is in the UK?’ Both questions reveal that the questioner misconceives knowledge and awareness. Mulligan 2007 proposes a partial response to this problem for Brentano’s ThesisC. His example of a factive 27

mental phenomenon is simple or non-epistemic seeing.

I see x at a time if, and only if, at that time x looks

to me to be di erent to its surroundings. My seeing x is neither correct nor incorrect; it does not exist if x does not exist: Simple seeing has no correctness conditions; it is an intentional relation we stand in to things and p. 65

processes. Coming to be visually acquainted with something has

no correctness conditions

either. But it involves identi cation, which does have correctness conditions. (Mulligan 2007, 215) This seems to be grist to my mill. However, Mulligan takes there to be a connection between simple seeing, visual acquaintance, and identi cation. His argument is based on his analysis of a case of non-epistemic seeing. A child had a glimpse of the president: the president looked di erent to his surroundings to her. But: Has she become acquainted (in a non-social way) with the President? Does she enjoy epistemic contact with the President? Most of us, I suspect, would give a negative answer to this question. What further condition, then, must be satis ed by simple seeing if it is to count as coming to be acquainted with? The relevant condition, I suggest, is identi cation: If x comes to be visually acquainted with y, then x sees y at t1 and then at t2 and sees y at t2  as the same object. (Mulligan 2007, 214–15; original emphasis) Simple seeing of x counts as coming to be acquainted with x if it endows one with the ability to see x as the same and exercises of the ability to see something as the same have correctness conditions.

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and only if, S is ignorant whether p and desires to know that p. A particular brand of ancient sceptic is a

Even if this were plausible for visual acquaintance, simple seeing would still be a problem for Brentano’s ThesisC. For while visual acquaintance had correctness conditions derived from the identi cation condition, simple seeing would lack correctness conditions. However, I don’t feel the force of the opening move of the argument that shall show that visual acquaintance has correctness conditions. For ‘acquaintance’, in the sense relevant here, is a philosopher’s term of art. People trained in the philosophically pertinent use of ‘acquaintance’ will answer ‘Yes’ to epistemic contact does not cause the acquisition of interesting knowledge. The crucial question, however, can be framed without using ‘acquaintance’. Did the child see the president? Yes, she did. Is her seeing the president correct or incorrect? No. Her seeing only exists if there is an object seen. Alternatively, consider awareness again. It is not clear what it would mean to be aware of the same pain (tickle) again, apart from in cases of qualitative sameness. Hence, the move to stating conditions of reidenti cation is not open. The conclusion is that some mental acts and processes have existence conditions that involve other objects, but not correctness conditions. Many things have existence conditions p. 66

that

involve other objects. A smile cannot exist with a smiling face etc. Hence, the possession of such

conditions is not a distinctive feature of the mental. Finally, consider (v) my toothache. It is not our practice to evaluate pains or tickles as correct or incorrect. We don’t say, ‘Your pain is incorrect (not accurate).’ In what sense are such mental phenomena assessable as correct or incorrect? We might still say that pain is a perception of a state of our body, but we don’t qualify it as correct or incorrect. In sum: if we take intentionality to be possession of correctness or accuracy conditions, Brentano’s Thesis turns out to be false.

2.8 Intentionality and Aspectual Shape Crane proposes to approach the distinction between the mental and the physical from the intuitive notion of 28

representation. His model is a drawing of a three-dimensional scene.

The drawing is a presentation of

something and it presents its topic in a particular way. These two features—being of something and presenting it in a particular way—are essential for Crane’s extended notion of a perspective. In fact, Crane relies only on these two features when reformulating Brentano’s Thesis: The two features we have uncovered in this re ection on the idea of a perspective are: rst, the fact that presentations must be presentations of something; and second, the fact that they present these things under a certain aspect. I shall call the rst feature directedness and the second feature (following John Searle) aspectual shape. Then I can express Brentano’s thesis as follows: all and only mental phenomena exhibit directedness and aspectual shape. (Crane 2001, 7; my emphasis) This version of Brentano’s Thesis seems close to what Brentano had in mind. I will refer to Crane’s reformulation as Brentano’s ThesisAS. Crane’s ThesisAS is progress on two fronts. First, according to Crane, Chisholm’s tests help us to track linguistic constructions that report mental acts, 29

but these tests don’t de ne notions like directedness or aspectual shape.

Hence, Crane can accept that

there are reports of mental acts in which one can substitute coreferential terms salva veritate. When one says p. 67

‘S heard the shot’ one does not say

anything that bears on how the shot sounded. Such locutions tell us

only what is perceived. The truth of some perception sentences turns only on the reference of the singular

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Mulligan’s question. The child enjoys epistemic contact with the president, but only for a short time and the

terms contained. Nonetheless, when S hears the shot, he represents it in a particular way; it has a particular sound for S. Hence, cases of non-epistemic perceiving come out as mental acts. Second, Brentano’s ThesisAS does not require that mental phenomena have correctness and/or accuracy conditions. Take again a clear case of a factive attitude: if John felt the earth shake, the earth shook. He cannot correctly or incorrectly feel the earth shake. Yet his feeling presents the shaking of the earth in a particular way.

30

models aspectual shape on Frege’s notion of a mode of presentation.

He writes, for instance:

All mental access to objects is ‘one-sided and dependent on a standpoint’… (Crane 2001, 20) This echoes Frege’s remark about our access to the referent of a proper name: The sense of a proper name is grasped by everybody who is su

ciently familiar with the language

or totality of designations to which it belongs; but its reference, if it exists, is thereby always only one-sidedly illuminated [einseitig beleuchtet]. All-round knowledge [allseitigen Erkenntnis] of the referent would require us to be able to say immediately whether every given sense belongs to it. This we never achieve. (Frege 1892, 27; in part my translation and emphasis) Frege contrasts here all-round with one-sided knowledge of an object. If one understands a proper name, one can only have one-sided knowledge of its bearer. This allows true identity sentences in which di erent 31

proper names ank the identity sign to be knowledge-extending. Consider one of Frege’s examples.

An

explorer ‘encounters’ the same mountain twice on his travels. Since he approaches the mountain from di erent directions, he is under the impression of having discovered di erent mountains and gives the mountain di erent names: ‘Aphla’ and ‘Ateb’. The true sentence ‘Aphla is no other mountain than Ateb’ can extend our knowledge when ‘Aphla’ and ‘Ateb’ express di erent modes of presentation of the same p. 68

mountain. This explanation is based on the

assumption that one can grasp di erent modes of

presentation of the same object without recognizing that they determine the same object. Why? A mode of presentation determines an object via some, but not all, of its properties. In this sense modes of presentations are partial. Crane incorporates partiality into his notion of aspectual shape: A state of mind’s having aspectual shape is a matter of its partial presentation of a thing. Therefore, if in reporting an intentional state we want to report how things are from the subject’s perspective, we need to convey this partiality. (Crane 2001, 22; my emphasis) One need not conceptualize this kind of partial representation in terms of aspects or modes of presentation. Campbell (2011, 657–8) eschews modes of presentations and uses the notion of a standpoint. My judgement that this ship is that ship can be true and knowledge-extending when I perceive the ship from di erent standpoints while demonstrating it. Brentano’s Thesis could be formulated by using the notion of a standpoint. But even in this formulation the following three objections will arise. Objection 1: Frege said that we never achieve all-around knowledge of a referent. Whom did he refer to by ‘we’? I take it to be nite human beings like you and me. Now Leibniz envisaged God, an in nite being, to have complete concepts of particulars. He wrote in the Discourse on Metaphysics that the complete notion of Alexander the Great represents all its properties:

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In Brentano’s ThesisAS the notion of aspectual shape does a lot of work. Can it do the work required? Crane

Thus Alexander the Great’s kinghood is an abstraction from the subject, leaving out much detail, and so is not determinate enough to pick out an individual, and doesn’t involve the other qualities of Alexander or everything that the notion of that prince includes; whereas God, who sees the individual notion or ‘thisness’ of Alexander, sees in it at the same time the basis and the reason for all the predicates that can truly be said to belong to him […] (Leibniz 1686, § 8; trans. J. Bennett; my emphasis)

a particular. Does this exclude that the in nite being has an intellect, that is, a capacity for thought and representation? Prima facie, it does not. It has an intellect in nitely better than ours. Hence, it is conceivable that there is mental presentation that is not partial. Objection 2: It is possible to be aware of our mental acts under no mode of presentation or from no p. 69

standpoint. This is suggested by Husserl’s discussion of the distinction between perception—visual, auditory awareness—and awareness of our mental acts. Consider your awareness of your present perceiving or feeling. While we hear a note under a particular kind of mode of presentation, we are not aware of our hearing or feeling under a mode of presentation of this kind. We also have no reason to assume that when we are aware of our hearing we are aware of it under any mode of presentation. For example, awareness gives us no basis to make informative and true identity judgements about an episode of hearing. If I am rst aware of hearing a low note and then aware of a high note, I am aware of di erent hearing episodes, not the same hearing under di erent modes of presentations. Husserl’s conclusion is compatible with the fact that one may think of a mental act under a mode of presentation. I certainly do so when I think of yesterday’s pain as the worst pain that I can remember. All that is required is that awareness of a mental act does not require grasping a mode of presentation. Brentano’s ThesisAS is incompatible with Husserl’s conception. In chapter 8 I will argue that Husserl’s conception is plausible. Therefore we should reject Brentano’s ThesisAS. Objection 3: If we do not constrain the notion of presentation, physical mechanisms as well as mental acts can represent under modes of presentation. Molnar gives the following example: Consider a machine whose only function is to take variously shaped straight-sided twodimensional objects as input and to return measurements of the lengths of their sides. There is a sense in which this machine can select equilateral triangles from any other shaped objects but cannot select equiangular triangles from objects with internal angles of di erent magnitudes. (Molnar 2004, 66) The machine contains detectors that respond to equilateral triangles because its output is sensitive to the length of the sides, not to the magnitudes of the angles. There is an intuitive sense in which the machine takes something to be equilateral or represents it as such when it returns the measurements. We need to say how this sense is di erent from the one which gures in Brentano’s ThesisAS. But how?

2.9 Physical Intentionality Molnar’s counterexample to the Brentano Thesis suggests that not only mental acts and states are ‘directed on objects’ and that, therefore, intentionality is not the mark of the mental. Molnar writes: p. 70

The fundamental feature of an intentional state or property is that it is directed to something beyond itself, to the so-called intentional object. This was Brentano’s basic thesis. All mental

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An in nite being can do what we nite beings cannot do: it can possess a complete mode of presentation of

states and processes have an internal reference to an object. (Molnar 2004, 62; original emphasis) We have already seen that intentional states are not directed to intentional objects. But let’s set this point aside. The nature of a mental act or process is to be directed towards an object. We can only say what a feeling or a judgement is by mentioning what it is of. Molnar’s observation is that the same goes for powers. metal. What distinguishes this power from other powers is its manifestations. The manifestations may not be actual; something can have the power to attract metal even if there is no metal to be attracted. Molnar, 32

Place, and others conclude that a power’s manifestations are its intentional objects.

In Molnar’s own

words: I think that the Brentano Thesis is basically mistaken. […] I accept the intentionality of the mental, and go on to argue that something very much like intentionality is a pervasive and ineliminable feature of the physical world. (Molnar 2004, 61; original emphasis) 33

A similar reasoning underlies the claim that processes are directed upon objects.

If John is building a

house, there is a process that is directed upon an object. Why? Because we must mention the object to specify whether there is a process at all and what process it is. The process of house-building culminates if, and only if, a house is built. However, John may be (in the process of) building a house, although there is no house that he has built yet or there will never be such a house. If he didn’t nish the house because he ran out of money, he was still engaged in building it for a while. Hence, physical processes can have nonexisting objects. The example of house building suggests that the object the physical process is directed on is determined by the intention of the builder. But there are purely physical processes that are directed upon objects in the 34

same sense. p. 71

The process of the river undercutting the bank culminates when the bank is undercut. Again,

the object the process is directed upon

need not exist. The process may not run its course; for instance,

the bank may never be undercut. On this essentialist understanding of ‘having an object’, many things that are not mental have objects. 35

Brentano himself mentioned boundaries.

In order to say what a particular boundary is one must mention

the things it bounds. It is the nature of the equator to be the boundary between the southern and northern hemispheres. Molnar et al. conclude from this that intentionality is not the mark of the mental. The argument, however, cuts both ways. Instead of rejecting Brentano’s Thesis, we can reject the underlying essentialist understanding of having an object as not the one involved in the project of articulating the distinction between the mental and the physical. The fact that counterexamples are so easy to come by suggests this is the right way to go. Is there a way to understand intentionality that overcomes this problem?

Notes 1 2 3

See PES, 207 [II, 127]. See PES, 75 [I, 137]. The English translators render ʻBeziehungʼ as ʻreferenceʼ. ʻBeziehungʼ can also be ʻrelationʼ. Brentano finds it later necessary to distinguish intentionality from other relations—he calls them comparative—that can only obtain if all relata exist (PES, 211 [I, 133]). This strongly suggests that ʻBeziehungʼ should be translated as ʻrelationʼ. I have not done so here for reasons of grammar, but have translated ʻBeziehungʼ as ʻrelationʼ where plausible.

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In order to say what a power is we must mention its manifestations. Take the magnet’s power to attract

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

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11

See PES, 68 n. 11 [I, 125 n. 11]. The Chisholm/Schneewind translation leaves out ʻsubjektischen Verhaltenʼ. On the Aristotelian background of Brentanoʼs conception of intentionality see Smith 1995, 35–42. For an overview of the di erent varieties of literalism and spiritualism see Caston 2004b. See DP, 26 [29]. See Kosman (1975, 507f.) and also Klima (2013, 360–4) who discusses the signet ring example. See Sauer (2006, 3 .) and editorsʼ introduction to DPM (30f.) for a good overview of this so-called ʻontological readingʼ of Brentano. Here I follow Sauer (2006, 4 .) and editorsʼ introduction to DPM (XXXII .). See also Moran 1996, 7, Jacquette 2004, 116f., Crane 2006, Antonelli 2009, and Frechette 2013, 427 . Brentanoʼs student Twardowski is usually credited with developing the distinction between immanent and presented object in his 1894 book Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen: Eine psychologische Untersuchung (see e.g. Hickerson 2005, 464f.). Twardowski (1894, 4/1977, 2) quotes Höfler as saying that ʻobjectʼ is ambiguous when used in philosophical discourse. It can mean the object on which our presenting and judging is directed as well as the ʻpictureʼ that approximates the object and that exists ʻinʼ us. Here we get a clear distinction between immanent object or content and presented object, yet it is explained in terms that are in need of further explanation as the scare-quotes around ʻpictureʼ, ʻobjectʼ, and ʻinʼ indicate. Rollinger (2009, 5f.) argues that the distinction between immanent object and presented object was made in fact by Brentano in unpublished manuscripts. If we see objects in the distance, they may appear indistinct. But the content of our presentation is not indistinct (ibid.). Hence, object seen and content of seeing are distinct. See Anscombe (1965, 7): ʻThe intentional object is told in an answer to a question “What?”.ʼ See also Crane (2001, 17) who introduces the notion of an intentional object via such interrogative phrases as ʻwhat is seenʼ etc. See Sauer 2006, 13–14. Quoted in Buras 2005, 224. Buras argues that all mental operations are object-directed and that some of them are directed on themselves. See Van Cleve (2015, 32) who reads the ʻmostʼ in the quote as conventionally indicating that not all operations of the mind have objects. See the papers referred to in Buras 2005, 230. See Meinong 1904. On Meinong and Reid see Nichols 2002. Crane 2013, Parsons 1980, and Priest 2005 defend the Reid‐ Meinong approach. See also Caston 1998, 251. See Barwise 1981, 377. See also Hellie 2007 and Mulligan 2007. See Mumford 1999, 220. Actions are also assessable as correct or accurate. I can correctly argue, shoot accurately, etc. Friends of Brentanoʼs ThesisC will take actions to be correct/incorrect because they are caused by intentions. Mulligan 2007 gives an overview of such conditions. See Ryle 1949, 152 and Friedman 2013. See, for instance, Wieland 2014, 229. See Dretske 1969, 21. See Crane 2001, 6. Crane 2001, 21. Ibid. 20. See Frege 1980, 80 [1976, 128]. See Molnar 2004 and Nes 2008. See Hellie (2007, 292) who refers to Parsonsʼs work on the semantics of the progressive in English. See Parson 1989, 221. See Brentano 1889.

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

3 Intentionality Primitivism  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0004 Published: August 2017

Pages 72–88

Abstract Brentano endorsed (conceptual) primitivism about intentionality and the view that intentionality is fully revealed to us in its instantiations. The pros and cons of Brentano’s view that intentionality is a conceptually primitive property of every mental act are discussed. On the one hand, it makes clear why we need to distinguish between the immanent object (intentional correlate) and the external object. But, on the other hand, propositional attitudes turn out to be a major problem for intentionality primitivism. Meinong accepted Brentano’s Thesis as well as the existence of ‘propositional attitudes’ but one cannot defend Brentano’s Thesis by saying that propositional attitudes are directed on objectives or the like. A plausible mark of the mental needs to disentangle being a mental act (process) from having an object.

Keywords: intentionality primitivism, propositional attitudes, objectives, judgement, acknowledgement, ascription, consciousness, Meinong Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

3.1 Introducing Intentionality Primitivism We have so far a dilemma. If we identify intentionality with a di erent, independently intelligible notion such as possessing correctness conditions, having aspectual shape, or linguistic intentionality, we can evaluate Brentano’s Thesis, but it comes out as false. If we don’t clarify the notion of intentionality, Brentano’s Thesis may be true, but it does not improve our understanding of what a mental phenomenon is. In fact, intentionality seems more obscure and problematic than mental phenomenon. Brentano responds to this dilemma by rejecting a presupposition of the rst horn:

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[We have given a positive determination of the mental] when we said that we have the mental as well as the physical ‘as an object’ [zum Gegenstande haben]. This having something as an object is the common feature of everything mental that we perceive. Seeing is having a coloured thing as an object, believing is believing in something [Glauben an etwas], loving is loving something. Just as any other elementary concept, this concept cannot be clari ed other than by appeal to such examples. Nonetheless one had tried by means of giving pictures and comparisons to further the noticing in the thinking. Others thought to speak more clearly when they said that a sort of relation is involved, and called this relation, in contrast to a relation of comparison, the consciousness relation or the intentional relation. Such paraphrases may be helpful to make the apperception of the elementary feature easier, but of course they cannot replace it. (RP, 190–1; my translation and emphasis) This manuscript has been compiled and edited by Brentano’s student Kastil. I take it that Kastil managed to preserve Brentano’s basic thought here. Brentano’s main point is that intentionality is conceptually primitive: intentionality is intentionality and not another thing. We neither can nor need to identify it with a p. 73

di erent property. This is, in part, made

plausible by the problems for the attempts to say what the

distinctive directedness of the mental is either in linguistic terms or by means of notions such as aspectual shape. If one tries to explain intentionality in di erent terms, one runs into problems because one tries to give an analytic explanation where none can be had. According to Brentano, his own talk of a ‘noncomparative relation’ or ‘immanent object’ points our attention to the right feature of examples of intentionality, but does not explain it. At a wine tasting one may help people to focus on a particular note of the wine they taste by saying that there are hints of cherry and liquorice in it. But this is only a helpful hint that can prompt the cooperative and imaginative taster to look for the right note when he tastes the wine. The same goes for ‘immanent object’, ‘having an object’, ‘being directed on an object’, etc. We also don’t need to identify intentionality with a di erent property because we know what intentionality is by attending to our mental life and comparing and contrasting it with physical objects guided by metaphorical prompters. Thereby one ‘apperceives’, that is comes to know and distinguish the crucial properties of intentionality. These ‘prompters’ should not be mistaken for explanations of intentionality. The previous sections have given us ample reason to take these locutions not to be explanatory, but, as Brentano held, merely heuristic. Brentano expounded this idea also in other work: The general character of everything mental, as it falls in our experience, is the having of objects. What is said thereby cannot be made distinct without recourse to experience: just as it would be impossible to make clear to a blind man the concept of red, it is impossible to make clear to someone who has never loved and hated, the concept of love and hate, and, to someone who has never apprehended himself as a thinker, the concept of thinking in general in its most general sense as it was used by Descartes. One could not show such a person what one means when one says no thinking thing without an object of thought, no mental subject without an object. (Brentano 1906a, 339; my translation and emphasis) Just as one cannot explain to someone who has never seen a patch of blue what it is to see blue, one cannot explain to someone who has never thought or perceived the sense in which thinking is directed upon an object. If one has perceived something and attended to one’s perception one knows what intentionality is. But one cannot capture this knowledge by providing a set of truths about intentionality or an analytic

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of the distinctive feature. One talked about an indwelling of the seen in the seeing, the object of thought

p. 74

de nition. A de nition of the distinctive directionality of the

mental is impossible, but also super uous,

because we have rst-person knowledge of it. Heidegger therefore took Brentano’s Thesis to be not a truth, but an instruction for action: That the comportments-to [Verhaltungen]: presenting, judging, thinking, willing, are intentionally structured, is not a sentence that one can put down to memory and know in order to infer structure of the relations, and constantly to reassure oneself of the validity of this statement. (Heidegger 1927, 92; my translation) Before Brentano, Reid endorsed Intentionality Primitivism. Like conception, simple apprehension or ‘having an idea of a thing’ is an ‘ingredient in every operation of the mind’. Conception is a basic operation of the mind and: it ought to be remembered, that the most simple operations of the mind cannot be logically de ned. To have a distinct notion of them, we must attend to them as we feel them in our minds. He that would have a distinct notion of a scarlet colour, will never attain it by de nition; he must set it before his eye, attend to it, compare it with the colours that come nearest to it, and observe the speci c di erence, which he will in vain attempt to de ne. (Reid 1785, 295) Intentionality or directedness is just like scarlet: it is revealed in being directed in thinking. Attempts to explain it not only mis re, they impair our grasp of the concept of directedness. We get a proper grip on intentionality by imagining a range of di erent mental acts. For example, if you re ect on how it is for you to love or hate, it becomes clear that love and hate have an object in a distinctive way. But the way in which they have an object cannot be conveyed to someone who has never loved nor hated. Brentano endorsed conceptual primitivism about intentionality and the view that intentionality is fully revealed to us in its instantiations. Brentano’s Thesis is therefore a primitive truth known by induction where the basis of the 1

inductive inference is our own acts of thinking.

According to Intentionality Primitivism, the rst step in grasping the concept of intentionality is to attend to one’s mental life. Consider again Brentano’s list of intentional acts: p. 75

Seeing is having a coloured thing as an object, believing is believing in something [Glauben an etwas], loving is loving something. There are problems with this list, but let’s set them aside for the moment. I will return to them in the next chapter. If we focus on the listed mental acts and relive them in imagination or episodically remember such acts, we can attend to one property they have in common and that no physical object has: intentionality.

3.2 Advantages of Intentionality Primitivism Intentionality Primitivism is initially attractive. First, if intentionality is primitive, physical ‘intentionality’ is no longer a problem. ‘Physical intentionality’ consists in de nitional or otherwise necessary connections between distinct objects. But ‘physical intentionality’ can be fully characterized from a third-person perspective. For this reason, it is already clear that physical ‘intentionality’ is not intentionality, the real thing.

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conclusions from it, but it is an instruction [Anweisung] to bring to mind what is meant by it, the

Second, Intentionality Primitivism makes clear why we need to distinguish between the immanent object (intentional correlate) and the external object. Whenever we observe our mental life, we rst distinguish mental acts in terms of what is given in them: [Inner perception or intuition] does not show us localized, spatially extended things, but mental processes [psychische Vorgänge], consciousness of something [Bewusstsein von etwas]—i.e. we

(FCE, 85 [136]; my translation and emphasis) If we combine this introspective nding with our knowledge that the topics of the acts may not exist, we need the notion of an immanent object to make sense of the idea that we perceive us as having something as an object even when there is no object we are directed on. The immanent object is not the object the act is directed on, its topic; the immanent object exists whenever the act does. Third, Intentionality Primitivism allows us to classify cases of so-called ‘derived’ intentionality as not directed upon an object in the right kind of way. Take Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The painting is directed upon Mona Lisa or a state of a airs involving her. But the painting is directed upon Mona Lisa only when it is p. 76

produced with a particular intention. The physical object, the pigment on canvas, produced by Da

Vinci in

itself is not directed upon an object. For example, Da Vinci could have produced the same physical object just to see how the colours worked together. The physical object produced will still resemble Lisa Gherardini, but resemblance is neither a necessary nor a su

cient condition for being directed upon an object. The

intention in turn has primitive intentionality that is introspectively accessible. Fourth, Intentionality Primitivism does not tie our understanding of the mental to the scholastic theory of perception. Does Intentionality Primitivism leave us with problematic ontological consequences? Consider again Brentano’s list. Seeing a rose and visually hallucinating a rose have something in common, they both have an object. But we know that there is no object in the second case. Hence, we are back to the problem that a mental act can have an object, although there is no object that it has. This problem is due to the use of the expression ‘has an object’ in describing the commonality between seeing a rose and hallucinating it. The task is to nd an existence-neutral description of this commonality that does not commit us to the view that seeing and hallucinating are directed upon di erent objects. There are several ways to bring out the introspectable common feature. For example, both my fear of Lucifer and my fear of the strict teacher purport to be directed upon an object. Purporting to have an object is the feature of our mental acts and processes that we can isolate by introspection. What is it to purport to present an object? It is a property one can only come to learn by attending to one’s mental acts. But having grasped it by introspection we can theorize about it and say more about the metaphysics of purporting to have an object. An act’s purporting to present an object consists, in part, in the fact that it apprehends a mode of presentation that can only be satis ed by an object. As we have seen in section 2.8 this cannot be an exhaustive characterization of intentionality. It is not distinctive of mental acts and processes to apprehend modes of presentations. But it may still be a necessary fact that all mental acts apprehend modes of presentation. The acts are not directed upon the modes of presentation, but they are directed upon something, if they are so directed, in virtue of apprehending a mode of presentation. There are alternatives to this proposal. For instance, Husserl 1894 and 1913a opted for an adverbial understanding of intentionality:

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perceive ourselves as having something as object.

p. 77

I have an idea of the god Jupiter: this means that I have a certain experience of presentation, the presenting-of-the-god-Jupiter happens in my consciousness. (Husserl 1913a, II/1, 373; my translation. See also Husserl 1894, 313 .) Kriegel 2007 defends a di erent form of adverbialism about intentionality. According to him, one fears Lucifer if, and only if, one fears Lucifer-wise. Kroon 2013 proposes a reconstruction of Brentano’s notion of the thinker that she stands in a relation to something, although it is not true tout court that she stands in a relation to something. I will not try to adjudicate between these di erent attempts to capture the commonality between mental acts that is revealed in introspection. For which of these alternatives is right is not settled by the facts we can know about our mental lives alone. I will not pursue the question of which ontology best ts Intentionality Primitivism here. Instead I will focus on a problem for Brentano’s Thesis that arises even if we take intentionality to be primitive.

3.3 ʻHaving an Objectʼ Reconsidered According to Intentionality Primitivism, we can attend to a distinctive way of being directed upon objects when we pay attention to our thinking, feeling, and willing. However, when we so attend, do we recognize that all mental acts merit the metaphorical description ‘directed on an object’? Let’s go back to Brentano’s introduction of the notion of intentionality through a list of examples: In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is a

rmed or denied, in love

loved, in hate hated, in desire desired…. Consider for illustration List A: List A 1. Seeing a red rose 2. Hallucinating a red rose 3. Loving Judi Dench 4. Loving Lieutenant Uhura 5. Acknowledging God. p. 78

What these acts have in common may be glossed, but not explained, as ‘having an object’. If every mental phenomenon is either a presentation, acknowledgement (rejection), or an act of love (hate) or de nable in terms of these primitives, the view that every mental phenomenon has an object in an introspectively accessible way seems defensible. But are all mental acts reducible to the acts Brentano took to be basic? The answer to this question is No. Let us consider an easy case to get clear about the problem involved. Take the judgement that some men are wise. Brentano wrote about judgements of this kind: Of the four categorical forms named, the I form is the easiest one to analyse. ‘Some S is P’, is equivalent to an existential proposition which a

rms in the modus praesens the whole arrived at

when I think of S identi ed with P. And if the sentence did express, as logic pretends [ ngiert], a simple judgement, it would be identical with the judgement expressed by this existential

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intentionality as a quasi-relation that makes use of the idea that it can be true according to the perspective of

judgement. On closer inspection, however, it signi es a double judgement [Doppelurteil], one part of which acknowledges the subject, and, after the predicate has been identi ed in presentation with the subject, the other part acknowledges the subject which had been acknowledged now with this addition [Zugabe]—which is to say it ascribes to it the predicate P. (PES, 230 [II, 164]; in part my translation)

acknowledged? Not only men are acknowledged; the judgement is not the same as the judgement that men are. If one wants to hold on to the idea that it is one judgement and that every judgement acknowledges an object, one needs a new object of judgement that combines men and wisdom. The object of acknowledgement could be the state of a airs that some men are wise or the proposition that some men are wise. I will say more about this in due course. Brentano took such combinations to create more problems than they solve. Hence, he gave up the view that every judgement consists in an acknowledgement of an object. For example, in the case under consideration, one ‘does’ two things: acknowledging men and ascribing (zuerkennen) to the acknowledged men wisdom. Brentano’s term ‘double judgement’ is, however, misleading: a predicative judgement is not a combination of two acknowledgements, but a combination of 2

an acknowledgement and another mental act, an ascription. Consequently we have a further primitive mental act. p. 79

Does an ascription have an object as Brentano’s Thesis requires? I nd myself unable to answer this question. My understanding of ‘having an object’ that I have acquired and that is guided by Brentano’s list of examples does not pronounce on whether ascribing wisdom is about wisdom. Several of Brentano’s students did not accept the double judgement doctrine. It seems di

cult to factor

every judgement into an acknowledgement and an ascription. How would one, for example, factor my judgement that if it rains today, I ought to take an umbrella, into a combination of acknowledgement and ascription? If one abandons the double judgement doctrine, one can take seriously the idea that some judgements acknowledge particular combinations of objects and properties. Consider a second list: List B 1. Judging that there might be nothing 2. Wondering why there is anything at all 3. Fearing that it will rain 4. Inferring that there is no largest prime number 5. Desiring that it will rain. As a rst-stab characterization one can say that none of the B-listers are directed on particulars. To see this in more detail, let us start with B1. An in uential and prima facie plausible alternative view holds that the judgement that there might be nothing is a relation to an object designated by ‘that there might be 3

nothing’. Why? ‘John judged that there might be nothing’ seems to imply ‘There is something judged by John.’ On the face of it, this inference is similar to the inference from ‘Romeo loves Juliet’ to ‘There is someone loved by Romeo.’ If we go with the linguistic appearances, both ‘Romeo loves Juliet’ and ‘John judged that there might be nothing’ say that a relation obtains between two objects. The former is a relation between two people, the second a relation between a thinker and the referent of a ‘that’ clause. The

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If we think of my judgement that some men are wise as one acknowledgement, what is the object

distinctive feature of such referents is that the question of truth and falsity arises for them independently of linguistic conventions or assignments. p. 80

Does this view of judgement allow us to say that the judgement that there might be nothing is about an object? One does not acknowledge a particular object such as a mountain or person when one makes this judgement, but the judgement is about the proposition that there might be nothing. However, this response is unconvincing. When I judge that there might be nothing I don’t judge the proposition that there might be there might be nothing is true, my judgement is directed upon or about the proposition and not merely a 4

relation to it.

Consider further B3, my fear that it will rain. When I fear that it will rain, I don’t fear an object, the 5

proposition that it will rain. The same goes for many other propositional attitudes. I can know that it will rain without knowing the proposition that it will rain. The view that propositional attitudes don’t have propositions as their objects in the relevant sense is compatible with holding the minimal view that propositional attitudes are relations between thinkers and propositions, and that the latter are designated by ‘that’ clauses. For, in general, a relation between a and b need have neither of the relata of an object in Brentano’s sense. Hence, propositions don’t help to defend Brentano’s Thesis.

3.4 Meinong on Objective and Objectum At this point it is instructive to look at Meinong’s theory of objectives. For Meinong is a representative example of a philosopher who accepted Brentano’s Thesis as well as the existence of propositional 6

attitudes. Let us have a look at his attempt to bring both views together and to overcome the problem propositional attitudes pose for Brentano’s Thesis. Meinong called the referents of ‘that’ clauses ‘objectives’ [Objective]. According to Brentano, judging is acknowledging an object. Meinong rejected this view of judgement. A judgement is related to two ‘things’: a particular and an objective. When I judge that p. 81

Othello is jealous, the

object of my judgement or objectum is Othello, its objective is that Othello is jealous.

The objective is not the object of the judgement. Meinong distinguished therefore between the objective as ‘what is judged’ [das Geurteilte] and the object as ‘what is judged about’ [das Beurteilte]. Inspired by Meinong, Ryle distinguished between the things one thinks about and the ‘accusatives’ of thinking, and Prior 7

between what we think and what we think about.

While the objective that Othello is jealous is what is judged, but not the object of this judgement, it is nonetheless supposed to stand to the judgement that Othello is jealous as Othello stands to a presentation of him: [If we had to concede that] every cognition [Erkenntnis], whether a

rmative or negative, cognizes

‘something’, every judgement judges [erurtheilt] ‘something’ which is not the object, but stands opposed to the relevant judgement in the same way as the object stands opposed to its presentation, we anyway have allowed that the judgement has the ability to grasp ‘something’. (Meinong 1902, 162; my translation) However, it remains di

cult to see how Meinong’s analogy can be spelled out and justi ed. What reason is

there to hold that the objective is relevantly similar to the object of the judgement? For instance, if you asked someone who was not already in the grip of a philosophical view what his judgement that Othello is jealous was about, the answer will inevitably be Othello. We think of objects of judgements as topics of predication: in judgement we endorse that something is or some things are a certain way. We can get an

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nothing. I don’t make a judgement about the proposition. In contrast, when I judge that the proposition that

intuitive grip on the notion of an object of judgement by taking judgements as responses to questions. Consider: What is Othello? Othello is jealous. Who is jealous? Othello is jealous.

The judgement that Othello is jealous may be a response to these di erent questions and, depending on the question, di erent objects are the objects we judge to be a certain way. But among these objects we can’t nd the objective. Neither can we nd a reason to say that the objective is like such an object of judgement. p. 82

In the second edition of On Assumptions, Meinong tried to address this problem: It seems strange that we are now claiming two objects for every judgement. For according to the testimony of everyday experience, judgemental thinking is always concerned with just one object and it never exhibits any duality. But one must rst realize that we do not mean a duality in the sense of an independent or separate, side-by-side existence. The objective does not stand separately alongside the objectum, as something apprehended by the judgement, the objectum always stands in the objective. […] But the judgement really has to do with the objectum alone, insofar as natural interest is directed to the latter in order to apprehend it in the objective. (Meinong 1910, 47 [40]; my translation) First, a minor criticism. It seems di

cult to maintain that every judgement is concerned with just one

object. When I judge that Russell and Whitehead wrote Principia Mathematica together, I am judging about some people that they did something together. My judgement is not about one object, but several. Meinong’s negative point is that we don’t take objectives to be similar to objects of judgement—Meinong’s term for such objects is ‘objectum’—because we are interested in the object or objects of judgement and want to predicate something of them. This seems initially plausible. However, do we have a positive reason to think that objectives are like objects? Meinong argued that one cannot make a judgement about one or some objects without judging that it or they are thus-and-so. Here ‘that they are thus-and-so’ is a schematic designation of an objective. Hence, no judgement is about some objects without the judgement apprehending an objective that concerns the object. Neither Russell nor Brentano accepted Meinong’s premise that one cannot make a judgement about some objects without apprehending an objective. As we saw in section 1.2, Brentano held that one can acknowledge an object without predicating something of it. Russell (1912, 72 .) argued that a judgement is a multiple relation between a thinker and some things. When I judge that Desdemona loves Cassio, the judgement relation holds between me and all of the following: Desdemona, Love, and Cassio. But no further objective is the topic of judgement. Let’s set Russell and Brentano’s alternatives aside for the purposes of the argument. As we have already seen, not all judgements can be acknowledgements in Brentano’s sense, and Russell’s view su ers from p. 83

well-known problems. It seems, moreover, that objectives themselves can

become objects of judgement.

For example, an objective may become an object of other judgements, such as my judgement that the objective that Pegasus does not exist is contingently true. Hence, one cannot dispense with them completely.

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Is Othello jealous? Othello is jealous.

Meinong’s main point is that one cannot make a judgement about some things without, to use a neutral term, thereby standing in a relation to an objective. However, this does not show that the objective of a judgement is in an important sense analogous to its object. If we understand the notion of having an object, objectives are not the objects of judgements or, more generally, propositional attitudes. Hence, one cannot defend Brentano’s Thesis by saying that what we call now ‘propositional attitudes’ are directed on objectives or the like.

acknowledgement neither of an object nor of the objective that a is F, yet it has an object because it predicates something of some objects. Is this not enough to defend Brentano’s Thesis? The problem here is that some judgements only have an objective. Consider my judgement that there is something. One can nd semantic values for the concepts expressed by the quanti er ‘there is’. For example, one can take ‘there is’ to refer to a function from concepts to truth-values. But is my judgement about this function, in the sense of interest to Brentano? Does one make a judgement concerning this 8

function when one judges that there is something? When we rely on the introspectively accessible sense of ‘having an object’ that underwrites Brentano’s Thesis, the answer is No. The primary object of a mental act is the object you immerse yourself in and attend to in the act. There is no such object when I judge that there is something. This result is con rmed and extended by B2, an interrogative attitude. There seems to be neither an objective nor an object of my wondering why there is anything at all. One can now introduce new objects for interrogative and other attitudes that play the role that objectives play for judgement and assumption. Husserl followed this strategy: [A] perceiving is a perceiving of something, for instance, an object; a judging is a judging of a state p. 84

of a airs, a valuing is a valuing of a state of value [Wertverhalt];

a wanting is a wanting of a state

of want [Wunschverhalt], etc. Acting is directed towards action, doing towards deed, loving towards loved. (Husserl 1913b, 168; my translation) But Husserl’s list is not philosophically illuminating. Saying that a wanting is wanting of a state of want just labels the problem if it is not paired with an independent conception of such objects. And Husserl does not provide such a conception. To sum up, not all mental acts are directed upon objects in the sense that is revealed to us when we consider Brentano’s list of paradigm cases of intentional acts. My perceiving a red rose is of the red rose. But in this sense my belief that there is a red rose in the garden is neither of the rose nor of the proposition that there is a red rose in the garden. Brentano’s attempt to help his readers latch on to the primitive property of intentionality that all mental acts and states exhibit by characterizing them as ‘having an object’ or ‘being directed on an object’ is not successful. The message of this section is that a plausible mark of the mental needs to disentangle being a mental act or process from having an object. Should one give up on characterizing a mental act or process in terms of what one thinks about and instead use the notion of what one thinks? Or a combination of both? Dennett answered the last question positively: Brentano’s thesis becomes, what it is often supposed without argument to be by writers in the eld, simply that mental phenomena di er from physical phenomena in having a content, or relating to meaning, in the sense that their identity as individual phenomena is a matter of the unique descriptions or propositions to which they are related.

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Now Meinong made room for a judgement having one or some objects. A judgement that a is F is an

(Dennett 1969, 29) In Dennett’s formulation, Brentano’s Thesis no longer relies on a primitive notion of having an object. For Dennett, Brentano’s Thesis should be: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, the identity of x is speci ed, in part, by providing a proposition, interrogative sense, or a singular mode of presentation.

order to say what a particular mental state or event is. But this takes us back to IntentionalityAS and its problems (see section 2.8). It may be the case that our mental states are relations to singular modes of presentations or complexes of them. But this need not generally be the case: there might be beings that have a mental life, but they don’t need to apprehend modes of presentation.

p. 85

3.5 Intentionality Primitivism and Consciousness If we grasp the concept of intentionality or directedness by attending to a mental act we can discover further truths about mental acts. Hence, Intentionality Primitivism explains why Brentano ranks the intentionality mark as the most distinctive. Re ection on our rst-person knowledge of intentionality allows us, argued Brentano, to come to know further truths about the mental, among them the other marks of the mental. He himself gave a good example. He continued the quotation I gave rst in section 3.1 as follows: Someone who has managed to apperceive it [the primitive feature of directedness] apperceives arguably also easily that our consciousness of something is always a consciousness of itself. Someone who sees has two things as object: the coloured object and herself as the person who sees the coloured object. (RP, 191, my translation) Consequently, intentionality and awareness are supposed to go hand in hand. He made this clear in the Appendix to the 1911 edition of Psychologie: When we said that the relation [Beziehung] to something as object is that which is most characteristic of mental activity, this should not be interpreted as though ‘mental activity’ and ‘relation [Beziehung] to something as object’ mean exactly the same thing. Just the opposite is already clearly apparent from what we have said about every mental activity relating to itself as object, not, however, primarily, but secondarily or, as Aristotle, by whom the fact had already been noticed, puts it, ‘incidentally’ [‘nebenbei’]. In a unitary [einheitlicher] mental activity, then, there is always a plurality of relations [Beziehungen] and a plurality of objects. 9

(PES, 214–15 [II, 138]; I have modified the translation)

I nd Brentano’s further step from the apperception of the primitive feature of directedness to apperceiving that every mental act is directed on itself unconvincing. We might apperceive that a particular mental act is directed upon something. But do we also apperceive that a mental act has also itself as an object? The view p. 86

that conscious mental acts have several objects was established by an argument and not (only) by introspection. The thesis that all mental acts are conscious, that is, self- directed, is an inductive truth of descriptive psychology. It cannot be apperceived, but needs to be con rmed by induction. Brentano seems then to endorse as the criterion of the mental:

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Mental acts and states are such that we need to mention a mode of presentation or some kind of content in

(Brentano’s Thesis*) x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, (a) x is directed on an object in a way that is only rst-person accessible; (b) x is directed on itself on the side. Since (a) turned out to be indefensible, (b) does all the work. I take (b) to be an important fact about as a mark of the mental (b) commits us to the view that there are no non-represented mental acts and processes. Brentano accepted this commitment: Every consciousness which is primarily directed upon any object whatsoever is directed on itself on the side. Hence, in presenting the colour [there is] at the same time a presenting of this presenting. Already Aristotle emphasised that the mental phenomenon contains a consciousness of itself. In recent times this has been denied by some. One sees something and has no consciousness that one sees it. One thinks something and has no consciousness that one thinks it. (DP, 25 [22]) He went on to argue that the denial of the thesis that every mental act is conscious is the result of a number 10

of confusions.

The burden of proof, argued Brentano, lies with his opponents. They proposed to explain

the occurrence of mental phenomena by positing unconscious presentations. Brentano took the 11

explanations proposed not to be the best ones.

Hence, there is no reason to believe in unconscious mental

phenomena. I will not engage with these empirical arguments for and against unconscious mental acts. For even if there are unconscious mental acts, Brentano provided a plausible account of the metaphysics of conscious mental acts. Or so I will argue in part II of the book.

p. 87

3.6 Preview The result of the rst three chapters is negative: we have not found an acceptable mark of the mental. Especially Brentano’s Thesis is threatened, either by plausible counterexamples or by the fact that the notion of ‘having an object’ is not applicable to propositional attitudes. Why look any further? The contrast between mental and physical phenomena may be so fundamental that further conceptual clari cation is neither possible nor necessary. Such a response is plausible for many important concepts philosophers have been interested in. The fact that we have no conceptual clari cation of the distinction between good and bad has not prevented ethics from making progress with particular questions. However, it seems to me that the distinction between the mental and the physical can be clari ed further. But in order to make it plausible we will need rst to do more work. In the next part of the book I will therefore expound Brentano’s main

p. 88

argument for his view of consciousness and then return to the topic of the mark of the mental.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

See GÄ, 37. See, for example, Marty 1918, 236. The following answer is given, for example, by Schi er 2003, 12 . See Prior 1971, 3. See Moltmann (2003, 82) who credits Prior 1971 with discovering the problem. See also Ryle 1929/30, 39. Ryle called the nominal acts ʻacts of consciousnessʼ and propositional attitudes ʻacts of thinking or judgingʼ. The acts of thinking have ʻaccusativesʼ that can be stated, but not ostended.

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conscious mental acts and will devote the second part of the book to explaining and defending it. However,

7 8 9

10

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11

See Ryle 1929–30, 94 and Prior 1971, 3. See Wiggins 1984, 129–30. McAlister translates ʻeinheitlichʼ as ʻsingle (einer)ʼ and ʻBeziehungenʼ as ʻreferencesʼ. Brentanoʼs footnote and the beginning of the section make clear that ʻBeziehungʼ should be translated as ʻrelationʼ as in ʻA and B stehen in einer Beziehung zueinanderʼ. All mental phenomena are supposed to be about something distinct from themselves as well as about themselves. This helps us to see how Brentano would counter the criticism that there is physical intentionality. For no disposition (or the object having it) is self-directed. There may be a necessary relation between a disposition and its manifestations, but the disposition itself is not among its manifestations. See PES, book II.1, § 4–7.

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

4 The Regress and the Duplication Argument  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0005 Published: August 2017

Pages 91–114

Abstract Brentano held that perceiving and awareness of perceiving are not two distinct mental acts, but one. This view is not intuitively plausible. The chapter assesses in detail Brentano’s main argument—the Duplication Argument—for this view. It starts by considering predecessors of Brentano’s version of the argument in Aristotle and Hamilton and then moves on to Brentano’s version. Brentano’s Duplication Argument does not assume that awareness of mental acts is a propositional attitude. Because of this Brentano’s Duplication Argument is more promising than its predecessors. The chapter also makes clear why it is implausible to credit Brentano with the In nite Regress Argument.

Keywords: Aristotle, Hamilton, Reid, regress, dual-object thesis, immanent object, presentation, perception Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

It seems that knowing, perceiving, believing and thinking are always of something else, but of themselves on the side [en parergo]. Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.9 [H]ere his conception entirely agrees with our own[.] Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint

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Search in this book

4.1 Introduction In the rst part of the book we have seen that Brentano forges a tight connection between intentionality and consciousness. His epistemic criterion of the mental requires that every mental act is acknowledged in an evident perception. His nal mark of the mental takes every mental act to be directed on itself ‘on the side’. What does this mean? How is it possible?

answers to these questions. In this chapter I will start with the structure of perceptual consciousness. Brentano held that perceiving and awareness of perceiving are not two distinct mental acts, but one. This view is not intuitively plausible. Many think that there is a real distinction between perceiving—for instance, seeing a rose or hearing a note—and awareness of perceiving. Brentano needs to convince us that he is right by providing an argument from independently plausible premises. Does he have such an p. 91

argument? Yes, he has, but it will take work to make clear what the argument is. I will set

the stage for the

discussion of Brentano’s argument by looking at its most important predecessors. I will begin at the beginning and introduce the Aristotelian background of the discussion.

4.2 The Aristotelian Background We are often aware of our perceptions. But is one’s awareness of one’s perceiving distinct from the perceiving of which one is aware? Is, for example, my awareness of my seeing a red apple the exercise of a faculty—an inner sense—that is distinct from sight? Aristotle argued for a negative answer to this question in De Anima 3.2. His arguments set the agenda for Hamilton and Brentano, whose work I will discuss in detail in this chapter. I will therefore start by outlining Aristotle’s arguments. Aristotle argued as follows: [AF] Since we perceive that we are seeing and hearing, it is necessary that one perceives that one sees either by sight or by some other sense. But then the same sense will be of sight and of the underlying colour, with the result that either there will be two senses of the same thing or a sense will be of itself. [BF] Further, if the sense which perceived sight were to be other than sight, then either this will carry on into in nity, or there will be some sense which will be of itself, with the result that one should grant this in the case of the rst sense. (425b12–17; translation by Shields) According to this translation, Aristotle argued that a sense faculty such as sight is a power to perceive qualities of a certain kind as well as itself. Caston proposed a di erent translation and reading, according to which Aristotle argued that perceptual activities such as seeing are directed upon particular qualities as well as upon themselves: [AA] Since we perceive that we see and hear, it is necessarily either by means of the seeing that one perceives that one sees or by another [perception]. But the same [perception] will be both of the seeing and of the colour that underlies it, with the result that either two [perceptions] will be of the same thing, or it [sc. the perception] will be of itself. (Translation in Caston 2002, 769)

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In this part of the book I will assess Brentano’s thesis about the structure of consciousness that provides

[BA] Further, if the perception of seeing is a di erent [perception], either this will proceed to in nity or some [perception] will be of itself; so that we ought to posit this in the rst instance. (Translation in Caston 2002, 773) p. 92

1

I will now focus on the activity reading of the arguments, because it is central for the further discussion. 2

Aristotle’s arguments are (A) the Duplication Argument and (B) the Regress Argument. Let us have a look at

4.2.1 The Regress Argument 3

A rst-stab rendering of the Regress Argument in the activity reading is as follows. Let S be a nite perceiver: (P) S’s perceiving that S perceives x is distinct from S’s perceiving x. (RA1) If S perceives x, S perceives that S perceives x. (RA2) S perceives x. (CRA1) Hence, S perceives that S perceives x. (From RA1, RA2, P) … (CRA2) Hence, there is an in nite regress of perceptions by S. (RA3) A nite being like S is not capable of realizing in nitely many mental acts. (CRA3) Hence, S’s perceiving that S perceives x is the same as S’s perceiving x. The regress can be avoided by rejecting either (P) or (RA1). Why reject (P) and not (RA1)? Prima facie, (RA1) 4

5

is independently implausible. Both Aquinas and Leibniz doubted it. Leibniz assumed that there are ‘petite 6

perceptions’ that contribute to a conscious experience, but these are ‘too small’ to be perceived themselves. Can (RA1) be defended? Caston (2002, 774) argues that Aristotle accepted (RA1) and hence that he had a reason to reject (P). However, now we need to ask what justi es (RA1). Neither Aristotle nor his exegete Caston gives us an independent argument for (RA1). Woodru

Smith (1986, 150) tries to close this loophole by proposing that only a conscious that is, a

perceived mental act can ‘make’ a perception conscious. But my illuminating an object by shining a light on it does not require that my shining a light is itself illuminated. Why is this di erent for consciousness? p. 93

Kriegel (2003c, 122) argues that the experience of consciousness ‘is a familiar element in the human mental life, an element every conscious person is permanently experiencing’. The conscious-making act is itself experienced, and since experienced mental acts are conscious, it is also conscious. Hence, we need to accept (RA1) and reject (P) to avoid a vicious regress. However, many people point-blank refuse to describe their 7

mental life as one in which they have consciousness of their mental acts.

One can nesse the last point. Aristotle and Brentano held that a mental activity is of itself only ‘on the side’; Kriegel (2005, 26) speaks of ‘peripheral’ awareness. (I will discuss the ‘en parergo’ character of awareness in detail in chapter 7.) But one needs to have an independent reason for the view that conscious mental acts are self-representational that does not appeal to contested phenomenological considerations in order to motivate it. If one has such an argument, one has an independent reason to argue that, for instance, in perception we are conscious of perceiving and the object perceived, but attend only to the latter. In sum:

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each of these arguments in reverse order.

the Regress Argument relies on a contested premise. It will not sway those that need to be convinced of its conclusion. In this chapter I will, therefore, focus on the Duplication Argument, which has been underexplored in the literature.

4.2.2 The Duplication Argument

(P) S’s perceiving that S perceives x is distinct from S’s perceiving x. (DA1) S’s perceiving that S perceives x is of S’s perceiving x as well as of x. (CDA1) Hence, when S perceives that S perceives x, x is presented twice: once in S’s perceiving that S perceives x, and a second time in S’s perceiving x. (DA2) There is no double presentation of x when S perceives that S perceives x. p. 94

(CDA2) Hence, S’s perceiving that S perceives x is not distinct from S perceiving x. Proponents and critics of the argument take (DA2) to be unproblematic. When we are conscious of perceiving x, there are not two presentations of x. For example, when we consciously hear a sound, we are presented with the sound only once. The crucial and problematic premise of the Duplication Argument is (DA1). I will call it the Dual-Object 9

Thesis. Why believe it?

Hamlyn (1968, 121) points out that ‘one can be aware that one is seeing without being aware of what one is seeing’. I might immediately know that I am seeing and not, say, hearing, though I am not in a position to know which object I am seeing. According to Caston, this objection just clari es which kind of perceiving Aristotle has in mind: It is perceiving that we are undergoing a visual experience with a particular content. Otherwise [DA1] will seem gratuitous. (Caston 2002, 771) Just as my judgement that John sees Mary is of John as well as Mary, my perceiving that I am undergoing a visual experience as of a blue patch is of the visual experience as well as of a blue patch, the object the 10

experience represents.

Hence, the Dual-Object Thesis is plausible on Caston’s reading. The main work in

making it plausible is done by the assumption that the Duplication Argument is concerned with perception that has propositional content. This propositional content is supposed to be about the perceiving as well as its object. It is indeed plausible that perceiving that one sees x is a propositional attitude. On the face of it, one perceives that one undergoes a visual experience as of x if, and only if, one knows that one undergoes a 11

visual experience as of x by a kind of perception, for example awareness or introspection. p. 95

Caston’s proposal makes (DA1) plausible, but on the proposed reconstruction, the conclusion (CDA1) says that perceiving x and perceiving that one perceives x are not distinct; they are the same act. However, it seems that a perceiver can see a blue patch, yet not know that he undergoes a visual experience as of blue. For example, one can consciously see a blue patch, yet not think of one’s seeing as a visual experience. Or a perceiver may even lack the required concepts to know that s/he has a visual experience as of a blue patch. Hence, being able to (consciously) see a blue patch is one thing, being able to acquire the knowledge (or come to the judgement) that one has a visual experience as of a blue patch is another.

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8

As a rst approximation, the argument in the activity reading goes as follows:

Can one nesse this point by holding that the perceiver knows that he sees a blue patch when he does? After 12

all, many perceivers will possess concepts such as seeing or hearing. Consider this example:

I rst give you

a good reason for the false belief that there are no blue objects in your environment, and then I present you with a blue cube. You will still (consciously) see a blue cube. Yet you will not know that you are seeing a blue cube by introspection or awareness. The misleading defeater prevents you from acquiring this knowledge, but you are still consciously seeing a blue cube.

164). At the beginning of the second Meditation, Descartes might consciously see a blue patch. But he cannot perceive that he himself has an experience as of a blue patch. He has not yet discovered the cogito argument and hence cannot come to know that he himself is seeing a blue patch by being aware of it. His sceptical stance has undermined all knowledge to the e ect that he himself is thus-and-so. Hence, a fortiori, he cannot come to know that he himself is seeing or even experiencing a blue patch, when he consciously sees a blue patch. I conclude that the central premise of the Duplication Argument should not be spelled out in terms of propositional knowledge. How should it then be developed? I will set the stage for Brentano’s development of the Duplication Argument by working through the problems that arose for Hamilton’s version of the p. 96

argument. Hamilton’s Lectures

on Metaphysics in uenced Brentano’s Psychologie vom Empirischen

Standpunkt. Hamilton provided support for the crucial premise of the argument. But his supporting consideration posed new di

culties. Brentano aimed to overcome di

culties that arise for the argument in

Hamilton’s version. Brentano’s key idea was that awareness of perceiving is not a propositional attitude, and he adduced independent considerations that made it plausible that one cannot be aware of perceiving x without being aware of x that did not draw on the idea that awareness of perceiving has propositional content.

4.3 Hamiltonʼs Duplication Argument Hamilton wielded Aristotle’s Duplication Argument against Reid’s view that consciousness is the power to 13

know of one’s mental operations and only of them.

If consciousness is of cognitive operations such as

seeing a colour and hearing a note, as Reid held, it must also be of the objects of these operations: If consciousness has for its object the cognitive operations, it must know these operations, and, as it knows these operations, it must know their objects: consequently, consciousness is either not a special faculty, but a faculty comprehending every cognitive act; or it must be held that there is a double knowledge of every object— rst, the knowledge of that object by its particular faculty, and second, a knowledge of it by consciousness as taking cognisance of every mental operation. But the former of these alternatives is a surrender of consciousness as a co-ordinate and special faculty, and the latter is a supposition not only unphilosophical but absurd. (Hamilton 1860, I, 210) Like Aristotle, Hamilton relied on the premise that consciousness of a mental operation and the operation are directed on the same object. And, like Aristotle, he argued that if consciousness and the mental operation one is conscious of were distinct, the same object would be presented and known twice over. Yet 14

such ‘double knowledge’ is unphilosophical and absurd. p. 97

consciousness— succinctly:

Therefore there is only one ‘supreme faculty’— 15

and seeing, touching, etc. are exercises of it.

Mill summarized Hamilton’s view

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A further problem for the preceding proposal is brought out by adopting an example from Hossack (2002,

[Hamilton] denies that we have one faculty by which we know or feel, and another by which we know that we know, and by which we know that we feel. These are not, according to him, di erent facts, but the same fact seen under another point of view. (Mill 1865a, 115) When we consciously see, for example, an inkstand there is just one mental state that is consciousness of use of ‘conscious’. Reid pointed out that it is ‘improper to say I am conscious of the table which is before me’ (Reid 1785, 24). Hamilton agreed with this observation about English usage: It undoubtedly sounds strange to say, I am conscious of the inkstand, instead of saying, I am conscious of the perception of the inkstand. This I admit, but the admission can avail nothing to Dr Reid, for the apparent incongruity of the expression arises only from the prevalence of that doctrine of perception in the schools of philosophy, which it is his principal merit to have so vigorously assailed. (Hamilton 1860, I, 228–9) The English word ‘consciousness’ (as well as the German ‘Bewusstsein’) started out as a philosophical term 16

of art. Hence, ‘consciousness’ already encodes philosophical conceptions and is not neutral.

The transitive

verb ‘is aware of’ takes as its accusative object designations of mental as well as non-mental facts and particulars. I can say ‘I am aware of the colour of sky’ and ‘I am aware of the throbbing pain in my foot’. Neither utterance seems deviant or defective. Hence, Hamilton could and should use ‘aware’ when 17

explaining his view.

Independently of observations about the correct use of ‘is conscious of’, the idea that the faculty of p. 98

consciousness makes us aware of mental acts

and their objects is di

18

cult to maintain.

For one can be

aware of mental acts that have no object. I may be aware of my fearing a spider, but there is no spider; I may be conscious of imagining a centaur and there is no centaur. Hamilton’s response to the last example is puzzling: We are conscious, says Dr Reid, of the imagination of the centaur, but not of the centaur imagined. Now, nothing can be more evident than that the object and the act of imagination are identical. Thus, in the example alleged, the centaur imagined and the act of imagining it, are one and indivisible. (Hamilton 1860, I, 214) While initially it seemed that the objects of mental acts such as hearing and seeing are what we ordinarily think they are, namely real objects and their qualities, it turns out now that the objects of some acts are identical with these acts. No wonder then that being aware of the act is being aware of its object! One way to make sense of Hamilton’s identity thesis is to hold that the object of an act just speci es the kind of the act: the imagination is a Centaur-imagining; another is to hold that there are intentional objects that are somehow ‘internal’ to mental acts. Both assumptions are in need of further argument and explanation. Even if they are defensible, Hamilton’s claim that there is one universal faculty, consciousness, that provides us with knowledge of our current mental life as well as our surroundings is weakened. Consciousness provides us with knowledge of our mental acts and their objects, but these objects are not the colours we see, the sounds we hear. I will come back to the problem raised by distinguishing between the object of a mental act on one hand and the real object when considering Brentano’s version of the Duplication Argument. Let us rst see whether

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seeing as well as of the inkstand. Hamilton felt that this consequence of his view jars with the established

Hamilton managed to give us a convincing reason to accept the Dual-Object Thesis and with it the necessity to posit intentional objects. Hamilton gave two di erent arguments for the Dual-Object Thesis. Let’s look at both.

4.4 The Argument from Knowledge of Existence

we are conscious of a perception, says Reid, but are not conscious of its object. Yet, how can we be p. 99

conscious of a perception, that is, how can we know that a

perception exists—that it is a

perception, and not another mental state—and that it is the perception of a rose, and of nothing but a rose; unless this consciousness involve a knowledge (or consciousness) of the object, which at once determines the existence of the act—speci es its kind—and distinguishes its individuality? Annihilate the object, you annihilate the operation; annihilate the consciousness of the object, you annihilate the consciousness of the operation. (Hamilton 1830, 55) Hamilton equates (‘that is’) consciousness of a perception with propositional knowledge that the perception exists. Moreover, knowing that the perception exists involves knowledge that it is an instance of a certain kind: a seeing of a rose. He argued then that one cannot have such knowledge without knowing the object of perception, the rose. If one grants Hamilton his premises, the conclusion follows. However, Hamilton’s version of the DualObject Thesis is open to similar objections as Caston’s. Both render the thesis in terms of propositional knowledge concerning perceiving. Hamilton works around the kind of problem raised by Hossack’s example (see section 4.2.2) by proposing that this knowledge is subject-less: it concerns the existence of presently perceiving something, not the fact that oneself is undergoing an experience as of something. However, it is still open to the problem that I might consciously see a rose and, because of a misleading defeater, not even be in a position to acquire the knowledge that a seeing of a rose presently exists (see section 4.2.2). A further move open to Hamilton is to say that consciousness of perceiving a rose consists in a relation of awareness or acquaintance to perceiving a rose. However, this view of perceptual consciousness makes it mysterious why the Dual-Object Thesis should hold. Why should my acquaintance with perceiving a rose also be acquaintance with the rose or be directed on it? I am acquainted with a particular perception, and this does not imply acquaintance with its object. Hamilton’s second argument can be seen as an attempt at a response to this problem.

4.5 The Argument from Relatives In his Lectures, Hamilton changed tack and o ered an argument that employs the Aristotelian notion of a relative. Let us start with an outline of this Aristotelian notion. Aristotle opened chapter seven of Categories by saying: p. 100

We call relatives all such things as are said to be just what they are, of or than other things, or in some other way in relation to something else. a

(Cat. 7, 6 36–7; Ackrillʼs 1963 translation, original emphasis)

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In The Philosophy of Perception, Hamilton argued as follows:

Aristotle gave as examples of relatives ‘greater’ and ‘double’ as well as ‘state, condition, perception, knowledge and position’ (ibid.). Something is greater than something else, a double is a double of something, a state is a state of something, a condition is a condition of something, a perception a perception of something, knowledge is knowledge of something, a position is a position of something. For our purposes only perception and knowledge are of interest. In which sense is perception relative to an object? A perception is directed on an object, it makes this object known to us. In Aristotle’s view of perception, 19

receives the form of an object without its matter.

What uni es all relatives? Relatives can only exist if something else exists and one can only know a relative if one knows that to which it is relative. The epistemic feature of relatives is important for our purposes. Aristotle formulated it as follows: It is clear from this that if someone knows any relative de nitely he will also know de nitely that in relation to which it is spoken of. This is obvious on the face of it. For if someone knows of a certain ‘this’ that it is a relative, and being for relatives is the same as being somehow related to something, he knows that also to which this is somehow related. a

(Cat. 7, 8 1 35–40; Ackrillʼs translation) Aristotle put the following necessary condition for being a relative forward as obvious: (R) If x is a relative, it is not possible to know x de nitely without knowing de nitely the object to which x is relative. If x is a relative it is not possible to know x de nitely without knowing also an object y, distinct from x, to which x stands in a relation. Now, argued Aristotle, one can know de nitely any substance without also knowing de nitely a di erent object y to which the substance stands in a relation. Hence, substances are not relatives. Aristotle suggested in the previous quote a brief argument for (R): if someone S knows that x is a relative p. 101

and being a relative is being related

to an object y, then S must know y. Prima facie, this argument is

unconvincing. Consider an example. I can know that this smile is a relative, namely that it is a state/modi cation of a face, without knowing the face of which it is a modi cation. I may only know that there is some face of which the smile is a state. Aristotle might say that we then lack ‘de nite knowledge’ of the smile. But this seems just to label the problem. We need to know what de nite knowledge is and why we don’t have such knowledge in this case. Hamilton’s second argument takes its cue from Aristotle’s argument for (R): Knowledge, in general, is a relation between a subject knowing and an object known, and each operation of our cognitive faculties only exists by relation to a particular object—this object at once calling it into existence, and specifying the quality of its existence. It is, therefore, palpably impossible that we can be conscious of an act without being conscious of the object to which that act is relative. This is, however, what Mr Reid and Mr Stewart maintain. (Hamilton 1860, I, 212; my emphasis. See also Hamilton 1830, 55) The knowledge under consideration here is, on the face of it, not propositional knowledge. I can know of a rose in the sense of being aware of it. The same goes for perception. Hearing F is a relation—awareness—to an object—the note F; hearing F exists only if a relation holds between a subject and an object. Hence, it is a relative and there is an object to which it is relative.

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perception is also dependent for its existence on the object: perception comes about when a sense organ

Now Hamilton needs to justify that one cannot know of a mental operation without knowing the object of the operation. He suggests the following answer: one cannot know of an object that is relative to x without knowing x. The cognitive operation of hearing the note F is relative to F: F speci es the quality of the existence of hearing F. Therefore one cannot know of hearing F without knowing F. But it is controversial that knowledge of a mental act is possible only if one knows the object that is involved in specifying the quality of the act’s existence. To see this, let us grant that each mental operation exists hearing F not in virtue of knowing the object that speci es ‘the quality of its existence’, but in virtue of knowledge of other facts pertaining to this act and no other. Hearing F may, for instance, stand out as a mental act that is very intense or painful. In general, I can know of an object without knowing what speci es p. 102

‘the

quality of its existence’, because I might simply be able to think about it demonstratively. In most

cases, I know of an object without having any knowledge of such a quality. For instance, what speci es the quality of an object’s existence may be that the object is made from a particular portion of matter or that it has a particular origin. Yet, I can think of and non-inferentially know of an object that has such essential qualities without knowing the qualities or that the object has them. I may, for example, simply be able to see an object, it looks di erent from its surroundings to me. In this situation I am aware of it without thereby knowing that it is of a particular origin or has a particular constitution. Aristotle’s argument for (R) was based on the premise that we know that a particular object is a relative. If we add this premise to Hamilton’s argument, it becomes more plausible. However, now we need to ask whether in being aware of seeing a rose we know that it is a relative and also which kind of relative it is. The answer is No. One can know of one’s perceiving without knowing that it is a relation to something. In sum: Hamilton used the Duplication Argument to argue against Reid. However, he does not manage to make the main premise of the argument independently plausible.

4.6 Brentanoʼs New Take on the Duplication Argument Let us, then, see whether Brentano developed a convincing version of the Duplication Argument. It will be helpful to have Brentano’s version of the argument completely in view. It runs as follows: No one can really doubt that it happens [Es kommt vor, daran kann wohl niemand zweifeln] that we are conscious of a mental phenomenon while it is present in us; for example, while we have the presentation of a tone [Ton], we are conscious of having it. Now the question arises, in such a case, do we have several heterogeneous presentations or only a single one? [If presentations of distinct objects are themselves distinct,] we must say that in the case under consideration we would have several presentations and that they are of di erent kinds; so much so that one of them constitutes the content of another, while having a physical phenomenon as its own content. If this were true, the physical phenomenon must, to a certain extent, belong to the content of both of these presentations, to that of one as its explicit object, to that of the other as, so to speak, its implicit object. It would seem, therefore, as Aristotle also noted, to turn out that the physical phenomenon p. 103

must be presented twice. Yet this is not the case. Rather,

inner experience seems to prove

undeniably that the presentation of the tone is connected with the presentation of the presentation of the tone in such a peculiarly intimate way that, if it obtains, its being contributes inwardly to the being of the other [in so eigentümlich inniger Weise verbunden ist, dass sie, indem sie besteht, zugleich innerlich zum Sein der anderen beiträgt]. This suggests that there is a peculiar interweaving [eigentümliche Verwebung] of the object of inner presentation and the presentation itself, and that both belong to one and the same act. We must in

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only relative to an object—for instance, hearing F is relative to F. Nonetheless, one might be able to think of

fact assume this. Referring back to the example, we have to answer the question of whether there is more than one presentation a

rmatively, if we determine them according to the number of

objects; with the same certainty, however, we have to answer this question negatively if we determine these presentations according to the number of mental acts in which objects are presented. The presentation of the tone and the presentation of the presentation of the tone form one single mental phenomenon; it is only by considering it in its relation to two di erent objects, conceptually into two presentations. (PES, 97–8 [I, 176–9]; in part my translation) 20

In 1894/5 Marty gave introductory lectures on descriptive psychology.

These lectures aimed to introduce

Brentano’s philosophy of mind to students. In these lectures Marty gave a more accessible version of Brentano’s argument: We hear some tone, we have therefore a presentation of a note and are conscious of this presentation. How are these two presentations related to each other? Are these two di erent mental acts? If this were the case, one would have to present the tone twice. For it belongs indirectly to the presentation of the tone. But inner experience shows without doubt that we present the tone only once. From this it follows that the presentation of the tone and the presentation of the presentation of the tone are not two, but one act. The rst presentation coalesces in the second and is so intimately connected with it that it contributes to its being. Only one mental phenomenon, only one act of presenting, is there, but in virtue of one [act] two things come about. (DPM, 28; my translation) Brentano proposes a new version of the Duplication Argument to support his view here. While this may, in the light of the text, seem obvious, the literature on Brentano uniformly takes him to be proposing the Aristotelian Regress Argument, and, in turn, the Regress Argument is considered to be his ‘master 21

argument’ (Kriegel). p. 104

For example, Smith writes:

Reviving an ancient argument, Brentano reasoned that the secondary presentation cannot be a second presentation, a re ection or judgement upon the primary presentation. For that would lead to an in nite regress […]. (Smith 1986, 149) If the secondary presentation is not a ‘second’, distinct presentation, a presentation must, among other things, present itself. It should be clear that the centrepiece of Brentano’s argumentative strategy is the Duplication Argument. Why do Brentano’s exegetes suppose otherwise? Brentano asked his readers ‘When we have an idea of a sound or another mental phenomenon and are conscious of this idea, are we also conscious of this consciousness or not?’ He expected them to be inclined to answer ‘Yes’: Only when one calculates for him that there must be a threefold conscious, like three boxes, one in other [dreifach ineinandergeschachteltes], and that besides the rst idea he must also have an idea of the idea of the idea he will become wavering. (PES, 100 [I, 182]) Only when we realize that there is a regress threat will we check our initial response. The regress threat is an obstacle that needs to be removed in order to clear the way for accepting the view that every mental act is

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one of which is a physical phenomenon and the other a mental phenomenon, that we divide it

conscious. This may lead one to suppose that Brentano used the Regress Argument to argue for his own view. But he can’t use this argument for dialectical reasons. In the Duplication Argument Brentano only assumes that ‘no one can doubt that it happens that we are conscious of a mental phenomenon while it is present in us’ (PES, 97 [I, 176]; my emphasis). While some philosophers doubt that we are always aware of a mental phenomenon when it is present in us, no one doubts, says Brentano, that it happens that we are aware of such a phenomenon. This weaker and very plausible assumption does not generate an in nite premise to convince philosophers who doubt that every perceiving is conscious. Even they cannot doubt that we are sometimes conscious of our mental life. Hence, there is no Regress Argument, only a regress worry, in Brentano. In the passage quoted earlier Brentano rehearsed the main steps of the Duplication Argument. To recap: (P) The presentation M2 that makes a presentation M1 that is directed on x conscious is distinct from M1 and directed on M1. p. 105

(DAP1) A presentation of a mental act directed on x that makes this act conscious is also directed on x. Hence: (DAC1) M2 as well as M1 are directed on x. (DAP2) It is not the case that x is presented twice. Therefore: (DAC2) The presentation M2 that makes a mental presentation M1 directed on x conscious is directed on, but not distinct from, M1. In Aristotle and in part in Hamilton, the Duplication Argument is framed in terms of perceiving-that or knowledge-that. We have already seen in section 1.2 that Brentano explicitly rejects the idea that perceptual consciousness involves propositional knowledge. This allows him to escape the problems created by this assumption (see section 4.2.2). But it makes it also di

cult to nd a reason to endorse the Dual-Object

Thesis (DAP1), the thesis that consciousness of a mental act directed on x is also directed on x. Hamilton tried to argue for the thesis that one cannot be aware of perceiving x without being aware of x on the basis of Aristotelian principles about relatives. As we have seen, this argumentative strategy is unsuccessful. How can we convince ourselves of the truth of (DAP1)? In the next section I will assess whether and how Brentano makes progress with this point. In order to show how he addressed this problem we need rst to get clear about the basic notions he used in developing his version of the argument.

4.7 The Intuitive Basis of the Dual-Object Thesis In Psychologie, Brentano did not provide an argument from more fundamental principles (DAP1). According to him, there is no need for such an argument: It also seems […] evident [einleuchtend] that the tone is not only contained as presented in the hearing but also so contained in the simultaneous presentation of the hearing [gleichzeitigen Vorstellung]. 22

(PES, 94 [I, 171]; my translation)

Brentano’s pupil Stumpf gave a number of examples that illustrate what Brentano has in mind:

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regress. It is therefore implausible to credit Brentano with the Regress Argument. He must use the weaker

p. 106

One can perceive a landscape and be so immersed in this object that one’s own perceiving and other inner states remain unnoticed. In contrast, one cannot perceive any mental state without somehow noticing whereupon the state is directed: its material or object. I can’t become aware of an act of hearing without simultaneously becoming aware of the tone that I hear. I can’t become aware of an act of will without simultaneously becoming aware of what I will, even if it is only something indeterminate, some direction of my acting.

The truth of the Dual-Object Thesis is or can be obvious to anyone who has ever been aware of perceiving. Why? Consider a situation in which you become aware of your hearing the note F. You have been hearing F. But you 23

have not been aware of your hearing. Now you become aware of your hearing F.

You can become aware of

your hearing without intentionally paying attention to your hearing. For instance, more often than not you come to be aware of your hearing without having an interest in its properties. You just come to know of your hearing F because, for example, you are no longer distracted. The change consists in non-inferential acquisition of knowledge: you know of your hearing F now. Can one become aware of one’s hearing F in this way without also becoming aware of what one is hearing? Judging from my own case, I nd myself in agreement with Brentano and Stumpf. It is not in my power to know of my hearing in the direct way described without knowing eo ipso what I hear. Consider again the situation in which you come to know of your hearing F, as described earlier. One does not become aware of one’s hearing in the direct way under consideration without also becoming aware of what one hears. When one comes to be aware of one’s hearing F one would have actively to ignore what one hears to be simply aware of one’s hearing. Prima facie, this is something we can’t do. However, the mere fact that we would need to ignore what we hear is a reason to say that the default case is as follows: when we are aware of our hearing F, we are also aware of what our hearing is directed towards. One can make the Dual-Object Thesis further plausible by considering situations in which we think of one of our mental acts without being aware of what it represents. p. 107

A: I am not aware of hearing F. Now you tell me that there is exactly one mental act that I am undergoing now. I can think and reason about the mental act that is in fact my hearing F, yet I am not aware of it in the sense of ‘coming to’ that animates the discussion about consciousness. B: I su er from blind-sight. I have no conscious visual experience in one part of my visual eld. In this part of my visual eld, nothing looks blue, square, etc. Yet visual stimuli may cause me to make spontaneous reports about visual stimuli. In this situation I can think about a ‘perception’ because, for instance, its unpleasant character captures my attention, but I am ignorant of what the experience is directed towards. I am not in a position to attend to how things look to me. In both A and B one wants to say that my perception is not conscious in the basic sense under consideration. These are not cases in which one becomes aware of one’s perceiving. Yet, at least in B, one is in a position to think and even immediately know of one’s perceiving. What is missing in such cases, and in those we take to be normal cases of becoming aware of one’s perceiving? What distinguishes someone who becomes aware of his seeing or hearing in the normal direct way from someone who acquires knowledge of it without being aware of his seeing or hearing is that the former thinker is aware of his act as well as what the act is directed towards. As a rst stab at characterization, awareness of hearing F is distinct from other presentations of hearing F in that one cannot be aware of hearing F without thereby being aware of what one hears. This is a rst-stab characterization because the

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(Stumpf 1939, 341; my translation)

phrase ‘what one hears’ should not be construed as referring to the tone one hears. I will expand on this in detail in the next section. The thesis that if one becomes aware of perceiving x in the direct ‘introspective’ way described, one also becomes aware of what one perceives, is weaker than the thesis that goes under the name ‘transparency of experience’. According to this thesis, one cannot attend to hearing the tone; one can only attend to the tone. When one tries to attend to hearing a tone, one nds that one attends only to the tone heard. The chapter 1 is also a thesis about introspective attention. The thesis proposed here is one about awareness. p. 108

These are di erent mental activities. One can be aware of

24

something without attending to it.

Moreover,

the fact that one cannot be aware of one’s perceiving without being aware of what one perceives does not mean that one can only attend to what one perceives. It does not even mean that the tone itself is the object one is aware of. I will say more about this in the next section. In the literature our awareness of our perceiving is often sidelined. The discussion usually focuses on pains and the like. Now it is controversial that, for example, my headache is directed towards an object. Hence, awareness of a pain cannot require my knowing what it is directed towards. But something similar is required. Gertler gives an account of such states that is parallel to the one proposed here for intentional acts: Awareness of a state qua phenomenal state requires picking it out by its phenomenal content. (Gertler 2001, 309) If one is aware of one’s headache, one is aware of its dull, throbbing quality. For awareness of the headache as a phenomenal state requires that one picks it out by the way it feels to one. If, as some propose, the way an experience feels to one reduces to what it presents, then the condition for awareness of phenomenal states is just the same as the condition for awareness of intentional states and acts. I take this to be suggestive and to provide some con rmation of the idea that one cannot be aware of a mental act without knowing what it is directed towards.

4.8 Which Object are You Aware of When You are Aware of Perceiving? Let us now expand on the rst-stab characterization. Why ‘ rst stab’? Take hearing the note F. Can’t I become aware of my hearing the tone without thereby becoming aware of the tone that I hear? This question p. 109

takes us back to the discussion of how mental acts are given to us in

section 1.2. When we observe a

mental act we are also aware of its object, Brentano said. But what if there is no object? Can’t we be aware of non-veridical acts? One wants to say, more generally, that one cannot be aware of one’s auditory experience of F without being aware of what one experiences, even if there is no tone that sounds to one. Siewert gives another good example of awareness of a non-veridical visual experience: Suppose you look at a pair of circles A and B. […] Suppose A looks bigger to you than B, but really isn’t—as for example, in the famous Titchner illusion. In that case, what you attend to is not: A’s being bigger than B. For that fact is simply not there to be attended to. Are you then somehow barred from attending to the size A and B appear to you to have, relative to one another, whenever A inaccurately looks bigger to you than B? Surely not. So how should we conceive of what you attend to in this circumstance? (Siewert 2004, 20) In the situation described one is aware of a perceptual experience as of A’s being bigger than B and of what the experience seems to be directed towards: A’s being bigger than B. But there is no object or fact ‘in

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transparency of experience is a thesis about attention; Brentano’s fundamental observation discussed in

reality’ that is experienced: A is not bigger than B. It just looks to us that way; we have a perceptual experience we would report by saying ‘A is bigger than B, that is how things look to me.’ Brentano agreed with this point, but failed to make this completely clear in Psychologie. The object of which we are aware when we are aware of a mental act is not the presented object; when I am aware of hearing F I am not also aware of the note. I am aware of the immanent object or intentional correlate. For example, he writes in the letter already quoted in chapter 2:

is thinking [das Denkende] when it forms with the thought of [dem Gedachten] a pair of correlatives, since correlatives are not perceivable without each other. That which is sensed or thought by the intellect universally as the primary object is in contrast not the object of inner perception. (Letter to Marty 17.3.1905, reprinted in TE, 53 [88–9]; my translation) ‘The thought horse’ is not a horse; it is an immanent object or intentional correlate. But what is it the intentional correlate of? As we have seen in section 2.5, it was supposed to be the intentional correlate of the mental act: seeing and what is seen are correlates. If act and the immanent object are correlates, one is aware of them together. But the phrase ‘das Denkende’ does not refer to a mental act or process, but to an p. 110

agent of such an

25

activity.

Indeed, as we will see in chapter 12, Brentano had a change of heart and

accepted mental substances into his ontology of mind. But what does it mean to say, as Brentano does, that the thought horse is the correlate of the thinker, that is, the mental substance? A straightforward answer is that the thought horse is the correlate of a mental act that is an act of the thinker. On this reading, the introduction of mental substances does not change the assumption that every mental act has an intentional correlate. We can therefore hold on to the idea that mental act and immanent object are correlates and are perceived together. How should one conceptualize the distinction between immanent and presented object such that it helps to explicate Brentano’s argument? In chapter 2 I proposed to take the immanent object or intentional correlate to be a mode of presentation. Hence, Brentano’s Thesis would be that each mental act has a mode of presentation which is such that one cannot be aware of the mental act without knowing which mode of presentation it has. In a manuscript Brentano develops an argument for the claim that the intentional correlate is co-presented in perceptual consciousness: I said that each of the correlatives, as it cannot be without the other, can also not be thought without the other. […] If indeed I think of a boundary, I also think of what is bounded and think of the boundary as a boundary of the bounded, the bounded as bounded by the boundary. If I think of something that presents, I also think of something presented and think of something that presents as presenting something presented, that which is presented as presented by something that presents. 26

(Brentano 1887–90, 435–6 [469–70]; my emphasis) Brentano argues: A can exist only in connection with B.

Therefore: One can think of A only in connection with B. 27

This argument is too general. Consider a total eclipse of the sun. p. 111

if the sun is totally occluded. In this

A total eclipse of the sun can happen only

sense the eclipse is of the sun. But one can well be aware of the eclipse

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The ‘thought horse’ taken as an object would be an object of inner perception which perceives what

of the sun without being aware of the sun. In fact, one’s perceptual awareness of the eclipse is precisely an awareness of the absence of the object to which the eclipse is relative. However, the argument is convincing if suitably restricted. As I cannot be aware of someone’s dancing with being aware of the way in which she dances I cannot be aware of hearing a note without being aware of the way in which the note appears to me. In general, I can describe or specify this way only indirectly by mentioning a note.

give us direct access to our present perceptions as well as the things that we perceive, it gives us direct access to our present perceptions and the ways in which objects appear in them to us. Hence, Mill’s 28

objection against Hamilton has no force against Brentano’s view.

According to Brentano, one can, for

example, be aware of imagining Pegasus, although there is no Pegasus, because one is aware of the way that one’s imagining purports to present something. Consider now a situation in which something looks blue to me and it is in fact blue. In this situation my awareness of seeing blue is immediate and infallible with respect to my visual experience and its immanent object, the way that the object looks to me. Since the way the object looks is the way the object is, I am directed towards a real colour. But it may have looked blue to me, without being blue. Hence, awareness is only immediately evident perception of my mental activities and their immanent objects. It is not infallible with respect to the real objects perceived. This, I take it, is what Brentano has in mind when he says about conscious seeing that: [i]t is one act with two objects that is related to the coloured and extended thing as a blind acknowledgement, but related to itself as an evident acknowledgement. (RP, 226; my translation, original emphasis) Conscious seeing of a blue patch is one act that is directed on two objects under the right circumstances. With respect to one of them, the coloured object, conscious seeing of a blue patch is not evident and fallible; with respect to the other, itself, it is evident and infallible. It can be evident and infallible because what is perceived with the act is only its immanent object.

p. 112

4.9 The Duplication Argument Reconstructed If we look at the Duplication Argument with Brentano’s comments about the immanent object in mind, the main premises of the argument start to look convincing. The argument is based on the premise that one cannot become aware of a mental act without thereby being aware of its immanent object, not the presented object. With these points in mind, let us work through Brentano’s example and clarify the Duplication Argument. I hear the note F at time t. My hearing is directed towards the note under a mode of presentation. This mode of presentation is speci ed by an answer to the question ‘What is heard now?’ (in the right context). For instance, I might answer ‘F sounds now’. Assume now that you become aware of hearing F at time t+1 and that this change consists in the fact that at t+1 a distinct further mental act is directed towards hearing F: t+1: hearing F & awareness of hearing F As argued before, one cannot be aware of hearing F without knowing what one hears: namely the immanent object of hearing. Hence, under the assumption that hearing F and awareness of hearing F are distinct, there are two distinct mental acts that have the same immanent object—the note heard—when we are aware of

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If in perceptual awareness we are aware of the perceiving and its intentional correlate, awareness does not

hearing F: once as the immanent object of hearing, the mode of presentation of hearing, and another time as part of the immanent object of the awareness of hearing F. But this goes against the facts we know by introspection. We don’t think that we are directed twice on the note heard when we are aware of hearing F while hearing F. In our consciousness the note heard appears only once. Brentano concluded that there are not two distinct acts, but only one that can be described with respect to the tone F as awareness of F and with respect to itself as awareness of hearing (awareness of awareness of F). If on Brentano’s conclusion.) In the good case, the real tone and the awareness of the tone both appear to us. But the argument does not require that there is a real object that is perceived. We can run the argument, for example, for a case of imagining a centaur or hallucinating a sound. As explained in the previous section, my awareness of what is heard is not awareness or immediate p. 113

knowledge of an object. I may be aware of

what is heard, yet su er from a hallucination such that there is

no object that I hear. I possess knowledge that puts me in a position to answer the question ‘What is heard?’ But this is not knowledge of a further object in addition to the hearing.

4.10 Disarming a Response from Higher-Order Theory Contemporary higher-order theorists of consciousness hold that a mental act M1 is conscious in virtue of a distinct non-inferential arrived at higher-order mental act M2 that is directed towards it and accompanies 29

it.

Prima facie, they have a good response to the Duplication Argument. True, it is not the case that one

presents x twice consciously when one perceives that one perceives x. However, one still presents x twice: once consciously, once non-consciously. For one’s perceiving that one perceives x is more often than not unconscious, that is, not presented. Hence, x is given once consciously as the object of one’s perceiving and once unconsciously when one is aware of perceiving x. So x is presented twice, but this does not contradict the fact that we are conscious of x only once. This response, while initially appealing, does not solve the problem. S’s perceiving that S perceives x is as a matter of fact often unconscious. However, one can climb the hierarchy of mental acts one step further. For example, Rosenthal writes: Introspective awareness of a particular mental state is having a thought that one is in that mental state, and also a thought that one has that thought. (Rosenthal 1986, 337) When we do so, the act that makes hearing conscious is itself conscious. If this act is distinct from hearing F, but directed towards the tone F, F is consciously presented twice in introspective awareness. But the idea that I am consciously aware of F twice is implausible. Hence, the problem has not been solved, but reoccurs. Brentano’s solution is the same: deny that hearing F and awareness of hearing F are two cases of awareness: they are one case of awareness with two objects. p. 114

There is also a shortcut to Brentano’s conclusion that does not require appeal to the implausibility of conscious double presentation. We have argued in section 4.7 that one can’t become aware of hearing F without being aware of what one hears. If this is right and awareness of hearing F and hearing F are distinct mental acts, there is a necessary connection between ‘distinct existences’. Awareness of hearing F implies the existence of hearing F, for the former is connected with the latter such that they share an immanent object. In Brentano’s own words:

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there are not two distinct acts, but only one, the tone is not presented twice. (In section 5.1 . I will expand

the presentation of the tone is connected with the presentation of the presentation of the tone in such a peculiarly intimate way that, if it obtains, its being contributes inwardly to the being of the other. (PES, 98 [I, 179]; my translation) Such a necessary connection between distinct contingent objects requires an explanation. One way to Shoemaker writes about introspective beliefs about perceptions: On this view, there is just one tokening of the content that is both the phenomenal character of the perceptual state and the embedded content of the introspective belief about the phenomenal character of that state. Part of the perceptual state is literally included in the perceptual belief, making it impossible to have the belief without having that part of the perceptual state. (Shoemaker 2000, 270; my emphasis) I cannot be aware of my perceiving without being aware of what I perceive, because part of my perception with its phenomenal character is ‘included’ in my awareness. I think such a proposal is viable if it is underwritten by an independent non-modal account of mental parthood. For if a mental act x is a part of a mental act y if, and only if, it is not possible that y exists if x exists, we have not explained the necessary connection, but just given it a new name. Brentano explains the necessary connection in a di erent way. Why can’t there be Hesperus without Phosphorus? Because Hesperus is the same planet as Phosphorus. Why can’t there be awareness of hearing F without awareness of what one hears when one hears F? Because awareness of hearing F is the same mental act as hearing F. Hence, one can make Brentano’s conclusion plausible as an explanation of the necessary connection between awareness of hearing F and hearing F without appeal to the observation that F is only presented once.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9

10 11

Both arguments deal with consciousness of perceiving. Whether they can be extended to consciousness of propositional thinking is a question I cannot answer here. I take the labels ʻduplication argumentʼ and ʻregress argumentʼ from Caston 2002. See Caston 2002, 773. See Kosman 1975, 501. See PES, 79 [I, 144]. See Leibniz 1685, 54–5. See also Gennaro 2008, 49. See Caston (2002, 771) for a version of the argument. He (2002, 768) notes that Brentano and his student Schell proposed a version of Aristotleʼs Duplication Argument. But he does not go on to reconstruct Brentanoʼs version, which di ers in crucial points from Aristotleʼs. In this chapter I will focus on Brentanoʼs version of the argument. On the faculty reading of the Duplication Argument, the main question is ʻWhy should a sense which perceives another sense perceive it as well as that senseʼs object?ʼ (Kosman 1975, 500). See Caston (2002, 765–6) for an assessment of answers to this question that have been proposed on Aristotleʼs behalf. Caston finds them wanting; I agree that only on the activity reading does the Duplication Argument have a chance of being convincing. See Shields (2015, 265–7) for a commentary on Aristotleʼs ʻperceiving that we Aristotleʼs perceiveʼ. Shields stresses that the perception under consideration is intellectual perception, a form of perceiving that something is the case. Dretske 1969, 80 .

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provide this explanation is to make use of mereological notions like overlap or parthood. For example,

12 13 14 15 16 17

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29

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18 19 20 21

Thanks to Keith Hossack for the example. Aristotleʼs influence on Hamilton is obvious when he writes, ʻHow correctly Aristotle reasoned on this subject, may be seen from the following passage: […]ʼ, quoting De Anima 3.2, 425b12–17 (Hamilton 1830, 57). Schell (1873, 110) made the same point about Reid. Hamilton 1860, I, 207–8, Hamilton 1830, 53. On this see Thiel 1991. Stoljar makes a similar point against a current view of transparency: ʻSurely it is not merely false, but nonsensical, to say that I can introspect objects in the external world; that would be like saying that one can remember future eventsʼ (Stoljar 2004, 382). It seems indeed strange to say that one can introspect colours etc. But this is due to the fact that introspection is conceived as a voluntary attending to oneʼs mental life. Hence, saying ʻI want to introspect the colour of the appleʼ indicates a misunderstanding of what introspection is. But this linguistic observation does not speak against the view that awareness of perception has several objects, among them physical properties. See also Mill 1865a, 120. On this point see Harari 2011, 528. See editorsʼ introduction to DPM (29) for the aims and scope of the lectures. See Janzen 2008, 110f., Kriegel 2003c, 111, Seager 2006, 2, Thomasson 2000, 192, Zahavi 2004, 71–2. Brandl 2011 mentions the Duplication Argument, but does not analyse it in detail. The English translation translates ʻgleichzeitigʼ as ʻconcomitantʼ (ʻbegleitendʼ). See Armstrong 1981, 723. Mehta makes a similar point with respect to a di erent example: ʻI cannot bypass the (apparent) properties of the peach when I try to introspect my experience of the peach. To tell what my experience of the peach is like, I must first know what the peach is apparently like. This example is representativeʼ (Mehta 2013, 366). In light of this example, he proposes a ʻMinimal Transparency Thesisʼ (ibid.) that normally one comes to be aware of an experience by introspection by first becoming aware of the objects presented. Minimal Transparency does not imply that only the purported object of seeing is given in introspection. Chisholm translates ʻdas Denkendeʼ as ʻthe thinkerʼ and thereby suggests the change in Brentanoʼs view about the correlates of the intentional relation. See also Brentano L, 80 (13.029) and Schell 1873, 164. I am grateful to Tom McClelland for suggesting examples of this kind. See p. 98. See, for instance, Rosenthal 1986, 336 .

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

5 One Act, Several Conceptual Parts  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0006 Published: August 2017

Pages 115–130

Abstract The chapter clari es the conclusion of Brentano’s Duplication Argument. On Brentano’s view, a conscious mental act is directed on two objects, one of them being the act itself, but its plural reference is primitive, not due to the fact that the mental act has parts which each have reference on their own. Because of the plural reference the act can be brought under di erent partial concepts that are arrived at by abstraction. Brentano’s view is compared with contemporary versions of selfrepresentationalism and shown not to admit of higher orders, double presentations, or indirect presentation of complexes. Brentano’s Duplication Argument makes plausible that awareness of perceiving can’t be such a complex that integrates independently existing mental acts; instead one simple act can have multiple objects.

Keywords: plural reference, conceptual parts, one-vehicle view of consciousness, two-vehicle view of consciousness, self-representation, propositional contents, Kriegel Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

5.1 Introduction Which lesson can we draw from the Duplication Argument? It shows that hearing F and awareness of hearing F are the same mental act. However, Brentano’s conclusion goes further than this. He went on to specify how one should conceive of hearing F and awareness of hearing F. There is one act that is directed towards both F and itself. When we attend to its direction towards F, we can describe it as ‘hearing F’; when we attend to its relation to itself, we can describe it as ‘awareness of hearing F’: Consciousness of seeing and consciousness of something coloured belong to the same act. It is one act that we divide only conceptually by, on the one hand, conceiving of it as having the coloured as object and, on the other hand, as having the coloured seeing as its object.

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(RP, 191; my translation, original emphasis) Both these descriptions are partial and applying them requires selective attention. In order to be aware of hearing, such attention is not required. Hence, we cannot think of our awareness of hearing as factored into two independent and prior components: hearing F and awareness of hearing F. There is one mental act that has several objects and can therefore be described in the ways mentioned.

First, the distinction between hearing F and awareness of hearing F is a conceptual and not a real distinction. Second, distinguishing between hearing F and awareness of hearing F is a product of abstraction and attention. This distinction is not given in conscious hearing. In the next sections I will explain and defend these points.

p. 116

5.2 Conceptual Complexity and Plural Reference In On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle, Brentano argues that there are conceptual divisions to which no real di erence corresponds, because ‘the understanding [Verstand], in considering something, often divides into di erent concepts what is in itself one’ (OSSBA, 86 [131]). The action Brutus’s stabbing of Caesar is the same event as the murder of Caesar, conceptualized di erently: once in terms of agent (Brutus), once in terms of the unfortunate patient (Caesar) of the action. Brentano treated hearing F and awareness of hearing F along the same lines. If one makes a conceptual distinction, one distinguishes conceptual parts. Conceptual parts are concepts that apply to the same act; conceptual parts are not mental acts themselves, e.g. conceptual parts are not mental events that have causal powers and are directed on objects. I think Stumpf had this point in mind when he wrote: Even the simultaneous presence of several elements in the same consciousness is a metaphor, a hypostatization of the elements. We have one state in which we can distinguish by abstraction di erent sides. (Stumpf 1906/7, 235; my translation) Consider an independent example to make this plausible. If I kill two birds, Tweety and Sparky, with one 1

stone (throw), my killing Tweety is the same action as my killing Sparky. I don’t need two throws to kill both Tweety and Sparky. There is just one basic action—my throwing the stone—that satis es the description ‘my killing of Tweety’ as well as the description ‘my killing of Sparky’. This does not require that it can be decomposed into two sub-acts. In this case, talk of two killings or one complex killing composed of sub-acts is a ‘hypostatization’. If we make a distinction between killing Tweety and killing Sparky, we merely register that one act has several objects. In general, if one act has several objects, it satis es several partial descriptions. In giving such a description one makes an abstraction in one of the literal senses of ‘abstraction’: one describes something only in part. For example, abstracting a property is ‘to present it to the mind apart from the other properties that usually p. 117

go along with it in nature’ (Bain 1868, 591). An abstraction is a partial conception of something in

that it

2

leaves something out. Brentano et al. applied this idea to mental acts. When we are co-conscious of colours, smells, sounds, etc., there is awareness of them together. One case of awareness satis es di erent partial descriptions such as ‘my hearing F’, ‘my seeing blue’, etc.

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The quote suggests two important negative points.

Why are hearing F and awareness of hearing F only distinct concepts that apply to the same act? If they were each a mental act, the problem of the same immanent object being present in consciousness twice would simply reoccur. The view that we have here a mere conceptual distinction prevents this problem. If awareness of hearing and hearing are only conceptually distinct, the plural reference of the act must be primitive. The act is not the result of a combination of distinct acts each of which refers to one particular thing. If it were, the double presentation problem would arise. Awareness of hearing F is like a plural directed on two objects; one of them is the act itself. But its plural reference is not due to the fact that the mental act has parts which each have reference on their own. An analogy helps to clarify this point. Imagine that you point to the Beatles and say: These are four of the greatest musicians. The demonstrative ‘these’ refers to John, Paul, Ringo, and George, but it has no identi able syntactic parts each of which refers to only one object as opposed to the list name ‘John, Paul, Ringo, and George’. Brentano took awareness to have such plural reference. Just as one can say that in the example utterance ‘these’ refers, among other things, to John, one can say that a case of awareness is, among other things, a hearing. Contrast this with the list name ‘John, Paul, Ringo, and George’. It refers to the several people because it combines the independent ‘atoms’ ‘John’, ’Paul’, ‘Ringo’, and ‘George’ into a list name. The plural reference of the list name is a function of its syntactic parts. In contrast, the simple demonstrative refers to the same things, but its plural reference is primitive. Just as a suitable utterance of ‘these’ mentions some things, Brentano takes one case of awareness to have p. 118

plural reference. In both cases plural

reference is primitive and not a function of parts—expressions or

acts—that themselves refer to objects. The reference of the act is not a function of the reference of distinct vehicles that combine to form one act. Marty makes this point in the following paragraph: Someone who admits that simultaneously tones, colours, and smells intentionally dwell in us [intentional einwohnen] cannot without contradiction deny that our activity of consciousness shows a plurality of subactivities and that in this sense a number of subactivities, sensations, and thoughts is in us, a ‘manifold of co-existing ideas’ that can in no sense be a mere chimaera. […] But it would indeed be wrong to take these or the parts or sides of our simultaneous mental state we mentioned earlier as a collective similar to a group of atoms or as a result of the states of such a group. 3

(Marty 1892, 141–2; my translation and emphasis)

Yes, there are parts of conscious activities. It is su

cient to be simultaneously aware of tones, colours, and

smells to distinguish between seeing, hearing, etc. But No, the mental act is not a collective or complex made out of ‘intentional atoms’ that each have causal powers and are directed on objects. They are mere conceptual parts. I will come back to this point later in the chapter, when I will distinguish Brentano’s view from so-called ‘two-vehicle’ views.

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demonstrative such as ‘these’ or a plural indexical like ‘we’. On Brentano’s view, a conscious mental act is

5.3 Joint Consciousness When we take consciousness of hearing F to be a real part, a mental act directed on hearing F, we take hearing F to be the single object of our awareness. Brentano rejected this view. This is suggested by the conclusion of the Duplication Argument. It requires additional attention to divide awareness/hearing F into conceptual parts; the act itself has several objects which are not distinguished in it. The view that view that seeing is of itself ‘on the side’: Aristotle says that if one sees something coloured one not only sees the coloured thing, but also, as he put it, in a by-product (en parergo) one apprehends the seeing or, rather, oneself as the perceiver. He was absolutely right in this […]. Consequently we have as often as we have sensations two objects of which one is apprehended as bodily, as localized and quali ed by sensory qualities, p. 119

the other is apprehended as apprehending this bodily something and at the same time itself. Many bodily objects—coloured, sounding, warm, cold, smelling, tasting things—may be presented implicitly as contained together with this very confused sensing in a larger whole. If this is so, the perceiver as perceiver, the hearer as hearing, etc. are only co-apprehended in a larger mental whole. (Brentano 1906a, 337; my translation and emphasis) We are aware of a whole in which our perceiving is included. But Brentano is also happy to say that every perception has many objects. I take the plural terminology to be more fundamental: we are conscious of several things together and because of our joint consciousness they form one whole or unit. Awareness is, as Brentano put it, confused because it is directed on several things, but its objects don’t 4

appear distinct in awareness. In a late writing he uses the model of hearing a chord to explain the operative sense of ‘distinct’: If one hears a chord and distinguishes each note which is contained in it, one has a distinct awareness of the fact that one hears it. But if one does not distinguish the particular notes, one has only an indistinct awareness of the tones contained in the chord because one hears them together [hört sie zwar mit einander zusammen] and is conscious of the whole of this hearing to which the hearing of each tone belongs, but not in a way that one distinguishes each of the contained parts, that is, each hearing of a tone. […] Self-awareness, too, is sometimes distinct and sometimes indistinct. If someone feels a pain, she is conscious of herself as someone feeling pain, but may not distinguish the substance feeling the pain from the accidents by which she is a ected. It is then indistinctly apprehended in consciousness. (Brentano 1912/13, 154 [117]; my translation and emphasis) We are aware of them jointly, but not of each of the activities individually. A useful comparison is the case of 5

the speckled hen. In the case of the speckled hen you see its speckles together without seeing each speckle. You cannot count the speckles because one glance does not make you conscious of each speckle, but only all the speckles together. Your experience only enables you to think of them together. To clarify this compare my judgements that: A and B surround the building and: They surround the building.

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underwrites this idea is more explicit in the following quote in which Brentano reformulated Aristotle’s

p. 120

The rst judgement is about A and B; in making it, I refer to both individually. The second judgement may also in fact be about A and B, but neither of them is identi ed or referred to individually. According to Brentano, consciousness is of several objects without distinguishing them. The right model for joint consciousness is the second judgement. If we are aware of activities and their objects together, we may learn to distinguish them from each other and arrive at a presentation of them in which each or some of them are individually referred to. This is exactly directed on some objects together in which these objects are not distinguished. Only if one attends to some of its objects can one distinguish between hearing F and awareness of hearing F. When we hear some notes together without distinguishing them, there is a way they appear to us together: a collective way they all are given together to us. What is the collective way in which mental activities and their objects are given together? Brentano did not discuss this question explicitly. Husserl made an intriguing suggestion. He took collective perceptual properties to be the basis of the notion of a set. We have a set if, and only if, some things are only distinguished together by a collective appearance. He called such collective appearances ‘ gural moments’. For example, if some birds look together a particular way, they can then be counted as one unit and form a set. Husserl went on to claim: Everything we have said about sets in the visual eld can be applied to all kinds of sensory sets, and, similarly, to sets in general, whether they are sets of imagined sensory objects or sets of mental acts. In the latter case temporal sequence and, in general, temporal con guration (the exact analogue of spatial con guration) forms such a moment. (Husserl 1891, 234–5; my translation and emphasis) If we assume that some things can appear to us as present, this will enable us to think of them together. Consider a demonstrative judgement about co-conscious activities: These exist (are going on). This act is about those activities that are present at the time it occurs and thereby it is, among other things, about itself. A model for this kind of directedness is a syntactically simple plural term. When I say: We will be late,

p. 121

I refer to some people of which I am one. I don’t need to add: ‘Myself included’ to make a claim that is also about me, because I am one of the several things referred to and being characterized. We can use demonstratives in a similar way. When the politician says at a secret meeting: These statements should never get out, his own statement is among the statements to which he refers. His attempt to hush things up should also not get out. He does not need to add ‘including my own statement’. ‘We’ and ‘these’ are plural pronouns. Similarly, awareness has plural ‘intentionality’—it is directed on several things, among them itself: Awareness: [Those] ⇒ Awareness of F, F (see Figure 3 in the Introduction) Why should one accept the view that awareness is indistinct and presents itself among other things? The Duplication Argument only makes plausible that there is one mental act that does not have hearing F and awareness of hearing F as real parts. It still leaves the possibility open that awareness of hearing F is directed on two objects because it apprehends two modes of presentation, each of a di erent object. There is

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what Brentano’s descriptive psychology aimed for. Consciously hearing F is an indistinct plural presentation

one mode of presentation that speci es how hearing is directed on its object, if any. This mode of presentation also contributes to specifying how awareness of hearing is directed on its objects. The assumption that we are aware of many objects together without thereby being aware of each of them does not follow from the Duplication Argument. However, I take it that Brentano thinks of it as a plausible general view of consciousness. More often than not we are conscious of many things together and it takes further e ort to notice particular things. Indistinct presentation of some things together is the basic case

A pressing question remains: How can one mental act have one plural mode of presentation and yet apprehend two immanent objects where these are supposed to be modes or ways of perceiving? In response, consider seeing some objects from afar. You cannot perceive each of them individually, you can only see them together. Why? Because the ways the di erent objects appear are so combined that they allow one only to think of the objects together. I read a rather obscure passage in Brentano as suggesting that something similar is the case for consciousness: p. 122

If I say, for example, ‘God exists’, the assertion is included [liegt darin zugleich ausgesagt] that I judge that God exists. Or if I say, ‘There is no God’ this includes that I deny that there is one. One ought to pay attention to [Dies…ist wohl zu beachten] this in the psychological analysis of judgements, for as a result of this, it will often emerge, if one proceeds with the proper care, that the objects of judgement and of the presentations on which they are based are quite di erent from what people commonly imagine them to be. A good part of them will prove to be objects of the references given en parergo which are compounded determiningly [determinierend zussammengesetzt] with the primary objects in a peculiar manner. (PES, 215–16 [II, 140]; in part my translation, my emphasis) When we are aware of hearing F, we are aware of the activity and its immanent object and this constitutes, among other things awareness of F. But the activity and its object are so peculiarly combined that one can only be aware of them together under a plural mode of presentation. To sum up: the mental act we can designate either as ‘awareness of hearing F’ or as ‘hearing F’ has no mental acts as parts. It is directed on F and itself together and has therefore plural intentionality that can be modelled on a simple plural demonstrative. The act represents F and itself together without presenting F and itself in particular. Only when we selectively attend to one of its objects can we bring it under the descriptions mentioned earlier. If the mental act presents F and itself together, it is unsurprising that when one is aware of hearing F one is also, though not exclusively, aware of F.

5.4 Perceptual Consciousness: Metaphysically Primitive, but Conceptually Complex According to Brentano, my awareness of hearing is not a complex of some mental acts. He himself talked of hearing and consciousness of hearing as conceptual parts of one act. To repeat: The presentation of the tone [Ton] and the presentation of the presentation of the tone form one single mental phenomenon; it is only by considering it in its relation to two di erent objects, one of which is a physical phenomenon and the other a mental phenomenon, that we divide it conceptually into two presentations. (PES, 98 [I, 179]; my emphasis)

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(see chapter 12.1).

As we have seen, these parts are di erent concepts that apply to conscious hearing. Conscious hearing is like p. 123

a plural demonstrative directed on several objects and because of this one can bring it under di erent concepts such as hearing and awareness of hearing. As he put it himself in the appendix to the second edition of Psychologie: In a unitary [einheitlicher] mental activity […] there is always a plurality of relations [Beziehungen]

(PES, 215 [II, 138]; in part my translation) When Karl is aware of hearing F, there is one case of the awareness relation that is directed on the note F and itself. The note is presented once. For the case of the relation is not composed out of cases of relations: it has no real parts. The act represents itself because it represents some things, a multiplicity, namely all objects one is simultaneously conscious of. If we want to ascribe to the act a mode of presentation or content, it must be a plural mode of presentation such as the one expressed by the plural demonstrative ‘these’. On Brentano’s view a conscious mental act is directed on two objects, one of them being the act itself. But its plural reference is not due to the fact that the mental act has parts which each have reference on their own.

5.5 Compare and Contrast: Varieties of Self-Representationalism Like Brentano, several contemporary philosophers of mind hold that awareness of perception and 6

perception are not distinct existences. Their main motive for denying that perceiving and awareness of perceiving are distinct existences is the problem of misrepresentation for the higher-order view of consciousness that takes awareness of perception and perception to be distinct mental acts. If awareness and its object are distinct existences, awareness can misrepresent—it might exist without its object—and this seems deeply implausible (see section 12.3.2). What these views have in common is that, in some sense, a conscious mental act represents itself. So consciousness is not due to a distinct mental act that can fail to represent or not. For this reason they all are varieties of self-representationalism. However, on closer inspection, there are important di erences. In this section I will tease them out. p. 124

Levine makes a distinction between di erent versions of this idea that will help to organize the further discussion: On the one vehicle-view, what we have is one representational vehicle with two contents, one content directed outward and the other re exively directed on itself. One the two-vehicle model, the one state contains two representational vehicles, one directed outward, and the other directed at the rst. On the latter model the two vehicles constitute distinct parts of a single state. (Levine 2006, 190) 7

A vehicle is what I have so far called with Brentano a ‘mental act’. It is a datable mental event or process that has causal powers and is individuated in part in terms of these powers. The one-vehicle model takes, for example, conscious hearing of F to be one act that has two propositional contents. The mental act is similar to a token of an ambiguous sentence. The English type-sentence ‘There is a bank in London’ expresses two propositions. The two-vehicle model takes conscious hearing of F to be one act that contains two parts: hearing F and a representation of hearing F. The parts are mental acts in their own right that are combined into awareness of hearing F.

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and a plurality of objects.

Let us now compare and contrast Brentano’s view with the representative examples of the one- and twovehicle models in order to see whether Brentano’s view is preferable to them. I will start with the onevehicle model.

5.5.1 One vehicle, two propositional contents Aristotle’s and Brentano’s arguments. He takes these arguments to suggest that one mental act can have more than one propositional content: Like some contemporary theories, [Aristotle] analyses perceptual awareness in terms of higherorder intentional states, such as perceiving that we see or that we hear. But unlike those theories, he denies that this is due to a second token mental state being directed at the rst. Instead, a perception is directed at itself as well as at a perceptible quality in the world—it possesses a p. 125

higher-order content in addition to its original rst-order content. So while the awareness is higher-order and relational, it is also intrinsic to the perception, because it involves a re exive relation. (Caston 2004a, 524) Hearing F is one mental act that has two propositional contents: a rst-order content—that F is sounding now—and a second-order content—that there is an auditory experience of F. The one-vehicle/twopropositional contents view prevents a regress of mental acts. How is Brentano’s view di erent from the one-vehicle/two-propositional contents view? The onevehicle/two propositional contents view as it is developed in the literature takes conscious perception to be one act that has two di erent propositional contents. In sections 4.2–4 we have provided reasons not to articulate perceptual awareness in terms of propositional content. Hence, Brentano cannot accept the onevehicle view. The plural reference distinctive of the mental is not due to one vehicle having two propositional contents. The plural demonstrative ‘those’ refers in the right context of utterance to several things, but it has no syntactic parts. Conscious mental acts are similarly directed on some things, and not one. But why not assume that there is one act that presents, say, a colour under one mode of presentation and itself under another mode of presentation? These modes of presentation need not be propositional; they can be modes of presentation expressible by singular terms. However, this is implausible because we are aware of seeing and the colour seen together; they are not distinguished in our awareness. We are aware of them. An objection against one-vehicle/two-propositional contents views is that they are ‘higher-order views in disguise’. After all, there is still propositional content that purports to represent a perception, a higherorder content, and a propositional content that represents a part of the environment. If one individuates mental acts in terms of propositional contents, we have two distinct acts ‘travelling together’. Thomasson levels this objection against Brentano: the rst-order thought that this is an orange tree has di erent truth-conditions from the thought that I think that this is an orange tree, and so, insofar as truth-conditions are relevant to the content of the act, the acts must have di erent contents and be distinct mental acts. But if they are distinct mental acts, then Brentano’s supposedly one-level theory turns out to be just a higherorder theory in disguise, with the second act directed on the rst, and Brentano after all would o er no alternative approach to consciousness. (Thomasson 2000, 199)

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An in uential version of the one-vehicle model is developed by Caston. His one-vehicle model is inspired by

p. 126

The objection misses Brentano’s view, but hits Caston’s and other one-vehicle/two-propositional contents views. Why does it miss Brentano’s view? On Brentano’s view awareness of hearing has no higher order, but a plural content that presents some things together. It is no longer possible to factor awareness of hearing into two acts.

A rst example of a two-vehicle model takes awareness of perception to contain its object, that is, the perceiving. There are two acts, an experience and an awareness of the experience, and the latter contains the former. Siewert gives a good description of this view: I might deny that the referent of my demonstrative causes my thought about it—not on the grounds of epiphenomenalism—but rather, on the grounds that the referent of ‘this’, the experience I refer to, and my thinking that this is a painful feeling, are not wholly distinct events, such as may be causally related. I would say the occurrence of my thinking that this is a painful feeling could not have happened without the experience it is about, for that experience is itself a constituent of the event which is my thinking—the thinking about the experience is not an event separable from the experience thought about. (Siewert 2001, 554) Before we can discuss the containment model further, we need to address some preliminary points. In order to prevent the problem of misrepresentation it must be impossible that, for instance, awareness of hearing F exists at a time, but hearing F doesn’t. The mere fact that awareness of hearing F contains hearing F does not make it the case that there is such a necessary connection between the two. For there are wholes that may have di erent parts than the ones they actually have. The same orchestra is composed at di erent times of di erent musicians. Hence, not only must awareness of hearing F contain hearing F as a part, but awareness of hearing F must be a whole that cannot survive the loss of one of its parts. It must be like a mereological sum such that {a, b} can only be the same mereological sum as {c, d} if a = b and c = d. We need therefore to assume that awareness of hearing F is an extensional whole that cannot have di erent parts than it actually has. There are three problems for this proposal. Problem A: What is the notion of containment under consideration? If the thinking about the experience contains the experience if, and only if, the former cannot exist without the latter, then the appeal to the p. 127

constituents of awareness does not explain away the necessary connection

between distinct contingent

existences, but just labels it. Hence, we need a non-modal understanding of ‘x is a constituent of y’ for mental events and processes. Such a non-modal understanding needs to be independently motivated and 8

explained. For this reason the conception proposed is so far incomplete. Problem B: if awareness of hearing F contains hearing F and a distinct representation of hearing F, then, by Brentano’s lights, the note F is still presented twice. We need an account of the relation between the representation of hearing F and hearing F that blocks this unwanted consequence, and constituency alone does not do the job. Problem C: if awareness of hearing F does not contain a further part in addition to hearing F, the previous problem is prevented. But it belongs to our understanding of a whole that wholes cannot have only one part. If we can’t nd another part, speaking of ‘containment’ and ‘constituents’ seems misleading. It would be less misleading to say that awareness of hearing F can only exist at a time if hearing F exists at that time. But then we would have posited a necessary connection between distinct contingent existences and not explained it away in terms of containment. Furthermore, something may depend ontologically on a representation of x without itself being a representation of x. The quotation name ‘Franz Brentano’ can only

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5.5.2 Two vehicles, one mental act

exist if the name quoted exists and tokens of the quotation name contain tokens of the quoted name. But while the quoted name refers to Franz Brentano, the quotation name only refers to the name. Compare this to Brentano’s view. Hearing F is not a constituent of awareness of hearing F, awareness of hearing F is one case of awareness that has two objects: F and itself. Hence, F is presented, but only once.

Kriegel 2005, 2006, and 2009 developed a di erent two-vehicle model. In my view Kriegel 2009 is the most detailed version of the two-vehicle model. I will therefore focus on it and take it as a representative example of the two-vehicle model. According to Kriegel (2009, 222 .), awareness of perceiving is a complex composed of perceiving and p. 128

mental presentation that is directed upon the perceiving. Let us consider our standard example, consciously hearing F, for illustration. S’s awareness of hearing F is a complex that has two logical proper parts: hearing F and M*—an appropriate representation of hearing F. The logical parts are distinct acts with causal powers. A complex of some things only exists if these things are interconnected in the right way. Complexes are therefore di erent from mere sums. The identity of a complex depends not only on its parts, but also on their mode of combination. As Kriegel points out, the existence of such a complex does not su

ce for the representation of the complex. 9

For so far one part of a complex presents another part of it; neither the complex nor M* is represented. If M* represented only hearing F, we would need a new act to represent the complex and M* given that these 10

acts are supposed to be conscious and, consequently, a regress threatens.

Kriegel stops the regress by assuming that M* not only represents hearing F, but also the complex of which it is a proper part in virtue of representing hearing F. Hence, the complex is represented ‘in the sense that it is represented by a part of itself’ (Kriegel 2009, 226). Kriegel’s ‘crooked representational account’ (2009, 215) needs to answer two questions. First, why and how does one represent a complex in virtue of representing a part of it? Kriegel takes the notion of ‘in virtue of’ from Jackson’s book on perception. According to Jackson, one sees a physical object 11

in virtue of seeing some part of it.

For example, one sees an apple in virtue of seeing its surface, a thin part

of it. Physical objects are never objects of immediate perception; they are always seen in virtue of their 12

parts.

A thing that is not seen in virtue of something else is directly seen. If one mediately perceives an

apple in virtue of immediately seeing its surface, one has a perceptual representation of the surface; one does not have in addition a perceptual representation of the apple. The apple, in contrast to its surface, does not gure in the content of my perception. If we apply this to consciousness, it seems that we are only aware of, for instance, our hearing a tone, but not the complex mental act to which it and our consciousness of the hearing belong. The complex mental act may be indirectly represented, but this does not ensure that we are conscious of it. Kriegel outlines a related worry himself: ‘One may worry that what is indirectly represented is not strictly p. 129

given in consciousness…’ (Kriegel 2009, 230).

He tries to answer the worry by arguing that, in indirect

perception, one is perceptually aware of the indirectly perceived object. In his words: ‘it is manifest in the phenomenology’ of the mental act (230). This may be correct as a phenomenological nding. The problem is that the indirect representation model does not explain the phenomenological nding. Quite the contrary. It makes it hard to explain why, in the case of consciousness, indirect representation should yield 13

consciousness of the indirectly represented object.

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5.5.3 Awareness as a complex of a first- and second-order act

Brentano’s view does not face this problem. When one consciously hears F, one is jointly aware of both hearing F and its immanent object and, in the good case, this constitutes awareness of F. Both F and hearing F are given in one presentation, but not ‘in isolation’. There is no indirect presentation of a complex, but plural presentation of some things. I take this to be a point in favour of Brentano’s view. 14

Second, does the double presentation problem arise for Kriegel’s crooked representational account?

Prima

facie, it does. I consciously hear F if, and only if, there is a complex whose proper parts are my hearing F and However, as soon as we have a distinct presentation of hearing F, the double presentation problem threatens. If the presentation of hearing F is, among other things, awareness of hearing F, it shares with hearing F an immanent object and, in the good case, F is presented twice. 15

Is there a way out for Kriegel that does not make his account a variant of Brentano’s?

Consider again

hearing F (or the auditory experience as of F) and a representation of that very hearing. Kriegel writes about them: These two mental states […] have no subjective character, of course. But when their representational contents are integrated, a mental state arises which does have subjective character. The reason this third state has subjective character is that it has the right sort of representational content: it folds within it a representation of an external object and a representation of that representation. (Kriegel 2005, 46) p. 130

The subjective character of the subject’s hearing F is what it is like for the subject to consciously hear F (see ibid. 23). Hearing F and the representation of hearing F are distinct mental acts that can exist independently of each other. But on their own, these acts have no subjective character. Hence, F is not present twice in my consciousness. Does this solve the double presentation problem? I don’t think so. For while neither hearing F nor the representation of hearing F have subjective character, they both have representational content. They both represent something and the new mental act that comes about by integrating them into a complex has subjective character in virtue of being ‘a mental state that is at once a representation of red and a representation of a representation of red, thus acquiring the special translucence we seek in states with subjective character’ (ibid. 47). If this is how the complex represents things, F or any other object of the ( rst-order) presentation is presented twice in a state with subjective character. And this seems implausible. Two-vehicle views of perceptual consciousness are developed as answers to the misrepresentation problem. While they may solve this problem, they raise precisely the problem that Brentano intended to solve with his view of consciousness. The root of the problem for the two-vehicle views is their assumption that awareness of perceiving is a complex that integrates independently existing mental acts. Brentano’s Duplication Argument makes plausible that awareness of perceiving can’t be such a complex. The two-vehicle model conceives of conscious perception as a complex representation analogous to the list name, while Brentano conceives of it as a simple plural representation analogous to the plural demonstrative. This suggests a diagnosis of the problems of Brentano’s competitors. They agree that a mental act can have more than one object, but hold that a simple act with one content can at most be directed on one object. Hence, they conclude that the conscious act either is composed of two acts each of which has one object or has two contents. Brentano recommends to us that we give up this singularist prejudice. One simple act can have multiple objects. Brentano’s plural conception of the nature of our

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my representation of hearing F such that the second represents the complex by representing the former.

awareness avoids the problems that arise for the views that take awareness to be factorizable into mental acts in their own right.

Notes

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15

See Mackie 1997, 45. See Sha er 2010, 47. See also Stumpf 1873, 108. See PES, 216 [II, 140]. See Tye 2009, 261. For an overview see Weisberg 2008, 166. Prominent examples are Caston 2002, Carruthers 2005, chap. 6, Gennaro 2006 and 2011, chap. 4, Hossack 2002, Kriegel 2003c, 2005, 2006, and 2009 chap. 6, Woodru Smith 1986. See Kriegel (2003b, 486 .) for questions about the individuation of vehicles. See section 4.20. See Kriegel 2009, 224. For a similar objection see Levine 2006, 192. See Jackson 1977, 15f. Ibid. 20. Philips 2014 argues on the basis of counterexamples against Kriegelʼs (2009, 117) principle for representations of in-virtueof. Kidd 2011 develops an indexical version of the complex theory. The higher-order act represents the phenomenal properties of the first-order act with which it is combined in one act (ibid. 377). Here the double presentation problem is manifest. Thanks to Luca Barlassina for pressing this point.

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1 2 3 4 5 6

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

6 A Relation ‘that relates itself to itself’, Some Regress Threats, and a Mystery  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0007 Published: August 2017

Pages 131–142

Abstract Brentano’s metaphysics of consciousness faces several questions: Can a relation be self-relating without leading to counter-intuitive consequences? Has the vicious regress of conscious-making acts really been stopped by Brentano’s theory or is there a revenge regress? In this chapter I answer these questions on Brentano’s behalf. I will assess Gurwitsch’s argument against Brentano and argue that it shows that one of Gurwitsch’s premises is wrong, not that there is a new regress for Brentano. Pothast also does not show that there is a regress threat for Brentano because Brentano does not, as Pothast claims, hold that the secondary presentation presents itself as a presentation of itself. A similar criticism applies to Frank’s attempt to show that Brentano is open to a regress threat. The chapter concludes by investigating what distinguishes conscious and unconscious mental acts, and why and how self-referentiality makes for consciousness.

Keywords: self-relating relation, regress, revenge regress, Heidelberg school, Gurwitsch, Kriegel Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

6.1 Introduction Brentano’s metaphysics of consciousness faces several questions: Can a relation be self-relating without leading to counter-intuitive consequences? Has the vicious regress of conscious making acts really been stopped by Brentano’s theory or is there a revenge regress? In this chapter I answer these questions on Brentano’s behalf.

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6.2 Can a Relation Have Itself as a Relatum? The conclusion of the last chapter was that awareness of perceiving is not a complex of distinct mental acts, but one act with several objects. Now, here are good examples of relations that hold between many things together. If Tom, Dick, and Harry surround the building, there is one relation between them together and the building. None of them on his own can surround the building, but all together can and do surround it. But is what Brentano takes to be the conclusion of the Duplication Argument: awareness of hearing F consists in the awareness relation holding between F and itself, the particular case of the awareness relation. One can support this conclusion by considering independent examples of re exive acts and relations. For instance, take Caston’s example: we all like having fun. That is, when we enjoy doing something (and in so far as we enjoy doing it), p. 132

we enjoy our enjoyment. What it is to enjoy ϕ-ing is not, to be

sure, what it is to enjoy enjoying

ϕ-ing. But it does not follow from this that this higher-order enjoyment is a distinct token activity from the simple enjoyment of ϕ-ing. The connection between the two, in fact, seems to be conceptually necessary. To imagine someone who genuinely enjoys an activity, but is indi erent to its enjoyment, who fails to enjoy it, seems repugnant to the very notion. It would be comparable to someone not liking having fun. Any grounds we might have for denying that someone enjoys his enjoyment undermines the initial claim that he was actually enjoying ϕ-ing in the rst place. (Caston 2002, 795; original emphasis) Caston rightly points out that one need not notice one’s enjoyment of one’s enjoyment, and that one can have further attitudes to one’s enjoyment: one can be repulsed by one’s enjoyment, desire not to have it, etc. (ibid. 795–6). Let us cast this example in the terminology we used in the previous sections. Karl cannot enjoy hearing F, without also enjoying enjoying F. Is F enjoyed twice? No, there is one case of enjoyment and not two. Enjoying hearing F is a multiple relation among whose relata is this very case of enjoyment. The independent plausibility of the thesis that enjoyment is self-directed makes this view plausible. In the case of conscious perceiving the main reason is di erent, but the conclusion is the same. If the view is plausible for enjoyment, what prevents us from adopting it for conscious perceiving? Brentano himself used enjoyment to motivate and illustrate his view of consciousness. In chapter 10 I will develop this idea in detail. Now although there seem to be plausible cases of relations that relate to themselves, philosophers take them to be problematic. In the literature there are two important objections against Brentano’s view that pivot on problems with such relations. First, the problem of self-containment. Bell (1990, 22–3) argues that Brentano’s view is inconsistent because Brentano is committed to both (a) and (b): (a) Every mental phenomenon contains its intentional object as a proper part and is not identical with it. (b) The secondary object of a mental phenomenon is identical with, and not a proper part of it. Caston (2002, 793) defends Aristotle against this argument by arguing that Aristotle is neither committed to p. 133

take intentional objects to be proper.

literally contained in mental phenomena nor to view that the parts must be

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it plausible to assume that one thing can stand in one relation to several things, among them itself? This is

We can respond on Brentano’s behalf by pointing out that the parts under consideration are conceptual parts. Mental acts are metaphysically simple. They don’t contain themselves as detachable parts, but can be brought under di erent concepts with respect to di erent objects to which they are related. If it is unproblematic, for example, that I love my wife and myself, it is unproblematic for a mental act to be directed to itself and an intentional object. Second, the problem of well-foundedness. Hossack (2006, 54–5) takes a conscious perceiving to be an According to Hossack, a conscious mental act is, in rst approximation, a triple whose members are the ‘presenter’, the object presented, and the presentation relation. So my perceiving the sun, E1, is the triple: E1 = Now we need to add that E1 represents itself. So we move from a triple to a quartet: E1 = If we identify mental acts with such complexes and endorse Brentano’s suggestion that mental acts represent, among other things, themselves, conscious perceiving is a complex that contains itself. Prima facie, these two assumptions lead to an in nite regress. For we must substitute for E1 the whole complex of which E1 itself is a constituent: E1 = = =

… Is this a vicious regress? Hossack (2006, 55) takes this to be a mere ‘oddness’ and allows the relation of being a constituent of an event not to be well-founded. Van Cleve takes the regress threat seriously: p. 134

Hossack is willing to take this consequence in stride; he says there is no reason that the constituency relation needs to be well-founded. I think myself that we should think twice about a stratagem for avoiding an in nite “upward” regress of conscious states that works only by begetting an in nite “inward” regress of conscious states. (Van Cleve 2015, 31) The inventor of non-well-founded set-theory, Peter Aczel, sides with Hossack. There are in nitely many 1

di erent designators of E1, but they are all designators of the same fact. Brentano’s view supports this response. We need to remember that Brentano takes enjoyment and conscious perception only to have conceptual parts. Conceptual parts are not constituents of a complex; they are concepts under which one can bring a mental act or activity. The mental act itself is a metaphysical simple. It can be brought under di erent concepts because it stands in a relation to several things, among them itself. But there is no complex that exists in virtue of further distinct facts. There may be in nitely many concepts of the same act, but the act does not exist in virtue of being conceptualized by them. No vicious regress threatens.

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event. He applies Kim’s theory of events that identi es events with complexes to conscious mental acts.

6.3 The Regress and Three Alleged Revenge Regresses As mentioned before, Brentano is seen in the literature as a proponent of the in nite regress argument. After working through the Duplication Argument we can see why this is implausible. The Duplication Argument assumes only that ‘No one can really doubt that it happens that we are conscious of a mental phenomenon while it is present in us’ (PES, 97 [I, 176]; my emphasis). The assumption that sometimes we credit Brentano with the In nite Regress Argument. He uses the weaker premise to convince philosophers who doubt that every perceiving is conscious. Even Leibniz and Thomas Aquinas cannot doubt that it sometimes happens that we are conscious of perceiving when we perceive. In Psychologie Brentano (PES, 79 [I, 143]) mentioned the threat of an in nite regress of mental acts that p. 135

might mislead us into thinking that

there are unconscious mental acts. According to him, the Duplication

Argument shows also that, and why, the threat of an in nite regress is unfounded. He summed up the result of the Duplication Argument as follows: The result of our investigation shows how this conclusion [that an in nite regress results] is unjusti ably made. For our result is that the consciousness of the presentation of the tone and the consciousness of the consciousness of the tone obviously coincide. For the consciousness which accompanies the presentation of the tone is a consciousness not so much of this presentation as of the whole mental act in which the sound is presented, and in which the consciousness itself is cogiven [mitgegeben]. (PES, 100 [I, 182]; my translation) How the result of the Duplication Argument prevents the regress from arising is not yet clear. To get clear about this, let us have a closer look at why Brentano thought that no in nite regress threatened. In his appendix to the 1911 edition of Psychologie Brentano used this feature of awareness to clarify how his view prevents a regress: In a unitary [einheitlicher] mental activity, then, there is always a plurality of relations and a plurality of objects. However, as the secondary object of mental activity, as I pointed out already in my Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, one does not have to think of a single one of these relations [Beziehungen], for example the relation to the primary object—it is easy to see that this would lead to an in nite regress (for there would have to be a third relation [Beziehung], which would have the secondary relation [Beziehung] as object, a fourth, which would have the additional third one as object, and so on)— but the mental activity, or, more strictly speaking, the mentally active subject, in which the secondary relation [Beziehung] is included along with the primary one. (PES, 215 [II, 138–9]; in part my translation, my emphasis) Brentano’s main idea is that a mental act is directed on some objects together in the way explained in sections 5.2 and 5.3. There is no particular object of awareness (singular), there are only objects of awareness (plural). My awareness at a time is of those activities that jointly appear to me at that time. My awareness is of them together, and not of one particular mental activity among them. To repeat, the object is the mental activity, ‘in which the secondary reference is included along with the primary one’. Every part of our mental life at a time is presented together with others but not individually. On this conception of awareness, the regress does not get going because my awareness is among the several things it presents.

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are aware of perceiving when we perceive does not generate an in nite regress. It is therefore implausible to

p. 136

Just as I don’t need to refer to myself again

when I say ‘We demand better pay’, awareness need not be

referred to again when one is aware of these things together. 2

Now a number of authors have argued that Brentano’s view gives rise to a revenge regress. Let us look at these objections in more detail now. 3

First, Gurwitsch’s Revenge Regress. Gurwitsch takes Brentano to have responded successfully to the a new regress: [Brentano’s theory] does not escape the regressus in nitum. Of necessity, every psychical phenomenon contains a moment fused with it by virtue of which there is consciousness of the phenomenon in its totality. To be sure, it is consciousness of it as a ‘secondary’ phenomenon, but nevertheless as an intentional object. However, because this moment is to be described as intentive consciousness, as well as consciousness of the whole phenomenon, and, therefore, also of itself, precisely there a knowledge of the intention must be given. This intention must be the ‘tertiary’ intentional object of a further moment which is again ‘fused’ with the observed moment and hence also with the whole phenomenon. For exactly the same reasons that we are led from a ‘primary’ object to a ‘secondary’ object, we are also led to a ‘tertiary’ object, and so forth. (Gurwitsch 1979, 89; my emphasis) Brentano escapes the ‘external in nity’ only to engender an ‘internal in nity’ (90). How does the ‘internal’ in nite regress arise? Let’s work through Brentano’s example of hearing a note with Gurwitsch’s objection in mind to answer this question. When I am conscious of hearing F, my hearing is fused with awareness of, among other things, hearing F. The awareness is of itself and therefore it has itself as an intentional object. So far, there is no regress threat. Only if one adds that one is aware of the awareness of hearing F in particular, a further act is required. For the awareness of hearing F was only presented jointly with other mental activities. The new distinct act will be a tertiary consciousness and a regress gets going. Gurwitsch indeed assumes that awareness of hearing is present in particular when he p. 137

says (a) that the awareness is ‘intentive’—which he renders as

‘explicit knowledge’ (Gurwitsch 1979, 89)

—and (b) that awareness of hearing is an observed moment of the act (see above). Gurwitsch’s modus ponens is Brentano’s modus tollens. In the previous quote from PES Brentano stresses that it is not one mental act we are aware of, but the awareness is jointly of some acts. Gurwitsch’s objection does not refute Brentano’s view, but makes the import of this idea clear. Because the assumption that every mental act is observed or presented in particular leads to an in nite regress it should be rejected and be replaced with the assumption that every mental act is an object of awareness only in the sense that one is aware of it together with others. We will see that there are also positive reasons to reject the assumption that if we are aware of our perceiving we observe our awareness. Hence, Gurwitsch’s argument shows that 4

one of his premises is wrong, not that there is a new regress for Brentano. Gurwitsch helps us to see that it is not the idea that some mental acts are dependent on each other (‘interwoven’), but the idea that some objects are presented together that prevents the regress. Second, Pothast’s Revenge Regress: the so-called Heidelberg school which comprises authors such as Cramer, Frank, Henrich, and Pothast argued that self-consciousness is non-relational. They take Brentano’s theory to be a representative example of a view of consciousness that fails because it gives rise to 5

a vicious in nite regress of conscious making mental acts. Pothast writes: [Brentano] does not take into consideration that the secondary presentation, when it becomes its own object, must of course have itself as an object as a self-presentation [sich als eine

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vicious in nite regress that worried Aristotle. However, Brentano’s solution, Gurwitsch argues, gives rise to

Selbstvorstellung zum Object haben], that means, it must present itself as a presentation that presents itself. The same goes for its object and so on; the presentation nests to in nity in itself in the way described by Fichte. (Pothast 1971, 75; my translation) Even if consciousness of perceiving and perceiving coincide, one will expect:

and that the property to know itself as this, is known to it and so on. The claim of coincidence p. 138

which is obvious for a consciousness that shall have

consciousness of itself, does not eradicate

the harshness of regress. (Pothast 1971, 76; my translation) I nd it rather di

cult to make sense of how Pothast takes Brentano’s view to give rise to a new vicious

regress. I will try to make what I take to be the objection clearer by an analogy. Suppose you want to paint a picture that represents you as painting this very picture and everything you paint should be represented in the picture. I will use ‘complete’ as a shorthand for ‘everything you paint should be captured in the picture’. Can you do it? Prima facie, you can’t. Here is why: In order to paint a picture P1 that completely represents oneself as painting P1 one must paint as part of P1 a picture P2 which presents oneself as painting P1. In order to paint a picture P2 which completely presents oneself as painting P1 one must paint as part of P2 a picture P3 which presents oneself as painting P2. … Painting a picture that completely represents you as painting this very picture is an in nite task that cannot be accomplished in a nite time if the subtasks take a nite amount of time. Jan van Eyck’s painting Arnol ni Portrait is the attempt to paint a scene and the representation of the scene in a mirror including the mirror mirroring the scene and itself. The painting must, by the foregoing reasoning, leave out something. Does a similar regress occur for Brentano’s theory of consciousness? The regress only gets going if one 6

requires that one paints a picture completely representing oneself as painting this picture. No regress gets going if one requires that one paints a picture of oneself painting a picture that is not a picture of oneself as painting this picture or as painting a picture that contains some, but not all, details of oneself painting this picture. For instance, it is no problem to paint a picture that is of myself painting a picture, but that only presents me as involved in the activity of painting, and does not present every detail of what I am painting. The analogue of the envisaged regress for pictures does not arise for Brentano because he does not hold that p. 139

the secondary presentation

presents itself as a presentation of itself, whether in all detail or not. Take

Brentano’s example again: awareness of hearing F. The awareness is directed on several objects, among them itself (see sections 5.2–5.3). Therefore ‘awareness of F’ is only a partial description of it. It is an acknowledgement of all of them together, but acknowledging the activities involves neither predication nor characterization. Hence, awareness of hearing F presents itself without presenting itself as a selfpresentation. Indeed, Brentano did not consider ‘that the secondary presentation, when it becomes its own object, must […] have itself as an object as a self-presentation’ (my emphasis). He has every reason not to subscribe to this assumption. Third, Frank’s Revenge Regress. Frank (2012, 380) follows Pothast in taking Brentano’s view to be threatened by a regress. Frank refers to the passage from Brentano previously quoted. To repeat the crucial

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that consciousness when it knows itself knows itself as such a consciousness that knows of itself

sentence: For the consciousness which accompanies the presentation of the sound is a consciousness not so much of this presentation as of the whole mental act in which the sound is presented, and in which the consciousness itself is co-presented. Frank goes on to comment:

representational properties of the act. Consequently, also the property that it represents itself— and this seems to lead to an in nite inboxing regress. (Frank 2012, 380; my translation, original emphasis) Frank misconstrues Brentano’s quote. Brentano said that we present the whole act [den ganzen psychischen Akt]. Consider a similar use of ‘whole’. If I have seen the whole house, I have seen each and every relevant part of the house. It is right to say that I have seen the whole house even if I don’t know all of its properties that pertain to its role as a living space. For instance, I have seen the whole house even if I didn’t come to know that its walls are thin. According to Brentano, every mental act has several objects in terms of which one can conceive of it. The whole mental act is presented because all of its objects are presented together. Similar to seeing the whole house, if the whole act is presented, all its parts are presented. This can be true, although not all representational properties of the act are represented. Brentano did not accept the assumption Frank ascribes to him. But this may be a mere ad hominem point. p. 140

Should Brentano accept the

assumption under consideration? No, he should not. There is no regress

because awareness is among the plurality of objects it is ‘about’. We have seen independent examples of such plural presentations. Brentano himself formulated this point in Psychologie. Unfortunately, it is unrecognizable in the English translation. The translation of the crucial passage is: the consciousness which accompanies the presentation of the sound is a consciousness not so much of this presentation as of the whole mental act in which the sound is presented, and in which the consciousness itself exists concomitantly [es sich selber mitgegeben ist]. (PES, 100 [I, 182]) Now, Brentano did not talk about ‘existing concomitantly’, whatever that might be. In my view a better translation is: the consciousness which accompanies the presentation of the sound is a consciousness not so much of this presentation as of the whole mental act in which the sound is presented, and in which the consciousness itself is co-given. Brentano coined a number of terms with the pre x ‘mit-’ to cover di erent kinds of joint presentation of several things: A ist miterfasst [co-apprehended] (PES, 100 [I, 182]) A ist mitgegeben [co-given] (PES, 99 [I, 181]) A ist mitanerkannt [co-acknowledged] (DP, 36 [34]) A ist mitempfunden [co-sensed] (DP, 26 [23]) A ist mitgeliebt. [co-loved] (Brentano 1907, 148)

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A representation of the act of representation in its totality needs to co-represent all

7

The ‘mit-’ compound verbs listed here are usually translated with ‘concomitant…’. But Brentano’s ‘miterfasst’ is modelled on compound German verbs with ‘mit’ such as ‘mitgefangen’. If a sherman throws out his net, he may co-catch (mitfangen) things he did not intend to catch. These things are the bycatch (Beifang). The bycaught things are caught together with the sh in one throw of the net. A suitable translation for ‘miterfasst’ is therefore ‘co-apprehended’ and not ‘concomitant apprehension’ which suggests an apprehension which accompanies our hearing. It is important to resist this suggestion. not acknowledge, love, etc. each of them in isolation. When we are aware of our own perceiving we have one p. 141

non-propositional act with

several objects. This act neither presents itself as a self-presentation nor has it 8

a propositional content to this e ect. Hence, no regress threatens.

6.4 Another Mystery? If there are unconscious perceptions, what is the di erence between them and conscious perceptions? On Brentano’s account, a conscious perception is not a compositum whose parts can exist on their own. Hence, a conscious perception is not a perception plus a presentation of it. Block outlines a further problem connected to this one: It would have to supply an account of the di erence between a pain having and lacking the selfreferential property and why this self-referential property comes and goes with consciousness. I believe that this issue is of a piece with the famous ‘explanatory gap’ (Levine 1983), and that, as with the gap, no one has a glimmer of a clue of an idea of how to think about it. (But I don’t take this as a disadvantage of the same-order theory—the higher-order account makes consciousness out to be less puzzling than it really is.) (Block 2011, 423) The task Block poses for theorists like Brentano can be decomposed into two subtasks. First, explain the di erence between conscious and unconscious mental acts in a way that is compatible with the view that consciousness consists in self-representation. Second, explain why and how self-referentiality makes for consciousness. On one reading the second question has a straightforward answer. If we take consciousness to be noninferential and, in a sense to be explained further, ‘incorrigible’ knowledge (or at least a form of ‘uptake’ that puts us in a position to acquire such knowledge), self-reference is simply the required form of uptake. The question is more perplexing if we take ‘consciousness’ to mean the what-it-is-likeness of a mental act. Here Brentano’s answer is similar to the one given by higher-order theorists: self-presentation contributes to the phenomenological content of an act. Let us turn then to the rst question. Brentano himself took all mental acts to be conscious. Hence, this question was not pressing for him. Can it be answered in the spirit of Brentano’s philosophy? When I am p. 142

rst

not conscious of hearing F and then become conscious of it, Brentano will say, one mental act has

ceased to exist and another has come into existence. Mill’s concept of mental fusion provides a model for an account of the di erence between perceiving and conscious perceiving that sits well with Brentano’s view: When many impression or ideas are operating in the mind together, there sometimes takes place a process of a similar kind to chemical combination. When impressions have been so often experienced in conjunction, that each of them calls up readily and instantaneously the ideas of the

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Brentano has cases in mind where one acknowledges, loves, etc. some things together, although one does

whole group, those ideas sometimes melt and coalesce into one another, and appear not several ideas, but one […]. [S]o it appears to me that the complex idea formed from blending together several simpler ones, should, when it really appears simple (that is, when the separate elements are not consciously distinguishable in it), be said to result from, or be generated by, the simple ideas, not to consist of them. (Mill 1843, 853–4; original emphasis)

According to Mill, this is a mistaken view. The idea so described is simple. When we describe it as complex, we put it in relation to other ideas that cause it. As a view of the complexity of ideas this is controversial. But Mill’s view ts Brentano’s special case very well. In awareness of hearing F, we can distinguish hearing F and awareness of hearing F only conceptually. Awareness of hearing F does not contain hearing F as a real part, but it can be caused by hearing F, that is by a distinct case of awareness of the tone.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

See Aczel 1988, 7. Williford (2006a, 130–1) expands on this point. For an overview see Zahavi 2006, § 2. See Zahavi 2006, § 2. Zahavi takes Gurwitschʼs argument to be persuasive; for a response see Williford 2006b. Willifordʼs diagnosis of the problem with Gurwitschʼs argument di ers from mine. Williford (2006b, n. 5) makes a good case that Gurwitsch came to this conclusion himself and endorsed Brentanoʼs view in later work. See Zahavi 2006. See Rosenberg (1981, 256) for why one cannot draw a completely detailed map that represents itself as a (completely detailed) map. See also, for example, PES, 99. See also Van Cleve 2015, 471; he takes there to be no vicious regress if our awareness is non-propositional.

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We are used to saying that we have a complex idea containing the ideas of sweet and white as parts.

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

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CHAPTER

Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0008 Published: August 2017

Pages 144–170

Abstract When we are aware of our perceiving, we cannot attend to (observe) our perceiving, only the object which we (seem to) perceive. The perceiving is therefore the secondary, the object perceived the primary object. The chapter develops and evaluates Brentano’s grounds for the distinction between the primary and the secondary object. This project is of independent philosophical interest because Brentano’s view promises to shed light on the distinctive character of awareness. Awareness cannot become observation, because mere awareness of a mental phenomenon cannot contrast it with others. I argue further that Brentano’s account of noticing and observation has room for an ‘anatomy of the soul’ that proceeds by noticing the elements of our mental life.

Keywords: Aristotle, James, Ryle, primary and secondary object, attention, noticing, implicit perception, co-perception Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

7.1 Introduction In the previous chapters we argued that conscious perceiving is one case of awareness with two objects, among them itself. In this chapter I will disarm an in uential objection against this thesis, the selfrepresentational view of consciousness. In the contemporary literature it is often motivated by saying that it captures how things are for us when we consciously think and perceive. Goldman articulates this reason as follows: [Consider] the case of thinking about x or attending to x. In the presence of thinking about x there is already an implicit awareness that one is thinking about x. There is no need for re ection here, for taking a step back from x in order to examine it. […] When we are thinking about x, the mind is

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7 Brentano on Awareness and Observation 

focused on x, not on our thinking of x. Nevertheless, the process of thinking about x carries with it a non-re ective self-awareness. (Goldman 1970, 96; original emphasis. I borrow this quote from Kriegel 2009, 176) Agnostics respond that such phenomenological considerations speak neither in favour of, nor against, self1

representationalism. What the right view of consciousness is needs to be settled di erently. As we have seen in chapter 4, Brentano proposed an argument for his version of the self-representational view of consciousness that does not rely on claims like Goldman’s. I will therefore set Agnosticism aside. p. 144

Contrarians, in turn, argue that it seems to us that our conscious perceiving and thinking is not directed upon 2

itself. For instance, Gennaro reports:

am, say, consciously attending to a play or the task of building a bookcase. (Gennaro 2008, 49) It often seems to be the case that (i) one is absorbed in a perceptual activity such as perceiving a painting, (ii) one is still consciously perceiving the painting, but (iii) since one is absorbed in one’s perception, there is no conscious noticing of one’s perceptual activity. If one agrees with (i)–(iii), the self-representational theory of consciousness seems to be in trouble. How can (i)–(iii) be true, yet consciousness of perceiving be 3

intrinsic to perceiving?

The Contrarian objection has force only if the self-representational view is that the painting and one’s perceiving of it are objects of the perceiving in the same sense. However, Brentano argued that this is not the case. He (PES, 102 [I, 185]) quoted Aristotle’s Metaphysics with approval. In his translation the passage goes: Knowledge, sensation, opinion and re ection seem always to relate to something else, but only incidentally [en parergo] to themselves. b

(Metaphysics 12.9, 1074 35: Rossʼs translation) When we, for example, hear a note, we are aware of our hearing the note, but only ‘on the side’. Talk of perceiving one’s mental activity ‘on the side’ suggests that someone who loses himself in a painting, for example, is still aware of his perceiving, but in a way that does not ‘register’ with the perceiver. Brentano p. 145

therefore ranked the objects of perception: in this

case the painting is the primary object, the perception

the secondary object. In a similar vein, Ryle (1949, 152) used another simile to give an intuitive sense in which one has awareness of mental acts ‘on the side’: mental processes are ‘overheard’ by the mind whose processes they are, somewhat as a speaker overheard the words he is uttering. In a conversation, I don’t hear myself talking in the same way as I hear the words directed to me. Yet, I overhear myself talking because I am aware when I am talking too loud. Brentano’s distinction between primary and secondary objects can solve the problem just outlined only if he provides an independently motivated answer as to why (a) one’s current mental act can only be the secondary object of this mental act and (b) the secondary object is not noticed by the thinker. The thrust of Brentano’s answer is conveyed by the slogan ‘Inner perception (awareness) can never become 4

5

observation’. Ryle’s Concept of Mind contains echoes of Brentano’s slogan. Ryle distinguishes in perception a non-intentional constituent, sensation, and argues on the basis of grammatical points that one cannot 6

observe a sensation. If one says that one observes a glimpse, one commits a category mistake.

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It does not seem to me that I am consciously aware (in any sense) of my own experience when I

In this chapter I will expound the view that is expressed in Brentano’s slogan and assess his arguments for holding it. This project is of independent philosophical interest because Brentano’s view promises to shed light on the distinctive character of awareness. I will argue that the arguments Brentano himself gave in Psychologie are unconvincing (see sections 7.4–7.5). Nonetheless one can extract from Brentano’s writings on descriptive psychology a promising argument for the rational core of the slogan (see sections 7.6–7.10). This argument is based on the assumption that we are jointly aware of several simultaneous activities. Attending to one of these activities in particular (observing it) requires seeking out contrasts between mental activities. Awareness cannot become observation, because mere awareness of a mental phenomenon cannot contrast it with others.

7.2 Brentano on Primary and Secondary Object According to Brentano, every mental act such as hearing a note, smelling a smell, seeing a colour, etc. is directed on itself on the side. For the purposes of this chapter, I will assume the weaker thesis that some mental acts, the ones that are conscious, are directed on themselves on the side. For instance, when I consciously hear a note, I perceive my hearing it on the side. I hear the note—say, F—and perceive my hearing, but these objects are not ‘created equal’: We can say that the tone is the primary object of the act of hearing and that the act of hearing itself is the secondary object. […] The hearing is turned to the tone in the most proper sense [im eigentlichsten Sinne zugewandt], and by [indem] being so turned, it seems to grasp itself on the side [nebenbei] and as an added extra [Zugabe]. (PES, 98 [I, 180]; in part my translation, original emphasis) The tone F is the primary object of my hearing, the hearing of the tone the secondary object. What is the basis for this distinction? Brentano’s rst stab at an answer is that in hearing a tone, one is ‘turned to it in the most proper sense’; one is not turned to one’s hearing of the tone. Now what does ‘turned to in the most proper sense’ mean? In order to answer this question, we need to get clear about what Brentano means by ‘zu gewandt’. ‘x ist y zu gewendet’ has several meanings in German. One of them is that x is in some sense oriented in the direction of y. (‘Ihr Gesicht war ihm zu gewendet’ is translated as ‘Her face was turned to him’.) This meaning is picked up in the English translation. But ‘zu wenden’ also refers, roughly speaking, to taking an interest in or directing one’s attention to something. And this seems to be the meaning Brentano intends ‘turn to’ to have. It is therefore natural to take Brentano to hold that among the objects of a mental act, one is privileged because it is the object one pays attention to in the act: some thing x is the primary object of a mental act by a thinker T if, and only if, T’s attention is directed on x in this act. This rst-stab characterization of the distinction between primary and secondary object seems plausible enough. If we simultaneously perceive A and B, but only A engages our attention, B escapes our notice. Take reading a sentence with understanding as a model. Reading a sentence with understanding has two sides: it

p. 147

consists of the apprehension of the

meaning of the words expressed and of a perceiving of the sentence

inscription, that is, the physical object. Reading with understanding has two objects: the meaning and the 7

sentence inscription. These objects are not created equal. If you read the English sentence ‘This product contains traces of nuts’, you are immersed in the meaning of the written words. Although they are perceived, the written words themselves tend to escape you. Current proponents of the self-representational view of consciousness take a clue from such observations and propose to spell out the di erence between what Brentano calls ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ object by

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p. 146

means of the notion of attention. For example, Kriegel (2003a, 17) proposes that we dedicate only little of our attention to our current perceiving. In seeing a scene, one is peripherally aware of some parts of the 8

scene and of seeing the scene. Caston agrees: ‘In ordinary experience, we glimpse our perceiving only peripherally, as it were’ (Caston 2002, 787).

7.3 Primary Object and Observation However, the primary object of a mental act cannot simply be the object that is attended to in this act. To see this, consider again the example of reading a sentence of a language one has mastered. Usually, we are interested in the meaning of a written sentence. But this is a contingent fact. If I have a standing interest in standing interest in my perceiving. For example, a descriptive psychologist will be interested in his mental life. One should therefore expect that one sometimes one focuses one’s attention on the perceiving and not on what is perceived. Hence, hearing F could be the primary object and F the secondary object of hearing F. In contrast, Brentano holds that our perceiving can only be the secondary object; when we perceive, we cannot turn our attention to the perceiving itself: p. 148

Indeed it is a peculiar feature of inner perception [die innere Wahrnehmung hat das Eigentümliche] that it can never become inner observation. Objects which one, as one puts it, perceives outwardly can be observed; one turns one’s full attention to them in order to apprehend them precisely [genau]. But with objects of inner perception this is absolutely impossible. […] It is a universally valid psychological law that we can never turn our attention to the object of inner perception. […] It is only while our attention is turned toward a di erent object that we are able to perceive, on the side [nebenbei], the mental processes which are directed towards that object. Thus the observation of physical phenomena in external perception, while o ering us a basis for knowledge of nature, can at the same time become a means of attaining knowledge of the mind. Indeed, turning one’s attention to physical phenomena in our imagination is, if not the only source of our knowledge of laws governing the mind, at least the immediate and principal source. (PES, 22 [I, 41–2]; in part my translation, and my emphasis) Inner perception or awareness, says Brentano, neither is, nor can become, observation. I will call this claim the Awareness ≠ Observation Thesis, in short the A ≠ O Thesis. In contrast, outer perception (seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.) can become observation. For example, my hearing the song of the birds can become listening to the birdsong, that is, an observing of the song. In general, perceptual activities like hearing, seeing, and 9

touching can become observations (listenings, watchings, etc.). For instance, when you read the sentence ‘This product contains traces of nuts’ with understanding, you may merely see the inscription, but this seeing can become observing if you turn your attention to the inscription. The A ≠ O Thesis grounds Brentano’s distinction between primary and secondary object. If Brentano is right, a mental act can neither be, nor become, its own primary object; it can only be its secondary object. That is to say, we are aware of it, but we cannot observe it. 10

Brentano’s A ≠ O Thesis about the primary object of a mental act is often misunderstood.

For example,

Radner writes: Unlike Brentano, Descartes believed that one mental act can have another as primary object. (Radner 1988, 447)

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fonts or handwritings, I will attend to the inscribed words and not to their meaning. Similarly, I may have a

So Brentano believed according to Radner that a mental act cannot have another mental act as primary object. p. 149

Massin subscribes to the same interpretation and therefore takes Brentano’s theory of pleasure to be inconsistent: Brentano’s theory of pleasure appears committed to the following inconsistent triad: 1. Every mental act has a primary object distinct from itself. 2. No mental act is a primary object. 3. Some pleasures are directed at mental acts only. (Massin 2013, 335)

follow that no mental act is a primary object of a mental act. The A ≠ O Thesis does not show that we can’t make judgements about our own mental acts. If it did, this would amount to a reductio ad absurdum. It is hard to deny that we make judgements (have desires) that concern our own mental states or events. For example, I often judge that I judged falsely. In this case, my mental act has another mental act as its primary 11

object.

In fact, Brentano himself explicitly rejected Massin’s (2):

[I]t seems beyond doubt that something mental can become a primary object. (Brentano and Bergmann 1946, 108; my translation. See also PES, 217 [II, 142]) If we replace Massin’s (2) with the thesis that no mental act is its own primary object, the resulting triad is no longer inconsistent. For example, remembering one’s hearing F is not awareness of it. Prima facie, one can pay attention to hearing F when one remembers it. But Brentano carefully avoids calling paying attention to a mental phenomenon in memory ‘observation’. For example, he writes: when we view [betrachten] a previous act of hearing in memory, we turn towards it as a primary object, and thus we sometimes turn towards it in a way that is similar to an observer [in ähnlicher Weise wie ein Beobachtender]. (PES, 99 [I, 181]; my translation) Why are we only ‘similar to an observer’ and not simply ‘an observer’? Brentano argues that memory can deceive us. But the same is true of the observation of objects in current perception. Wundt (1888, 294) helps Brentano out by proposing that something can be observed at a time only if it exists at that time. A ash of p. 150

lightning can be perceived but not observed, because it does not exist long enough to be observed. But one 12

can observe a dying sun, even though it no longer exists at the time of one’s observation.

There is, then,

no direct way to argue from the assumption that awareness cannot become observation to the conclusion that mental acts cannot be observed at all. In order to assess Brentano’s A ≠ O Thesis, we need to know more about observation. Observing an object or event a is focusing one’s attention on a in order to (intend to) perceive it precisely (PES, 22 [I, 41]). Because observing an object requires one to turn one’s attention to it, it is the primary object (PES, 99 [I, 181]). 13

Not all objects one attends to are objects one has turned one’s attention to (DP, 38–9 [36]).

An object may

capture one’s attention against one’s will. If an acrobat performs breathtaking stunts during a biology lecture, she will capture the audience’s attention, even though they ought to, and want to, focus their attention on the plant they are studying. This example gives us a rst pointer as to what focusing one’s attention amounts to. One turns one’s attention to something only if one wants to perceive it for a certain purpose. In Psychologie, Brentano does

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However, the A ≠ O Thesis does not imply (2): from ‘No mental act is its own primary object’ it does not

not say much about the purpose. In his lectures on descriptive psychology, he says more: We say that one pays attention [aufmerken] when we desire to notice [bemerken] something that happens or will happen in us and arguably also to memorize it [merken] and where this desire drives us to create favourable dispositions for this; one can therefore say that we aspire to notice. (DP, 38 [35]; in part my translation) Brentano is concerned here with directing one’s attention on one’s mental acts, but part of his explanation applies to the notion of directing one’s attention to an object or event in general: T directs his attention towards x if, and only if,

(ii) the desire mentioned in (i) motivates T to bring about favourable conditions for the satisfaction of (i). Consider an example for illustration. I walk through the park while the birds are singing. My hearing is p. 151

working normally and I hear, among

other things, the song of the birds. Then a particularly beautiful

song captures my interest, and I desire to hear more of it and to distinguish it from the other sounds. This desire drives me to create favourable conditions for its satisfaction. We mark the transition from hearing the song to hearing out of the desire to hear more of the song by saying that I start listening to and listening out for it. When I start to listen to the birdsong, the perceptual activity and the ability exercised are still the same: I am hearing the song of the bird. But I am hearing it now out of the desire to learn more about it. As a general account of what it is to turn one’s attention to an object, Brentano’s proposal is too narrow. Bradley (1902, 4) gives the examples of attentively listening to an air and paying attention to the development of pain or pleasure. My listening attentively to Bach’s air may consist in hearing it out of the desire to fully appreciate it or simply hearing it with a desire to continue hearing it. Bradley (ibid.) responds to this observation by arguing that any attentive perception aims ‘to maintain an object before me with a view to gain knowledge about it’, but where the knowledge is in a ‘wide sense’ theoretical or ideal. However, Bradley’s ‘wide sense’ only names the problem to be solved. In section 11.2 we will see that such cases are best described as ‘appraisive attention’: one attends to something in order to appraise it. Why accept the A ≠ O Thesis? Brentano’s reason seems to be that when one, for example, hears a song, one can’t turn one’s attention to one’s hearing. Again, this claim is in need of argumentative support. After unpacking the notion of turning one’s attention to an object, we can distinguish two potential reasons for the A ≠ O Thesis. First, awareness neither is, nor can become, observation because one can’t desire to come to know the objects one is currently aware of better. Second, awareness neither is, nor can become, observation because the desire to know the object of one’s current awareness can’t be satis ed by continuing to be aware of the object. In the next section, I will look at Brentano’s attempt to spell out the rst potential reason. I will nd this reason wanting.

7.4 Brentanoʼs Intuitive Consideration When expounding the A ≠ O Thesis, Brentano gave an example that will resonate with many of his readers:

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(i) T desires to come to know some property or properties of x and to commit them to memory &

p. 152

[The fact that awareness neither is, nor can become, observation] is especially clear with respect to certain mental phenomena such as anger [Zorn]. For if someone wants to observe the anger which rages in him, the anger would already have cooled o , and the object of observation would have vanished. The same impossibility obtains in other cases. We will have to discuss this issue in more detail later on. For the moment it will su

ce to call attention to the personal experience of an

unbiased person. 14

(PES, 22 [I, 41])

The example is supposed to make the A ≠ O Thesis initially plausible; it is not intended to provide the true reason for the thesis. Such an explanatory argument will be possible only after Brentano has argued that acts. I will elaborate this point in the next section. How does this intuitive consideration work? Imagine that you have a t of road rage. If you are raging with anger, you are aware of your anger, but you cannot observe it. Why? When I am raging with anger, I ‘cannot think of anything else’ but the object to which my anger is directed, say, the careless driver. In this situation, I cannot form the desire or the intention required to turn my awareness of my anger into an 15

observation of it.

One is no longer raging with anger if one can form the desire to learn more about one’s

anger. The anger is then no longer all-consuming; it has cooled o . In contrast, awareness of raging anger requires neither forming an intention nor having a desire. Brentano’s consideration shows that sometimes awareness cannot become observation because one can’t desire or intend to learn more about the object of one’s awareness (see section 7.3). The existence of some mental phenomena such as anger is incompatible with the desire constitutive of their observation. Hence, one cannot observe them when one undergoes 16

them.

Prima facie, the intuitive consideration is plausible only for mental states that consume one, that is, that p. 153

prevent one from forming

intentions or desires. Hence, it leaves open the possibility of observing non-

consuming mental states. In these cases the fact that we are in such a mental state does not preclude having the desire to learn more about it. One might push this point further. For example, is the milder anger not the same anger as the consuming one? Consider an analogy: there is a mosquito buzzing around very (very) fast. Because of the speed of its movement, I cannot focus my visual attention on it. But when the mosquito comes to rest, I can and do observe it. In this case I can observe the object that was previously unobservable, because it has lost a property, moving around extremely quickly, that made it unobservable. Why can’t the same go for anger and other such states? Just as I can observe the mosquito when it is at rest, I can observe the anger when it has lost some of its intensity. What I can’t do is observe the mosquito when it is buzzing around and the anger when it is all-consuming. Kriegel (forthcoming) tries to close this loophole in Brentano’s argument: If one has the presence of mind to attend to one’s anger, to re ect on it, one is no longer consumed by it. Thus in introspection one would perforce be presented with a milder, unconsuming variety of anger experience. Yet the experience one actually underwent—the experience one wished to examine by introspection—was a di erent, stronger and more violent anger experience. That original experience therefore eludes introspection—as soon as we turn our attention to it, it goes out of existence and is replaced by another, phenomenally di erent experience. 17

(Kriegel, forthcoming; my emphasis)

In Brentano’s example, the person raging with anger could not desire to learn more about his raging anger. In contrast, Kriegel argues that the attempt to observe one’s raging anger will make the anger disappear.

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consciousness of a mental act—say, consciousness of hearing F—and hearing F are not two distinct mental

Reid used a version of this argument to make plausible the thesis that introspection of a passion cannot 18

become observation:

when the mind is agitated by any passion, as soon as we turn our attention from the object to the passion itself, the passion subsides or vanishes, and by that means escapes our enquiry. This, indeed, is common to almost every operation of the mind: When it is exerted, we are conscious of it; but then we do not attend to the operation, but to its object. (Reid 1785, 61; my emphasis) p. 154

Brentano himself suggests this way of developing the anger consideration in a section that follows his initial discussion of anger. We cannot observe our anger when we are angry, but we can recall an ‘earlier state of

If the attempt to observe the anger which stirs us becomes impossible because the phenomenon disappears, it is clear that an earlier state of excitement can no longer be interfered with in this way. (PES, 26 [I, 49]) Brentano proposed now, in line with Reid, that one can come to desire to learn more about one’s raging anger, but the acquisition of the desire ‘interferes’ with the object of the intended observation. But the claim that the attempt to observe a mental phenomenon extinguishes it is plausible only for ‘almost every operation of the mind’ (see the earlier quote from Reid). A passion is changed if one acquires a desire to observe it. A desire is itself a conative mental phenomenon that may interfere with or extinguish another conative mental phenomenon. But the A ≠ O Thesis is not restricted to conative mental phenomena. Nonconative mental phenomena may ‘survive’ a shift of attention. Brentano’s student Stumpf made this point later (Stumpf calls mental activities functions): it is not absolutely excluded to observe current functions as they take place. The di erent kinds of mental functions behave di erently in this respect. Not all su er from such a thorough destruction as the a ects or a di

cult arithmetical operation. Intellectual functions, which require less

concentration on the matter, can, already as they take place, simultaneously become, to a certain extent, the object of our observing. We must then simply divide our attention. Consequently, neither the function nor the observation will be perfect, but it will not be completely impossible and will be combined with the just-past part of the function to form one complete impression of the experience. (Stumpf 1939, 350; my translation) Why should, for instance, my desire to learn more about inferring p from p & q interrupt or interfere with my inferring? Prima facie, this desire and my inference can coexist. Please note that the idea that one can divide one’s attention plays an important role in Stumpf’s argument. I will come back to this in the next section. A similar question arises for Kriegel’s reconstruction of the argument. He relies on the assumption that p. 155

every mental act has a phenomenal intensity. In Psychologie, Brentano indeed holds that all mental acts 19

have an intensity and tentatively identi es the intensity of a judgement with a degree of con dence.

Our

question therefore becomes: Why should the degree of con dence of a judgement change if one also desires to learn more about this judgement? It seems to me that I can judge with the same degree of con dence that p whether I have this desire or not.

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excitement’:

In OKRW (57 [WE, 40–1]), Brentano rejected this view of judgemental intensity. It is not clear whether (a) Brentano wanted to reject the idea that judgements have intensity, or (b) he merely changed his mind about what this intensity consists in. But in the Appendix of the 1911 edition, he opts for (a). Independently of this, there are mental phenomena without intensity such as a presentation of the number 3. The argument 20

suggested above does not work for them.

To conclude: by Brentano’s own lights, the premises of the

argument under consideration are not general enough to sustain the conclusion that no mental act can become an observation of itself.

7.5 The Argument from the Nature of Observation mental activity and the mental activity one is conscious of are not distinct. He concluded this argument as follows: The presentation of the tone and the presentation of the presentation of the tone form not more than one single mental phenomenon; it is only by considering it in its relation to two di erent objects, one of which is a physical phenomenon and the other a mental phenomenon, that we divide it conceptually into two presentations. (PES, 98 [I, 179]; in part my translation) This conclusion is supposed to be the key to the A ≠ O Thesis: Do we perceive the mental phenomena that exist within us? This question must be answered with an emphatic, ‘yes’, for where would we have got the concepts of presentation and thought without such perception? On the other hand, it is obvious that we are not able to observe our present mental phenomena. But how can we explain this, if not by the fact that we are incapable of p. 156

perceiving them? Previously, in fact, no other explanation seemed possible, but now we see

the

true reason clearly. The presentation which accompanies a mental act and refers to it is part of the object on which it is directed. (PES, 99 [I, 180]; my emphasis) Brentano appealed here to the Duplication Argument that was discussed in detail in chapter 4. Can one can derive from its conclusion the A ≠ O Thesis? He continued as follows: If an inner presentation were ever to become inner observation, this observation would be directed upon itself. Even the defenders of inner observation, however, seem to consider this impossible […]. One observation is supposed to be capable of being directed upon another observation, but not upon itself. The truth is that something which is only the secondary object of an act can undoubtedly be an object of consciousness in this act, but cannot be an object of observation in it. Observation requires that one turns to the object as the primary one. Hence, a mental act obtaining in us could only be observed in a second, simultaneous act which turned to it [sich zuwendete] as its primary object. But the accompanying inner idea does not in fact belong to a second mental act [Aber die begleitende Vorstellung gehört eben nicht zu einem zweiten Akte]. Thus we see that no simultaneous observation of one’s own observing or any other of one’s own mental acts is possible. We can observe the tones we hear, but we cannot observe our hearing of the tones, for the hearing is only co-apprehended [mit erfasst] in the hearing of the sounds. 21

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Brentano returned to the A ≠ O Thesis after developing an argument for the view that consciousness of a

21

(PES, 99 [I, 180–1]; in part my translation, original emphasis)

A rst-stab reconstruction of this Argument from the Nature of Observation is as follows: If M is an act of observing x and x ≠ M, M cannot also observe M. Therefore an act M of observing x cannot become an act of observing M. Let us ll in the missing steps of the argument: (OB1) If M is an act of observing x, x is the primary object of M. (Df.)

(OB2) Every act has only one primary object. Therefore: Any act of observing M1 has a di erent primary object from M1. (OB3) If x is the primary object of M & y is the primary object of N & x ≠ y, then M ≠ N. Therefore: Any act of observing M1 that has M1 as a primary object is distinct from M1. p. 157

(OB4) Consciousness of M1 is not distinct from M1. Therefore: Consciousness of M1 is not observing M1. Therefore: It is not possible that the primary object of M1 = M1. The conclusion of this argument is that, if a mental act is an observation of something distinct from itself, it cannot also observe itself and, therefore, cannot be its own primary object. For instance, listening to a tone cannot also be an observation of itself. Brentano’s Argument from the Nature of Observation can be attacked on two points. First, (OB2) needs further support. Why, for example, can a mental act only have one primary object? Mill (1865b, 64) pointed out that one can divide one’s attention: one can attend to some things at the same time. In the previous section, Stumpf appealed to the same idea. If one can divide one’s attention, why should one not be able to simultaneously attend to one’s perceiving and its object? Brentano needs a reason to rule out that a mental act can have several primary objects, among them itself. However, it is di

cult to see what

this reason might be. Prima facie, we can divide our attention between di erent activities. Second, Brentano assumed that observing has a primary object distinct from itself. Under this assumption his conclusion follows. But our question is whether this assumption is justi ed. If one drops it, one will have to add as a further premise to the argument that, if an act M is an observation of x, x is distinct from M. But 22

this is the very conclusion Brentano tries to establish.

To sum up, this and the previous section suggest that the rst potential reason for the A ≠ O Thesis gets Brentano some, but not all, of the way. Therefore, we need to nd a di erent reason for the A ≠ O Thesis. In the next sections, I will argue that such a reason can be found if we revise simplifying assumptions about the secondary object.

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Therefore: An act of observing a, M1, has a as its primary object.

7.6 A Closer Look at the Secondary Object of Consciousness In order to bring out the reason why awareness cannot become observation, we need to rst appreciate an p. 158

important feature of Brentano’s

view of awareness that is often overlooked in the literature. He himself

frequently talked as if descriptive psychology starts with individual mental acts such that each of them has one primary object and is directed on itself as its secondary object. However, this was a simpli cation. Brentano dropped it at the beginning of his discussion of the unity of consciousness: In reality, such a simple state never occurs. It frequently happens, instead, that we have a rather large number of objects before our minds simultaneously, with which we enter into many diverse

(PES, 120 [I, 221]) At any given time, there is one mental act that has many objects and therefore many conceptual parts. In section 5.3 we saw that the act of awareness is among its several objects. The main point is that the secondary object of consciousness comprises all mental acts that are co-conscious. (I will come back to this point in chapter 12.) Brentano’s student and editor of Psychologie Kraus summed this up in his introduction to Psychologie: By ‘inner perception’ Brentano understands a ‘secondary consciousness’ that is inseparable from and directed upon our total ‘primary consciousness’ and at the same time on itself. It is in essence independent of the will and accompanies every primary consciousness on the side […]. (Introduction to 1924 edition of PES [I, LXXXV]; my translation and emphasis) We are simultaneously aware of many mental acts; the secondary object is the totality of them. The primary object is the totality of primary objects of these acts. However, there is an important di erence between the primary and the secondary object that Brentano described in mereological terms. Simultaneous mental acts are given to us as one whole: we emphasized as a distinguishing characteristic the fact that the mental phenomena which we perceive, in spite of all their multiplicity, always appear to us as a unity, while physical phenomena, which we perceive at the same time, do not all appear in the same way as parts of one single phenomenon. 23

(PES, 75 [I, 137]; original emphasis)

If we are always jointly aware of many things, it is di p. 159

cult to attend to one of them in particular.

Consider Leibniz’s model of hearing many wavelets for support (section 1.9). We hear them, without hearing 24

each wavelet that makes up the wave. Brentano used a chord as a model of such a whole.

Imagine you hear

the Tristan chord. The chord is made up of the notes F, B, D#, and G#. If you are not musically trained, you will hear F, B, D#, and G# together. You hear these notes together, but you don’t hear each of them, in the sense that neither F nor B, etc. stand out in the phenomenology of your hearing. The notes don’t appear to you distinctly when you hear the chord. Brentano described this by saying that the tones are fused into one 25

unity.

In describing the examples I have used Leibniz’s plural terminology—we hear many wavelets together and they appear to us as one thing—and not Brentano’s terminology of wholes. The reason is that the wholes Brentano has in mind seem just to be some things which have a collective property. For example, together

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relations of consciousness.

they sound or look a certain way. I take Brentano’s talk about wholes or unities to be translatable without loss into plural talk. Why are we aware of some objects together, a unity, but not aware of each of them? We can answer this question by comparing the objects of awareness with those of outer perception. You may perceive some things together, but, as Brentano claimed, they don’t ‘appear in the same way as parts of a single phenomenon’. Imagine that you simultaneously see and hear a trio playing. In your perception the musicians and sounds appear as parts of one whole, but you simultaneously see each of the three musicians and hear the music as coming from them. You see and hear the musicians in virtue of seeing and hearing each of them. Why? Because each musician appears to be located in a di erent position in the scene you see.

to us distinctly. Brentano made this point in telegraphic style when he commented on our consciousness as follows: No juxtaposition. [Kein nebeneinander] No manifold of objects […]. (DP, 14 [11]) p. 160

William James was less telegraphic and provided a helpful illustration when arguing against the idea that space is the order of simultaneously existing things. There are things—the elements of consciousness—that exist simultaneously. Yet, James observed, they are not arranged in space. Consider for illustration his example. He pictured himself writing near a babbling brook: The sound of the brook near which I write, the odor of the cedars, the feeling of satisfaction with which my breakfast has lled me, and my interest in writing this article, all simultaneously coexist in my consciousness without falling into any sort of spatial order. If, with my eyes shut, these elements of consciousness give me any spatial feeling at all, it is that of a teeming muchness or abundance, formed of their mutual interpenetration, but within which they occupy no positions. 26

(James 1879, 67)

If simultaneously perceived objects don’t have positions in space or an analogous system of relations, they are perceived together without being distinguished in perception. The objects of our awareness don’t occupy spatial positions or positions analogous to spatial positions. We are therefore aware of co-conscious acts as one unarticulated unity. This sets the task for descriptive psychology. Just as anatomy distinguishes parts within a body, descriptive psychology distinguishes parts in the unarticulated unity of consciousness and identi es their relations. Descriptive psychology is, in Brentano’s words, the anatomy of the soul (see DP, 135 [128]). How is the task of descriptive psychology accomplished? If we are initially only aware of a unity without being aware of any of its parts, how do we come to distinguish parts in it? James took this to be the foundational question of psychology: How can we ever evolve parts from a confused unity, if the latter did not yield them at rst? How, in other words, does a vague muchness ever become a sum of discrete constituents? This is the problem of Discrimination, and he who will thoroughly have answered it will have laid the keel for psychology. (James 1879, 79)

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In contrast, in consciousness there is no spatial order such that each of several co-conscious objects appears

p. 161

7.7 Laying the Keel for Psychology, or: How to Notice How do we discriminate between non-spatial objects of which we are jointly aware? By varying the objects of which we are jointly aware, answered James (1878, 253). James quoted Martineau’s helpful example to convey the basic idea: When a red ivory ball, seen for the rst time, has been withdrawn, it will leave a mental representation of itself, in which all that it simultaneously gave us will indistinguishably co-exist. Let a white ball succeed to it; now, and not before, will an attribute detach itself, and the color, by force of contract, be shaken out into the foreground.

One cannot see a colour in the sense of a particular colour trope if one does not see the spatial extension it lls. And one cannot see a particular spatial extension without a colour lling it. Both colour and spatial extension are jointly given in one’s perception; neither of them stands out. However, if the joint perception of redness and spatial extension is followed by a joint perception of whiteness and spatial extension, whiteness and redness both will be ‘shaken into the foreground’; the contrast between them makes both noticeable. Similar examples can be given for other sense modalities. Martineau’s example makes it plausible that, when we perceive several objects A, B, and C jointly, A will stand out and be an object of attention if in a further perception we perceive A, B, and D jointly where C and D are incompatible. Hence, by varying some co-perceived elements and replacing them with incompatible elements, they become noticeable and one can perceive them in particular. James (1878, 253) called this the law of dissociation by varying concomitants. The law applies to our awareness of our mental life. 27

In his lectures on descriptive psychology, Brentano worked out a version of the variation answer.

Let’s

work through the basic tenets of Brentano’s proposal. p. 162

Awareness is a kind of perceiving and, for Brentano, perceiving is a kind of acknowledgement. We have introduced this notion already in section 1.2. One acknowledges an object if, and only if, one thinks of it in a way that commits one to its existence without predicating the property of existence of it. Awareness consists in acknowledgement of a whole that is composed of all the simultaneous mental acts of a thinker. We acknowledge this whole without acknowledging each part in particular. For illustration, consider hearing a chord. I can hear the notes of the chord together, but none of them ‘stands out’ in my auditory experience. With this in mind we can explain Brentano’s distinction between explicit perception, or noticing, and implicit perception. If one acknowledges the whole {A, B}, one thereby perceives A implicitly and B implicitly: one hears them together, without hearing A and hearing B. In Brentano’s own words: A clari cation of this distinction [explicit versus implicit perception] seems to be desirable. Perception is an acknowledgement [Anerkennung]. And if the accepted thing is a whole with parts, then the parts are all, in a certain manner, co-accepted [mitanerkannt]. The denial of any of them would contradict the whole. Yet the individual part is, for this reason, by no means accepted let alone judged speci cally [nicht ausdrücklich] (by itself) and in particular. 28

(DP, 36 [34])

However, if one acknowledges the whole {A, B} and one acknowledges A and acknowledges B, then one 29

notices A and one notices B in {A, B} or one apperceives them (and vice versa).

How do we come to acknowledge A speci cally when we acknowledge a whole that contains it as part? Brentano’s answer is similar to James’s. We are in a position to notice elements of a uni ed whole when

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(Martineau 1860, 271–2)

there is a partial change in our mental life that creates a contrast. In plural terminology: when we perceive rst A and B together, then B and C together, where C and A are incompatible, this contrast makes A (C) stand out. A (C) becomes noticeable, and we can come to acknowledge A (C) speci cally or on their own as 30

well as the whole it is part of.

Such contrasts may simply come about in our mental life when one uni ed whole is followed by a di erent one. The descriptive psychologist whose project is to notice the parts of her mental life needs to p. 163

intentionally seek out and create such contrasts. Comparing and contrasting is the ‘most 31

vehicle of scienti c progress’ when it comes to psychology.

essential

Brentano used examples to illustrate the

procedure of descriptive psychology. Evident judgements, such as the judgement that everything is selfidentical, the judgement that I think, etc., can be partially characterized by saying that they cannot be false. paradigmatic instances of evident judgements and compare and contrast them with blind judgements, such 32

as the judgement that I was in Rome a while ago.

In this way one comes to know the di erence between

blind and evident judgements, and thereby one comes to know the distinctive features of evident judgements. He went on to comment: The examples which I have given in order to illustrate the method of comparison, the distinctive arrangement of di erences, through which the implicitly perceived becomes explicitly noticeable, can of course be multiplied endlessly. (DP, 56 [54]; my translation and emphasis) The descriptive psychologist uses the method of comparison, that is, they ‘arti cially intentionally compose di erences’ (ibid.) between mental phenomena. How does the descriptive psychologist do this? A similar question arises for James. For his talk of variation is metaphorical. What does ‘variation’ of elements of consciousness amount to? Brentano’s examples suggest an answer. When the descriptive psychologist wants to notice her evident judging, she creates di erences by either imagining or remembering cases of blind judgement. Brentano’s student Stumpf worked out this suggestion by exploring the analogy between anatomy and descriptive psychology. The anatomist can simultaneously see a whole body as well as some of its parts. He notices these parts when he perceives the body. Similarly, the musically trained hearer can hear the orchestra and distinguish the sounds of the instruments. What explains the ability to simultaneously perceive a whole and distinguish some parts in it? The anatomist need not see the gures of reality sharper than the layman; the latter may even have better sight. But for the former phantasy immediately subjoins [suppliert] the individual parts, and thereby a di erence between the picture and what one thinks-in-it [hineindenkt] becomes easily noticeable. (Stumpf 1873, 131; my translation) p. 164

The anatomist can easily episodically remember and/or imagine other bodies that contrast with the body he 33

sees. This allows him to see the body and to notice parts in it that are unusual.

Stumpf replaced the metaphorical talk of variation of concomitant elements with a description of the abilities—episodic memory and visual or auditory imagination—that are exercised in noticing. The descriptive psychologist intentionally creates di erences by imagining or episodically recalling contrast cases in order to notice.

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How does one complete one’s understanding of what an evident judgement is? One needs to consider

7.8 Why Awareness Canʼt Become Observation We are now in a position to answer our question: Why can’t awareness become inner observation? We can be aware of our mental life without noticing its elements. In order to observe something, we need to notice it. In the case of elements of the unity of consciousness, we can notice them only if we seek out contrast cases by episodically remembering or imagining them. These activities are di erent from our awareness of our current mental life. We need to be aware of our mental life and, in addition, to episodically remember or imagine contrast cases to notice parts, that is, individual activities, in it. Awareness cannot become noticing, since one can’t satisfy the desire to notice the elements of one’s mental life only by continuing to be aware of them under improved conditions. Further activities in addition to awareness are required. For that they are contrasted in imagination with incompatible activities. The fact that awareness cannot become observation is grounded in the fact that the secondary object of our perceiving is a uni ed whole comprising 34

all simultaneous perceptual activities. p. 165

Compare outer perceiving. We have already seen that the objects of outer perceptions—for instance, of visual perception—need not form one uni ed whole. When I see the trio play, I see each musician and can, if I so desire, notice each of them. In order to notice, say, the drummer, I don’t need to seek out contrast cases. Observing him (watching him) is seeing him with an interest in learning about him. The change from seeing to watching concerns the desire that motivates my seeing. When one watches the drummer, one still sees him; seeing and watching are the same perceptual activity. Watching the drummer does not require seeking out contrast cases. Why? The drummer stands out in our 35

perception even if he is perceived together with other objects. 36

see also how he can be seen better.

When we see him among other things, we

For example, when I see the front of an object, the way it looks to me is 37

a presentation of the front as well as a perceptual proxy of further unseen parts of the object.

If I see the

house in seeing its forefront, I am aware that further views of it are available. I feel that my actual seeing is inadequate and that my view of the house can be improved. The appearance of the visible part of the house suggests to us how the hidden parts may look and how we can come to perceive them: we have expectations of how the object will look to us if we change our position with respect to it. However, such an ‘expectation’ is not a belief that an event will occur. Husserl (1904, 109) talked about emotional expectation (Gemütserwartung). Sometimes you feel that something is about to happen. Hence, in seeing an object, we know how to improve our view on it. Similar things hold for listening, touching, etc. When we turn our attention to an object of outer perception, we desire to perceive it better. Our perception p. 166

of the object gives us clues as to how

this desire can be satis ed. If one perceives the object out of this

desire—that is, if one observes the object—one still perceives it; the kind of activity does not change. What changes is one’s motive for persisting with the activity and the conditions under which it persists. To sum up, objects of outer perception can, while elements of consciousness can’t, be noticed without seeking out contrast cases. Hence, awareness cannot become observation. Observing one’s mental life always requires activities that are di erent from awareness. Awareness is intrinsic to perceiving, but this intrinsic awareness is an awareness of a whole comprising all simultaneous perceptions. It takes e ort and further activities to observe one of these perceptions in particular. Awareness alone is insu

cient.

Brentano’s observation regarding the secondary object also explains why the secondary object, one’s total perceptual activity, goes unnoticed when one perceives something. If we go back to the list of objects in James’s example (section 7.7), we see that it contains physical objects like sounds and mental phenomena like interests. We don’t perceive a sound and colour together and become conscious of hearing and, separately, seeing. We are jointly aware of a sound, a colour, our hearing, and our seeing. In Brentano’s words: ‘In one and the same mental phenomenon in which the tone is presented we apprehend the mental

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example, while it is intrinsic to simultaneous activities that they are co-conscious, it is not intrinsic to them

phenomenon […]’ (PES, 98 [I, 179]). This is why Brentano spoke of ‘the peculiar fusion of the accompanying presentation with its object’ (PES, 100 [I, 183]). He also formulated the same point in mereological terms: originally the totality of our consciousness may have been a confused unity in which no single part is distinguished from another one and not even the physical and the mental that appear to us were distinguished. Later this is never completely the case; but depending on where attention is turned in particular, large areas of consciousness from which it turns away remain without any particular presentation of individual parts contained in them. (Brentano 1906a, 334; my translation and emphasis) The physical objects that are parts of the totality of which we are aware can be noticed if we are interested in parts of this totality don’t stand out, because they lack this feature. They are fused with all other objects we are jointly aware of and we cannot notice them, even if we so desire, simply by being aware of them. Hence, when we perceive, we are co-aware of our perceiving and its objects but in a position to notice only the p. 167

latter. From Brentano’s perspective, the objection that there is perceiving without awareness of perceiving is based on a faulty assumption about the object of our awareness. We are aware of many acts together, but not all of them are di erentiated in our awareness. Those that are fused with others, among them our current mental activities, are not noticed and become noticeable only when contrast cases are created. Brentano has, then, a good reason to say that awareness cannot become observation. His reason is compatible with the view that the descriptive psychologist can develop an anatomy of the soul. In fact, considerations about the methodology of descriptive psychology help to show why awareness cannot be observation. Observation of one’s mental life requires the exercise of memory and imagination in seeking out contrast cases. One can observe one’s mental life, but one’s observing is based on awareness, rather than consisting in it. The descriptive psychologist needs to be aware of her own mental acts, but awareness or inner perception is not the source of her knowledge of mental facts. James took this point to pose a dilemma for Brentano: No one has emphasized more sharply than Brentano himself the di erence between the immediate feltness of a feeling, and its perception by a subsequent re ective act. But which mode of consciousness of it is that which the psychologist must depend on? If to have feelings or thoughts in their immediacy were enough, babies in the cradle would be psychologists, and infallible ones. But the psychologist must not only have his mental states in their absolute veritableness, he must report them and write about them, name them, classify and compare them and trace their relations to other things. Whilst alive they are their own property; it is only post-mortem that they become his prey. And as in the naming, classing, and knowing of things in general we are notoriously fallible, why not also here? (James 1890, 189–90; original emphasis) Either the descriptive psychologist depends only on awareness, in which case her knowledge is infallible, but not systematic and therefore is useless for descriptive psychology. Or the descriptive psychologist only depends on observation that draws on memory, in which case her knowledge is fallible, but systematic and useful for descriptive psychology. Brentano opted for the second horn: descriptive psychology is a science like any other. Its descriptions and classi cations of mental phenomena can be revised and improved. This fallibilist view of inner observation contrasts favourably with the views ascribed to philosophers in the 38

literature.

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perceiving them, because they appear to us as spatially located. In contrast, the mental activities that are

p. 168

7.9 Observation and Time-consciousness The result of the previous section is that observing one’s current mental life cannot only consist in awareness. In later work Brentano goes one step further: observing one’s mental life does not even involve awareness, although it presupposes it. Brentano’s argument is based on his view of time-consciousness. This view raises several questions, but for our purposes an outline will su

39

ce.

Consider the example of hearing a melody. When I hear a melody, I

hear a succession of tones: F is played rst, then D, then G.…Hearing such a succession as a succession requires that I continue to be auditorily aware of F although F is no longer playing when I hear D. For Brentano, every mental act has itself as a secondary object. Hence, the question arises: Does one also retain answered Brentano: In the studies I made about time I thought I discovered that only the primary object appears to us in a certain temporal extension, not the secondary one. That it would lead to a monstrous assumption of a continuum of in nitely many dimensions if we also thought of the mental as extended. When I hear a melody, a succession of tones appears to me, not a succession of hearings. […] This gives the study of the act with respect to the primary object special preference. (Letter to Stumpf reprinted in Brentano 1867–1917, 378–9; my emphasis and translation) Let us assume for the sake of the argument that you retain your awareness of previous hearings of the note F. So when you hear D you also retain F in your perceptual awareness. According to the assumption under consideration, you are also aware of hearing D and having heard F. Brentano comments: In such an inner proteraesthesis an earlier perceiving would have to appear to us as earlier, but as directed to something as if it were present. (Brentano 1914, 64 [106]) If this was right, the retained note F would seem to be in the past, but you were also aware of F as an object of a previous hearing, and thereby you were aware of it as if it were present. Brentano takes this to be an p. 169

unpalatable consequence and restricts the secondary awareness to the

present. In hearing a melody over

time, we are, at each time, aware only of our present hearing and our present awareness. 40

The punctiform character of awareness gave Brentano a reason to strengthen the A ≠ O Thesis.

For beings

like us, observing takes time: it is a process. You cannot, for example, observe a punctiform stroke of lightning; you can only perceive it. Similarly, one can maintain contact with the tone in one extended hearing, but one can’t maintain contact with one’s hearing of it in one extended episode of awareness, because our awareness has no temporal extension. Even if we desire to learn more about our hearing of the tone, we cannot do so by maintaining awareness of it: for we cannot observe it. We have to remember hearing the tone. In these memories, hearing is no longer the secondary but the primary object. Whenever we observe a mental phenomenon, only memory and imagination are involved: We really can accomplish turning our attention to a past mental phenomenon just as we can turn it to a present physical phenomenon, and in this way we can, so to speak, observe it. (PES, 26 [I, 49]; in part my translation) Now this argument rests on the controversial view that one can only be aware of present mental acts. I will not try to argue for (or against) this view. For even if we can be aware of our perceiving and so forth over

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one’s awareness of hearing F (the secondary object of one’s hearing D) at the time when one hears D? No,

time, we can come to learn more about it only by seeking out contrasts in imagination and memory. Hence, while awareness may be involved in observing mental acts, it cannot constitute this observation.

7.10 Conclusion Brentano provided independent reasons for the conclusion that awareness cannot become observation. This justi es privileging the outer object of a perception as its primary object: it is the object that can be observed in one’s perceiving. It seems to us that we are only aware of this object in perceiving because the perception cannot become observation of itself. At the same time Brentano’s account of noticing and observation has room for an ‘anatomy of the soul’ that proceeds by noticing the elements of our mental life. Brentano’s A ≠ O Thesis suggests also a response to an in uential objection. For Brentano every mental act has several objects. Phenomenologists criticize Brentano for giving an inadequate account of how a mental act is given in awareness. The act of hearing is not given as a further object in the same way as a tone when we hear it. We experience our perceptions, but they don’t appear to us as objects (Husserl 1913a, 385). Gurwitsch formulated this objection as follows: Brentano’s concept of intentionality does not allow for making visible the non-intentive manners of consciousness such as ‘living in…’ and a ective dispositions. Even a ‘secondary’ object is an object in the sense of something standing-over-against [Gegenstand], just as a consciousness is ‘fused’ with its object, when it appears as consciousness of its object, is an intentive consciousness. (Gurwitsch 1979, 89) Given Brentano’s well-developed view that consciousness cannot become observation, this objection seems unjusti ed. Brentano’s concept of intentionality allows awareness to be directed on objects in a di erent way than perception. The distinction between awareness of mental acts and perception does not only consist in a di erence in observability, but nothing Brentano said precludes expanding his account.

Notes 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8

9

Brentanoʼs contemporary Wilhelm Dilthey (1880–90, 290) takes this agnostic stance towards Brentanoʼs Thesis. See also Mehta 2013. See also Cook Wilson 1926, 79. Rosenthal (1986, 345) takes this so-called ʻtransparencyʼ of consciousness not only to speak against the selfrepresentational view, but also to speak for the higher-order view: ʻWe normally focus on the sensory state and not on our consciousness of it only because that consciousness consists in our having a higher-order thought, and that thought is usually not itself a conscious thought.ʼ However, according to (one understanding of) the transparency thesis, we donʼt focus on the sensory state, but its object, the colour, sound, etc. Hence, the transparency phenomenon also poses a challenge for the higher-order view. How can the sensory state be the object of a higher-order presentation and yet escape oneʼs notice? See PES, 22 [I, 41], 32 [I, 61], 99 [I, 180], 217 [II, 142]. Ryle knew Brentanoʼs work very well. See, for example, Ryle 1928. See, for example, Ryle 1949, 197. See Husserl 1913a, II/1, 419, and Byrne 2001, 212. See also Kriegel 2005, 26. Janzen (2008, 106–8) proposes that one is only implicitly aware of oneʼs perception when one perceives. But he characterizes implicit awareness by referring to Brentanoʼs view that seeing etc. is of itself ʻon the sideʼ and thereby takes us directly back to the problem investigated here. See Crowther 2010 for a discussion of what distinguished mere perception from watching, listening, etc.

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p. 170

10 11 12 13 14

22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

36 37 38 39 40

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15 16 17 18 19 20 21

The positive exception is Bell 1990, 5. See also SN, 80. Thanks to Johannes Brandl for this counterexample. See Windischer (1935, 407) for a good overview of conceptions of observation of authors influenced by Brentano. I have retranslated the passage. The reason is that the English translation rendered the crucial sentence ʻDenn wer den Zorn, der in ihm glüht, beobachten wollte, bei dem wäre er o enbar bereits gekühlt, und der Gegenstand der Beobachtung verschwundenʼ in terms of a scale of the intensity of the anger: ʻIf someone is in a state in which he wants to observe his own anger raging within him, the anger must already be somewhat diminished, and so his original object of observation would have disappeared.ʼ According to Brentano, however, the anger is not somewhat diminished, but simply cooled o . There is no gradation here. See Kriegel, forthcoming, 16. In this point my reconstruction of the argument di ers from Mulligan 2004, 73–4. Thanks to Uriah Kriegel for allowing me to quote from this unpublished paper. See Ya e 2009, 172. See PES, 105 [I, 192]. See PES, 223 [II, 151]. According to the English translation, there is no accompanying mental act. But Brentano says that there is one, yet it does not belong to a second, distinct act. Thanks to a referee for helping me to improve the presentation of this point. See also SN, 27–8. See Brentano 1912/13, 154 [117]. Tye (2009, 261) argues for the same reason that one can see the speckles of a hen collectively without seeing each speckle the hen has. While James seems to be on the right track, he is not completely right. One will hear the sound of the brook as coming from a location. James quotes Spencerʼs Principles of Psychology (Spencer 1855, § 157) and Martineauʼs review of Bain (Martineau 1860, 271f.) as inspirations for the solution of the discrimination problem. Brentano also read Spencerʼs Principles of Psychology. He refers to them, and to Ribotʼs (1870) overview that contains a section on Spencer, in Psychologie. I assume that Spencerʼs Principles are the common source of Jamesʼs and Brentanoʼs proposals. I have changed the translation of ʻAnerkennungʼ and ʻmitanerkanntʼ. See DP, Appendix VI, 171 [162]. See DP, 57 [55]. See DP, 58 [55]. See DP, 54 [52]. The parts are not created, as Stumpf originally assumed, by comparing and contrasting, but, by these means, we come to notice parts that are already there. See Stumpf 1907, 18. There are some non-mental objects that are also only observable by comparing and contrasting them with other objects. Chords or complex tastes provide a model for the unified whole that is given to us in consciousness, because they are complexes of non-spatial parts. The parts of these objects are not di erentiated in the phenomenology of our perception of them. We need to recall contrasting notes to distinguish the parts of a chord when we hear it. However, a tone can be perceived in isolation. In contrast, the elements of consciousness are given to us only as parts of unified wholes. Kelly (2010, 153 and 149) argues that perceiving an object involves ʻbeing driven to get a better grip on itʼ. However, one can perceive an object without being driven to perceive it better. Consider an example: I see the group of people standing around the Mona Lisa as well as the painting itself. When I turn my attention to the Mona Lisa, I am motivated to bring it about that (some of) my perceptual anticipations of the painting are fulfilled. Yet I still see the people, and I am aware that further perceptions of them are available to me, I am just not motivated to bring these about. The people are therefore part of the background of my perception; the painting is in the foreground. See Kelly 2010, 150. See Husserl 1904, 36–7. See, for example, Schwitzgebel (2008, 245) who takes philosophers—with some notable exceptions—to claim the infallibility of awareness. See Mulligan 2004, 78 . See also Kraus 1919, 38.

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

8 Attention, Adumbration, and a Neglected Mark of the Mental  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0009 Published: August 2017

Pages 171–193

Abstract Brentano never investigated whether the ‘peculiar feature’ of inner perception—that it can never become inner observation—that distinguishes our awareness of the mental from other forms of perceptual awareness could serve as the mark of the mental. However, his students Stumpf and Husserl developed marks of the mental that are inspired by this idea. The chapter clari es Husserl’s Thesis that mental phenomena have no appearances, argues that it is superior to Brentano’s Thesis, and defends it against objections from Reinach and Husserl himself. Husserl himself threw out the baby with the bathwater when he later rejected Husserl’s Thesis. A precisi ed form of this idea can still unify our intuitions about the mental.

Keywords: Stumpf, Husserl, Reinach, Duncker, adumbration, retention, occlusion, object-constancy Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

8.1 Introduction Let us start with a quick recap of one of the central ideas of the last chapter. Brentano wrote: It is a peculiar feature of inner perception that it can never become inner observation. Objects which one, as one puts it, perceives outwardly can be observed; one focuses one’s attention completely on them in order to apprehend them precisely [genau]. But with objects of inner perception this is absolutely impossible. […]. (PES, 22 [I, 41]; I have modified the translation.)

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Search in this book

We have seen that his view that awareness neither is nor can become observation can be made plausible. Why not take this ‘peculiar feature’ to be a mark of the mental? The initial idea could be formulated as follows: 1

Something is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, awareness of it cannot become observation.

‘Awareness’ is used here in the broad sense in which one talks of ‘visual awareness’ or, more generally, awareness of the mental from other forms of perceptual awareness could serve as the mark of the mental. However, his students Stumpf and Husserl developed marks of the mental that are inspired by this idea. In p. 172

this

chapter I will discuss them and nd that Husserl’s mark of the mental is defensible.

8.2 Stumpfʼs En-Parergo Mark I take my cue from Stumpf. He homed in on the central contrast between the mental and the physical when comparing awareness of physical and mental objects: One can never perceive a mental function in isolation [für sich], but only as acting on some material. Hence, one can also not present it in isolation. One can perceive a landscape and be so immersed in this object that one’s own perceiving and all inner states go unnoticed. In contrast, I cannot perceive a mental state without somehow taking notice of that whereupon this state is directed, of its material or object. I can’t become aware of an act of hearing without simultaneously becoming aware of the tone which I hear. I can’t become aware of an act of will without simultaneously becoming aware of that which I will, may it be only something indeterminate, some direction of my acting. (Stumpf 1939, 341–2; my translation) Stumpf called ‘mental phenomena’ ‘mental functions’. This terminology is idiosyncratic. Stumpf (1907, 5) explains that a function is not the result of a process, activity, or experience (an event), but it is such a process, activity, or event. A heart contraction is an event and, Stumpf submits, called an ‘organic function’. Stumpf drew attention to the following contrast between the mental and the physical: (A) one can be aware of a physical object x without noticing one’s awareness of x, while, (B) one cannot be aware of a mental function without noticing its material. Let us start by noting that (A) is compatible with Brentano’s view of perceptual consciousness according to which, for example, consciously hearing F is an act with two objects, one of them being this very act. We saw in chapter 7 that only the primary object, the note F, is noticed, not the act itself. p. 173

According to (B), I cannot attend to, for example, my hearing the note F without thereby noticing the note I hear. The de nite description ‘the note I hear’ refers to the intentional object of the act, not to the tone, a physical phenomenon. One can continue as follows: One cannot be aware of one’s fear without thereby noticing what one fears. One cannot be aware of hearing without thereby noticing what one hears.

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‘perceptual awareness’. Brentano never investigated whether this ‘peculiar feature’ that distinguishes our

One cannot be aware of wondering without thereby noticing what one wonders. One cannot be aware of feeling anger without thereby noticing what is angering one. Stumpf’s remarks suggest the following mark of the mental: En-Parergo: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, there is something or some things such that one cannot be aware of it (them) without noticing it (them) and it is (they are) not (a)

The existential quanti er ‘there is something or some things’ should be taken to quantify over anything that can be noticed. I can notice that you are nervous, the spots on the surface of the sun, etc. The quanti er has larger scope than the implicit universal quanti er that binds the x variable. A by-product of En-Parergo is the de nition of what Stumpf called ‘the material of a mental act’: Material: M is the material of x if, and only if, one cannot be aware of x without noticing M and M is not a constituent of x. This explanation of the notion of the material of the act has the advantages that it does not rely on the ‘directed on an object’ metaphor and does not prejudge which act material there is. It explains why in systematizing our knowledge of the mental we aim to nd material for every mental act. Let us consider an example to illustrate how En-Parergo is supposed to work. Take paradigm cases of physical objects: a piece of matter, a landscape, a game of football. I can perceive each of them without noticing anything else when I observe them. Hence, En-Parergo con rms their status as physical objects. p. 174

Prima facie counterexamples are ontologically dependent physical objects such as John’s smile which is dependent on John’s face or the collision of A and B which depends on A and B. Can one be perceptually aware of them without noticing their ontological bases? In many cases one will be inclined to say No. However, defending this answer requires further work and nding secure tests for saying that one notices the basis. There are other examples of physical objects that one cannot be aware of without noticing an object distinct from them. For example, in the lightless deep sea I can’t see the deep-sea sh without noticing the light it emits. However, under di erent circumstances—when I have caught the sh and observe it under normal light—I can be visually aware of it without noticing any other object distinct from it. In the case of the mental, things are di erent: in order to be aware of my hearing a tone I always need to be aware of the tone heard. However, there might be physical objects for which there are no conditions under which we are visually 2

aware of them without noticing objects distinct from them. For example, a power may only be perceivable in virtue of noticing its exercises. There is no condition under which we are aware of a power without noticing at least one of its exercises. The strongest objection against Stumpf’s En-Parergo concerns emotions and moods. These mental phenomena are often cited as counterexamples to Brentano’s Thesis. On what is, for example, my anxiety directed? Intentionalists like Crane have followed Sartre and argued that some emotions are not directed on 3

a particular object, but on everything.  Everything feels threatening, bleak, etc. to the anxious person. I take this response to have initial plausibility. But Stumpf’s En-Parergo requires that in one’s awareness of a mental state one notices that whereupon it is directed. In the examples under consideration, it seems highly implausible that this condition is satis ed: when I am anxious everything may seem fearful, but not everything is noticed. In fact, I may not notice anything at all and yet be anxious.

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constituent(s) of x.

I conclude that Stumpf’s En-Parergo is either false or the notion of ‘noticing’ is too unclear to be of use. It is therefore time to change tack and consider a new approach to the distinction between the mental and the physical. Stumpf himself mentions the thesis I want to pursue. He compared his mark of the mental to Husserl’s: p. 175

In recent times Husserl had a similar doctrine in mind, when he claimed that the mental has no ‘adumbration’, no ‘appearance’.

I will explore Husserl’s doctrine in the next sections.

8.3 Husserl on Perceptual Constancy The slogan ‘The mental has no appearance’ is in need of explanation. Here is one general way to think about it: Crane argued that one has a mental life if one has a perspective on the world. Such a perspective is speci ed by a way in which an or some objects are given to one. Perspectives give rise to partial modes of presentation of objects. According to Crane, mental phenomena are those that are directed upon objects under a mode of presentation. Husserl’s idea can also be conveyed by using the model of a perspective. In our mental life we have a perspective on objects, but it is possible for us to be aware of our own mental acts from no perspective. Needless to say this rst-stab characterization only points us in the right direction. Let us therefore work through Husserl’s proposal in detail. Husserl’s starting point is the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. This phenomenon is well-known, but hard to describe. Campbell gives a good general description: we do have a capacity to keep track of objects or properties across phenomenological variation of our experience of them. So some phenomenological variation is consistent with manifest sameness of object. (Campbell 2011, 656; my emphasis) The sameness is manifest because the object or property seems unchanging although its appearance changes. Let us have a look at some uncontroversial cases of manifest sameness of object in phenomenological variation: Colour constancy: the colour of a sheet of paper seems constant, although in di erent light 4

conditions it will appear di erently. When the light changes, it does not look like the sheet has changed colour. p. 176

Size constancy: the size of an object seems constant, although when we get closer to it the object looks di erent. When the object comes nearer, it does not look like the object’s size increases; its size looks the same. Shape constancy: the shape of an object seems constant, although when we see it from di erent angles or the orientation of the object changes it appears di erently to us. When the angle changes orientation, it does not look like the object changes shape, but its shape looks the same. Perceptual constancies are not restricted to sight: Tone constancy: when I come closer to the source of a sound, the sound seems the same, but it appears to be louder.

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(Stumpf 1939, 342)

Position constancy: when one runs one ngers over a solid object at rest, the object is felt to be at 5

rest, although the tactile sensations change.

It is worth stressing that perceptual constancies are in an important sense perceptual: the object or property looks the same to us, although there are changes in appearance. We don’t judge it to be the same. Even if we knew that the object or property was not the same, it would often look the same to us. Examples like the ones given already can be multiplied. More often than not a number of perceptual

We see from afar a tower, but really it is only a pale thin strip that is visible to us; in it we believe to see the tower itself. We come closer, and what is visible in the strict sense constantly changes, becomes bigger, more colourful, gains curvature and gure—but the object intended by us is always the same and unchanged tower as before. Only its ‘appearance’ for us has changed, as we put it. […] Wherever we perceive, this distinction [changing appearance and unchanging object] presses itself on us. (Reinach 1914, 203; my translation) The distinction between appearance and object perceived ‘presses itself on us’ because in perceiving it is obvious to us that the object remains the same, despite any changes in its perceptual features. Reinach p. 177

talked

about appearances as ‘what is visible in the strict sense’. I think this is misleading: what is seen in

the strict sense is the tower. Husserl unpacks the distinction between appearance and object perceived further. Perceptual constancy, in part, consists in one and the same property/object having a number of ways in which it can appear to us. For instance, colour constancy requires a system of modes of presentation of a colour: the same colour is given to us under a di erent mode of presentation when the light changes. Husserl introduces therefore ‘systems of adumbration’: Every determinate feature has its own system of adumbrations [Abschattungssystem]; and for each of these features, as for the thing as a whole, the following holds good, namely that it remains one and the same for the consciousness that in grasping it unites recollection and fresh perception synthetically together, despite interruption in the continuity of the course of actual perception. 6

(Husserl 1933, 77 [75]; original emphasis, I have modified the translation)

The idea of a system of modes of presentation is not more fundamental than the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. It is not supposed to explain this phenomenon, but only to describe it in a way that prevents one from saying that an object looks the same as well as di erent. 7

What are adumbrations? As a rst stab we can say that an adumbration is a mode of presentation. Kennedy (2007) works this idea out further and appeals to an analogue of Fregean modes of presentation. He focuses on colour perception. According to him: visual color awareness is a relation between a subject, a color, and a manner of presentation, in which only the color is an object of visual awareness. (Kennedy 2007, 322) Modes of presentation are not seen nor are they objects of awareness in another sense when we see colour. They determine together with the colour seen and the conditions of perception how things look to us. But 8

they are not seen; they are not perceptual intermediaries.

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constancies are combined. Reinach gave a good illustration:

Now we want to say that although we perceive the same colour under di erent modes of presentation, it p. 178

looks to us unchanged. How is this possible? The assumption of a system of modes of presentation for a property/object helps to explain how the same thing can appear di erently, but it does not help to make clear in which sense we are aware of the sameness of an object or a property that appears to us in di erent modes of presentation. According to Husserl, the further factor is a law-governed relation of anticipation and ful lment between perceivings: if something appears to us under one mode of presentation, we anticipate that if certain conditions obtain, the same thing will appear to us under a di erent mode of Following Husserl, I will call modes of presentation that belong to such a system ‘adumbrations’. When I perceive, say, the front of an object, the way it looks to me is a presentation of the front of the object, argued 10

Husserl, as well as a perceptual proxy of further unseen parts of the object.

It seems to us that we perceive

one and the same object through changes of appearance because our experience of it makes us expect a 11

di erent appearance when we perceive it from di erent standpoints or under di erent conditions.

Our

awareness of the ful lment of this expectation is our awareness of sameness of object perceived. I will endorse neither Husserl’s nor other accounts of the relation between adumbrations. For the main point is independent of a particular account. If there is a system of modes of presentation for an object such that we anticipate that something that appears under one mode of presentation will appear under di erent conditions under another mode of presentation, we are aware in perceiving that there is more to see of the object. When something looks to me a certain way, I am aware of other ways the object looks and know how to bring it about that it looks to me in these ways. Because of this I know that my current perception of the object is incomplete. Husserl said 12

therefore that every perception is inadequate. p. 179

However, he acknowledged that among the many ways an

object or property may appear there are some that are involved in perceivings

that satisfy our desires

better than others. If I want to see the colours of an object so that I can paint them, I better get closer. But the object never simply appears; it always appears under some adumbration.

8.4 Husserlʼs Thesis We are now in a position to explain Husserl’s mark of the mental. Contingent things come in two fundamental kinds: those of which one can only be aware under an adumbration, and those that one can be aware of under no adumbration: We perceive the Thing through ‘adumbrations’ [dadurch, dass es sich ‘abschattet’] of all its possibly ‘real’ determinates that properly [eigentlich] ‘fall’ into our perception. An experience has no adumbrations. [Ein Erlebnis schattet sich nicht ab] […] In other words, for beings of their region something like ‘appearing’, representing in virtue of adumbration makes no sense. (Husserl 1933, 79 [77]; in part my translation, my emphasis) Again this is rather condensed. Husserl helps his reader by giving an example of the contrast between thing and experience, where ‘experience’ is Brentano’s catch-all term for mental phenomena: The experience of a feeling has no adumbrations. If I look upon it, I have before me an absolute; it has no sides [Seiten] which might present themselves now in this way, and now in that. […] In contrast, the tone of a violin with its objective identity is given through adumbrations, it has changing ways of appearing [Erscheinungsweisen]. They di er according as I approach the violin or recede from it, according as I am in the concert hall itself or listen through its closed doors, and so forth. No way of appearance can claim to be the absolute way of appearance, although one is

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9

presentation. Such relations tie modes of presentations together to the system Husserl has in mind.

preferred as the normal one given my practical interests: in the concert hall, at the ‘right’ spot, I hear the tone ‘itself’ as it ‘really sounds’. (Husserl 1933, 83 [81–2]; I have changed the translation) Husserl claims that for every physical object and property (i) there is a system of modes of presentation that are connected by anticipation and ful lment relations and (ii) it is not possible to be aware of a physical object/property without grasping a mode of presentation that belongs to such a system. In contrast, there is grasping such a mode of presentation. Consider two examples to make this plausible that, I hope, will p. 180

resonate with the reader: (i) I have rst a ‘pressure’ headache, then I have a ‘pulsating’ headache. I have no awareness of one and the same headache as unchanged. There is no awareness of one and the same headache that appears di erently at di erent times. (ii) I have rst an experience as of a dark blue square before noon, then I have an experience as of a light blue square. I have no awareness of one and the same experience changing over time. I am aware of di erent experiences at di erent times. This list can be continued. In general, changes of how a mental act seems to us don’t appear to us to be di erent appearances of the same mental act or process. We don’t have a sense of perceiving the same mental act or process in di erent ways. There is no experienced constancy through changes in the realm of 13

the mental.

Now the rst example may be challenged: my current pain may be more intense than the pain that I just had because I had managed to distract myself by playing chess. In this situation I may come to the judgement that the same pain has changed in intensity. Such identity judgements are no counterexamples to Husserl’s claim. For we are not perceptually aware of constancy. The basis of my judgement is simply the consideration that playing chess does not cure my infected tooth, the source of my pain. The pain does not strike me as the 14

same through changes of its intensity.

On the basis of such examples Husserl puts forth the following thesis: Husserl’s Thesis: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, it is possible to be aware of x without grasping an adumbration. Let’s start with three clari cations. First, Husserl’s Thesis is compatible with the possibility that there is awareness of mental phenomena under adumbrations. Its truth just requires that there is a form of awareness that does not require one to grasp an adumbration. Second, Husserl’s slogan ‘experiences have no adumbrations’ suggests that we can stand in the two-place p. 181

awareness relation to mental

phenomena, while visual (and so forth) awareness of physical objects and

properties is always a three-place relation. While very plausible, this conclusion does not follow from the discussion of perceptual constancies without further premises. We have so far no reason to think that one can be aware of a mental phenomenon under no mode of presentation at all, but only under no mode of presentation that is involved in changes of appearance of the same thing. Yet it is di

cult to come up with a

di erent kind of mode of presentation under which mental acts are given to one in awareness. For this reason I will accept the two-place relation characterization of awareness of mental acts.

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no such system for mental phenomena and it is possible to be aware of a mental phenomenon without

Third, sometimes philosophers say there is no genuine seems/is or appearance/reality distinction for 15

introspection.

Though related, this is di erent from Husserl’s criterion. What the ‘no appearance/reality

distinction’ slogan points at is the epistemic feature that there are no conditions in which we falsely judge that we presently have an experience because these conditions are not suitable. In the introspective case, there are neither optimal nor suboptimal conditions for awareness about one’s present mental life. Husserl’s Thesis does not directly bear on this issue. It merely states that there are properties, events, and Sometimes Husserl expressed his thesis in terms of the notion of immanent perception: In principle it belongs to the regional essence experience (more speci cally to the regional subdivision cogitatio) that it can be perceived in immanent perception, but it is of the essence of the spatial thing that it cannot be so perceived. (Husserl 1933, 78–9 [76]; in part my translation) 16

Immanent or adequate perception is compatible with incomplete knowledge.

Because my attention is

limited I can be aware of an experience without coming to know all its properties. Therefore I can make informative reidenti cation judgements. This is compatible with Husserl’s Thesis. For Husserl’s Thesis has it that mental acts (properties) don’t strike us as the same when they are given di erently in consciousness; judgement is not involved. p. 182

17

Immanent or adequate perception can be improved.

Your awareness of a mental image may be unclear and

you can improve its clarity by attending more closely, but improving clarity requires the exercise of memory and not changes of mode of presentation.

8.5 Husserlʼs Thesis as a Unifying Principle Husserl’s Thesis deserves the title ‘the mark of the mental’ because it is in line with Brentano’s methodology and uni es central features of mental phenomena. Let us consider six points to make this case.

1. Phenomenality: A mark of the mental should distinguish between mental and physical phenomena by drawing on properties that are given in consciousness (see sections 1.4–1.5). Husserl’s Thesis satis es this demand. We can discover Husserl’s Thesis simply by attending to and comparing our perception of mental and physical phenomena. It has, therefore, a good claim to be the mark of the mental that we operate with. Husserl’s Thesis is conceptually fundamental. It informs our thinking about mental phenomena and from it ows our understanding of the distinctive properties of mental phenomena.

2. Intentionality: Husserl’s Thesis does not make intentionality a universal and distinctive property of mental phenomena; it is neutral with respect to it. There are some mental phenomena that have objects in a distinctive rst-person way; others don’t. What object-directed and object-less mental phenomena have in common is captured by Husserl’s Thesis. For example, my judgement that London is in the UK may have no object, yet it still belongs to the realm of the mental just as the activity of hearing a note does. One has an object, the other doesn’t, yet both are mental acts because one can be aware of them under no adumbration. For example, when I am aware of judging that London is in the UK, I don’t anticipate that my judgement

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processes of which we can be aware under no mode of presentation that grounds a constancy phenomenon.

may have, so far hidden, properties that can be revealed in further acts of awareness. The same goes for my hearing a note.

3. Mental States: If intentionality is not the mark of the mental, mental states seem no longer to deserve the p. 183

label ‘mental’. For they are not given in awareness. But mental states like belief and desire are we want to call them ‘mental’ or not. If we have a common feature that groups events and processes into mental events and processes, it seems to make good sense to call mental states that are dispositions to such events and processes ‘mental’ in an extended sense.

4. The Cartesian Intuition: Husserl’s Thesis helps one to distinguish the wheat from the cha

in the Cartesian

approach to the mental (see section 1.7). Let us consider one way of making the Cartesian Intuition more precise: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, it is possible to have indubitable knowledge that x occurs. Descartes takes it to be a primitive fact that a thinker cannot doubt that she is perceiving when she is. But why not? I may give you reason to doubt that consciousness is indeed a source of knowledge. So why should you not doubt that you are thinking when you are? A plausible answer is that one is not psychologically able to doubt that one is thinking when one is thinking, although there may be reasons that recommend such doubt. However, I also cannot doubt many physical facts. For example, you may give me excellent reasons to think that the world was created ve minutes ago, yet I cannot doubt that the world was created a long time 18

ago.

Is there, then, a distinctive kind of doubt such that one cannot doubt one’s current mental activity, but one can doubt (in this way) the existence of physical phenomena? Husserl’s Thesis suggests an answer to this question. Perception provides visual clues for how an object may be perceived better. These clues can also make it rational to have doubts about the existence and properties of the object one seems to perceive. The way the object that I am taking myself to see now, for instance, looks suggests that the object of perception will look a certain way under di erent conditions. This suggestion may be disappointed and the re ective perceiver will be aware of the possibility of disappointment. Hence, he can entertain doubts whether the object is as it appears to him. In contrast, if one can be aware of a mental phenomenon without having such anticipations, doubts of this particular kind cannot be raised: p. 184

I can’t raise doubts concerning adequate, purely immanent perception precisely because there is no residue of intention left which longs to be satis ed. (Husserl 1913a, 240; my translation) While Husserl’s Thesis leaves no room for rational doubt about one’s own current mental activity, it makes room for error and uncertainty. Husserl’s Thesis neither implies, nor even suggests, that awareness is infallible or that it possesses other epistemic privileges. This is a good result. In some situations the di erences between sounds or colours are so slight that one cannot track them in one’s perception and so one will also go wrong about one’s own perceptions of these objects. Awareness may indeed be a poor source of knowledge of the details of one’s mental life. Hence, we should reject the Cartesian View. But Husserl’s Thesis allows us to claw back its plausible core.

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dispositions to mental events that satisfy Husserl’s Thesis. It seems to me to be a verbal question whether

5. Attention and Mental Phenomena: Systems of adumbrations are also involved in our ability to observe objects, that is, to attend to them. If I desire to learn more about an object by perceiving it, I need to know how to perceive further properties of the same object. If I perceive the house in seeing its front, the satis ers of the conditions of my perceiving are further perceptions suggested by my current perception. If I perceive the house in perceiving its front, I am aware that further perceptions of it are available. I feel that my actual I have further perceptions in which the same object looks di erently to me while its identity is obvious to me. In contrast, if there is no system of adumbrations, I cannot intend to come to know more of the same object by being aware of it. In Brentano’s terminology, inner perception cannot become inner observation.

6. Non-spatiality: Husserl’s Thesis explains why we are inclined to take non-spatiality to be an important feature of the mental. We can tease out the connection between Husserl’s Thesis and non-spatiality by starting with a problem it shares with the Cartesian Mark. Both marks of the mental distinguish the mental from the physical, broadly speaking, in terms of di erent possibilities for accessing the mental and the physical. Consider Farkas’s statement: My proposal is that the mental realm is nothing but the subject matter of the cognitive capacity that endows me with special access. (Farkas 2008, 22) p. 185

However, the question arises what it is about the mental phenomena that means one can have special access to them. Is there not a property that all and only mental phenomena have that grounds the possibility of having special access to them? If the answer is Yes, why not use this more fundamental property as the mark of the mental? Husserl approached this question indirectly. He proposed an answer to the question why one can only be aware of physical phenomena under adumbrations: It is no accidental caprice [Eigensinn] of the Thing nor an accident of our ‘human constitution’ that ‘our’ perception can reach the things only and merely through their adumbrations [Abschattungen]. On the contrary, it is evident, and it can be extracted [zu entnehmen] from the nature of spatial thing-hood [Raumdinglichkeit] (even in the most broad sense that includes visual objects [Sehdinge]) that so natured being [so geartetes Sein] can, in principle, be given perception only in adumbrations […]. 19

(Husserl 1933, 79–80 [77]; in part my translation)

What is Husserl’s point here? Why does he bring in visual objects (Sehdinge) and what are they? ‘Sehding’ is 20

a term used by vision scientist Ewald Hering. Husserl studied Hering’s work on visual perception.

Hering

wrote in his treatise ‘Der Raumsinn und die Bewegungen des Auges’: We will call the space, as it appears to us in a particular instant, visual space [Sehraum], and the objects, as we see them lling and limiting this space, visual objects [Sehdinge]. (Hering 1879, 344; my translation) Visual space and visual objects are distinct from objects and space. The moon looks to us to be a yellow disk at a distance not farther away than the farthest mountains. But we know that the moon is a celestial body

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perception is inadequate and that my view of the house can be improved. If I so desire, I can bring about that

(ibid. 343). Hering takes visual objects to be objects that have the properties real objects seem to have when we see them. The visual object moon is a yellow disk at some distance from us. What is, for example, the visual moon in contrast to the moon? Visual objects, Hering says, are made of ‘sensations’ (ibid. 345). The visual moon is a complex sensation; the moon isn’t. p. 186

I will not discuss Hering’s view in detail. The main reason for mentioning it is to understand Husserl’s point that even Hering’s visual objects are given in adumbrations. Is this plausible? A Hering visual object is a object is made from sensations, it hardly quali es as a physical object. However, Husserl’s general point seems right: if something x is in space, it can only be perceived from a perspective. It is therefore not possible that x is in space and one is aware of x under no adumbration. Hence, one can only be aware of x under no adumbration if x is not in space. Since we can be aware of mental phenomena under no mode of adumbration, mental phenomena are not in space. This suggests that mental phenomena are non-spatial and that their non-spatiality is part of the reason why one can be aware of them without grasping an adumbration. This suggestion ought, however, to be resisted. We cannot conclude from the observation that one can be aware of something without its being given under an adumbration that it is not in space. Consider an abstract characterization of what it takes for perceptual constancy to be intelligible: What happens because of the changing visual sensations involved in size constancy, for example, is that the object looks nearer. The same goes for all phenomenological constancies: the changing sensations always manifest to us a changing relation in which an intrinsically unchanging object comes to stand to us. Only so is such constancy intelligible at all. (Smith 2002, 172; my emphasis) We have perceptual constancy with respect to a kind of feature if some perceived changes of a feature of this kind seem to be changes in relations to us or, more generally, the conditions under which we perceive the 21

feature.

All that is required for this is that a perceived change is experienced as a change in a relation or a

condition of perception. From this observation we can draw two conclusions. First, a mental phenomenon may actually be in space, but in our awareness of it we don’t experience changes in it as changes in spatial relations. Hence, we are only entitled to the conclusion that we are not p. 187

aware of mental phenomena as standing in spatial relations.

This con rms Brentano’s take on the non-

spatiality of the mental (see section 1.4): [Mental phenomena] are all distinguished from [physical phenomena] in that they appear nonspatial. (Brentano 1907, 138 [142]; my translation and emphasis) Second, the perceptual constancies discussed so far make us aware of changes in a spatial relation or 22

changes based on such changes.

But in order for there to be a perceptual constancy we need a change in

sensation (appearance) that manifests a change in some kind of relation in which an unchanged object stands to a perceiver. But so far we have no reason to say that the relation changed must be spatial. If changes in non-spatial relations can ground perceptual constancies, there can be non-spatial objects that are given in adumbrations. Consider a well-known example: We hear a melody, that is, we perceive it because hearing is perceiving. While the rst tone is sounding, the second follows, then the third. Are we not forced to say: when the second tone

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complex sensation. It cannot be perceived from a perspective. This is, I think, as it should be: if a visual

sounds, I hear it, but no longer the rst? Therefore I never really hear the melody, but only individual tones. (Husserl 1928, 385; my translation) Following Brentano, Husserl answered No. We hear the melody and in order to do so we must still ‘hear’ the tone that we heard before when it no longer sounds. We hear the tone as the same, although it ‘fades out’ and appears therefore di erently. We have, then, a temporal case of perceptual constancy:

parallel to the modes in which a space object in changing orientation appears and is conscious […]. (ibid. 387 n.; my translation) Husserl went on to speak of temporal modes of appearance. In some cases of perceptual constancies an unchanging object seems to change in spatial relation to the perceiver; in other cases it seems to change in temporal relation to the perceiver. A note can ‘sink in the past’, yet it still seems to be the same note. The conclusion is that even objects that are not in space, but in time, can be given in adumbrations. p. 188

However, in our awareness of mental

phenomena there are no changes in mental phenomena that appear

to us as changes in spatial relations. Hence, Husserl’s Thesis explains why philosophers appealed to nonspatiality when proposing marks of mental phenomena. More generally, Husserl’s Thesis uni es central intuitions about the mental. This recommends it as the mark of the mental.

8.6 Husserlʼs Self-Criticism: Mental Acts Appear in Temporal Adumbrations While Brentano’s Thesis has been central to discussions about the mind, Husserl’s Thesis is rarely mentioned in the literature. The reason for this seems to be that Husserl came to the view that mental acts, though non-spatial, are given to us in temporal adumbrations. For this reason he gave up Husserl’s Thesis. Let’s work through his reasoning. Mental acts appear to us to be in time. For example, mental processes like observing an object have an extension in time. Hence, it is possible that they are given in temporal adumbrations. According to Cairns, Husserl himself took this possibility to be realized: Conversation with Husserl, 11/3/32 I told Husserl how Levinas begins his book, namely by distinguishing between (1) the givenness of natural objects through Abschattung , a fact that determines the kind of being peculiar to natural objects, and (2) a givenness of acts in re ection without the multiplicity of Abschattung, as objects which have absolute being. Husserl observed that omitting consideration of the Zeitbewusstsein in the Ideen had been dangerous, and that when one took into consideration the temporal modalizations of acts one had indeed something like Abschattung, an identity throughout a multiplicity of disparate moments. 23

(Cairns 1976, 70)

Indeed Husserl (1928, 471) wrote:

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It stands to reason to take these modes of appearance and consciousness of time objects to be

When the perception of a tone changes to the corresponding retention (consciousness of the just past tone), there is a consciousness of the just past perceiving (in inner consciousness, as experience) and both coincide, I can’t have the one without the other. (Husserl 1928, 471; my translation) p. 189

If there are temporal adumbrations of mental acts, Husserl’s Thesis is false. Or so it seems to Husserl.

simply to dispute that there are temporal adumbrations of mental acts. We are certainly aware of hearing the same tone as it sinks in the past, but it is controversial to say that we are so aware of our hearing, seeing, etc. This may be taken to suggest that one hears a note under adumbrations that suggest further appearances of the same note. However, it seems not to be a fact we experience that our hearing a note is given to us in adumbrations. In Brentano’s words: When I hear a melody, a succession of tones appears to me, not a succession of hearings. (Brentano 1867–1917, 378–9; my translation) The note heard seems ‘to slip’ into the past and fade out, not my hearing of the note. Is there an argument to the e ect that hearing a note as fading out requires hearing itself to have temporal adumbrations? Gallagher and Zahavi (2014) take the following consideration to be available to Husserl’s friends: The retention of past notes of the melody is accomplished, not by a ‘real’ or literal re-presentation of the notes (as if I were hearing them a second time and simultaneously with the current note), but by an intentional retaining of my just past experience of the melody as just past. This means that there is a primary and simultaneous self-awareness (an awareness of my ongoing experience in the ongoing ow of experience) that is implicit in my experience of the object. At the same time that I am aware of a melody, for example, I am co-aware of my ongoing experience of the melody through the retentional structure of that very experience—and this just is the pre-re ective selfawareness of experience […]. (original emphasis) Now my past hearing may be ‘retained’ (in some way) without there being awareness of my past hearing. The past hearing is ‘stored’ and in uences my present hearing without me as the hearer being aware of past hearing. However, more importantly, why should retention of the note be accomplished by retaining the hearing? If the temporal adumbrations of the tone are indeed parallel to the spatial adumbrations of objects in space, retention requires that when currently hearing a note under a mode of presentation, this mode of p. 190

presentation suggests another mode of presentation of how the note will have sounded when

time has

passed. We need, in Husserl’s terminology, a system of adumbrations, not retention of experiences. For these reasons Husserl’s self-criticism is unsuccessful. But independently of the plausibility of this criticism, a more speci c version of Husserl’s Thesis would be defensible even if Husserl’s objection had force: Husserl’s Thesis*: x is a mental phenomenon if, and only if, it is possible to be aware of x without grasping any adumbrations, but temporal ones. For example, notes have temporal and spatial adumbrations. While it is unclear whether sounds and so forth are in space, they appear to us to come from somewhere and have temporal as well as spatial adumbrations.

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Should one follow Husserl and give up his Thesis? I don’t think so. A rst-stab response to this objection is

Husserl’s Thesis* allows us to make all the points made before if we introduce a temporal parameter: At a time t, one cannot rationally doubt the existence of a mental act at t. At a time t, one can be aware of a mental act without it being given at t in a non-temporal adumbration. At a time t, one’s awareness of a mental act does not suggest how one’s awareness can be

In short, Husserl threw out the baby with the bathwater when he rejected Husserl’s Thesis. A precisi ed form of this idea can still unify our intuitions about the mental.

8.7 Reinach on Object Constancy Husserl’s student Reinach rejected Husserl’s Thesis for reasons unrelated to time-consciousness. He gave an illuminating characterization of the thesis only to go on to reject it: One says that experiences are given completely directly. There is no di erence between the experience itself and the way in which it presents itself to us. But if one proceeds in a completely unprejudiced way we have to deny this. The di erence is there. Obviously there is no point from which external objects are observed. Also, a change of standpoint (with a di erence in appearance that is connected to this) is not possible. But let us take, for example, the peculiar case of occlusion that one can nd with the physical and the p. 191

mental. […] Bodily pain [for instance, can] through

great agitation that lls the soul and which

presses itself forward, be suppressed. [The] appearance of the pain experience changes thereby. This is completely analogous to the case in the outer world. (Reinach 1913, 388; my translation, original emphasis) Experiences, Reinach argued, do not have the same kind of appearances as physical objects. Physical objects are perceived through adumbrations because we have expectations regarding how their appearance will change if we change our spatial relation—our standpoint—with respect to them. We can’t have such expectations with respect to experiences. Yet, we have expectations of a similar kind. Just as physical objects can be occluded by other physical objects, mental phenomena can be occluded by other mental phenomena. In his example of mental occlusion a pain is suppressed by a great agitation. This suggests that a mental phenomenon is occluded if it appears di erently to us in virtue of the existence of simultaneous mental acts. In a review he gave a further example of occlusion in the mental realm: Just as there are appearances of something physical, there are appearances of something mental, even if the latter are hard to get a grip on and have to be evaluated di erently. Consider, for instance, how feelings may appear ‘free’ or ‘occluded’ and ‘behind’ other experiences without it being possible to capture this and analogous distinctions by appeal to qualitative di erences between feelings such as greater or lesser intensity or depth. (Reinach 1914, 205; my translation) Reinach’s use of the notion of occlusion is suggestive. Psychologists have constructed experiments in which 24

an object is occluded to nd out which conception of objects young infants operate with.

In these

experiments so-called ‘occlusion’ displays were used in which one object was partly occluded. Let us

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improved.

consider a representative experiment in rough outline. For example, two groups of infants are rst shown one object that is occluded by a screen. When the screen is then removed, group A sees two objects; group B sees one object. Infants of group A look longer at the two objects. This datum is interpreted as a behavioural indication of surprise. The members of group A are surprised because they expect one object that persisted while it was occluded. Psychologists call this phenomenon ‘object-constancy’. Object-constancy and perceptual constancy are closely linked. The Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker teased

p. 192

Just as, under certain circumstances, a darkening is experienced as a diminution of illumination rather than as a darkening of the object color, just so a disappearance or a fading is under certain circumstances experienced as the cessation or as a diminution of participation, not as disappearance or fading of the object. (Duncker 1947, 540) ‘Participation’ is Duncker’s idiosyncratic term for ‘perception’: perceiving an object is participating in it. Some changes when we perceive objects seem to us to be changes in our perceiving and the conditions that a ect it, not in the object perceived. Occlusion experiments reveal that in perception we have expectations about the persistence of objects and perceptions that would con rm the expectations. Such expectations are the hallmark of objectivity. It is not only objects which are, in this sense, objective. We conceive of processes as ongoing when we don’t perceive 25

them.

Reinach argues that awareness as well as outer perception shows object-constancy phenomena. When I distract myself from my pain, it is still there just as the rainstorm continues outside when I watch TV and no longer perceive it. We don’t think that the pain depends for its existence on my being aware of it. While this seems plausible, it does not speak against Husserl’s Thesis. To see this compare the case of distraction, Reinach’s analogue with occlusion, with a case of phenomenal constancy. When I am distracted from my pain by playing chess, I might judge that I am still in pain, but this is not a case in which the pain still feels the same to me through changes in appearance. I simply don’t feel the pain, but may have evidence that it is still ongoing and come to a view on the matter. In contrast, a colour looks the same when the light changes. Reinach missed this crucial disanalogy. Similarly, we may expect that taking a headache pill will help to bring ‘into view’ an emotion that is presently obscured by my headache. However, the knowledge that this is so is not provided by the awareness of the headache itself as it is in the case of perceptual awareness of physical objects. It is simply inductive knowledge and not a matter of how things seem to us. Reinach argued further that awareness can be mistaken: p. 193

Speci c experiences are taken di erently than they are. One takes fear or worry about consequences for remorse, […] (Reinach 1913, 389; my translation, original emphasis) However, Husserl’s Thesis allows one to come to mistaken views of one’s emotions. It only requires that awareness itself does not suggest how they might be improved or completed. Duncker pursued a line of thought similar to Reinach’s. Do mental acts show a property analogous to object-constancy?

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out the connection between object-constancy and perceptual constancy:

Does some such thing as object-constancy prevail there? Let us begin with the internal (eigenpsychisch) ‘object’. When someone becomes conscious of his love for another human being, he does not feel that his love is just ‘originating’ at the moment, and that it does so each time he again becomes conscious of it. On the contrary, he perhaps discovers that, while he was not thinking of it, it had ‘grown’ in his heart or had changed. In other words, there is some such thing as unconscious (temporarily unconscious) love.

Duncker himself goes on to reject object-constancy for mental acts for reasons I nd obscure. However, the main point seems to be that his example is that of a mental state. My love can indeed grow in me without me being aware of it because it is a dispositional state like a belief that manifests itself, among other things, in emotions. The dispositional state itself is not given in awareness. Therefore we may come to the judgement that we had this love all along without thinking about it. But object-constancy and perceptual constancy do not concern judgements of identity or persistence, but the fact that things look (sound, feel) the same through changes of appearance. Duncker does not provide the right kind of example to challenge Husserl’s Thesis. I conclude that Husserl’s Thesis is a defensible mark of the mental. It is not only a defensible mark of the mental, it also explains a number of facts about the mental. It grounds those facts, but in turn is not grounded in a more fundamental fact. It avoids the ontological problems that Intentionality and related marks raise because they take the essence of the mental to involve objects. Hence, Husserl’s Thesis, and not Intentionality, is the mark of the mental.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

See also Shoemaker 1994, 265f. Thanks to Luca Barlassina for raising this point. See Crane 1998, 242f. See Husserl 1913a, II/1, 349. See Smith 2002, 173. References to pagination of Husserl 1913b are in square brackets. See also Ginsborg (2006, 357) on ways of perceiving. See Kennedy 2007, 320 . See, for instance, Husserl 1904, 60, Husserl 1913a, II/2, 41, Husserl 1973, 286. Husserl 1904, 36–7. See Mulligan 1995 for a guide through Husserlʼs view of perception. Hopp 2008 is a detailed criticism of Husserlʼs explanation of the constancy phenomena in terms of interpretation of (non-intentional) sensations. For our purposes it is not necessary to accept Husserlʼs account. See also Madary 2010 for Husserl on perceptual constancies. See Husserl 1933, 80 [82]. See Siewert (2012, 143f.) for further considerations that make this point plausible. See Smith 2002, 174. See Martin 2006, 388. See Husserl 1933, 82 [84]. See Husserl 1933, 83 [85]. For this argument see Farkas 2008, 16. I have retranslated most of this passage. ʻSehdingʼ is, for example, not correctly translated as ʻvisual illusionʼ. See Schuhmann 1977, 130. See also Duncker 1941, 539. See Smith 2002, 175–6. Cairns refers to Levinasʼ (1995) The Theory of Intuition in Husserlʼs Phenomenology, originally published in 1930, in which Levinas expounded Husserlʼs Thesis. Thanks to Denis Seron for bringing this passage to my attention.

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(Duncker 1947, 515)

See, for example, Spelke 1990 and Wynn 1992. See Evans 1980, 257. 24 25

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Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

9 The Intentionality of Enjoyment  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0010 Published: August 2017

Pages 195–214

Abstract Brentano sees a very close relation between enjoyment and perceptual consciousness. Enjoying an activity is, Brentano proposed, an intuitive model of awareness of an activity. The chapter outlines the Aristotelian background of Brentano’s view of enjoyment, highlighting four suggestions Aristotle made about pleasure. I will assess Brentano’s arguments for the view that the proper objects of enjoyment are only activities (Hedonic Energism), and defend this view against the claims of the Hedonic Objectivists and Subjectivists. In order to understand Brentano’s development of Hedonic Energism, as well as the range of alternatives, we need to take into account that ‘enjoy’ is a polysemous word. Since there is a basic sense of ‘enjoy’ in which we can truly say that we enjoy activities, I conclude that Hedonic Energism is defensible.

Keywords: Aristotle, Anscombe, Crisp, Hamilton, Katkov, Ryle, Stumpf, hedonic objectivism, hedonic subjectivism, hedonic energism Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

9.1 Introduction In the previous chapters I focused for ease of exposition on awareness and argued that one case of awareness is a multiple relation. But, as Brentano put it, we enter into further relations to the objects of awareness. In this chapter I will discuss one representative of these relations: sometimes we take pleasure in objects of which we are aware. We enjoy seeing, hearing, etc. The reason for discussing enjoyment is that Brentano sees a very close relation between enjoyment and perceptual consciousness. He elaborated this 1

connection in a comment on Aristotle’s account of pleasure in book X of the Nichomachean Ethics:

In his Nichomachean Ethics when [Aristotle] speaks of the pleasure which accompanies certain mental activities, he says that this pleasure contributes to the perfection of the act, not as a

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Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

10 The Structure of Enjoyment  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0011 Published: August 2017

Pages 215–226

Abstract If the objects of enjoyment are activities such as listening, isn’t enjoyment a higher-order mental act? If it is, how can this be squared with Brentano’s (plausible) claims that we take sensory pleasure in physical phenomena? In response to these questions I develop Brentano’s same-order view of enjoyment. Brentano conceptualizes the fact that neither enjoyment nor enjoyed activity are attended to with his notion of a secondary object: both smelling and enjoyment are secondary objects of the act. The question of whether Brentano had two di erent views of enjoyment, rst one that allows for enjoyment of physical phenomena and then later a Higher-Order View of enjoyment, is also addressed. Sensory enjoyment turns out to be a multiple relation to several objects. The assumption that there is only one object of sensory enjoyment is therefore unfounded.

Keywords: Chisholm, Ryle, Stumpf, attention, enjoyment, primary and secondary object, Higher-Order View, pleasure Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

10.1 An Exegetical and a Philosophical Puzzle In the last chapter we explored and defended Hedonic Energism. We now need to relate Hedonic Energism to Brentano’s primary/secondary object distinction. Is the activity enjoyed the primary or secondary object of enjoyment? The way Brentano sometimes formulated his view suggests the former option: sensory (intellectual) pleasure is a liking that is directed on the act of sensing (thinking) to which it belongs. Does Brentano hold, then, a Higher-Order View of Sensory Pleasure? Taking sensory pleasure is a second-order love: it is a love that has a perceiving as its primary object. The basic idea of the Higher-Order View is conveyed by Par t’s term ‘meta-hedonic states’. Taking pleasure is a mental act whose primary object is another mental act: it is about this act. A good example of a Higher-Order View of Sensory Pleasure is Feldman’s attempt to analyse sensory pleasure in terms of the propositional pleasure:

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S’s feeling F at t is a sensory pleasure if, and only if, S’s feeling F at t is a sensation, it occurs and S takes intrinsic de se propositional pleasure in his feeling F at t. (see Feldman 1988, 75) Here sensory pleasure is analysed in terms of a propositional pleasure that a feeling occurs. All reductive views of sensory pleasure I know are Higher-Order Views.

Sensory pleasure is an act of sensing directed on a certain sensible, localized quality and which possesses, in our secondary consciousness, not only the character of presenting and acknowledging [Anerkennens], but also of intense love. (FCE, 117 [186]; my emphasis. I have changed the translation) p. 216

Here Brentano has it that sensory pleasure is directed on a sensory localized quality, for example, the particular redness of an apple: a colour trope. How is this compatible with a Higher-Order View according to which one takes pleasure in one’s perceiving? Mulligan (2004, 84) and Massin (2013, 328–31) suggest that Brentano has two theories of (sensory) pleasure. According to the early theory proposed in Psychologie, we sometimes take pleasure in physical phenomena, sometimes in mental phenomena. Mulligan writes about the early view: When pain or pleasure are caused in us by tickling, burns, or cuts we have, Brentano argues, feelings based on a presentation of a physical phenomenon with a spatial determination and the object of the feeling is the object of the presentation. (Mulligan 2004, 84) The object of the presentation is a physical phenomenon, say a localized physical property. So the object of my pleasure is a physical phenomenon. According to a second theory proposed later in US, Mulligan argues, we always take pleasure in perceiving and never in physical phenomena. The question whether Brentano had two di erent views of enjoyment is connected to the exegetical question. Did Brentano hold a view of enjoyment that allows for enjoyment of physical phenomena and then move to a Higher-Order View of enjoyment? I will treat the exegetical and this historical question together with the following philosophical puzzle. We have seen in the previous chapter that there is a close connection between pleasure and attention (Thesis 2). The close connection between pleasure and attending to an object is discussed further by Ryle: Now to say that someone has been enjoying a smell or a walk at least suggests and maybe even implies that he has been interested in the smell or in the exercise and the incidents of the walk— not that he gave his mind to them in e.g., the sedulous way, but rather that his mind was taken up by them in a spontaneous way. (Ryle 1954, 142–3) If one enjoys the smell, one ‘gives one’s mind to it’. We enjoy listening to music, not merely hearing it; 1

looking at the painting, not merely seeing it; and so on. These ways of talking suggest that enjoyment of an p. 217

activity

goes hand in hand with attending to the object of the activity enjoyed: if one looks at a painting,

one tries to get a good view of it. What we pay attention to, that is, what captures our interest, is in most 2

cases something about the perceived object. Take the mental episode we pick out by saying ‘Bob enjoyed

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If we credit Brentano with a Higher-Order View, we face an exegetical puzzle. Consider the following quote:

Bach’s air’. When we say this we suggest that, in hearing, Bob’s attention was captured by the melody, and 3

not by his hearing of the melody. When I enjoy tasting the wine on the table, the taste of the wine captures my attention, not my tasting the wine. I can devote my attention fully to the taste of the wine and yet thoroughly enjoy my tasting. Ryle’s observation motivates his attention theory of enjoyment. I will come back to this view in the next chapter. In this chapter I am interested in the following problem for Higher-Order Views of Pleasure: How of my enjoyment? I will now argue that the Higher-Order View of Pleasure has no plausible response to this puzzle.

10.2 Chisholmʼs Higher-Order View of Pleasure Brentano’s exegete Chisholm argued that Brentano proposed a Higher-Order View of Pleasure: Brentano sometimes says that, in the case of sensory pleasure, the sensation is emotionally related to itself and thus loves itself, and that in the case of the sensory pain, the sensation hates itself. He writes: ‘Displeasure [Unlust] is hatred of itself. And it is this necessarily; that is to say, it cannot exist without hating itself.’ This way of putting the matter is somewhat misleading, for it may suggest that, according to Brentano, sensory pleasure and pain have themselves as primary objects. But the act of sensation cannot be a love or hate if it is itself the primary object of that love or hate. An act of love or an act of hate must have something other than itself as object. The reason for saying this is the same as the reason St. Thomas had for saying that an act of will must be p. 218

directed upon

something other than itself. It would seem impossible to escape the conclusion

that, in addition to the sensing, which has a sense quality as primary object, there is also the emotional act which has the sensing as its primary object. Hence the act of sensing has one primary object and the act of love or hate another. (Chisholm 1987, 60) Chisholm moves from ‘A pleasure has itself as object’ to ‘A pleasure has itself as primary object’. This does not follow because the pleasure could have itself as a secondary object. We already know from chapter 7 that no mental act can be its own primary object and that some mental acts have other mental acts as their primary objects. Hence, Chisholm is right that Brentano must reject the claim that ‘sensory pleasure and pain have themselves as primary objects’. Chisholm concludes that taking pleasure is a combination of two acts: (i) a perception that has a sensory quality as its primary object and (ii) a love that has this perceiving as its primary object. This is against the spirit of Brentano’s view according to which pleasures are self-referential in some sense. It is also independently implausible. The primary object of a perceiving is the object to which one attends in a perceiving. Hence, according to Chisholm, we would attend both to our hearing of the melody and to the melody heard when we hear the melody with pleasure. But this is wrong: in enjoyment I can be fully immersed in the melody and not notice my hearing. The problem that Chisholm set out to solve arises for Brentano’s theory of sensory pleasure if we take a sensory pleasure to have as its primary object a perceptual activity such as hearing a note. The quotation from Brentano certainly suggests such a Higher-Order View of Pleasure. Now, while Chisholm’s criticism of such a Higher-Order View missed its target, there is a strong independent objection against it. I will develop this in the next section.

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can my attention be focused, for instance, on the taste of the wine if the tasting is supposed to be the object

10.3 Stumpf ʼs Argument This objection against the Higher-Order View of Pleasure was already hinted at, though not clearly developed, by Stumpf. He (Stumpf 1928, 109) quoted from Brentano’s Sinnespsychologie: Sensory pleasure is a liking, sensory pain a disliking, that is directed on an act of sensing to which they themselves belong.

p. 219

Stumpf read Brentano as endorsing a Higher-Order View of Sensory Pleasure according to which acts of love 4

and hate ‘are always only directed upon the sensory act’. He illustrated what he took to be the main problem for Brentano’s view of sensory pleasure with a suggestive image: The word pain which stands, according to me, directly for a peculiar sensory quality, has to refer to this quality in a doubly indirect way. The sensory quality occurs, so to speak in double brackets, rst in the bracket of the sensory act, then together with this again in the bracket of the act belonging to the emotional genus. 5

(Stumpf 1928, 109; my translation and emphasis)

The gist of this picture is that Brentano’s view of sensory pleasure con icts with the already expounded intuition that when we take pleasure in a perceptual activity we are more often than not fully immersed in the object perceived. The Higher-Order View of Pleasure, according to which pleasure is a love of hearing, has no room for hearing a melody with pleasure. In contrast, Stumpf’s own view of pleasure is designed to explain this phenomenon. According to Stumpf, the melody has a particular value property, it is pleasurable. Similarly, we talk of physical objects and events as repellent, disgusting, attractive, etc. We take pleasure in the melody when we perceive its pleasurable character. In this picture, Stumpf can give an adequate description of the fact that we often don’t notice our hearing when we are immersed in hearing a beautiful melody. We simply pay attention to the attractiveness of the melody.

10.4 Brentanoʼs Same-Order View of Enjoyment Brentano had a response to this problem and in the light of chapter 7 it should be clear what it is. When we enjoy hearing music, the hearing is the secondary object of the enjoyment, while the primary object is the music, or, more generally, the objects of the perceiving we love when taking pleasure. He responded along p. 220

these lines to Stumpf’s criticism that in Brentano’s theory love and hate ‘are always only directed upon the sensory act, or, in [Brentano’s] terminology: always only on the secondary object, not on the primary 6

one’. No, replied Brentano, a sensory pleasure has more than one object: Stumpf would take it to be contradictory to the nature of sensing [Emp ndens] if a sensation of pleasure, had, besides the pleasure; a sensation of pain had, besides the pain, a sensory quality as its object. In my view this does not contradict the nature of sensing at all, quite the opposite, it is demanded by it; for it [sensing] has a primary as well as a secondary object. The rst is something sensory qualitative; the second is the act of sensing itself on which the sensing subject is always directed in presentation as well as in evident acknowledging judgement and in some cases also emotionally. The second is the case in sensory pleasure and pain sensations and this makes it the case that these sensory acts are distinguished as true a ects from others. 7

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(US, 177; my translation)

(US, 178; my translation. See also letter to Bergmann, 15.8.1907)

7

Brentano’s diagnosis is that Stumpf misunderstood enjoyment because he rejected Aristotle’s doctrine of 8

the primary and secondary object of a mental act.

We can clarify Brentano’s response by drawing on his theory of consciousness. Let us start with a quick reminder. When we distinguish, for instance, also between seeing the sun and consciousness of seeing the sun, we make a conceptual distinction:

act that we divide only conceptually by, on the one hand, conceiving of it as having the coloured as object and, on the other hand, as having the coloured seeing as its object. (RP, 191; my translation) When we talk about seeing the sun, we describe a case of awareness with respect to one of its several objects; when we talk about consciousness of seeing the sun, we describe the same case of awareness with respect to another of its objects. Brentano made his view of consciousness plausible by appeal to the Duplication Argument (see chapter 4). Imagine a case in which you, as one might pre-theoretically put it, enjoy the music without paying attention to hearing the music. We can now argue as follows: p. 221

(1) One can only enjoy hearing x at time t if one hears x at t. (2) If enjoying hearing x at t and hearing x at t were distinct mental acts, the same immanent object would be apprehended twice and, in the good case, x would be presented twice. (3) x is not presented twice when we enjoy hearing x. Therefore, (4) Enjoying hearing x at t and hearing x at t are not distinct mental acts. With the additional assumptions in play discussed in chapter 5 we can then move to: Therefore, (5) Enjoying hearing x and hearing x are conceptual parts of one act. Just like ‘consciousness of hearing’ does not refer to a mental act distinct from hearing, ‘enjoying hearing’ does not refer to an act distinct from hearing, but to a conceptual part of a mental act that is also a perceiving. For example, ‘enjoying hearing F now’ and ‘hearing F now’ are partial descriptions of one act. The act so described is one in which we attend to F, but we neither attend to our hearing of F nor to our love of hearing F. This explains why Brentano said that pleasure is an enjoyment that is directed upon a mental 9

act to which it belongs.

We can now use this idea to address an exegetical puzzle from section 10.3. The answer makes use of the primary/secondary object distinction. Just as conscious perceiving is one act with several objects, enjoying perceiving is one act with several objects. The primary object of, for instance, enjoying hearing is the tone you hear. It is therefore right to say that the primary object of perceiving is a located quality. The secondary object is the hearing: A hedy in the proper sense is always only the secondary object. (1906b, 125; my translation)

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Consciousness of seeing and consciousness of something coloured belong to the same act. It is one

The secondary object of hearing F is the activity of hearing or listening. The hearing, or more generally, perceiving, is the secondary object because one does not attend to it when one enjoys perceiving something. One ‘gives one mind’ to the object of perception. Nonetheless the arguments of the previous chapter have p. 222

given us reason to say that it is

the activity that is enjoyed and not the object perceived. Brentano is in the

happy position of taking both points on board by making the object perceived the primary, the activity enjoyed the secondary object of enjoying perceiving. As we have seen, the enjoyment itself is a further secondary object of this act.

independent case that we can enjoy activities, although we don’t attend to them when we enjoy them. He (Rachels 2004, 255) quotes from Oliver Sacks a report of a person who lost his sense of smell: Sense of smell? I never gave it a thought. You don’t normally give it a thought. But when I lost it— it was like being struck blind. Life lost a good deal of its savour—one doesn’t realise how much ‘savour’ is smell. You smell people, you smell books, you smell the city, you smell the spring— maybe not consciously, but as a rich unconscious background to everything else. My whole world was suddenly radically poorer. The patient enjoyed smelling smells, but did not attend to his smelling when enjoying it. Similarly, he enjoyed his enjoying smells, but did not attend to his enjoying smelling when enjoying it (Rachel calls 10

therefore such pleasures ‘background pleasures’).

That he enjoyed smelling things only became obvious to

him when it was absent. Here we have again an (unintentional) application of the method of comparison (see section 7.7). We come to notice something because there is over time ‘an arrangement of di erences’ that ‘shakes something out into the foreground’. Brentano conceptualizes the fact that neither enjoyment nor enjoyed activity are attended to when one enjoys, for instance, smelling with his notion of a secondary object: both smelling and enjoyment are secondary objects of the act. The perceiving can become the primary object of another mental act. Kosman gives an intuitive example of such a shift: Tourists and pilgrims, for example, are often as aware of the fact that they are witnessing the goal of their peregrinations—that they are, for example, seeing Philadelphia—as they are of the actual object itself of their vision—that is, Philadelphia. Expressions of the form, ‘See Philadelphia and die’, lead us to value, so to speak, having the experience more than the experience, that is, having p. 223

seen Philadelphia more than seeing Philadelphia, and thus in the middle

of the experience to

become more aware of the fact that we are seeing Philadelphia than of the Philadelphia which we are seeing. (Kosman 1975, 503) This situation is analogous to re ection or observation of one’s own mental acts. Just as observation of perceiving is di erent from perceiving something consciously, so too is taking pleasure in hearing a melody di erent from hearing a melody with pleasure. If we use the primary/secondary object distinction correctly the exegetical and philosophical puzzles disappear. But the solution given is incompatible with the Higher-Order View according to which the perceiving is the primary object of the enjoyment. I conclude that the Higher-Order View is false. Brentano has given us the right way to think about enjoyment. In the case of conscious perception, perception and consciousness were both cases of awareness of something. Hence, Brentano could identify, for instance, consciously hearing F with a case of awareness that has two objects: F and itself. But taking pleasure in hearing F seems to be a sui generis relation distinct

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The secondary object of an enjoyment is not the object we attend to in the act. Rachels makes a good

from awareness. For this reason taking pleasure in hearing F is a case of awareness that has two objects, F and itself, and it takes itself as an object in di erent ways. Namely, it presents, acknowledges, and loves itself. One can sum up Brentano’s Same-Order Theory of Enjoyment as follows: (Same-Order-P) S enjoys ϕ-ing a if and only if there is a mental act ϕ which is (i) a perception or thinking of a & (ii) an acknowledgement of ϕ-ing a & (iii) a love of ϕ-ing a for its own sake. (Same-Order-UP) S su ers ϕ-ing a if and only if there is a mental act ϕ which is (i) a sake. Brentano is prone to talk about pain as the opposite of pleasure, but the thesis that pain is the opposite of pleasure seems controversial: if I don’t enjoy listening to music, I might still not feel pain when listening. It seems better to say that I su er listening to music. Rachels (2004, 248) recommends ‘unpleasure’ as the 11

antonym of ‘pleasure’.

I may like experiencing a drowsy feeling because I know that it is an indication that the anaesthetics have p. 224

started to work and I like being

pain free. In this situation I don’t take pleasure in undergoing the 12

experience. Hence, we need to exclude such cases by adding the rider ‘for its own sake’.

Brentano’s Same-Order Theory of Enjoyment gets crucial points about enjoyment right. First, there is no real distinction between a perceiving on the one hand and distinct enjoyment in perceiving (thinking) on the other hand. For example, hearing a note and enjoying hearing a note are one act under di erent descriptions. The primary object of a sensory enjoyment is the note. This gets the ‘losing oneself in the music’ character of many sensory enjoyments right. When we enjoy listening to music, we are attending to the music; it is the primary object. But we also love and present the hearing; it is the secondary object in two di erent ways. This point supports Brentano’s view that our awareness is self-less. We don’t enjoy that we are seeing a colour; we enjoy seeing a colour. When we are fully immersed in activities we lose the sense that we are doing 13

or undergoing them.

Consider an accomplished birdwatcher tracking a bird. He is fully immersed in

watching the bird; in an important sense he gives his mind only to the bird’s movement. Yet, it is right to describe him also as enjoying watching the bird. I think it is this feature of enjoyment that Hamilton described when he said that in pleasure and pain ‘there is no objectivication of any mode of self’ (Hamilton 1860, II, 572; see section 9.5). If we are ‘in the ow’ we are immersed in the objects of perception and there is no awareness of us as perceivers. Brentano showed that this is compatible with an intentional view of enjoyment. Second, the assumption that there is one mental act that is, among other things, a love of itself avoids the problem that faced Chisholm’s assumption that there is a combination of two acts: a perception whose primary object is a sensory quality and a love whose primary object is this perception. We don’t have two di erent acts with two di erent primary objects between which, implausibly, our attention is divided, but one act with a primary and a secondary object, and two di erent relations to the secondary object. p. 225

Third, the secondary object of one’s enjoyment is the mental act in two di erent ways: the perceiving is 14

identical with an acknowledgement and a love of itself.

This preserves Brentano’s idea that one takes

pleasure in a perceptual activity like hearing and not in the sound heard. The sound heard is only pleasant in a derivative sense. Fourth, the distinction between primary and secondary object as well as Brentano’s claim that the proper objects of enjoyment are activities is already in place in Psychologie. Given that Brentano draws heavily on

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perception/thinking of a & (ii) an acknowledgement of ϕ-ing a & (iii) a dislike of ϕ-ing a for its own

chapter X of the Nichomachean Ethics in his theory of pleasure and consciousness this is unsurprising. It seems to me therefore unwarranted to credit Brentano with two theories of pleasure as Mulligan and Massin do. If we take into account that enjoyment, like any other mental act, has two objects, quotations from Psychologie (and other places) to the e ect that a sensory pleasure is directed on a physical phenomenon do not imply that the pleasure is not directed also on a perceiving. For the physical phenomenon is the primary object, the secondary object is the perceiving. Brentano always held that we enjoy perceivings as well as the perceived objects. There is no change in view in Brentano’s later work. He only felt the need to bring the

Brentano provides a defensible account of enjoying perceptual and intellectual activities. But there are limiting cases. We do enjoy dozing in a hammock (Taylor) or doing nothing. These are activities that have no object in Brentano’s sense and don’t require a perceptual or intellectual activity that has an object. Hence, Brentano’s view does not apply to them. I think one must concede that Brentano’s theory of pleasure only captures the intentionality and structure of central cases of enjoyment, but not of all cases.

10.5 Can the Primary Object be Loved? Massin takes the Same-Order View of Sensory Pleasure to su er from a serious aw: p. 226

If pleasure is a kind of love, as Brentano maintains, it should be directed not only towards itself, but also towards some primary object. There can be no secondary object without a primary object. […] [W]hat is required by his theory is not (only) a presented primary object that is necessarily tied to a feeling of pleasure. It is also a primary object that is loved, an object towards which the act of love—not the act of presentation on which it is grounded—is directed. Pleasures seem to lack any primary objects. (Massin 2013, 333) According to Brentano, only the secondary object of the enjoyment is loved. Hence, Massin argues, the love does not ‘reach out’ to the primary object. This goes against the intuition that we enjoy the physical object/property in some sense. Brentano has a good reply to this objection. If one enjoys, for example, hearing the note F, this gives one a reason to prefer F to other notes. One loves F because hearing F is enjoyable. So the primary object is loved, but it is not loved for its own sake. We love the tone because we enjoy hearing it. In this way Brentano can accommodate the intuition that our love is also directed on the primary object. Brentano avoids a problem that arises for current projectivist views of values. They take an object to be valuable if, and only if, it reliably causes in us positive attitudes and experiences. Johnston takes such views to get the object of attention wrong: Instead of a ect being a way in which the appeal and repulsiveness of other things or other people makes itself manifest, the a ective states themselves become the focus of attention, as if a ective engagement were an interior, private sensation detachable from one’s being taken with or repelled by things. (Johnston 2001, 203) According to Brentano, the primary object of sensory enjoyment is attended to and loved, but not loved for its own sake; the secondary object of sensory enjoyment is not attended to, but loved for its own sake and

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primary/secondary object distinction to the fore when answering Stumpf.

this love grounds the love of the primary object. Hence, contra Johnston, the mental act is not the focus of attention. We are engaged with (non-mental) objects, yet love (some of) our mental acts for their own sake. All in all, enjoying perceiving is a mental act directed on several objects in di erent ways. No wonder, then, that we have no clear intuitive answer for the question ‘What is the object of my enjoyment?’ There is not the (one and only) object of sensory enjoyment.

1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

See Urmson 1967, 329. On Ryle (in comparison to Aristotle) see Brewer 2002, 149 . Rachels (2000, 194) uses the observation that one can take pleasure without ʻfocusingʼ on oneʼs experiences as an argument against the theory that one takes sensory pleasure in an experience if, and only if, one likes it. See Ryle 1954, 142–3. Stumpf 1928, 109; my emphasis and translation. See also Fisette 2013, 296. See Stumpf 1928, 109. For a slightly di erent translation see Mulligan 2004, 85. See US, 179. See US, 177. See also Feldman 2004, 58. See also Massin 2013, 327–8. See, for instance, Heathwood 2007, 30. See Annas 2011, 72. In current terminology this requires one mental act to have two di erent directions of fit. For discussion of this commitment see Kriegel (2003b, 487–8) and the literature cited there.

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Notes

preparatory disposition, but as a formal cause; that it is added to the act in a way that perfects it; that it belongs to the act it accompanies in the way that maturity belongs to someone in the prime of his life, that it is contained in the activity and that, as the perfection of the act, it is speci cally di erentiated according to the act’s speci c di erence. (PES, 113–14 [I, 207–8]) He added in a footnote:

accompanying inner perception. p. 195

Aristotle held that enjoyment of hearing ‘belongs to’ hearing and is ‘contained in’ it. This suggests to Brentano that for Aristotle consciousness of hearing (perceiving hearing) stands to hearing as enjoyment of hearing stands to this activity. As an exegetical argument this is hardly convincing. However, I am not interested in the plausibility of Brentano’s interpretation of Aristotle, but in Brentano’s own view of consciousness. Enjoyment and perceptual consciousness are, I will argue and illustrate in this chapter, 2

mutually illuminating. We can apply the theoretical tools from the previous chapters about perceptual consciousness to enjoyment and enjoyment will illustrate and motivate the primary/ secondary object distinction. The view of pleasure we will arrive at is able to solve the main problems of current views of pleasure while preserving what is plausible in them. Or so I will argue.

9.2 Four Aristotelian Suggestions about Enjoyment Brentano’s own view of pleasure is, as suggested in the previous quote, rooted in his understanding of Book X of the Nichomachean Ethics in which Aristotle investigated, among other things, the nature of pleasure. While a detailed exegesis of Aristotle’s remarks on pleasure is beyond the powers of this author and the limits of this book, it is necessary to highlight four suggestions Aristotle makes about pleasure. For they will inform Brentano’s work on enjoyment. Aristotle’s rst suggestion is:

1. We Enjoy Activities. 3

In book X of the Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle connects enjoyment and activity. He gives an account of what an activity is, but for our purposes it is not necessary to adopt it. The ordinary understanding of an activity that one performs or undergoes will do for our purposes. In book X he discusses a number of examples in which someone takes pleasure in an activity: The lover of house-building enjoys building houses. p. 196

The lover of the ute enjoys hearing the ute. The lover of geometry enjoys doing geometry. In Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle also gives examples of di erent kinds of enjoyable activities: bodily activities: eating, drinking, building,… perceptual activities: watching, listening, tasting,… intellectual activities: proving, contemplating,….

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This undoubtedly corroborates our claim that Aristotle entertained an analogous view about the

These activities are actions. Watching and listening, for example, are perceptual activities I do for some purpose. But it seems plausible to extend the list to activities I undergo (I enjoy feeling the wind in my hair) 4

or activities in which something is done to me: I enjoy being massaged; I enjoy being entertained.

enjoyable is that I don’t give my mind to anything. In the remainder of this chapter I will understand ‘activity’ in the broad sense that covers all these examples. Do we only enjoy activities? At least sometimes Aristotle speaks of the lover of music enjoying beautiful 5

melodies. Whether this is a slip or not is unclear to me. More about this question in the next sections.

2. If One Enjoys an Activity, it Captures One’s Attention. If one enjoys an activity, one’s attention is invested in it and not in other simultaneous activities. Aristotle gives a suggestive example of this: lovers of utes, for instance, cannot pay attention to a conversation if they catch the sound of someone playing the ute, because they enjoy ute playing more than their present activity; and so the pleasure of ute playing destroys the activity of conversation. b

(NE 10.5, 1175 2–7; Irwinʼs 1999 translation) The lover of ute playing can no longer pay attention to the conversation when Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past sounds on the radio. If one takes pleasure in a perceptual activity, one pays attention to the object of the p. 197

perceptual activity: if I enjoy hearing the ute, I pay attention to ute

playing and not to other

simultaneous activities. In response to this point Ryle and others have argued that pleasure is a species of 6

attention.

If this description is right, one’s enjoyment of a perceptual activity is directed on this activity although it is not the object of one’s attention when one enjoys it. I will come back to this point in the next chapter.

3. Enjoying is Loving or Liking An Activity. The lover of the ute loves ute playing; he is fond of the activity. The geometer who enjoys proving a theorem loves this activity.

4. Enjoyment of Activity and Activity Enjoyed are ‘Close’. Consider the following quote in which Aristotle disentangles enjoying an activity and desiring that it occurs: [The] pleasures involved in activities are more proper to them than the desires; for the latter are separated both in time and in nature, while the former are close to the activities, and so hard to distinguish from them that it admits of dispute whether the activity is not the same as the

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Taylor (1963, 4) gives as a limiting case the enjoyment of dozing in a hammock. What makes the activity

pleasure. (Still, pleasure does not seem to be thought or perception—that would be strange; but because they are not found apart they appear to people the same.) As activities are di erent, then, so are the corresponding pleasures. b

(NE, 10.5 1175 30–5; Rossʼs 1984 translation, original emphasis) Enjoyment is close to the activities enjoyed, both in time and in nature. The enjoyment is so close to the activity that it is di

cult to distinguish the two. The danger of identifying enjoyment and enjoyed activity is

was unable to distinguish enjoyment and the perceptual activity enjoyed: For instance, Aristotle (Eth. Nic. X) describes the hedoné of the fully accomplished act as its teleióites and because of this a

nity one often does not know how to distinguish the presentation

[and perception] that forms the basis of the pain and sensory pleasure [Sinneslust] from the a ect. Hence, I was earlier inclined to count these a ects not as a ects, but as sensations, while I now realize, that they are to be distinguished [unterscheiden] from the underlying sensations, but in no way to be separated [scheiden], just as the cognition [Erkenntnis] of an idea from the idea. (Brentano 1867–1917, Letter to Stumpf 8.5.1871, 49; my translation) p. 198

In Psychologie, Brentano returned to the ‘di

cult to distinguish’ point and used it to motivate a

characterization of the relation between enjoyment and activity: [W]e have seen above that in certain sensations the accompanying feeling of pleasure or displeasure has been confused not only with sensation itself, but even with the immanent object of sensation, i.e. with the physical phenomenon to which the act of sensation is referred as to its primary object. We found this to be true especially in connection with the pain and pleasure of the so-called sense of feeling. We say philosophers and nonphilosophers alike fall into the same error here. This error, too, is undoubtedly a sign which calls attention to the intimate connection between the feeling and the act it accompanies. (PES, 112 [I, 205]) What does this ‘closeness’ or ‘intimate connection’ consist in? Aristotle made two suggestions. First, closeness in nature. Enjoying listening to the ute is individuated by the activity enjoyed: enjoyments 7

of di erent activities are di erent enjoyments. Otherwise enjoying contemplating could not be a higher, 8

more valuable enjoyment than enjoying good food. The activity is, in part, constitutive of its enjoyment; it is not merely a cause of it. Second, closeness in time. If the activity enjoyed is constitutive of the enjoyment, the latter cannot occur without the particular activity of which it is an enjoyment. One cannot enjoy proving at a time (in a nondispositional sense) if one is not proving something then. If proving were merely the or a cause of pleasurable sensations, one could—per impossible—take pleasure in proving without proving, namely if the pleasurable sensation were brought about by a di erent cause. The closeness of enjoyment and activity contrasts with the ‘distance’ between activity and desire. Desires are ‘separate in nature’ from what is desired. My desire to listen to the ute is not individuated by the activity desired. The desire is a desire that I will be listening to the ute. The desire is an attitude to a proposition—or more generally a presentation—about the activity. The desire is individuated by its propositional content, not by the activity presented. Desires can therefore be separated from the desired activity in time: one can desire today that one listens to ute playing tomorrow, but one cannot enjoy today tomorrow’s ute playing.

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real, especially in the case of enjoyment of perceptual activities. Brentano himself reports in a letter that he

p. 199

On the basis of these four suggestions we can now give a preview of the next chapters: Brentano picked up where Aristotle left o . Brentano’s contribution is not the addition of new theses to Aristotle’s, but in arguing for 1 and in sharpening and generalizing 4. In this chapter I will assess Brentano’s arguments for 1; in the next chapter I will focus on Brentano’s development of 4. Enjoyment and activity are close in nature because they are only conceptually distinct. In chapter 11 I will defend 3. Enjoyment is liking an activity, not desiring that it occurs.

In order to understand Brentano’s development of 1 as well as the range of alternatives we need to take into 9

account that ‘enjoy’ is a polysemous word. Consider examples of how we use ‘enjoy’. We say: (S1a) I enjoy wine./(S1b) I enjoyed the wine at the party yesterday. (S2a) I enjoy the taste of wine./(S2b) I enjoyed the taste of the wine I drank yesterday. (S3a) I enjoy drinking wine./(S3b) I enjoyed drinking the wine at the party yesterday. (S4a) I enjoy the sensations I have when drinking wine./(S4b) I enjoyed the sensations I had when drinking the wine at the party yesterday. These examples of ‘enjoyment’ talk suggest four points that are important for our further discussion. First, dispositional and episodic enjoyment. The (a) sentences attribute dispositions to take pleasure; the (b) sentences report episodes of taking pleasure or enjoyment. In the following I will be mainly concerned with episodes of enjoyment. 10

Second, non-propositional and propositional enjoyment.

In the sentences on our list the verb ‘enjoy’ takes as

its complement either singular terms or the present participles of verbs, not ‘that’-clauses. The verb ‘enjoy’ also takes ‘that’-clauses as complements. Prima facie, sentences in which singular terms or present p. 200

participles of verbs complete ‘enjoy’

cannot be paraphrased away in terms of the ‘that’-clause

construction. Consider a rst-stab propositional paraphrase of (S1b): I enjoyed the wine if, and only if, there is a property F, I enjoyed that the wine has F. If I am a winemaker I may enjoy that the wine I made is much talked about, yet I may not enjoy the wine. Hence, the paraphrase is implausible. I will not try to nd a better one, but work on the assumption that 11

enjoyment is indeed non-propositional.

12

Third, non-propositional enjoyment is de se. 13

of the thinker who enjoys.

In (S3a/b) and (S4a/b) the activity enjoyed must be an activity

If I enjoyed drinking wine yesterday, it is my drinking that I enjoyed, not

someone else’s. Prima facie, this is puzzling. For the sentences do not state that the person who enjoys the activity is its agent; the complement of ‘enjoy’ just speci es the activity, not who performs or undergoes it. This suggests that explanation of this feature must be provided by the concept of non-propositional enjoyment. Just as one can only episodically remember events that one witnessed, one can only enjoy activities one undergoes or performs. This observation helps to explain why Brentano sees a close connection between enjoyment of activities and consciousness. Both enjoyment and awareness are de se attitudes in the sense under consideration. If I am aware of seeing blue, it is my seeing blue I am aware of. In contrast, I may enjoy that you are drinking wine. This is a further indication of the di erence between the ‘enjoy that’ construction and the ‘enjoy ϕ-ing’ construction.

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9.3 Four Observations about ʻEnjoyʼ

Fourth, the heterogeneity of non-propositional enjoyment. In the sentences under consideration ‘enjoy’ takes di erent complements that refer to things of di erent kinds. Yet, ‘enjoy’ is not ambiguous: it does not express di erent unrelated meanings. For example, the sentence: I enjoyed the wine and seeing the dancers. p. 201

is not zeugmatic, although one complement of ‘enjoy’ refers to an activity while the other refers to an 14

This observation suggests that ‘enjoy’ is polysemous and not merely ambiguous. (see the ‘healthy’

model in section 1.6).

9.4 Four Views about the Intentionality of Non-propositional Enjoyment The last point is pertinent to understand the debate between di erent views about the intentionality of non-propositional enjoyment that I will consider in the next sections. The rst view to be considered is: Hedonic Pluralism: Non-propositional enjoyment is an attitude that one can have to things of di erent kinds. Anscombe is a Hedonic Pluralist. She distinguishes between enjoyment of fact and enjoyment of substance, where ‘enjoyment of substance’ is a di erent label for non-propositional enjoyment. Enjoyment of substance covers ‘enjoyment of the activities themselves, things, or happenings, or existence itself’ (Anscombe 1967, 613). Hedonic Monists argue that ‘enjoy’ has a focal meaning, that is, one of its meanings gures in the explanation of its other meanings, but not the other way around. Di erent varieties of Hedonic Monism identify di erent focal meanings of ‘enjoy’ and hold that the proper objects of non-propositional enjoyment are those objects referred to by the complements of ‘enjoy’ in sentences in which this word has its focal meaning. Each variety of Hedonic Monism allows that there are also improper or derived objects of enjoyment. When we say we enjoy such an object, we speak guratively or elliptically (see section 9.5). The following varieties of Hedonic Monism are relevant for the purposes of this chapter: Hedonic Objectivism: ‘Enjoy’ has its focal meaning in (S1) and (S2) and similar sentences. In the primary sense we enjoy objects and properties. More precisely, (S1) is derived from (S2): one cannot enjoy the wine without enjoying something about it p. 202

and we say that we enjoy the wine

15

when we enjoy something about it such as its taste, its bouquet, etc.

I

will set this distinction aside as it is not important for our purposes. On to the next positions to consider: Hedonic Energism: ‘Enjoy’ has its focal meaning in (S3) and similar sentences. In the primary sense we enjoy activities. Finally, we have: Hedonic Subjectivism: ‘Enjoy’ has its focal meaning in (S4) and similar sentences. In the primary sense we enjoy sensations. In this chapter I will explore and defend Brentano’s Hedonic Energism. Let’s rst see how he introduces this view.

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object.

9.5 Brentanoʼs Hedonic Energism When discussing Hamilton’s theory of pleasure and pain Brentano considers and introduces Hedonic Energism. Brentano responds to Hamilton’s suggestion that in pleasure and pain the feeling and its object are ‘fused into one’: In the phaenomena of Feeling—the phaenomena of Pleasure and Pain—[…] consciousness does separate from itself—but is as it were fused into one. The pecularity of feeling, therefore, is that there is nothing but what is subjectively subjective; there is no object di erent from the self—no objectivication of any mode of self. (Hamilton 1860, II, 432; my emphasis) Hamilton’s remark on pain and pleasure is in need of exegesis and clari cation. He interpreted Hamilton as denying the intentionality of enjoyment: enjoying is not enjoying something. I will not try to decide whether 16

this interpretation is correct, but focus on the constructive part of Brentano’s response.

Brentano’s response has three parts. He gives rst examples of transitive verbs that we use to ascribe feelings: I enjoy the song, hate the noise, feel sorrow over a loss, etc. The examples t Brentano’s p. 203

Intentionality slogan and suggest that feelings are intentional: if one enjoys one

enjoys something.

Brentano treats enjoyment therefore as an intentional act directed upon an activity. While the possession of correctness conditions is not a mark of the mental, it helps to clarify in which sense enjoyment is directed on something. When I take pleasure in seeing an ugly object, my enjoyment is incorrect. It is not correct to 17

take pleasure in this activity for its own sake.

This observation supports Brentano’s claim that enjoyment

is directed on the activity enjoyed. He then goes on to explain how Hamilton might have arrived at his idea that enjoyment is non-intentional: the object of a feeling and the feeling itself don’t appear distinct when the feeling is intense. Imagine that you hold your hand into the re. There is an overwhelming feeling of pain, you feel pain, but in this situation you don’t take yourself to be aware of damage in your body. Hence, the feeling seems to lack an object. Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, he makes a concession to Hamilton: One thing certainly has to be admitted; the object to which a feeling refers is not always an external object. Even in cases where I hear a harmonious sound the pleasure I feel is not actually pleasure in the sound, but pleasure in the hearing. In fact you could say, not incorrectly, that in a certain sense it [the pleasure] even refers to itself, and that therefore what Hamilton said becomes more or less the case [dass darum mehr oder minder das eintrete, was Hamilton sagt], namely that the feeling and the object are ‘fused into one’. But this is nothing that is not in the same way true of many phenomena of thought and knowledge as we will see in our investigations about inner consciousness. (PES, 69 [I, 127]; in part my translation, my emphasis) Let’s unpack this dense passage. What does Brentano concede to Hamilton? Brentano is not saying that enjoyment is sometimes not directed on an external object. He uses enjoying hearing as an example of a feeling that is at least not solely directed on an external object. Feelings can be directed on external objects and mental acts; enjoyment is an example of the second variety of feeling. This is compatible with the view that enjoyment is always enjoyment of activities. An object of enjoyment is hearing the sound, an activity, not the sound heard, a physical phenomenon.

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not place the mental modi cation or state before itself; it does not contemplate it apart—as

p. 204

The pleasure example is, then, used to illustrate that mental acts can be directed on themselves. The enjoyment refers, among other things, to itself. We have already drawn on enjoyment in chapter 6 to make plausible that conscious mental acts are self-representational. If one enjoys hearing F, one enjoys one’s enjoyment of hearing F. There is no vicious regress because one’s enjoying perceiving is self-directed. Brentano goes on to generalize the feature illustrated. Just as enjoyment is of perceptual activities and itself, awareness is of seeing and itself. Enjoyment is a model for Brentano’s theory of consciousness.

18

Psychologie Brentano made his Hedonic Energism clearer:

Let us return to our old example: often the act of hearing a sound is obviously accompanied not only by a presentation and a cognition of this act of hearing, but by an emotion as well. It may be either pleasure, as when we hear a soft, pure young voice, or of displeasure, as when we hear the scratching of a violin badly played. On the basis of our previous discussions, this feeling, too, has an object to which it refers. [This object is not the physical phenomenon of sound, but the mental phenomenon of hearing, for obviously it is not really the sound which is agreeable and pleasant or which torments us, but the hearing of the sound.] This feeling, consequently, also belongs to inner consciousness. Something similar occurs when we see beautiful or ugly colors, and in other cases. (PES, 111 [I, 203–4]; my emphasis. This sentence is marked in the second edition of the book as to be revised. But no further explanation is given) Brentano takes it to be obvious that, properly speaking, physical objects and properties are not the kind of things that one can enjoy; the things that can be enjoyed are activities which the subject of enjoyment undergoes or performs. The thesis that only activities are enjoyed is explicitly stated and argued for in later work. Brentano says: A hedy [the agreeable, pleasurable] in the proper sense is always the secondary object. When I think of an earlier thing, the remembering itself is sweet. (1906b, 124; my translation and emphasis) p. 205

The secondary object of any mental act is always the act itself. Hence, the proper object of enjoyment is always a mental activity. But don’t we take pleasure in bodily activities? Yes, we say that we enjoy bodily activities such as building a house or rambling. But in the proper sense it is always perceptual activities—listening, watching, touching —or intellectual activities—contemplating, planning, inferring—involved in building or rambling that are enjoyed. Bostock takes Aristotle to hold this view: Thus the builder may enjoy seeing his wall go up so straightly and so cleanly, as he may also enjoy the feel of the trowel in his hand, and the bodily sensations produced by the e ortless exercise of his muscles. He may also enjoy rst anticipating and then contemplating the completed building. In these thoughts and perceptions there may be pleasure, but not in the actual process of building. And Aristotle’s fundamental thought here is that pleasure takes place in the mind, but one can hardly say this of building, any more than of eating and drinking. 19

(Bostock 1988, 271)

Brentano is, then, a Hedonic Mental Energist: the objects of enjoyment are always mental acts. I will not try to decide whether Hedonic Mental Energism is defensible or well-motivated. For the purposes of this chapter and the next it is su

cient to focus on the enjoyment of perceiving and thinking and their structure.

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I will come back to the last point. Let’s start by expounding the rst point in more detail. Further on in

If one enjoys a perceptual activity, one takes sensory pleasure (sinnliche Lust); if one enjoys an intellectual activity one takes intellectual pleasure (geistiges Wohlgefallen). In line with Aristotle’s metaphysics of enjoyment, di erent kinds of enjoyment are distinguished with respect to the activity enjoyed. Brentano himself gave a concise formulation of his view of sensory enjoyment: sensory pleasure is an enjoyment [Wohlgefallen], sensory pain a disliking [Missfallen], that is directed on an act of sensing [Emp ndungsakt] to which they themselves belong.

We are justi ed to continue: intellectual pleasure is an enjoyment, intellectual pain a disliking that is directed on an intellectual act to which they themselves belong. The key to understanding the view proposed is Brentano’s addition of the clause ‘to which they themselves p. 206

belong’. Given the discussion of

chapters 4–7 we are suitably primed to see the point of the clause. For we

already know (i) that every mental act has a primary and secondary object and (ii) that no mental act is its own primary object. Hence, we can conclude that enjoyment is a secondary object or part of a secondary object. Whether the activity enjoyed is the primary object of the enjoyment will be discussed in due course. First we need to assess the plausibility of Hedonic Energism and defend it against Hedonic Objectivists and Subjectivists. In the next sections I will assess arguments for Hedonic Energism and against Hedonic Objectivism.

9.6 Against Hedonic Objectivism; for Hedonic Energism We say that we take pleasure in or enjoy the harmonious sound as well as that we take pleasure in or enjoy the hearing of the sound, that is, an act or activity that is directed upon the sound. For instance, Stumpf claimed that self-observation makes it plausible that: there can be pleasure in smells, tastes, and also in tones, and colours, not only pleasure in smelling, tasting, hearing, seeing. (Stumpf 1928, 110; my translation) When I correctly enjoy the taste of the wine, I perceive in tasting its taste a further physical quality: its pleasantness. Pleasantness is a physical property like colour or taste. Such qualities are co-perceived by 20

sight, touch, etc.

Intellectual pleasures are, in contrast, mental acts.

Stumpf listed Descartes, Malebranche, Hume, and Kant as philosophers who adopted Hedonic Objectivism 21

before him.

Johnston 2001 is a contemporary defender of the view that value properties are among the

objects of pleasure. A tone can have a determinate value like being beautiful or ravishing that is manifest to 22

us when we enjoy it.

Which view is right? Let us start by assessing an argument against Hedonic Objectivism. George Katkov p. 207

(1903–1985) was a second-generation Brentanian. In his paper ‘The Pleasant and the Beautiful’ he

aimed

to refute Stumpf’s Hedonic Objectivism. Katkov runs his argument in terms of the predicate ‘is pleasant’: where something x is pleasant, roughly, if, and only if, it is correctly enjoyed. Hedonic Objectivists take ‘is pleasant’ to apply to objects and properties. He uses a thought-experiment to argue that Hedonic Objectivism is mistaken: Supposing we were able to keep an exact register of all the things we nd pleasant: sounds, colours, tactile and other qualities, their sequence and combinations. Such a register could be

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(US, 177; my translation and emphasis)

shown to ‘a purely intellectual being’, that is to say to a being, who would be acquainted with all our sense-qualities and whose intellectual life would not di er from ours, except by the complete lack of all emotional intentions. We could give to such a being a great deal of information concerning the things we call pleasant, and he would in this way have an approximately complete knowledge about our conception of the pleasant and of the unpleasant. Compare the case of this being with another one, whose emotional life di ered from our own to the extent of his enjoying all the things, which we nd unpleasant, and disliking all the qualities, which we nd pleasant. Our Comparing both these cases, we must agree that, while in the rst case we may nd no contradictory statement about the pleasant and the unpleasant to our own—we are using the terms in an obviously di erent meaning than the purely intellectual being. In the second case, on the other hand, although our statements concerning the things we call pleasant would be in contradiction with what the ‘perverted’ emotional being would have stated about them, by calling these things pleasant and unpleasant we mean exactly the same thing as he does. This alone could serve as a refutation of the Malebranche-Stumpf theory of the pleasant and the unpleasant. The terms are not used to express our judgment concerning the thing to which they are applied. (Katkov 1939–40, 182–3) The purely intellectual being does not enjoy anything; it lacks an emotional life. Yet it can apply ‘is pleasant’ to objects and properties that we call ‘pleasant’ just as one can apply ‘red’ correctly if one has a physical theory of colour and has the right detectors without things looking red to one. If Hedonic Objectivism were right, Katkov suggests, the purely intellectual being’s understanding of ‘is pleasant’ would be like ours: we and it use the same predicate for the same things. But, Katkov submits, ‘is pleasant’ has a di erent meaning in our mouth than in the mouth of the purely intellectual being. The purely intellectual being applies ‘is pleasant’ on the basis, one will assume, of a theory of the underlying nature of pleasant things. We apply ‘pleasant’ on a di erent basis, namely our emotional responses. Hence, our conception of the pleasant and the purely intellectual being’s di er, although they may be true of the same things. p. 208

This is an intriguing consideration, but it fails to refute Hedonic Objectivism. The argument would refute Hedonic Objectivism if it could not distinguish between our use of ‘is pleasant’ and the purely intellectual being’s use. Katkov seems to assume that because Hedonic Objectivists take objects to be pleasant they cannot make the required distinction. But the Hedonic Objectivist is not forced to say that we and the purely intellectual being use the same predicate with the same meaning for the same things. The Hedonic Objectivist can identify a di erence in meaning or conception that distinguishes our understanding of ‘is pleasant’ from that of the purely intellectual being, although ‘is pleasant’ has the same extension for us and the purely intellectual being. According to the Hedonic Objectivist, we apply ‘is pleasant’ in the primary sense to objects and properties if, and only if, we correctly enjoy them. The purely intellectual being cannot apply ‘is pleasant’ to something because it correctly enjoys it; it neither enjoys nor dislikes anything. The Hedonic Energist identi es a related di erence: we apply ‘is pleasant’ in the primary sense to activities if, and only if, we correctly enjoy them and in a derived sense to the objects and properties on which the correctly enjoyed activities are directed. Again, the purely intellectual being cannot apply ‘is pleasant’ in these ways. In an important sense, it lacks therefore understanding of ‘is pleasant’. In sum, the argument does not decide which position is right; both have the resources to give a plausible description of the case. Is there a good argument for Hedonic Energism? Let’s start with Brentano’s Argument from Enjoyment. The stub of this argument is contained in the following passage: [S]hould one say that the hedy is always one of our acts? Not the sweet is hedy, but the tasting of the sweet? In contrast, kalon [the beautiful] is something which when presented as primary object

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register of the pleasant would correspond to his register of the unpleasant and vice versa.

gives a certain joy? If I think that someone else tastes the sweet, I don’t have the enjoyment and maybe don’t take pleasure in my presenting. Hence, the tasting would be a hedy, but not a kalon. (1906b, 124; my translation) This outline of a reason in support of Hedonic Energism is so condensed that it is di

cult to turn it into an

argument. Let’s try.

p. 209

sweetness of the wine, without enjoying it. For instance, if I imagine that someone tastes the sweetness of the wine, I don’t enjoy the sweetness of the wine. What must be added to my presentation of the sweetness of the wine to enjoy the sweetness? I myself must not only present, but also taste the sweetness of the wine in order to enjoy it. If the tasting is the missing factor, Brentano seems to argue, it is what we enjoy. One cannot enjoy the sweetness of the wine without tasting it and one explanation of this necessary connection is that we enjoy tasting the sweetness. The proper object of enjoyment is therefore the activity, not the property. The property is pleasant if, and only if, we correctly enjoy perceiving it. The Argument from Enjoyment helps to illustrate Brentano’s position, but it will not convince Hedonic Objectivists. Both Hedonic Objectivists and Energists will agree that tasting the sweetness is required to enjoy the taste of the sugar. But Hedonic Energists will take tasting the sweetness to be an enabling condition for enjoying the sweetness, not its object. The object of enjoyment is the sweetness. Brentano’s argument gives us a reason to believe that tasting is involved in enjoying the sweetness. But we need a reason for the di erent thesis that the object of enjoyment is the activity. No such reason has been given so far. On to Taylor’s Mysteriousness Argument. Taylor suggests an argument that attacks directly the assumption that we can enjoy objects and properties in an underived sense. The notion of enjoying an object or property can only be conceptually basic if one can enjoy an object independently of enjoying an activity related to it. But this seems precisely not the case. Consider an illustration suggested by Taylor. Imagine the following conversation: A: I enjoy stamps. B: So what do you enjoy doing with them? Collecting them, putting them together in a stamp book? A: Nothing. I just enjoy stamps. At this point we will be utterly ba

ed. If A cannot supply a present participle of a verb that speci es a

stamp-related activity at all, ‘the notion of enjoyment becomes mysterious’ (Taylor 1963, 7). There is no such thing as enjoying postage stamps, full-stop. Compare: A: I started a book. B: Interesting. Writing, reading, or illustrating? A: No, I simply started it. p. 210

Again we are mysti ed. There is no such thing as starting books, full-stop. What can be started are not books, but processes that result in or operate on books. If there is no sense in which we enjoy stamps full-stop, Hedonic Objectivism is false. We cannot explain the meaning of (a) ‘enjoying collecting stamps’ by appeal to the meaning of (b) ‘enjoying stamps’. For (b) has no complete meaning. Rather we can only understand (b) if we already understand (a): (b) can be understood, but only as a derived or a context-dependent expression that invokes stamp-related activities.

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Should one say that one only enjoys one’s activities? Yes. For one can perceive and think of a property, the

This suggests that the meaning ‘enjoy’ has in sentences such as ‘I enjoy stamps’ must be explained by appeal to the enjoyment of activities. This is also Brentano’s conclusion: One may object that one says not only of seeing, but also of a colour; not only of hearing, but also of a tone, that they are agreeable. But it is without doubt that the latter use is non-authentic [uneigentlich], derived, gurative [übertragene]. A hedy in the proper sense is always only the secondary object.

Brentano’s conclusion needs to be spelled out further. It is not clear what work the notion of a nonauthentic use does for him here. But ‘derived’ and ‘ gurative’ are helpful. Consider an utterance of the sentence ‘Cycling is healthy’. In this sentence ‘healthy’ has a derived meaning: cycling is healthy if, and only if, cycling is an activity that tends to promote health in people who do it. We explain the sense of ‘healthy’ under consideration by appeal to the core sense of ‘healthy’. Brentano suggests that the meaning of ‘enjoy F-ness’ constructions is derived in a similar way as it needs to be spelled out with respect to the focal meaning of ‘enjoy’: S enjoys the F-ness of a if, and only if, there is an activity ϕ-ing such that S enjoys ϕ-ing the F-ness of a. Hence, the sentence ‘I enjoy stamps’ is literally true, but nonetheless in the focal sense of ‘enjoy’ we only enjoy activities. There are di erent ways to think about sentences which seem to say that we enjoy (properties of) objects. Let us consider two further options: • Lexical semanticists like Pustejovsky (1993, 84 .) and Asher (2011, 17, 19) provide a di erent way to think about the kind of sentence under consideration. The unintelligibility of enjoying objects and p. 211

properties is evidence that the verb ‘enjoy’ denotes a function that 23

of the type EVENT.

takes as arguments only things

This type covers things that either have a temporal location or unfold in time. One

can nonetheless truly say ‘I enjoy stamps’ or ‘I enjoy the taste of the wine’ because the verb changes (‘coerces’) the semantic value of its complement in these sentences into a semantic value of the right kind. With ‘I enjoy stamps (the taste of the wine)’ we in fact say that I enjoy an event or process. Hence, such examples are not grist to the Hedonic Objectivist’s mill; rather they are in line with Hedonic Energism. 24

• Sentences like ‘I enjoy stamps’ are syntactically complete; no words or phrases are elided.

But one

can make an elliptical utterance using such a non-elliptical sentence. An utterance of a complete sentence is elliptical if the speaker could have used a longer sentence in order to more explicitly state what the speaker wanted to say. The speaker did not use such a sentence because it was obvious to the audience what the more explicit sentence is. Imagine I utter the sentence ‘I enjoy stamps’ at a collector’s fair, or so on. There is no need to make more words. It is obvious what the intended explicit sentence is. What I assert by uttering ‘I enjoy stamps’ is that I enjoy collecting stamps. Again the example turns out to be compatible and even to support Hedonic Energism. We don’t need here to take a stand on which option is right. All can be used to explain at least some cases of felicitous uses of sentences of the kind under consideration. Hence, we have a reason to endorse Brentano’s Hedonic Energism and we can explain the recalcitrant sentences away. I conclude that Hedonic Energism is defensible.

9.7 Against Hedonic Subjectivism According to Aristotle and Brentano, statements like:

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(1906b, 124–5; my translation and emphasis)

John enjoys hearing the melody. Kurt enjoys giving proofs. Roger enjoys ballooning. p. 212

are literally and strictly true. Hedonic Subjectivists deny this and try to explain ordinary talk about enjoyment away:

elucidated as, ‘I am a person who is disposed to gain enjoyable experiences from ballooning’; and, for the hedonist, it is the enjoyment alone in enjoyable experience that matters. (Crisp 2006, 629) ‘Being enjoyable’ names a felt property of an experience: there is a way some experiences feel, namely enjoyable. Crisp’s elucidation is supposed to capture the dispositional meaning of ‘enjoy ballooning’. The corresponding episodic meaning of ‘I enjoyed ballooning yesterday’ might be elucidated by a gloss like ‘I gained enjoyable experiences from ballooning yesterday’. The Hedonic Subjectivist takes ‘enjoy’ to have its focal meaning in sentences like (S4) and tries to explain the other meanings in terms of the focal meaning. According to Crisp, I enjoy the activity of ballooning if, and only if, I gain enjoyable experiences by ballooning. Now assume that you take a pill that causes you to have enjoyable experiences: I gain enjoyable experiences by taking a pill. But in this situation we would not say that I enjoyed taking the pill, yet I gained 25

enjoyable experiences from taking it.

Similarly, if the ballooning were only the means to gain enjoyable

experiences, it would be misleading to say that we enjoy ballooning. We may gain enjoyable experiences from ballooning, but if ballooning is only a means to get enjoyable experiences, we don’t enjoy it. Hence, not only the experiences, but also ballooning must be enjoyed. Crisp’s attempt to explain the meaning of ‘I enjoy ballooning’ gets this wrong and should therefore be rejected. Hedonic Subjectivism is wrong: the meaning of ‘enjoy experiences’ is not the focal meaning of our ‘enjoyment’ talk. The fact that we enjoy ballooning is compatible with having enjoyable experiences when ballooning. An activity goes on over time and during this time one may have experiences that are enjoyable. Most of us are not ballooners, so let’s change the example. When I listen to music I have enjoyable auditory experiences; these are temporal parts of the process of listening. One cannot enjoy listening to music if one does not have such enjoyable experiences when listening. But this does not mean that we enjoy only the experiences. p. 213

Taylor discredits the principle on which this

conclusion rests, namely that if one enjoys something

because of the presence of Fs one cannot really or strictly be said to enjoy anything other than Fs: One might well argue that, if one admires a woman’s looks because of her lovely hair, it is strictly speaking the hair one admires, and not her looks. (Taylor 2008, 113; original emphasis) Brentano took into account that we often enjoy the sensations that are e ects of enjoyed activities. There is a narrow and a broad sense of enjoying an activity: One can say in two ways that someone enjoys, or takes pleasure, unpleasure, or displeasure. One says it in one way if something is the object of this direction of the emotion [Gemütsrichtung]. But one says it also if one takes pleasure or unpleasure in another object but the pleasure or unpleasure in it is

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while there is indeed nothing amiss in saying, say, ‘I enjoy ballooning’, this statement can be

stirred while simultaneously the other is enjoyed or one takes unpleasure in it because one takes pleasure [or] displeasure in the former. (Brentano 1907, 155 [161–2]; my translation and emphasis) We already know the rst meaning of ‘to enjoy’: we enjoy perceptual activities to which the pleasure belongs. The second, related meaning of ‘enjoy’ is that we enjoy e ects of the activities we enjoy in the primary sense. Let’s illustrate Brentano’s point with a related example. Consider my report:

This report may be true although I mainly enjoyed the e ects of my drinking the absinthe—the fuzzy glow of warmth caused by imbibing absinthe, the jolly mood—and only to some extent my actual drinking of it, e.g. my putting it in my mouth, tasting it, etc. However, the report would not be true if I did not also enjoy the actual drinking. The enjoyment of the activity is conceptually basic. We have here a case of transfer or broadening of reference of ‘drinking absinthe’ from the original referent—drinking absinthe—to a prominent e ect of it—the sensation and mood—which may last longer than the drinking. To make this plausible consider: I enjoyed drinking absinthe last night. It was a great experience. The actual drinking was not a great experience, yet some of its e ects may deserve to be called so. p. 214

To sum up: we have so far partially defended Hedonic Energism. The meaning of ‘enjoy’ in ‘enjoy ϕ-ing’ is conceptually more basic than the meaning of ‘enjoy’ in ‘enjoy F-ness’ and this meaning cannot be analysed in terms of the meaning ‘enjoy’ has when we talk of enjoying experiences. However, the latter meaning can also not be analysed or derived from the activity meaning of ‘enjoy’. One may enjoy an experience that is an e ect of an activity, although one does not enjoy the activity. But this result is compatible with Brentano’s views. The main point is that there is an underived sense of ‘enjoy’ in which we can truly say that we enjoy activities and only activities.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

See also Brentano 1867–1917, 49. Williams (1959, 72) suggests that one can understand intentionality by considering pleasure and its relation to attention. For the close link between pleasure and activity in Aristotle see, for instance, Urmson (1967, 324) and Bostock 1988. Ryle (1949, 104) develops an Aristotelian account of pleasure. See Taylor 1963, 7. a See NE 1170 10–11. Thanks to Joachim Aufderheide for the reference. See Ryle 1954, 142f. See chapter 10 for more on this topic. a See also NE 1175 1, 23–8. See Broadie 1994, 338. See Duncker 1941, 398–9. For a general discussion of the irreducibility of non-propositional attitudes see Montague 2007 and Grzankowski 2015. See Grzankowski 2015, 382 who makes a related point about liking. On the notion of de se attitudes see Recanati 2009, 258 . See Taylor 1963, 7. See Lascarides/Copestake 1995, 205–6. Thanks to Jake Wojtowicz for pressing this point. See Massin (2013, 311 .) for a detailed analysis of Hamiltonʼs view. The activities are objects of our love and some of them merit this love and a few may merit this love for their own sake. Hence, they are valuable. This suggests that activities are bearers of (final) value and not as widely held states of a airs or

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I enjoyed drinking absinthe last night.

18 19 20

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21 22 23 24 25

tropes. On the alternative proposal see Rabinowicz and Rønnow Rasmussen 2003. See also Mulligan (2004, 84) on ʻFunktionsfreudeʼ. Mulligan (ibid.) and, following him, Massin (2013, 331), note that Brentano is a Hedonic Energist, but donʼt assess arguments for this view. Bostock (2000, 160) takes it to be di icult to make a case for it. For this characterization of Stumpf see US, 171. See also Katkov 1939, 182f. Massin (2013, § 3.1) gives a good account of Stumpfʼs view. See Stumpf (1928, 105) and the references given there. See Johnston 2001, 200. See Pustejovsky 1995, 135–6. See Neale (2004, 99) on the distinction between syntactic ellipsis and utterance ellipsis. Thanks to Anthony Price for suggesting the pill-taking example.

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

11 The Nature of Enjoyment  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0012 Published: August 2017

Pages 227–245

Abstract According to Brentano, enjoying an activity is loving or liking it. Brentano’s conception of love and hate is expounded by way of the analogies he draws with positive and negative judgement and I compare Brentano’s view with its main competitors: enjoying is appraisive attention to (Ryle, Gallie), propositional pleasure that something is the case (Feldman), or desire for the occurrence of a sensation (Heathwood). I discuss Hamilton’s Argument from Temporal Direction against the desire view of enjoyment and propose that a modi ed version of the argument, the Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction, speaks in favour of Brentano’s view of enjoyment.

Keywords: Feldman, Gallie, Hamilton, Ryle, Sumner, Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction, Argument from Temporal Direction, attention, desire, love Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

11.1 Introduction One part of the Aristotelian view of enjoyment concerns the attitude someone has to what she enjoys. Someone who enjoys ute playing loves playing and hearing the ute, someone who enjoys geometry loves thinking about geometrical problems, etc. The lovers of geometry and ute playing will also desire to play the ute and think about geometrical problems. But when they enjoy what they are doing their desires have been satis ed and vanished. The actual enjoyment consists in loving or, to avoid the connotation of personal love, liking the activity. However, that enjoyment is a particular kind of love or liking is controversial. It comes under pressure from three sides. Ryleans takes someone to enjoy an activity if she does it attentively. No further attitude to the activity is required. Both Propositional Pleasure and Desire Theorists take pleasure to require a further attitude, but this attitude is not love or liking. I will defend Brentano’s approach by criticizing all three competitors.

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Search in this book

11.2 Enjoyment as Appraisive Attention Ryle moved from the plausible claim that one cannot enjoy an activity without attending to it to the 1

controversial proposal that enjoyment is a kind of attention. He conveyed the general idea already in The Concept of Mind: ‘Pleasure’ […] is used sometimes to denote special kinds of moods, such as elation, joy and some activity, such as golf or argument, that he is reluctant to stop, or even to think of anything p. 228

else, is ‘taking pleasure in’ or

‘enjoying’ doing what he is doing, though he is in no degree

convulsed or beside himself, and though he is not, therefore, experiencing any particular feelings. (Ryle 1949, 104) We have so far only been concerned with the enjoyment sense of ‘pleasure’. Enjoying an activity consists in doing it attentively and wholeheartedly. However, being absorbed in an activity cannot be the same as enjoying it. Parking a car in a tight space might be so di

cult that I need to devote all my attention to it. For instance, I am reluctant to stop parking

the car because if I take my mind o

it, I will not succeed. But I don’t enjoy parking the car! Similarly,

alarming things may capture one’s attention. If an angry Rottweiler approaches me, I will be fully immersed 2

in watching it and nothing may distract me. Yet I don’t enjoy watching it. Such examples suggest that Ryle’s proposal is too wide; he has not managed to give a feature that is distinctive of enjoyment, but of a broader notion, namely that of taking an interest in something: I don’t enjoy 3

parking the car, but I take an interest in it. Ryle himself uses the notion of interest when discussing enjoyment: Now to say that someone has been enjoying a smell or a walk at least suggests and maybe even implies that he has been interested in the smell or in the exercise and incidents of the walk […]. (Ryle 1954, 142–3) Brentano characterized every mental phenomenon that is neither a judgement nor a presentation as a ‘phenomenon of interest’: the term ‘interest’ is usually used only to designate certain acts which belong to the class we are describing, namely, those in which curiosity or inquisitiveness are aroused. Yet it is not inappropriate to describe every pleasure or displeasure in something as interest, and every wish, every voluntary decision is an act of taking an interest in something, too. (PES, 153 [II, 35]) As the examples show I can take an interest in an activity without enjoying it. Enjoying an activity can at best be a particular kind of attending to it. Which kind? Ryle does not, as far as I p. 229

can see, answer this question. In a symposium with Ryle, Gallie developed an answer. He proposed that enjoyment is a subspecies of appraisive attention. One’s attention is primarily appraisive of something x if it 4

contains or is suited to be developed into an appraisal of x. Think of listening to a melody or looking at a painting. You attend to it not because you want to know more about it, but because you want to appraise it and, under some circumstances, paying attention manifests positive appraisal. With this in mind one can

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amusement. […] But there is another sense in which we say that a person who is so absorbed in

propose that one enjoys an activity if, and only if, one’s attending to it is primarily appraisive, positive, and 5

direct, that is, one does not appraise the activity in view of its consequences or e ects.

Gallie’s proposal is progress. It excludes examples such as parking the car. My attention to my car parking is not appraisive, positive, and direct. I attend to the activity, but since the attention is not of the right kind I don’t enjoy parking the car. Two problems remain.

for example, my attending to an activity contains a positive appraisal of it, is this not a form of liking the activity? Brentano takes all phenomena of interest to be appraisive: Just as every judgement takes an object to be true or false, in an analogous way every phenomenon which belongs to this class takes an object to be good or bad. (PES, 154 [II, 36]) When one likes an object one takes a stand on its goodness, one appraises it. If Ryleans cannot give a di erent account of ‘containing a positive appraisal’ of an activity, Ryle’s account is just a variety of Brentano’s. I think this point poses a challenge for defenders of Ryle. Second, as discussed in chapter 10, there is background enjoyment. Sacks’ patient enjoyed smelling things, but when it came to enjoying smelling things, he paid attention to neither smelling nor smells. That he enjoyed it only became obvious to Sacks’ patient when he no longer could smell and the enjoyment was absent. Hence, enjoyment cannot be a subspecies of appraisive attention. All in all, a theory of pleasure that allows for background enjoyment is preferable to Ryle’s. As we will see, Brentano o ers such a theory.

p. 230

11.3 Enjoying as Propositional Pleasure I take the challenge for Ryleans posed in the previous section to make plausible that we cannot understand enjoyment merely as ‘giving one’s whole mind’ to an activity. We need an attitude to the activity that, broadly speaking, evaluates it as good. Brentano took this attitude to be liking. But there are alternatives. We say things like: I am pleased that the card has arrived. We are pleased that something is the case. Such cases of pleasure exhibit the standard features of propositional attitudes. For example, I can be pleased that the card has arrived, although it did not arrive: [W]e use the expressions ‘pleased that’, etc., to characterize a man’s pleasure, just as we say of a hypochondriac’s anxiety, ‘He fears that he has leprosy.’ (Thalberg 1962, 66) Being pleased-that seems to be an attitude to a proposition that can be true or false. Prima facie enjoying, is not an attitude to a proposition, but to an activity. For example, I can enjoy cooking without being pleased 6

that I am cooking.

Does one enjoy an activity if, and only if, one is pleased that one undergoes or performs it? While he does not explicitly endorse it, Feldman’s example (2004, 58) of the person who focuses completely on a

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First, can one explain the positive nature of the appraisal without appealing to an attitude such as liking? If,

7

woodworking project suggests that he has something like this in mind. The woodworker enjoys working on the project and his enjoyment consists in taking intrinsic attitudinal pleasure, that is, he is pleased that he himself is working on the project. The woodworker’s enjoyment of his work is manifest in his behaviour. How can one support the claim that he takes attitudinal pleasure that he is woodworking? Feldman (2004, 58) proposes that the following counterfactual, if suitably hedged with a ‘ceteris paribus’ clause, answers this question:

recognize that you are taking pleasure in it. p. 231

If someone were to ask the woodworker whether he was pleased that he was working on the project (doing what he just does), he would immediately recognize that he was pleased to do it. If the woodworker were also cooperative, he would assent to a sentence that ascribes propositional pleasure to himself. The best indicator of a person being pleased that something is the case is prompted recognition and assent. However, this indicator fails in the case of the ‘background pleasures’ (see section 10.4). At the time when Sacks’ patient was able to smell, he enjoyed smelling things, without being able, when prompted, to immediately recognize that he took pleasure in smelling or that he was pleased that things smelled a certain way. The patient’s enjoyment was in the background and not discernible by mere re ection. Only the absence of the enjoyment at a later time made its previous presence discernible for the patient. He can contrast in memory his previous experience with the current one and nd the current one lacking in enjoyment. In sum: when he enjoyed smelling things, he was not pleased or delighted that he smelled something. He lacked this propositional attitude at the time of his enjoyment, but is now, on re ection, able to say that he enjoyed smelling in the past. Now, this argument cuts two ways: one can reject either the proposal that enjoyment consists in propositional pleasure or the principle for ascribing propositional pleasure. However, either way the proposal is not supported. Without an independent reason to say that the patient takes propositional pleasure it seems unwarranted to ascribe such pleasure to him. If enjoyment of an activity cannot be reduced to propositional pleasure, can propositional pleasure be reduced to enjoyment of activity? No. If you tell me that I won the lottery, I will be pleased that I won the lottery. But this pleasure does not consist in any activity, mental or otherwise. When I accept your testimony I come to know that I won the lottery, but knowledge is a mental state and not an activity that one can 8

enjoy.

Prima facie, enjoyment and propositional pleasure are independent and the attitude we have to an activity we enjoy is not propositional pleasure.

p. 232

11.4 Pleasure and Desire On to a further attempt to identify the attitude involved in enjoyment. The majority of philosophers argue 9

that pleasure is a kind of desire. Why? An answer is suggested by some of Brentano’s contemporaries. Bain proposes, in a passage quoted in Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics, that ‘pleasure and pain, in the actual and real 10

experience, are to be held identical with motive power’.

This is initially plausible. Often when I take

pleasure in something I am motivated to do something. In the case of sensory pleasures, I am motivated to bring about that I undergo them. De ning pleasure in terms of motive force has the advantage of unifying the heterogeneous feelings that are described as pleasurable. There seems to be no distinctive way in which 11

pleasure feels.

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if you are taking pleasure in something, then if someone were to ask you, you would immediately

In his discussion of Bain’s view Sidgwick (1907, 127) was more careful. If we look for a quantitative notion of pleasure, we should de ne pleasure ‘as a feeling which, when experienced by intelligent beings is at least implicitly apprehended as desirable or—in cases of comparison—as preferable’. Something is desirable in Sidgwick’s (111) sense, roughly, if, and only if, one would desire it if one could bring it about by voluntary action in ideal circumstances. A sensation is pleasurable if one experiences it as potentially moving one to act. 12

If you take something

to be unpleasant, you desire its removal. If you are pained by a toothache, you desire it to stop. When you take pleasure in a sensation, you want to have it; if you take unpleasure in it, you do not want to have it and try to bring it about that you no longer have it. This suggests that sensory pleasure is a sensation whose occurrence is desired by its subject. One needs to add that its occurrence is desired for its own sake or p. 233

intrinsically. For

example, when I desire the pain of the dentist’s injection because it means that the tooth 13

extraction will be less painful, I still don’t take pleasure in the experience.

What all sensations that are

sensory pleasures have in common is that their occurrence is desired for their own sake. Heathwood (2007, 30) articulates this idea in detail: (PD) A sensation S, occurring at time t, is a sensory pleasure at t if, and only if, the subject of S desires, intrinsically and de re, at t, of S, that it be occurring at t. Taking pleasure in the sensation is desiring it for its own sake. In short, desire is the ‘pleasure-making’ factor. Given the multiplicity of uses of ‘pleasure’, there is not one desire theory, but several. Aristotle and Brentano investigate enjoyment of activities, not pleasure in the occurrence of sensations (if there is such a thing). If we focus on ‘enjoyment’, it will often be the case that while one desires to do certain activities because they are intrinsically good, yet one does not enjoy doing them or continuing to do or undergo them. I might desire to do good, but not enjoy doing it. However, in the following sections I will discuss desire theories of sensory pleasure that take this desire to concern the occurrence of a sensation to make clear why Brentano, in contrast, takes enjoyment to be a kind of love. I will revive an old argument which shows that sensory enjoyment can’t consist in a desire for its occurrence, whether for its own sake or not, because desire is not the right kind of pleasure-making factor.

11.5 Hamiltonʼs Argument from Temporal Direction and Brentanoʼs Response My starting point is an argument given by Hamilton. In his Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic Hamilton argued that sensory pleasure and conation, where conation covers desire and will, are distinct: The feelings of Pleasure and Pain and the Conations are, thus, though frequently confounded by psychologists, easily distinguished. It is, for example, altogether di erent to feel hunger and thirst, as states of pain, and to desire or will their appeasement; and still more di erent is it to p. 234

desire or will their appeasement, and

to enjoy the pleasure a orded in the act of this

appeasement itself. Pain and pleasure, as feelings, belong exclusively to the present; whereas conation has reference only to the future, for conation is a longing—a striving to maintain the continuance of the present state, or to exchange it for another. Thus, conation is not the feeling of pleasure and pain, but the power of overt activity, which pain and pleasure set in motion. (Hamilton 1860, II, 433; my emphasis)

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Contemporary desire theorists develop the ‘motive power’ view in terms of desire.

Hamilton’s terminology recalls Spinoza’s discussion of striving in the third part of his Ethics. Striving and longing are both future-directed mental states: we either strive to exchange one state for another or to maintain the continuance of a state in the future. If such strivings are ‘appeased’, they cease. In contrast, taking sensory pleasure is present-directed: I can only take sensory pleasure in a mental activity at a time t if this mental activity goes on at t. You cannot enjoy the taste of some chocolate today if you don’t eat it until 14

tomorrow.

Hamilton uses this contrast to argue that pleasure is not a kind of striving.

(H1) One can only strive to bring about that p at time t if p is an event or state in the future relative to t. (H2) One can only enjoy something at a time t if it is present at t. Hence, (HC) Enjoyment is not striving or a conative state like striving. In his Psychologie, Brentano criticized Hamilton’s argument. Brentano aims to show that enjoying listening to Bach and wanting or willing to listen to Bach are points on a continuum of mental acts. There is a gradual di erence between enjoying something and wanting it, but no di erence in kind. Part of Brentano’s strategy to explain away the di erence between emotions and conations is to argue that wishing is futureoriented: for example, the mental phenomena ordinarily called wishes are sometimes wishes for something future, sometimes for something in the present and sometimes for something past. I wish to see you often, I wish that I were a rich man, I wish I had not done that—these are examples from each of the three periods of time. And although the last two wishes are fruitless and have no prospect of ful lment, they still preserve the general character of wishing, as Kant, Hamilton’s principal p. 235

authority, recognized. It can even happen that when someone wishes

that his brother has

arrived safely in America, his wish refers to something which is past, without referring to something obviously impossible. (PES, 186 n. [II, 87 n.]) It is entirely plausible that one can wish at t that something was the case prior to t. I can wish today that my brother arrived safely in America yesterday. I can wish that I do what I currently do better. But Brentano misses an important point. Striving, as Hamilton conceives of it, is a state which has motivating power: if you strive for something, you have motive to bring it about. Wishing is di erent. A wish is not—on its own —a motive to do something. One needs to desire to realize one’s wish.

11.6 Sumnerʼs Argument from Temporal Direction Does Hamilton’s Argument hold for attitudes that have motivating power, that is, the attitudes that are supposed to be constituents of pleasures? The standard case of such an attitude is desire. Desires are motives out of which we act; they motivate and rationalize actions that, ceteris paribus, bring about that the desires are satis ed or, if it is not in our power to bring the desired state of a airs about, to act as if the desired state of a airs obtained. When I desire that I eat a burger in the near future, I am motivated to act in ways that bring it about that I eat a burger soonish. When I then eat a burger, my desire is satis ed. Or so many argue. We can give a list of axioms for the satisfaction of desires: My desire that I eat a healthy meal is satis ed if, and only if, I eat a healthy meal.

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Hamilton’s Argument from Temporal Direction:

My desire that I visit Venice is satis ed if, and only if, I visit Venice. … If we take desire to have propositional content, the following schema gives us a general grip on desire 15

satisfaction: p. 236

S’s desire that p is satis ed if, and only if, p. We need to 17

hedge this point. Heathwood (2007, 34) gives a counterexample to the principle expressed by the slogan: Suppose Cheapskate’s car is parked outside, and it begins to rain. Worrywart notices, and says to Cheapskate, ‘I bet you prefer that your car be in the garage right now.’ But Cheapskate’s car is dirty. He thinks letting it sit in the rain is a cheap way to get it clean. So he replies, ‘No, I want my car to be right where it is.’

Cheapskate desires that his car continues to be in its current location. Only in this way can it be washed clean by future rain. Cheapskate’s desire is not yet fully satis ed. Both Hamilton and Kenny took this already into account: one’s striving can be a ‘striving to maintain the continuance of the present state’ (Hamilton 1860, 18

II, 433) and one can want to keep or preserve what one already has.

Prima facie it is plausible that one cannot desire (want) what one already has. For only a desire for something that is not yet the case can be a motive to act in such a way that the desire is satis ed. One cannot be motivated to act so as to bring about that p if it is already the case that p. If it is the case that p, my attitude to p cannot have motive force and therefore cannot be a desire. If I have an attitude towards p, the attitude can only be an attitude without motive force. Sumner bases the Argument from Temporal Direction therefore directly on desire: I can desire now only that something occur later. Desires are always directed on the future, never on the past or present. (I can, of course, want events or activities which I am presently enjoying to continue; but their continuation is still a future state.) In being future-directed in this way, wanting once again contrasts with liking or enjoying. I can (occurrently) enjoy only what I already have, while I can want only what I have not yet got. (Sumner 1996, 129) One can sum up this argument as follows: Sumner’s Argument from Temporal Direction: p. 237

(S1) One can only desire at time t that x obtains at time t’ if t’ is future relative to t. (S2) One can only enjoy x at t if x obtains or occurs at t. Hence, (SC) Enjoying x at t ≠ desiring at t that x obtains at t. However, there are counterexamples to (S1). Just as I can wish today that my brother has arrived safely in 19

America, I can today desire that he has arrived safely yesterday.

The strange feature of this desire is that it

seems to be devoid of motivational power. For I know I cannot do anything to bring about that my brother 20

arrived yesterday safely in America and I know that this is so. However, consider retrospective prayer.

If I

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16

It is often held that a satis ed desire cannot persist: ‘we cannot desire what we already have’.

am religious I will pray that my brother has arrived safely yesterday. My praying today for his safe arrival yesterday is motivated by my desire for his safe arrival yesterday. We can push this thought further by modifying one of Feldman’s examples against the thesis that pleasure 21

is future-directed.

You receive today a postcard from your brother saying ‘I will be in America soon.’ You

have been away for a while and don’t know when the card was sent. So you don’t know whether your brother has arrived, whether he is currently arriving, or whether he has not yet arrived in America. Still you can have no temporal direction. So Sumner’s argument fails.

11.7 The Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction 22

A more plausible argument emerges if we consider a variation of the last case.

If I know or fully believe

today that my brother has arrived safely in America yesterday, I can no longer want today that he arrived safely in America yesterday. My knowledge that my brother has arrived safely in America yesterday ‘extinguishes’ my desire. p. 238

This observation suggests a more plausible assumption about how desire satisfaction and persistence are connected, namely: (AS1) One cannot: desire at time t that x obtains at t if one believes outright/is aware at t that x obtains at t. Here is an independent example that makes this principle plausible. I can desire at noon to have a healthy meal at noon even though I, in fact, have a healthy meal at noon if and when I don’t realize that the meal I have is healthy. Imagine that the chef made the dish I am eating look like burger and chips, but all the ingredients are healthy. Hunger drives me to eat what seems to me to be a very unhealthy meal. But it is in fact very healthy; it just looks unhealthy. In this situation I desire at noon to eat a healthy meal at noon, I in fact eat at noon a healthy meal, but I nonetheless still desire at noon to eat a healthy meal then. I still have at noon a motive to look for healthy food at noon and I am not irrational in having this motive. Hence, one can desire at time t that p is the case although that p is the case at that time if one is not aware that p is the case then. In contrast, one cannot desire at time t that p is the case if one is aware that p is the case then. The crucial factor is awareness or full belief that p where that p speci es the condition under which the desire is satis ed. In general, we need either to be aware that a desire is satis ed or at least to believe that this is so for the desire to be ‘extinguished’, that is, for it to lose its motive power. One might argue that the desire that p may still persist even though one is aware that p, yet that the desire ought not persist. If one nds the normative version more plausible, the argument in the next paragraph would need to be rephrased. Its conclusion will then be that someone who takes sensory pleasure has an irrational desire. I take this conclusion to be unacceptable as well. The argument Hamilton and Sumner were trying to formulate is not based on a di erence between desire and enjoyment in temporal directions, but on knowledge, full belief, or awareness of satisfaction of desire. We can now reformulate the argument as follows: The Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction: (AS1) One cannot: desire at time t that x obtains at time t if at t one knows (believes) or is aware that x obtains at t.

p. 239

(AS2) If one is aware (believes) at time t that x obtains at time t, one can enjoy x at t.

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want now that your brother has, is currently, or will be arriving safely in America. In short, desire seems to

Hence, (SC) Enjoying x at t ≠ desiring at t that x obtains at t. Prima facie, (AS1) implies that one cannot desire that p at t if one is aware or believes that p is the case at t. Again this needs to be hedged. Consider standing desires such as my desire to go on living. I have the desire to continue living, plausibly, when and only when I am alive and, importantly, I know that I am alive when I 23

am.

Is this a counterexample to (AS1) in that I desire that p in full knowledge that is the case? No, I desire

that a state of a airs continues to obtain. Hence, my desire to continue living is not satis ed and I know that that it only vanishes if and when I take it to be fully satis ed. The Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction is convincing. But we need another wrinkle to take into account that we are dealing with de re desire and awareness: The Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction1: (AS1’) One cannot: be aware of x at t and desire intrinsically at time t that x (so conceived) occurs at that time. (AS2’) One can be: aware of x at time t and enjoy x (so conceived) at that time. Hence, (SC’) Enjoying x at t ≠ desiring at t that x obtains at t. (AS1’) is plausible because if one is aware of x one believes in it and is therefore also aware that one’s intrinsic desire concerning x is satis ed. Hence, awareness of x and the intrinsic de re desire for x’s occurrence cannot coexist. (AS2’) is true of many examples of sensory pleasure: I am aware of my pleasurable sensation and enjoy it. Therefore sensory pleasure cannot consist in a de re intrinsic desire for the occurrence of a sensation. Proponents of the desire view of pleasure can try to reject the rst premise and argue that the desire is not a desire that a sensation occurs at t, but that it continues. For one might desire at t that a sensation persists although one is aware at t that one has the sensation. However, this suggestion does not yield the right p. 240

result in all cases. Imagine that S takes

sensory pleasure in the punctiform sensation created by short

jolts of electricity. S does not want these sensations to be prolonged when he takes pleasure in them. For they would be di erent sensations and less enjoyable. It is essential for my taking pleasure that the 24

sensation enjoyed is punctiform.

The point of the Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction is that taking sensory pleasure in x (enjoying x) cannot consist in an attitude whose existence is incompatible with belief in or awareness of x. We need to nd an attitude that one can take towards the object of pleasure that, intuitively speaking, is a positive response to it and compatible with knowledge or awareness of its present existence. I will call this the Compatibility Constraint. In the next section I will introduce Brentano’s notion of love in order to prepare the ground for his solution.

11.8 Brentano on Love and Hate 25

Brentano divided mental phenomena into three exclusive groups: 1. Presentation.

2. Positive and negative judgement; acknowledgement and rejection. 3. Love and hate (phenomena of interest).

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this is so. Alternatively, one can conceptualize this by saying that my desire is only partially satis ed and

Presentation, that is, thinking of something without commitment, positive/negative judgement, and love/hate are the unexplained explainers in Brentano’s psychology. Neither desire nor belief gure among his primitives: Brentano’s psychology is not a belief/desire psychology, but an acknowledgement– rejection/love–hate psychology. Here are some basic points that help us to get an initial grip on the primitives of love and hate. Brentano says of the phenomena of love and hate:

which belongs to the third class [of phenomena of love and hate] takes an object to be good or bad. (PES, 154 [II, 32]) Broadly speaking, love is a positive evaluation of an object. Brentano also calls the attitude under p. 241

consideration ‘liking’ (gefallen/wohlgefallen). He

explores love and hate by drawing analogies with

positive and negative judgement. First, positive and negative judgement as well as love and hate are non-propositional attitudes directed on objects. For example, both are among Brentano’s paradigm examples of intentional mental phenomena: In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is acknowledged [anerkannt] or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. (PES, 68 [I, 124–5]) A positive judgement is an acceptance of an object, a negative judgement a rejection of an object (see section 1.2). Similarly, one loves or hates an object. We love the taste of the wine, the sunset, etc. Brentano therefore takes love to be a nominal attitude, that is, an attitude that is immediately directed upon an object. This is not uncontroversial. I will discuss a reason to identify love with a combination of propositional attitudes in the next section and go on to reject it. 26

Second, love or hate can be correct or incorrect. 27

judgements.

The correctness of love/hate corresponds to truth in

In what sense can love (hate) be correct or incorrect? Compare A’s love of a morally depraved

act, say, torturing the innocent, and B’s hatred of the same act. A’s love is wrong: he ought to be criticized for loving this act, while B’s hate is correct. Can one spell out further what the correctness of a loving or hating consists in? One loves or hates correctly provided that one’s feelings are adequate to their object—adequate in the sense of being appropriate, suitable, or tting. (OKRW, 74 [60]) Brentano’s remark is mainly negative. He wants to highlight that correct love (hate) does not require a kind 28

of correspondence between the love and its objects. But this leaves the notion of ttingness unanalysed.

I

cannot pursue this topic in detail here. But what Brentano has in mind when he talks of the ttingness of an attitude can be illuminated by Ginsborg’s ‘primitive normativity’. She made a strong case that an awareness p. 242

that what one does is ‘the appropriate thing to do’ is distinctive of our

thought and perception. A child

who is sorting geometrical shapes will have this sense: When she puts a cube together with the other cubes rather than with the spheres, her action, even if unhesitating, is not ‘blind’: she does it with a sense that it is the appropriate thing to do, that this is where the cube belongs, that this is what she ought to be doing with the cube.

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Just as every judgement takes an object to be true or false, in an analogous way every phenomenon

(Ginsborg 2006, 361) One does not need to possess the concepts of sorting or correctness to have the sense of correctness under 29

consideration: the child can simply be aware that what she does right now should be done in this way.

It

strikes her that the cube belongs there and putting it anywhere else would be wrong. Similarly, we are often compelled to take our likings and preference to be appropriate. Whether ttingness can be explained further, and how we might do so, is a controversial topic. Since, for our purposes, the

What has been said so far about the correctness of love and hate su

ces to distinguish love and hate from

desire at least if they are understood as mere propensities or dispositions that are manifested in actions given further beliefs. Such a disposition cannot be assessed as correct or incorrect in the way love and hate can be assessed. If desire consists in such a disposition it is neither correct nor incorrect and will not seem to me to be correct or incorrect. However, I may be criticized for having particular desires, say, the desire to eat all the food on the table. Equally, I may be criticized for acting on this desire. It is not right to have such desire, but this does not make the desire itself incorrect or correct. Third, there is a disanalogy between (negative and positive) judgement and love and hate. When we say ‘John loves ice cream’, we ascribe to John a dispositional mental state that has a temporal extension (John may love ice cream for most of his life). In contrast, judgements are punctiform mental events. This disanalogy is important for our purposes. For taking pleasure in something or enjoying it is a mental event, a conscious experience, and not a dispositional mental state. But, like many dispositional states, love has an episodic counterpart. For example, one may truly say during an activity: p. 243

I am loving every moment of this. The progressive form indicates that one loves the activity while one performs it. It is this episodic counterpart of dispositional love that will be important in the next few sections. Fourth, love (hate), unlike desire, has no conditions of satisfaction. Let’s spell this out in more detail. Consider personal love, say, the love you have for your friend. Under what conditions would your love be satis ed? If you love your friend and you perform actions that bene t him, your love is not extinguished. It is utterly bizarre to think that upon helping your friend out of di

culties one could conclude for that

reason: ‘Now things are well and my love for you has gone.’ Similar things go for non-personal love. Imagine that you smoke a cigar and, while you do so, you love every moment of it. Your love of smoking cigars is not satis ed by smoking; it persists in full knowledge of the activity and can even become more re ned and discerning as time passes. We have now an initial grip on love and hate. Brentano further argues that all conative attitudes are either combinations of love and hate or combinations of love (hate) with judgement and further feelings. Here are some examples: 30

Preference: S prefers A to B if, and only if, S loves A more than B.

Wish: S wishes that A exists if, and only if, S prefers A to every other object whether its existence is 31

compatible with the existence of A or not.

Hope: S hopes for A if, and only if, S loves A & S acknowledges a non-zero probability that A will be 32

& S feels satisfaction about the existence of the non-zero probability that A will be.

If these de nitions were plausible, Brentano would have made important steps towards replacing desire with love as a primitive attitude. The nal step would be a reduction of desire to love. I will not assess here

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correctness/incorrectness of love and hate is not directly relevant, I will not pursue it further.

whether Brentano is successful. For my purposes it is su

cient to note that love is distinct from desire and

cannot be analysed in terms of it. I will come back to this in the next section.

p. 244

11.9 Enjoyment and Love According to Brentano, the ‘pleasure-making’ factor is love and not desire. One takes pleasure in something This idea is promising because one can love x at t and simultaneously be aware (believe)

that x obtains at t. Love ful ls the Compatibility Constraint: belief in or awareness of an activity is compatible with loving it because one’s love does not have conditions under which it is satis ed. The activity loved is 34

not the satis er of the love; love has no satis er.

Therefore my love of listening to music can coexist with

awareness of listening to music. Brentano has no need for ad hoc moves, such as the idea that one desires that a sensation be prolonged. 35

Love or liking is plausibly temporally restricted.

I can be pleased that I will be massaged tomorrow, but I

cannot like now the massage I will undergo tomorrow, although I may anticipate it and like my anticipation of it. This feature of love or liking explains why one can only enjoy present activities. Par t (2011, 54) uses the fact that a love of a sensation—he speaks of ‘liking’—can be neither ful lled nor unful lled to distinguish between likes and meta-hedonic desires. This seems to me spot on. However, meta-hedonic desires and likes tend to come together. If I love a present sensation, I will, ceteris paribus, desire that the state I am in continues or reoccurs. This is the source of a confusion Par t diagnoses: Many people fail to distinguish between hedonic likings or dislikings and such meta-hedonic desires. (ibid.) The desire view of pleasure is an instance of this confusion: it takes love to be a meta-hedonic desire and hence tries to reduce enjoyment to desire. As we have seen, the Argument from Awareness of Satisfaction brings out the di erence between desire and liking. p. 245

But is love not an attitude that needs to be explained in terms of desire? Heathwood objects to the liking view of sensory pleasure: Liking, unlike desiring, entails belief, or awareness. […] This strongly suggests that liking is a nonbasic, or composite, attitude, and that belief, or awareness is one of its components. (Heathwood 2011, 93; original emphasis) What is the other component? ‘The most natural answer is desiring’ (ibid.). Since love also entails awareness, the same argument applies to love. The objection then is that love can be analysed as a complex propositional attitude whose components are awareness and desire. But this takes us back to our initial problem. If taking pleasure is loving a sensation and loving a sensation is desiring the occurrence of the sensation in awareness that it occurs, we cannot take pleasure in present sensations. But we can. So the analysis of love or liking in terms of desire and awareness is wrong. In the previous chapter we have seen how Brentano spells out the complexity of enjoyment without taking desire to be one of the components of 36

sensory pleasure.

Please note that liking neither entails attending to what is liked nor the liking (see section 10.4). This allows Brentano’s view of enjoyment to respond to Rachels’s objection:

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33

only if one loves it.

Yesterday I felt pleasure, to di erent degrees, all day long. In what sense did I have a ‘favorable emotional attitude’ to my experiences when I was not focusing on them? (Rachels 2000, 194) I was enjoying hearing the music, although I did not notice my hearing, I was only unre ectively aware of it. Brentano’s view of enjoyment can also handle counterexamples against the idea that liking is the pleasure-

The way in which people apparently enjoy searching with their tongue for a tooth which aches slightly, and deliberately trying to manipulate it, might con rm that it is quite intelligible to like pain. (Trigg 1970, 151) Do we, then, like unpleasant things? No, you enjoy and like the activity of searching for the aching tooth, while you dislike the sensation of the ache.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Ryle 1954, 142. See Husserl 1893, 168. Ryle (1954, 143) seems to have similar cases in mind. Many thanks to Kevin Mulligan for discussions about this topic. Gallie 1954, 158. Ibid. 160. See Taylor 1963, 6. Thalberg (1962, 71) goes for the weaker claim that enjoyment implies being pleased that p, for some proposition p. This is too weak to be a competitor to Brentanoʼs account of enjoyment. See also Taylor 1963, 8. Recent proponents of the desire view include Carson 2000, 44–5, Heathwood 2007 and 2011, Parfit 1984, 493. Parfit (2011, 63f.) expounds a di erent view. Sidgwickʼs attribution has to be taken with a pinch of salt. I was not able to find the ʻquoteʼ in the third edition of Bainʼs The Emotion and the Will. See Feldmann 1997, 449–50. Crisp responds that there is a way all pleasures feel: ʻThey feel enjoyableʼ (Crisp 2006, 628). Feeling enjoyable is supposed to be a determinable that has di erent determinates such as the feeling of a warm bath. The proponent of the heterogeneity argument focuses on determinates of feeling enjoyable and overlooks the determinable. See Rachels (2000, 191–3) for an analysis of this argument. See Heathwood 2007, 30. In contrast, attitudinal pleasure seems not to be temporally restricted. I can now be pleased that I was successful in buying the car cheaply yesterday, that I will have a good time tomorrow, etc. See Feldman 2004, 63 n. See Stampe 1986, 151 and 1995, 247. The desire that p causes and justifies those actions that in the light of my beliefs satisfy the desire. Stalnaker (1984, 17–25) and Stampe (1994, 246) use this observation to give interlocking definitions of belief and desire. However, not every desire causes and justifies an action that satisfies it. It is not in my power to do something that brings about the satisfaction of my desire that it be sunny tomorrow. See Kenny 1963, 115–16. See also Matthews and Cohen 1967. See Kenny 1963, 116 n. See Feldman 2004, 62. See Dummett 1978, 336. Thanks to Keith Hossack for drawing my attention to Dummettʼs paper. See Feldman 2004, 63 n. 16. See also Dummett 1978, 342. Thanks to Joe Saunders for the example.

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making factor. Rachels (ibid.) quotes the following counterexample from Trigg:

35 36

See Crisp 2006, 626. Thanks to Jessica Leech for the example. See, for example, OKRW, 16–17 [17–18], 1907, § 9. See OKRW, § 22–3. See PES, 187 [II, 88]. On this notion see Baldwin 1999, 239 . Ibid. 362. Brentano 1907, 148 [143]. Brentano 1907, 157 [155]. SN, 173 n. 75. Brentano distinguished between sensory and intellectual pleasure. On this distinction see Textor, forthcoming. Julien Dutant proposed in conversation that some kinds of love have conditions under which they are consumed. My love of cycling is consumed if and when I cycle. Maybe this idea can be worked out further. But the main point remains: even when the consumption conditions for love are known to be satisfied, it can still persist. See Parfit 2011, 54. For independent reasons as to why liking cannot be reduced to a propositional attitude see Grzankowski 2015, 381 .

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24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Brentano's Mind Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.001.0001 Published: 2017

Online ISBN: 9780191765636

Print ISBN: 9780199685479

CHAPTER

12 Brentano’s Mental Monism  Mark Textor https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199685479.003.0013 Published: August 2017

Pages 247–272

Abstract We simultaneously perceive many things—colours, tastes, sounds, etc.—and are aware that we do so. Are the mental acts that we are simultaneously conscious of distinct mental acts, independent of each other? In Psychologie Brentano’s answer was an adamant No. All mental acts that we are jointly aware of are conceptual parts of one and the same mental activity (Mental Monism). Soon afterwards he changed his mind to Yes, our simultaneous mental acts are distinct and mutually independent, but coconscious acts are accidents of one soul. I explore Brentano’s Mental Monism and defend it against Brentano’s own critique. At any time, there is only one mental act that we partially describe when we talk about seeing and hearing and consciousness of these activities.

Keywords: Marty, Stumpf, One-Act View, synchronic consciousness, unity of consciousness, monism, mental substance, plurality, separability, soul Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

12.1 Introduction In the previous chapters we discussed Brentano’s arguments for the view that neither perceptual nor a ective consciousness can be factored into a perceiving of an object and, in addition, a distinct awareness or enjoyment of this perceiving. For example, seeing a colour and consciousness of seeing a colour are not two mental acts that can exist independently of each other. Neither is a thing ‘in its own right’; each is a conceptual part of one case of awareness that is both of a colour and of itself. Brentano himself summarized his conclusions in order to pose a further question: The consciousness of the primary object and the consciousness of the secondary object are not each a distinct phenomenon but two aspects of one and the same unitary phenomenon; nor did the

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fact that the secondary object enters into our consciousness in various ways eliminate the unity of consciousness. We interpreted them, and had to interpret them, as parts of a uni ed real being. (PES, 120 [I, 221]) Brentano’s arguments so far were conditional on a simplifying assumption. He considered one mental act that was directed upon a single physical object and one’s awareness thereof and nothing else. But to have only one mental act at a time is a limiting case:

insigni cant number of objects before our minds [vorschweben] simultaneously, with which we enter into many diverse relations of consciousness. The question remains whether with such a large number of mental phenomena there is still a real unity which encompasses them all. Are these phenomena all parts of a real [reell] unitary whole, or are we confronted here with a multiplicity of p. 247

things, so that

the totality of mental states must be regarded as a collective reality, as a group of

phenomena, each of which is a thing in its own right [Ding für sich] or belongs to a particular thing? (PES, 120 [I, 221–2]; I have modified the translation, my emphasis) 1

The observation that at any time we are simultaneously aware of many things is overwhelmingly plausible. Consider for illustration Stumpf’s example: While we listen with rapt attention in the concert hall, we see the orchestra and the people who sit in front of us, we have sensations of touching the hard chairs, and among the auditory sensations the melody may be in the foreground, but it is supported by the little or not at all attended to harmony. Always only a few things are in the foreground, but the background plays an important part, and we notice the di erence immediately when the background ceases to be as in the case of the miller who notices the standing still of the mill. 2

(Stumpf 1939, 209; my translation)

In the concert hall we are simultaneously aware of colours, sounds, etc. together. As a matter of contingent fact, simultaneous awareness of many objects together is the rule, not the exception. It would take a specially designed environment to bring it about that one is only aware of one physical object. If we remove the simplifying assumption that at a time we are aware of a single physical object, we face a new question. We simultaneously perceive many things—colours, tastes, sounds, etc. Are there simultaneous, but mutually independent, perceptions each of which has a primary and secondary object? Or is there just one case of awareness that has many primary objects, among them itself? To make the point of these questions clear consider a schematic representation. At time t I simultaneously enjoy seeing blue and hearing the note F. In this situation, do we count two cases of awareness with two objects each? Many-ActsWith-Two-Objects-Each is represented by Figure 12.1.

Figure 12.1

Many-Acts-With-Two-Objects-Each

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In reality, such a simple state never occurs. It frequently happens, instead, that we have a not

p. 248

Or just one case of awareness with a number of primary objects? One-Act-Many-Objects is represented by Figure 12.2.

Figure 12.2

The answers to these questions have not been determined by the Duplication Argument considered in chapter 4. To anticipate: in Psychologie Brentano argued for and endorsed the answer that at any time there is only one act that has many objects. In this chapter I will present Brentano’s answer and assess the arguments he used to support it. However, soon after Psychologie he reintroduced mental substances into 3

the metaphysics of consciousness. Simultaneous mental acts are uni ed at a time by being accidents, particularized properties, of one and the same substance: a soul. Why did Brentano change his view so drastically? While Mental Monism is an attractive position, there is an important obstacle for it: simultaneous mental acts seem separable and therefore distinct. In this chapter I will argue that Brentano threw out the baby with the bathwater. The introduction of a soul creates only new problems while it solves none. I will therefore revisit the examples that are supposed to make the separability of simultaneous mental acts plausible and show that they are wanting. I will begin by articulating the One-Act view further and then assess arguments in favour of it.

p. 249

12.2 Formulating Mental Monism What does Brentano’s One-Act Thesis say exactly? Let us work through some attempts to formulate it to arrive at a satisfactory version. It is again helpful to have a look at Marty’s introductory lectures on descriptive psychology. He explained in these lectures under the heading ‘unity of consciousness’: at every moment the simultaneous seeing, feeling, hearing, etc. is one act of consciousness. In this sense is our consciousness only one, and that is the unity for which inner consciousness vouches. (DPM, 31; my translation and emphasis) I take Marty here to highlight the main point of Brentano’s view of synchronic consciousness. Marty’s formulation seems initially puzzling. How can three things, for instance, seeing blue, feeling a tingle, and hearing the note F, be one act of consciousness? But we already know how to remove this puzzlement. Seeing blue, feeling a tingle, and hearing the note F are, Brentano and his pupils say, conceptual parts of one act. We describe one case of awareness in part by appeal to one of its objects when we say we hear a note. The main problem with Marty’s formulation is that there are many simultaneous mental acts that are not conceptual parts of one act. For example, my seeing blue and your seeing blue may be simultaneous, yet

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One-Act-Many-Objects

they are not parts of one act. Does one need, then, to use the rst-person pronoun to state the One-Act Thesis? Are all my simultaneous mental acts (conceptual parts of) one act? No, Marty considered cases where hypnosis brings about something similar to what are now known as ‘split-brain’ cases. In such a case, the left brain-hemisphere generates, for instance, an experience as of a green spot on the left, the right brain-hemisphere generates an experience as of a red spot on the right, but there is no joint awareness of a green and red spot. Marty describes these cases as follows:

of these consciousnesses would be one unity. (DPM, 32; my translation) If ‘I’ refers to a human animal that has physical and mental properties, and the human animal referred to might su er from split-brain syndrome, then not all its simultaneous mental acts are conceptual parts of one act. Some are conceptual parts of one act; others are parts of another act. p. 250

If we take ‘I’ to refer to a soul, a mental substance that has only mental properties, the that all my simultaneous mental acts are concept parts of one act claim may be true. But in Psychologie Brentano rejected the assumption that there are any souls (see sections 1.3–1.4). Awareness shows us mental acts, not a subject of those acts. The soul has therefore no place in descriptive psychology. The descriptive psychologists should stick to facts revealed in awareness and not introduce theoretical posits to explain them. How to formulate the One-Act Thesis then? What makes for unity of consciousness is not simultaneous existence dependent on one human being or on one soul, but that mental acts ‘are inwardly perceived as existing together’. Consider Stumpf’s example of the concertgoer again. He jointly experiences colour, sound, and touch qualities. In turn, he can also be jointly aware of seeing, hearing, and touching and of their simultaneity. He may not be able to distinguish and describe these acts or come to the propositional judgement that they exist at this time, but he can immediately acknowledge them together and know of 4

their simultaneity.

This point enables Brentano to formulate the unity of consciousness in a way that is immune to the counterexample just discussed: The unity of consciousness, as it can be recognized with evidence from what we perceive in inner perception, consists in the fact that all mental phenomena which occur within us simultaneously such as seeing and hearing, thinking, judging and reasoning, loving and hating, desiring and shunning, etc., no matter how di erent they may be, all belong to one unitary reality already if they are inwardly perceived as existing together [wenn sie nur als zusammenbestehend innerlich wahrgenommen werden]. They are partial phenomena that make up one mental phenomenon [als Teilphänomene ein psychisches Phänomen ausmachen], the elements of which are neither distinct things nor parts of distinct things but belong to a real unity. This is what is necessary for the unity of consciousness, and no further conditions are required. 5

(PES, 126 [I, 232])

This is quite a mouthful. However, the basic point is that we are aware of many acts together and this awareness is immediately evident. With this in mind we can extract from Brentano’s remarks a formulation of the One-Act Thesis: p. 251

(One-Act) If some mental acts are jointly acknowledged with immediate evidence, they are (conceptual parts of) one act.

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Even if this were the case, it would not contradict our concept of the unity of consciousness. Each

In (One-Act) the crucial work is done by the notions of immediate evidence and joint acknowledgement. An appeal to a subject of the mental acts is no longer needed. For I can’t acknowledge your simultaneous seeing together with mine with immediate evidence. I need to make inferences or at least have some warrant to come to the view that there are some simultaneous seeings of blue now. Something similar is true of the split-brain patient. He has neither joint awareness of a green and a red spot nor joint awareness of seeing a green spot and seeing a red spot.

(‘Einheit des Bewusstseins’) one has to hear ‘unit’ as related to counting. A unit is what is counted as one thing. The unity of consciousness consists in the fact that at each time when we count how many mental acts we ‘undergo’, the number we arrive at is one. I will call this also ‘Mental Monism’. Brentano’s Mental Monism in Psychologie had it that all acts of which one is jointly aware are conceptual parts of one act. Instead of ‘one act’ Brentano also talked sometimes of one presentation: The totality of our simultaneous mental activities, and therefore all our simultaneous presenting, belongs to one and the same reality. Everything we present can therefore in one sense be taken to be the content of one presentation that contains in itself a plurality of parts. (PS 53, 53015, 20; my translation) The thesis that we have only one act of presentation at a time may sound implausible. Bayne (2010, 22) holds that ‘ordinary thought has no di

culty in taking a stream of consciousness to contain multiple

experiences, both at a time and over time’. However, Mental Monists also have no di

culty in taking

consciousness at a time to contain multiple parts. They don’t deny that the single mental act that exists at a 6

time is a seeing, a hearing, etc. I am currently aware of a number of objects. The one mental act is an awareness of colours, sounds, etc., and itself. If one act has several distinct objects, one can give several p. 252

partial descriptions of it. The act is an awareness of a colour, hence it is a seeing; the act is an

awareness

of a sound, hence it is a hearing. The same act is awareness of itself, hence it is an awareness of seeing and hearing. Stumpf later gave a similar description of the complexity of our mental life: Psychology talks of thinking, feeling, and willing as states that are supposed to take place in us simultaneously. But it has also talked about the unity of consciousness that uni es the simultaneous states and is itself a fact of consciousness. Basically, there is only one state of consciousness at any time, and what we call thinking, feeling, and willing are only results of theoretical considerations, although they are unavoidable in the interest of description and required by the nature of consciousness. (Stumpf 1939, 24–5; my translation and emphasis) In sum: Mental Monists hold that (i) at any time there is one act that is directed on all those objects that are jointly perceived and (ii) this act has conceptual, but not real, parts. Mental Monism contrasts with Mental Atomism. Mental Atomists deny (ii). The Arch Mental Atomist is Hume. Just as there are physical atoms, there are mental atoms, impressions, and ideas. There are no necessary connections between the mental atoms: All these [perceptions] are di erent, and distinguishable, and separable from each other, and may be separately consider’d, and may exist separately, and have no need of any thing to support their existence. (Hume 1739/40, 252)

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Brentanians labelled this One-Act Thesis ‘the unity of consciousness’. Why? In the ‘unity of consciousness’

In this picture, perceptions are ‘substances’ (Hume) or ‘things in their own right’ (Brentano). They have causal powers and intentional objects. Joint awareness is some such atoms ‘operating together’ at the same time. According to Mental Monism, consciousness is one act with many objects; it is neither a substance nor an accident. Just as a storm is a process that does not require a bearer, awareness can exist without a bearer, but not without referring to objects. This seems supported by Hume’s point that we have no awareness of a

12.3 Three Brentanian Arguments for Mental Monism Why should one hold that at any time there is one act that is directed on all those objects that are jointly perceived? Brentano presented two arguments. I will add a third. First, the argument that Brentano used in Psychologie.

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12.3.1 The Brentanian Argument from Comparison 7

In Psychologie Brentano argued as follows:

(1) We can make non-inferential, evident, comparative, cross-modal judgements such as that this sound is more intense than this colour. (2) If hearing the sound and seeing the colour were distinct mental acts, we could not make such judgements. Hence: (3) hearing the sound and seeing the colour are not distinct. It seems true that a non-inferential, evident, comparative, cross-modal judgement requires that the colour and the sound are jointly conscious. There must be one experience of the colour and the sound together. However, this conclusion is too weak for Brentano’s purposes because it leaves open that this one experience has real parts. It yet has to be shown that the joint experience is not the result of the coordination of distinct mental acts. These acts might form a team that has collective mental properties, that is, properties none of the team members has in isolation. Already in his early Die Psychologie des Aristoteles Brentano had rejected the ‘collaboration’ thesis: can we perhaps perceive the distinction between white and sweet by means of the simultaneous sensations of two di erent senses? Certainly not. This is as little possible as it is possible for two di erent people to be able to recognize the di erence between two objects if each of them senses one of those objects. (PA, 87; my translation) Brentano’s analogy between di erent senses and di erent people does not support his conclusion. Di erent people may work together to achieve a common aim: I row and you steer the boat, and together we manoeuvre the boat to the right destination. Why should di erent senses not also jointly contribute to one state of awareness? Brentano’s argument lacks a crucial premise. Tye expresses the premise Brentano needs to complete the argument as follows: If loudness is experientially ‘trapped’ in one sense and yellowness in another, how can the two be experienced together?

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mental substance (see section 1.2).

(Tye 2007, 289) Talk of being ‘experientially trapped’ is suggestive, but hard to spell out in a satisfactory manner. Brentano needs a better argument for the One-Act Thesis. This brings us to his epistemic argument.

p. 254

12.3.2 Brentanoʼs Epistemic Argument promising. I will quote most of the rst page of the manuscript because it has so far neither been published nor translated. He wrote: 1. I take a human soul to be a substance whose accidents are the mental activities of the human being [Mensch]. I call those accidents mental activities that are directed upon an object or, in Descartes’ terminology, thinking something. 2. The existence of the activities is evident and will hardly be denied by a sensible person. In contrast, some people think that they show particular scienti c exactness when they dispute the legitimacy of conceiving of these activities as accidents of a substance. 3. That ‘thinking, feeling, willing, seeing, hearing thing’ says something substantive [Wesenhaftes] is obvious. If they were not to pertain to other substantive things, they would be substantive beings in their own right. In other words, they would be substances in the ancient Greek sense. […] 4. One cannot assume that there is one single unitary ousia [substance] if one would simultaneously hear and see. For the one ceases while the other continues. We had to talk in line with Hume of a bundle that is composed out of many substances. 5. Yet what counts against this is [P2] that hearing and seeing fall with evidence into the same consciousness that compares them. And this consciousness in its evidence has a further reach. A whole chain of thought, a far-reaching plan, both fall uniformly into it. The evidence of perceiving would be impossible without its [perceiving’s] essential unity with the perceiver. The relation between the perceived real object and the perceiver could be merely the relation of cause and e ect. Descartes already showed that where this [is the case], the possibility of an evidence does not exist. God could, he said, in any case cause all that which the external object causes. 6. Therefore evidence requires a more intimate relation [than causation] between perceiver and perceived [P3]. Are they perhaps only conceptually di erent, but the same thing?—This seems to contradict the idea that under this assumption hearing and seeing were also merely conceptually di erent when they occurred simultaneously in us. But this is incompatible with the fact that they can start and cease to exist independently of each other. (Brentano LS 1b; my translation and emphasis)

p. 255

Brentano summed up in 1.–3. his post-Psychologie view. At any time there is not just one mental act with many objects, but one mental substance in which mental acts inhere as its accidents. 4. introduces Humean Atomism: joint seeing and hearing is a complex of distinct mental acts. Seeing and hearing are not just conceptual parts, but real parts. They are acts that have objects and causal powers.

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After Psychologie Brentano outlined in his manuscript ‘On the Soul’ a di erent argument that seems more

In 5. and the beginning of 6. Brentano suggested an argument against Humean Atomism and for Mental Monism. At the end of 6. Brentano outlined a challenge for Mental Monism. Consider an example to make the problem Brentano sees more vivid. Some simultaneous mental acts like Jim’s tasting the cheese and Jim’s hearing the Bach cantata seem separable: one can occur without the other. Brentano took this to be a conclusive reason to take Jim’s tasting the cheese and his hearing the Bach cantata to be two distinct acts in their own right and not conceptual parts of one act. I will call this problem for the One-Act view the Separability Challenge. How can seeing and hearing be conceptual parts of one act, and yet be separable? come back to it in the next section; in this section I will focus on the argument for the One-Act view. The argument suggested by Brentano in 5. and 6. can be spelled out further as follows: Brentano’s Epistemic Argument: (P1) Consciousness is immediately evident acknowledgement of mental acts. (P2) Sometimes we acknowledge at the same time several simultaneous mental acts such as seeing and hearing with immediate evidence. (P3) Immediate evidence requires the identity of the judgement and its subject matter. Hence: (C) Consciousness of simultaneous mental acts and these acts are identical. I take the premises in order. p. 256

First (P1): Inner consciousness is immediately evident acknowledgement of mental acts. What is immediately evident acknowledgement? An acknowledgement is immediately evident only if it is infallible knowledge, that is, if the acknowledgement could not exist without its object, and there neither is, nor needs to be, a justifying reason for it. The claim that inner consciousness is immediately evident is highly plausible. For what could be a reason that justi es or warrants consciousness of my present mental acts? Is consciousness or awareness infallible as Brentano claimed? It is not possible to see what is not there. Seeing is, one says, factive. Similarly, one cannot be aware of ϕ-ing if no ϕ-ing is going on. Awareness necessitates existence of the object presented: Necessarily: if S is aware of ϕ-ing going on at t, ϕ-ing is going on at t. There may be a non-factive mental act which is indistinguishable from awareness, quasi-awareness, such that we cannot know whether we are aware or quasi-aware when we seem to be aware of hearing going on. However, if there is quasi-awareness it is irrelevant for Brentano’s purposes. We may not infallibly know that we are aware of ϕ-ing when we are so aware. But if we are aware of something, our awareness implies the existence or occurrence of its object. It might seem that there is an initial problem with Brentano’s claim that awareness is immediately evident that already arises for immediately evident knowledge of single acts. What is seeing? Seeing is having a coloured thing as an object…(RP, 191) Seeing is having a coloured thing as an object, hearing is having a sound as an object. If one takes the object of seeing and hearing to be the primary object, the physical quality, awareness of seeing blue, could not be infallible. For awareness of seeing cannot be infallible with respect to the existence of the colour, but seeing is supposed to be nothing but awareness of colour. This problem is immediately resolved if we bear in mind the distinction between the primary object and the intentional correlate. My awareness can be infallible

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Brentano rejected the One-Act View because he could see no way to meet the Separability Challenge. I will

awareness of the activity that has ‘seen colour’ as its intentional correlate (see sections 2.3–2.4). This activity can occur whether there is a colour or not. If there is a real colour, the awareness of the activity is an awareness of seeing a colour, otherwise an awareness of a seeming seeing of a colour. p. 257

Then (P2): Sometimes we acknowledge at the same time several simultaneous mental acts such as seeing and hearing with immediate evidence. Brentano puts this in metaphorical terms when he writes that ‘hearing and seeing fall with evidence into the same consciousness’. I take this to be an important insight. When focused on the knowledge of one mental activity. Brentano takes the scope of awareness to be wider. We have immediately evident knowledge of several simultaneous mental acts. Consider again a situation in which you simultaneously see and hear. You can with immediate evidence know of your seeing and hearing. You may not know with immediate evidence of your seeing and know with immediate evidence of your hearing. But because you simultaneously see and hear you can know of these activities together with immediate evidence. You can know of these activities with immediate evidence, although you can’t distinguish or describe them, as long as they are together di erentiated from other activities. Indeed it seems easier and more basic to acknowledge some things together than one thing in isolation. If many things are simultaneously given, it requires extra mental e ort to pick out one of these things in particular. Hence, we are prone to make mistakes as Brentano explained later in the second edition of Psychologie: Inner perception is confused […] and although this imperfection does not a ect its evidence, it has caused many mistakes. These mistakes, in turn, have led certain psychologists to doubt the general fact that inner perception is evident, even to dispute its correctness. (PES, 216 [I, 139]; my translation) ‘Confused’ contrasts with ‘distinct’: we are aware of some mental acts, but not distinctly in the sense that each of them is given to us in perception. We need to compare and contrast our mental acts with each other to make them distinct. This activity is not immune to error. However, our acknowledgement of these activities together is immune to error. Finally (P3): The immediate evidence of inner perception requires ‘essential unity’ of perceiver and the object perceived. First an exegetical remark. In the quote Brentano says literally that the evidence of inner perception requires the essential unity of perceiver and perception. But this does not make much sense; immediately afterward Brentano talks about an intimate relation between the perception and its object. This

p. 258

thesis, (P3), makes sense and seems to be the one that Brentano wants to defend. Brentano supported (P3) with a further consideration: One can now show that such an immediate knowledge of a fact is only thinkable if the knower and the known stand in the relation of identity. While the known is not absolutely necessary, but only known as a mere fact, it is obvious that it has to persist at least as long as the evident perceiving directed on it. For otherwise there would be the contradiction of an evident and false judgement. Hence, what we come to know as a mere fact is known as relatively necessary. This would be unthinkable if the known were not identical with the knower because, of the two independent objects, one could cease to be and the other persist unaltered without contradiction. (RP, 227–8; my translation) This quote is helpful, but it is also in need of explanation. If Brentano’s conclusion were really that the knower and known are the same, this would constitute a reductio ad absurdum of one of Brentano’s premises. For when I know with immediate evidence of my pain, I am identical neither with my pain nor with the state of a airs that there is pain. Brentano’s claim, charitably understood, is that awareness of a

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discussing the distinctive kind of knowledge we have of our present mental life, philosophers have mainly

mental act can only be immediately evident if awareness of the mental act and the act are the same. We encountered this thesis already in chapter 4: The presentation of the tone and the presentation of the presentation of the tone form one single mental phenomenon; it is only by considering it in its relation to two di erent objects, one of which is a physical phenomenon and the other a mental phenomenon, that we divide it conceptually into two presentations.

Awareness of pain and pain are the same act that has two objects. When we talk about pain we conceive of this act in terms of one object, a disagreeable state, and when we talk of awareness of pain we conceive of it as presenting itself. This view has been made plausible by the Duplication Argument. The epistemological argument supports it further. Consciousness is immediately evident acknowledgement (symbolized as ‘Je’ in what follows). An immediately evident acknowledgement guarantees the existence of its object: Nec. (∃!Je(a) → ∃!a.) When I acknowledge with immediate evidence seeing and hearing together at a time, at that time it must be p. 259

the case that seeing and hearing

are going on. So the contingent existence of one object, the judgement,

necessitates the existence of some other objects (and vice versa). But how can there be a necessary relation between distinct contingent existences? Brentano’s answer is that there is no necessary relation between distinct contingent existences. There is only one mental act that is conceived of under di erent modes of presentation. Hence, we arrive at the conclusion: (C) Consciousness of simultaneous mental acts and these acts are identical. Awareness of seeing blue and hearing F, seeing blue and hearing F are only conceptually di erent, but really identical. (C) is a special case of the more general view that Brentano put forth in Psychologie. I will come back to this in section 12.5. Brentano’s conclusion provides him with a relation between consciousness and its objects that is compatible with the immediate evidence of the former: identity.

8

Does Brentano’s argument lead to the unwelcome consequence that all immediately evident judgements are identical with their subject matter? This would be a reductio ad absurdum since, for instance, the immediately evident judgement that 1 = 1 cannot be identical with the fact that 1 = 1. But the obvious fact that 1 = 1 can obtain without anybody making the corresponding judgement. Hence, it can’t be identical to such a judgement. There is no possible world in which we make the judgement that 1 = 1 and it is not the case that 1 = 1, although judgement and fact judged are distinct existences. If at least one of the ‘distinct existences’ necessarily obtains, there is no need to explain the necessary connection away. In his Materialist Theory of the Mind Armstrong runs an argument that is very similar to Brentano’s. It will be helpful to compare and contrast them. Armstrong’s argument goes as follows: Suppose […] that our pain (say) and our awareness that we are in pain lie within the same ‘introspective instant’. Are the pain and awareness of pain still ‘distinct existences’? If they are, the logical possibility of awareness of pain without the pain is still present, and the doctrine of indubitability falls.

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(PES, 98 [I, 179])

It follows that the incorrigibilist must say that awareness of pain is not a ‘distinct existence’ from the pain itself. How is this necessary connection to be conceived? The incorrigibilist might p. 260

maintain that ‘pain’ and ‘awareness of pain’ are simply

two di erent phrases having the same

meaning. However, he need not take this extreme and implausible view. ‘Shape’ does not mean the same thing as ‘size’, yet X logically must have a size. X’s shape is not a ‘distinct existence’ from X’s size, in the way that X’s colour and X’s smell could be said to be ‘distinct existences’. […] Now, the incorrigibilist can claim, awareness of a pain stands to the pain as a thing’s shape stands to its size

9

(Armstrong 1968, 106)

The rst conclusion that ‘pain’ and ‘awareness of pain’ are di erent phrases having the same meaning is only ‘implausible and extreme’ if one construes it in an uncharitable way. The incorrigibilist need not hold the clearly false view that ‘pain’ and ‘awareness of pain’ have the same meaning. She may hold that ‘pain’ and ‘awareness of pain’ have the same reference, but di er in mode of presentation. In rst approximation, these words express di erent ways of conceiving of the one presentation that exists at one time. Hence, there is no reason to go to Armstrong’s second version of the conclusion that involves logical relations between properties. However, we should note that Brentano (RP, 191) used exactly the same example, shape and size, to illustrate his view of consciousness. Nonetheless properties have not been considered so far. Therefore, I will reconstruct the argument as an argument for the conclusion Armstrong considered rst, but charitably understood. We can adapt Armstrong’s argument to Brentano’s case of seeing and hearing: Armstrong’s Argument adapted for Joint Awareness (P1) Awareness is immediately evident joint acknowledgement of simultaneous acts. (P2) Joint awareness of seeing and hearing can only be immediately evident if the existence of awareness of seeing and hearing logically guarantees the existence of both seeing and hearing. (P3) There are no logically necessary connections between distinct contingent existences. Hence: (C1) Joint awareness of seeing and hearing and seeing and hearing are not distinct contingent existences. Hence: (C2) Awareness of seeing and hearing and seeing and hearing are only conceptually di erent. p. 261

For Armstrong the argument from incorrigibility to identity of act and object is valid but not sound. The analogue of the awareness of our mental acts is a mechanism that scans its own internal states. He continues: It is clear here that the operation of scanning and the situation scanned must be ‘distinct existences’. A machine can scan itself only in the same sense that a man can eat himself. (Armstrong 1968, 107) Fair enough. But for Brentano and his students this shows that there is no reason to think of awareness as the scanning of mental states. We can re ect and observe our mental acts. This might fruitfully be thought of as an internal scanning. But awareness is supposed to be di erent from re ection and observation. Hence, Armstrong’s criticism does not engage his opponent.

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[…].

12.3.3 The Duplication Argument extended Naturalistically minded philosophers will balk at the assumption that there is something like immediate evidence. Awareness of a mental act must be due to some causal mechanism and any causal mechanism 10

might mis re.

However, the One-Act Thesis can be made plausible independently of this assumption by

redeploying the Duplication Argument:

(P1) Sometimes we are jointly aware of seeing blue and hearing F. (P2) If seeing blue, hearing F, and joint awareness of seeing blue and hearing F were distinct mental acts, we would be aware of what is seen and what is heard twice. (P3) We are not aware of what is seen and what is heard twice when we are jointly aware of seeing blue and hearing F. Therefore: (C1) Seeing blue, hearing F, and joint awareness of seeing blue and hearing F are not distinct. Therefore: (C2) Seeing blue, hearing F, and joint awareness of seeing blue and hearing F are one act under di erent descriptions. (C2) is, as we have seen, the One-Act Thesis defended by Brentano. If we accept his view of consciousness, it is a natural further step to accept the One-Act view. p. 262

On the One-Act Thesis, awareness is a relation not just to two objects, but to many objects, and it has variably many argument places. My awareness at a time actually has three terms (colour, note, itself) but might have had only two (sound, itself). This suggests that awareness is a multi-grade relation. Multi-grade relations are relations that have no xed number of arguments; they don’t have a xed number of objects that they relate. Consider Oliver and Smiley’s (2004, 609f., 640f.) example: Tom cooked dinner. Tom and Dick cooked dinner. Tom, Dick, and Harry cooked dinner. In these sentences we predicate the same relation, but of a di erent number of individuals. But is it really the same predicate signifying the same relation? Yes, otherwise ‘cooked dinner’ would have in nitely many 11

distinct meanings and valid inferences would become invalid.

For instance, we can infer from each of these

sentences without further premises ‘Some person or persons cooked dinner’. How would this be possible if there was no univocal common predicate in these sentences? There is, then, good evidence that one and the same relation can relate di erent numbers of objects. The variability of arguments of one relation has a modal dimension. Consider: Actually Tom and Dick cooked dinner; but Tom, Dick, and Harry might have cooked dinner (if Harry had come home earlier from work). The relation cooking with might have related di erent objects. Cases of the relation are distinguished by the terms they relate. This goes for cooking with as well as for awareness of.

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The Duplication Argument for Joint Perceptual Awareness

12.4 The Separability Challenge In Psychologie Brentano alerted his readers to a di This hypothesis has its di p. 263

culty for the One-Act View:

culties. If our simultaneous mental acts were never anything but

divisives of one and the same unitary thing, how could they be

independent of one another? Yet

this is the case; they do not appear to be connected with one another either when they come into if they do occur at the same time, the one can stop while the other one continues. In this case of complexity, the mental acts are mutually independent; in other cases there is at least a partial independence. (PES, 122 [I, 224]) The fact that we can continue to hear while we cease to see seems undeniable. How is it supposed to constitute a problem for the One-Act view? Brentano took the separability of seeing and hearing to entail that seeing and hearing are not merely conceptually di erent. Later he explained distinctness for mental acts in terms of separability: What is meant when we talk in the second case [of simultaneous seeing and hearing] of two acts? Thereby we refer to the fact that one can stop without the other being disturbed in its unchanged continuation. I stop seeing the coloured when I close my eyes, but still hear the music; and vice versa, it becomes quiet and I still see what I saw previously. (RP, 191; my translation and emphasis) Brentano here proposed a criterion for when two di erent concepts are not concepts of one and the same mental act, but are concepts of distinct objects. I will formulate this criterion on the level of concepts of mental acts as it concerns conceptual parts: (RealDi erence) Given two concepts C1 and C2 that denote at most one mental act, if it is possible that C1 is satis ed without C2 being satis ed (and vice versa), the satis er of C1 is a distinct mental act from the satis er of C2. Why should one accept (RealDi erence)? Consider an example to see the intuition that makes (RealDi erence) plausible. John’s seeing Hesperus at noon is the same event as John’s seeing Phosphorus at noon. This identity is not obvious because we conceive of the same event under di erent concepts, namely the concepts [John’s seeing Hesperus at noon] and [John’s seeing Phosphorus at noon]. If John’s seeing Hesperus at noon is the same event as John’s seeing Phosphorus at noon, it is impossible that John sees Phosphorus at noon without seeing Hesperus at noon (and vice versa). So if it were possible that John sees Phosphorus at noon without seeing Hesperus at noon, John’s seeing Phosphorus at noon would have to be a distinct event from John’s seeing Hesperus at noon. The di erent concepts would be satis ed by di erent events. I will discuss (RealDi erence) in detail in due course. In this section I will rst articulate the Separability Challenge based on it. p. 264

Brentano’s argument against Synchronic Monism can now be rendered as follows: (P1) If Mental Monism is true, the concept [A’s seeing blue at t] and the concept [A’s hearing F at t] are partial conceptualizations of one and the same act. (P2) Mental Monism is true.

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being or when they cease to be. Either seeing or hearing can take place without the other one, and,

(C1) The concept [A’s seeing blue at t] and the concept [A’s hearing F at t] are partial conceptualizations of one and the same act (from P1, P2). (P3) (RealDi erence) (P4) It is possible that the concept [A’s seeing blue at t] is uniquely satis ed without [A’s hearing F at t] being uniquely satis ed.

(From P3, P4) Therefore: (C3) The concepts [A’s seeing blue at t] and [A’s hearing F at t] are not partial conceptualizations of one and the same act. (From C2) Therefore: (C4) Mental Monism is false. (From P1, C3) If we assume that the unique satis ers of the concepts [A’s seeing blue at t] and [A’s hearing F at t] are A’s seeing blue at t and A’s hearing F at t, we can infer further that A’s seeing blue at t and A’s hearing F at t are distinct mental acts. If A’s seeing blue at t and A’s hearing F at t are ‘distinct existences’, they are not divisives of one presentation. Hence, Brentano can no longer answer the question ‘What is the relation between seeing, hearing, and consciousness of seeing and hearing that allows for immediate evidence of the latter?’ by saying that the acts involved are divisives or sides of one presentation. A new answer is needed that is compatible with the fact that seeing and hearing are distinct. We need a relation between: (i) hearing F, (ii) seeing blue, and (iii) the joint awareness of hearing F and seeing blue that is compatible with numerical di erence of (i) to (iii), yet allows (iii) to be immediately evident with respect to (i) and (ii). In the next two sections I will rst outline Brentano’s new proposal and then go on to reject it.

p. 265

12.5 The Soul and Substantial Identity The soul is an ‘entity’, and, indeed, that worst sort of entity, a ‘scholastic entity’; and, moreover, it is something to be damned or saved; so let’s have no more of it! William James The relation we are looking for, Brentano proposed, is the relation of a substance to its accidents, that is, its tropes, the instances of properties that are individuated by the soul as their bearer. In the manuscript ‘Of the Soul’ he used the Separability Challenge as a springboard for the proof that there is a soul. A soul is a substance whose accidents are mental activities; a self is a soul that has at least one accident which is 12

directed upon it (the soul).

After the sentence labelled with 6. in the manuscript quoted in section 12.3.2, Brentano continued thus: Hence we are compelled to assume a partial real di erence and partial real unity between hearing and seeing as well as between hearing and seeing and that which perceives and compares them.

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(C2) The concepts [A’s seeing blue at t] and [A’s hearing F at t] have distinct unique satis ers.

They all have to have something real as a part in common without which none of them can exist while this part does not depend for its existence on any of them and therefore can be without all of them while they necessarily include it and can neither be nor be thought about without it. They are substantial beings [sind wesenhaft], yet they are not substantial beings in their own right [für sich seiende Wesenhafte], but accidents of a substantial being in its own right, which gives all of them unity in virtue of which they can fall in one uni ed consciousness. In other words, they are properties, which are one with respect to their substance.

No doubt, Brentano put forth his solution in rather telegraphic form. However, the basic idea is clear. If there are substances at all, they are bearers of properties. The same substance can have a multitude of properties at the same time. Hence, we can sort properties into groups by using substances as the classi ers. There are the properties had by substance A at a time, the properties had by substance B at a time, etc. Brentano called all properties that are had by the same substance at the same time substantially identical. Substantial identity is not a relation between a substance and itself, but a relation between accidents. p. 266

Now let us assume with Brentano that awareness of ϕ-ing and ϕ-ing are both accidents. Brentano argues awareness of ϕ-ing can be immediately evident if, and only if, awareness of ϕ-ing and ϕ-ing are 13

substantially identical.

This idea allows (i) to (iii) to be distinct and separable. But can the fact that (i) to

(iii) inhere in the same soul make it possible that (iii) is an immediate evident acknowledgement of (i) and (ii)? In general, there is no necessary relation between di erent accidents of the same substance. A physical substance may be blue and heavy, but it might have been red and heavy, etc. Hence, substantial sameness alone cannot underwrite the immediate evidence of awareness. If awareness of seeing and hearing and seeing and hearing are accidents of the same substance, the former may exist while the latter don’t. Brentano must assume that there is a (logically) necessary relation between some accidents of a soul, if he wants to explain how immediately evident joint awareness is possible. But if we need a necessary connection between distinct accidents anyway, the assumption of substantial identity is gratuitous. We can do without substantial identity and the soul. Another objection to the soul view should be familiar from the Duplication Argument. If seeing blue, hearing F, and joint awareness of seeing blue and hearing F were distinct accidents of one substance, F and blue would be presented twice. But we know that this is not the case. Hence, even if there is a soul that has accidents, the problem posed by the Separability Challenge is not solved in a way acceptable to Brentano. Brentano’s introduction of a mental substance does not solve the problems that arise for Mental Monism; the problems return in a new form. To sum up: if the soul were a mere posit, its prospects would not be good. The soul does not explain in a satisfactory way what needs explaining. However, Brentano argues that the soul is given to us in awareness, it is not a mere posit: The appearances of inner perception show ourselves as a substance with mental accidents. (Brentano 1907, 138 [142]) 14

I will not assess Brentano’s theory of ‘soul perception’ here.

I take it that we have by now su

cient reason

to explore an alternative answer to the Separability Challenge that does not posit a soul. In the next section I p. 267

will argue that the Separability Challenge can be met without invoking a

soul. I will also set aside the idea

that awareness of seeing and hearing are distinct, but necessarily connected. I have already provided in chapter 5 independent reasons against such proposals.

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(LS 1b; my translation)

12.6 Answering the Separability Challenge Let’s go back to the example that is supposed to make the separability of seeing and hearing plausible. Brentano made the case for separability in terms of a distinction in temporal extension between activities: one can see and hear and then stop seeing while one continues to hear. But this assumes that we have a grip on the identity of a mental activity over time. The same multimodal awareness is supposed to be present at the di erent times at which di erent objects are represented. But we simply don’t know whether this is the

However, the Separability Challenge already arises if we consider our awareness at one time. While Karl actually heard F and saw blue at t, he might have heard only F if he had closed his eyes. There is also the possibility of recombination. Karl actually heard F and saw blue at t, but he might have heard F and tasted cheese at t. Hence, hearing and seeing at t are separable, and therefore distinct, existences. Without further reason it seems ad hoc to deny the modal intuition and the modal intuition suggests that hearing, seeing, etc. are distinct existences. Hence, we need a response that takes modal and temporal separability into account. The basis of a response to this is to consider the central premise on which the challenge is based, namely Brentano’s criterion for a real di erence. Here it is again: (RealDi erence) Given two concepts C1 and C2 that denote at most one mental act, if it is possible that C1 is satis ed without C2 being satis ed (and vice versa), the satis er of C1 is a distinct mental act from the satis er of C2. We saw that (RealDi erence) has some intuitive support. However, it is less plausible if we consider acts that have several objects and which can be partially described in terms of these objects. In order to see this let’s go back to an example in which it is plausible that there is only one act under di erent descriptions: p. 268

15

killing two birds with one stone.

At t,

I throw one stone and the stone strikes down Tweety as well as

Sparky. In this situation it is true that: MT killed Tweety by throwing a stone at t. MT killed Sparky by throwing a stone at t. It is further true that there was just one stone throw: The stone throw that killed Sparky at t is the same stone throw that killed Tweety at t. This stone throw is two killings: MT’s killing Tweety at t is the same action as MT’s stone throw at t. MT’s killing Sparky at t is the same action as MT’s stone throw at t. Hence, MT’s killing Sparky at t is the same action as MT’s killing Tweety at t. In contemporary terminology we can say that ‘MT’s killing Sparky at t’ and ‘MT’s killing Tweety at t’ are two di erent, partial descriptions of the same action: MT’s throwing a stone at t. Now we can easily imagine that Sparky was struck down a bit earlier by the stone thrown by me. Under this assumption the killing of Sparky takes place earlier than the killing of Tweety. If we apply (RealDi erence) to this case, the concepts [the killing of Sparky at t] and [the killing of Tweety at t+1] are not satis ed at the same time, so it is possible that they are not co-satis ed. Hence, they must denote distinct actions. So it

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case or not.

seems that MT’s killing Sparky at t and MT’s killing Tweety at t+1 can’t be one and the same act under di erent descriptions. However, one still wants to subscribe to: MT’s killing Tweety at t+1 is the same action as MT’s stone throw at t. MT’s killing Sparky at t is the same action as MT’s stone throw at t. Hence, MT’s killing Sparky at t is the same action as MT’s killing Tweety at t+1.

come about at di erent times. Because of this, the same action can satisfy two descriptions, but the descriptions apply to it at di erent times. Now, MT’s killing of Tweety and MT’s killing of Sparky are in fact simultaneous, yet MT’s killing of Tweety p. 269

might not have happened at all.

The same point applies as in the temporal case. We have two partial

descriptions of the same action, one of which might not have applied to the action. Hence, (RealDi erence) is undermined. The example suggests that (RealDi erence) holds only for a particular kind of concept. If Sparky is the same bird as Rollo, we can conceptualize MT’s stone throw at t as [MT’s killing Sparky at t] as well as [MT’s killing Rollo at t] and it is not possible that the stone throw satis es [MT’s killing Sparky at t], but not [MT’s killing Rollo at t] (and vice versa). However, if we describe the same action in terms of numerically di erent objects A and B, it can satisfy [the φ-ing of A at t] without satisfying [the φ-ing of B at t] (and vice versa). The mere di erence between A and B makes room for this possibility. In spite of this fact, [MT’s killing Rollo at t] and [MT’s killing Sparky at t] are di erent concepts of the same action. There was only one action: my stone throw. We don’t need to appeal to problematic assumptions about the individuation of actions to make this generally plausible. Consider a di erent example: the brother of John might be no one else than the father of Jim. However, while Ted is in fact both, the brother of John and the father of Jim, he might have been only the brother of John and not also the father of Jim. This possibility does not show that the brother of John is a di erent person from the father of Jim: there are not two persons here. There is still only one person that satis es two di erent concepts that relate the same person to two di erent people. Now, the concepts [S’s seeing blue at t] and [S’s hearing F at t] are just like [the φ-ing of A at t] and [the φing of B at t]. That is, di erent descriptions of the same thing that describe one object in terms of its di erent relations to two distinct objects. As we have seen, it is independently plausible that one and the same thing can satisfy di erent descriptions of this kind, although it is possible that it only satis ed one and not the other (at a time). Hence, [S’s seeing blue at t] and [S’s hearing F at t] can be satis ed by the same act and be mere conceptual parts of it, although the act might have satis ed only one of the concepts. Something similar holds in the case of seeming seeing and seeming hearing. Imagine that I undergo a multisensory hallucination: I seemingly hear a note and see a colour together. It seems right to say that I might have seemed to hear the note without also seeming to see the colour (and vice versa). In this case the plurality of intentional correlates allows us to give di erent partial descriptions of the same act and to p. 270

conceive of the

possibility of seeming hearing without seeming seeing. If a mental act has several

di erent intentional correlates, we can entertain the possibility that it might not have all of them, without 16

assuming that there are di erent acts.

To conclude, the Separability Challenge can be answered if we pay close attention to (RealDi erence). It does not apply to the de nite descriptions that are under consideration in the Separability Challenge. If at a time there is one mental act that has di erent objects, it is possible to describe it in terms of each of these

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There is after all only one thing I do: I throw the stone and do nothing else. This action has two results that

objects. The same act is a seeing, that is, an awareness of a colour; a hearing, that is, an awareness of sound; etc. Since the objects of these acts are di erent it is possible that the same act satis es one and not the other. But this is still only a conceptual di erence, not a real di erence: challenge answered.

12.7 The Problem of Incompatible Emotions Imagine that you simultaneously smell and taste the Parmesan. If

you are like me, you love the taste of Parmesan cheese, but not its smell. According to Mental Monism, you are co-aware of the taste and smell of the cheese, you are tasting and smelling as well as loving and hating. If it is right that your consciousness is only one mental act with many objects, this act must be a love as well as a hate. But this is impossible. So Mental Monism is false. Brentano has an answer to this problem. You hate smelling Parmesan on its own. However, you love smelling Parmesan together with tasting it. For you love tasting Parmesan and smelling Parmesan more than not tasting and smelling Parmesan. Brentano described this situation in mereological terminology: A whole cannot be without its parts; if the whole is loved and contains parts that are not loved as a whole, but are indeed hated, they are implicitly co-loved [mitgeliebt], similar to indispensable means that are co-loved and co-wished [mitgewünscht]. 18

(Brentano 1907, 144 [150]; my translation) p. 271

But the notion of a whole does little to solve the problem. The idea of co-loving does all the work. If you love savouring Parmesan more than not savouring it, you love smelling and tasting Parmesan together. Your love is a multiple relation that holds between you, smelling Parmesan, and tasting it. Your love of savouring Parmesan cannot be decomposed into a love of smelling Parmesan and a love of tasting Parmesan. If you love tasting Parmesan and smelling it together, it does not follow that you love tasting Parmesan and that you love smelling it. You only co-love smelling Parmesan together with tasting it. This solves our problem: while one mental act cannot be a love of tasting Parmesan as well as a hate of smelling it, one mental act can be a joint love of tasting Parmesan and smelling it. The existence of such an act is compatible with hating the smell of Parmesan ‘in isolation’.

12.8 Conclusion Brentano’s Mental Monism can be defended. At any time, there is only one mental act that we partially describe when we talk about seeing and hearing and consciousness of these activities. Brentano provided an ontological underpinning for the psychological fact that we are simultaneously aware of many objects that does not require a further story about how they are combined into one consciousness. This is an important advantage of Brentano’s view. Consider in comparison Rosenthal’s atomistic higher-order thought theory. According to Rosenthal, a mental act is conscious if, and only if, there is a distinct, non-inferential higherorder thought about it. At any time there are a number of distinct perceptions and, if they are conscious, each has its own distinct conscious-making act: a propositional judgement. He raises the following questions for his own approach: If each conscious state owes its consciousness to a distinct HOT [Higher-Order Thought], how could we come to have a sense of such a unity [the unity of consciousness]? Why would all our conscious states seem to belong to a single, unifying self? Why wouldn’t a conscious mind seem instead to consist, in Hume’s famous words, of ‘a mere heap or collection of di erent perceptions’?

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17

Mental Monism faces a further problem.

(Rosenthal 2003, 327) For Rosenthal, conscious mental acts and higher-order thought about them stand in a one-to-one relation: p. 272

for every conscious mental act there

is at least one higher-order thought that makes it and no other act

conscious. For Brentano, all conscious states owe their consciousness to one presentation that is directed on them jointly. There is only one secondary awareness that ‘is inseparable from and directed upon our total “primary consciousness” and at the same time on itself’ (Kraus’ introduction to 1924 edition of PES, exactly one secondary awareness that is of all mental acts that can be distinguished at one time, including itself. The question Rosenthal raised did not arise for Brentano. This seems, however, only to be an ad hominem point. Why should the higher-order thought theory not be formulated in a more holistic fashion and hold that one and the same higher-order thought presents all simultaneous mental acts? The follow-up point is that the higher-order thought theorist needs to introduce this as an extra assumption, whereas it follows naturally from Brentano’s account.

Notes 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

See also Lotze 1879, 516. See also Tye 2007, 289–90. In contrast to Brentano Stumpf did not abandon Mental Monism, but worked it out in detail. In doing so he also drew on Lotzeʼs analogy that the life of the soul might be ʻa melody with pausesʼ (Lotze 1879, 602). A melody is a gestalt, that is, a perceptible property of a whole that is not reducible to properties of the parts of the whole. Is the soul a gestalt like the melody? No: ʻThe gestalt psychologists would perhaps say: soul and personality are individual mental gestalts. We would put in place of the gestalt the life having the gestaltʼ (Stumpf 1939, 366). In consciousness we are aware of a whole that is distinct from a number of mental acts. Just as the tones composing the melody are produced by the ability of the musicians to play their instruments, the mental acts that make up a mental life are exercises of dispositions or powers. These dispositions are not given in consciousness. According to Stumpf (1939, 364), the soul is neither a substance nor a gestalt, but a whole of mental acts together with the dispositions of which these acts are exercises or actualizations. PES, 122–3 [I, 227–8]. A contemporary proponent of this view is Parfit 1984, 250–1. I have in part retranslated this passage. The original translation turned a su icient condition into a necessary condition. The ʻnurʼ in the German is not ʻnur dann, wennʼ, but ʻwenn sie nurʼ means ʻalready when theyʼ. Tye 2007 argues for a one-experience-at-a-time view. His arguments are similar to Brentanoʼs. Tye is charged with a revision of our notion of experience. It seems to me possible to disarm this objection in the way outlined above. See PES, 123–4 [I, 226–7]. See also PES, 109 [I, 198–9]. See also Hossack 2002, 126. See Weisberg 2008, 172. See Oliver and Smiley 2004, 609. See Brentano 1912/13, 142. See Brentano 1907, 143. I do so in more detail in Textor 2017. See again Mackie 1997, 45. See Tye 2007, 297. Many thanks to Jessica Leech for making me aware of it. Chisholmʼs and Schneewindʼs translation leaves out this whole sentence.

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LXXXV; my translation and emphasis). Not every mental act has its own secondary awareness, but there is

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I would like the reader to take away from this book the following morals. First, Brentano was wrong to say that intentionality is the most distinctive mark of mental phenomena (see PES, 75 [I, 137]). Our conception of mental phenomena in not uni ed by the thesis that all and only mental acts have an object. It cannot be so uni ed because the notion of direction or of-ness itself is neither uni ed nor generally applicable to mental phenomena. Even if intentionality is a rst-person concept that one can only come to grasp if one can instantiate and introspectively access mental acts, propositional and interrogative attitudes pose insuperable problems for Brentano’s Thesis. Second, Husserl was right to propose a di erent mark of mental phenomena. The unifying principle is that all mental acts can be perceived in immanent perception; they have no systems of adumbrations. This principle explains why we take marks of the mental such as non-spatiality to be plausible. Third, Brentano was right to stress the plural character of consciousness. The basic case of awareness is plural and not singular. Normally, we are simultaneously aware of many objects together at a time. By means of the Duplication Argument he makes a good case for the thesis that perceptual awareness is a multiple relation. The thought that one mental act can have several objects is fruitful and avoids a number of problems. These reasons are good reasons to conclude with Brentano that ‘in a unitary mental activity […] there is always a plurality of relations and a plurality of objects’ (PES, 215 [II, 138]). Fourth, a ective awareness—enjoyment and su ering—are special cases of the multiple directedness of the mental. Enjoyment provides an intuitive model for this directedness which motivates that among the several objects of a mental act only one is attended to. p. 274

Fifth, Brentano’s view of the structure of perceptual and a ective awareness takes mental acts to be metaphysically simple. They have only conceptual and not real parts. Brentano’s arguments for this thesis pose a challenge to any metaphysics of awareness that identi es perceptual or a ective consciousness with a complex of distinct mental acts. Conscious perceiving neither is a higher-order act directed on a

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perceiving, nor can it be factored into distinct acts or vehicles that each are directed on something. If we take this into account, there is no regress or revenge regress threat. Sixth, Brentano’s abandonment of Mental Monism was unmotivated and his move to a substance–accident ontology is neither independently plausible nor fruitful. The Separability Challenge can be answered and Mental Monism defended.

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References  Published: August 2017

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