Mind and Language – On the Philosophy of Anton Marty 9783110531480, 9783110529777

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Anton Marty: From Mind to Language
I. Intentionality, Similarity, and Their Objects
Consciousness and Intentionality in Anton Marty’s Lecture on Descriptive Psychology
Austro-German Transcendent Objects before Husserl
Mental Similarity: Marty and the Pre-Brentanian Tradition
Talking about Intentionality: Marty and the Language of ‘Ideal Similarity’
Abstraction and Similarity: Edition and Translation of the Correspondence between Marty and Cornelius
II. Elements of the Mind
The Origins of Emotivism, Expressivism and the Error Theory: Marty, Scheler, Russell, Ogden & Richards
Marty on Abstraction
Marty and Meinong on What Judgements Are About
Marty against Meinong on Assumptions
Consciousness of Judging: Katkov’s Critique of Marty’s State of Affairs and Brentano’s Description of Judgement
III. Marty’s Semasiology, its Origins and its Posterity
Grice and Marty on Expression
Marty’s ‘Psychological’ Semantics and Its Posterity: Internalism and Externalism
Husserl, Marty, and the (Psycho)logical A Priori
Grammaire générale and Grammatica speculativa: The Historical Roots of the Marty–Husserl Debate on General Grammar
Anton Marty’s Heritage – From Philosophy to Linguistics: Dissemination and Theory Testing
List of Contributors
Register

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Mind and Language – On the Philosophy of Anton Marty

Phenomenology & Mind

Edited by Arkadiusz Chrudzimski and Wolfgang Huemer

Volume 19

Mind and Language – On the Philosophy of Anton Marty Edited by Guillaume Fréchette and Hamid Taieb

ISBN 978-3-11-052977-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-053148-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-052978-4 ISSN 2198-2058 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Table of Contents Guillaume Fréchette, Hamid Taieb Anton Marty: From Mind to Language

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I Intentionality, Similarity, and Their Objects Denis Fisette Consciousness and Intentionality in Anton Marty’s Lecture on Descriptive 23 Psychology Hamid Taieb Austro-German Transcendent Objects before Husserl

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Laurent Cesalli Mental Similarity: Marty and the Pre-Brentanian Tradition

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Claudio Majolino Talking about Intentionality: Marty and the Language of ‘Ideal 83 Similarity’ Robin D. Rollinger Abstraction and Similarity: Edition and Translation of the Correspondence 105 between Marty and Cornelius

II Elements of the Mind Kevin Mulligan The Origins of Emotivism, Expressivism and the Error Theory: Marty, Scheler, Russell, Ogden & Richards 149 Guillaume Fréchette Marty on Abstraction

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Giuliano Bacigalupo Marty and Meinong on What Judgements Are About

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Table of Contents

Sébastien Richard Marty against Meinong on Assumptions

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Hynek Janoušek Consciousness of Judging: Katkov’s Critique of Marty’s State of Affairs and Brentano’s Description of Judgement 241

III Marty’s Semasiology, its Origins and its Posterity Guy Longworth Grice and Marty on Expression

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Anne Reboul Marty’s ‘Psychological’ Semantics and Its Posterity: Internalism and Externalism 285 Denis Seron Husserl, Marty, and the (Psycho)logical A Priori

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Hélène Leblanc Grammaire générale and Grammatica speculativa: The Historical Roots of the 325 Marty–Husserl Debate on General Grammar Savina Raynaud Anton Marty’s Heritage – From Philosophy to Linguistics: Dissemination and 345 Theory Testing List of Contributors Register

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Anton Marty: From Mind to Language 1 From Schwyz to Göttingen: The early years As a Swiss-born Austro-German philosopher who taught in Czernowitz and in Prague, Marty was not only a cosmopolitan thinker; he had also an exceptional knowledge of the history of philosophy and well-informed inclinations towards specific branches of the discipline. He was influenced by Aristotle, the Scholastics, and early modern philosophers (both rationalists and empiricists), and was unsympathetic towards Kant and German Idealism. Yet his main intellectual inspiration came from his master Franz Brentano, whose conception of philosophy as a science—especially his fourth habilitation thesis—made a lasting impression on many of his students, most prominently on Marty and Stumpf.¹ By way of presenting the contributions to this volume, we offer here a general outline of Marty’s life and works, of his Brentanian upbringing, and we sketch some of his central ideas in philosophy—more precisely on mind, language, and their ontology, with regards to the themes discussed in the contributions. Martin Anton Maurus Marty, to give him his full name, was born on the 18th October, 1847, in the small town of Schwyz, capital of the eponymous canton in central Switzerland. His father was Jakob Josef Alois Marty, a cobbler, and his mother was Elisabetha Reichlin, native of Steinerberg, in the same canton. Anton was the ninth of eleven siblings, four boys and seven girls. The Catholic faith had an important role in the Marty family. Marty’s father was a sacristan. The oldest brother, Martin Alois, travelled to the United States as a missionary, with the project of converting the Sioux, and later became the second bishop of the Diocese of Saint-Cloud in Minnesota. Anton’s two other brothers, Johann Baptist and Martin, were also concerned with religious affairs: the first was at the service of Pope Leo XIII in the Swiss Guard, and the second one was a parish priest in Schwyz. According to Marty’s student, editor, and biographer Oskar Kraus (1916: 1– 3), the young Anton had a peculiar temperament compared to other children: he did not take part in their frequent fights, but preferred to

 See Stumpf 1919: 88, and Brentano 1968: 30: “This thesis, and what was connected with it, was also what captivated Marty and I with enthusiasm under his flag”. Here and henceforth, throughout the book, English translations of quotes have been provided, either by the author of the paper or as published translations. In cases where the German original is not yet published, both the English and the German are quoted. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-001

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spend time reading books or in contemplation. Anton went to high school in Einsiedeln, in the canton of Schwyz. He left Switzerland in 1864 and, in line with the convictions of his family, followed a religious career, entering the Catholic Seminar in Mainz.² There he was introduced to Aristotelico-Scholastic philosophy, and in 1867 submitted a dissertation on psychological matters, more precisely on St. Thomas’ Doctrine of Abstraction of Supersensory Ideas from Sensory Images, with an Exposition and Critique of Other Theories of Knowledge (title transl. in Rollinger 2014). In this unpublished text, Marty defends Aquinas’ views on abstraction against later accounts, notably those of early modern thinkers and Kant. To that extent, he followed an anti-Kantian stance found among many Catholic thinkers of the 19th century, not only in Brentano, but also in the other major figure of the Austro-German tradition, Bernard Bolzano.³ It was also in Mainz, in the same year, that Marty studied Brentano’s dissertation of 1862, The Manifold Meanings of Being in Aristotle. The book had a strong influence on him, and his teachers there, Ketteler, Moufang, and Brück advised him to pursue his studies under Brentano’s guidance in Würzburg (Kraus 1916: 3). In the winter semester of 1868/69, Marty finally went to Würzburg and spent the whole academic year there, attending Brentano’s lectures on the history of philosophy, logic, and metaphysics. Brentano’s influence on Marty at this point in his philosophical development (it should be recalled that he was only 22 at the time) must have been particularly strong, since Marty spent only a year with Brentano. Later, in 1869, he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the Lyceum Maria Hilf in Schwyz and was ordained as a priest, teaching in Schwyz for five years. In parallel, he was still engaged in a kind of ‘distance learning’ with Brentano, since his friend Stumpf regularly sent him notes taken during Brentano’s lectures.⁴

 For factual information on Marty and his family, besides Kraus 1916, we follow Bischof 2009 and Gehrig-Straube 2008. On Marty’s life, see also Rollinger 2014. On his oldest brother Martin, see Betschart 1934.  See Příhonský 1850 for Bolzano, and, more generally on this phenomenon, Thouard 2004.  Marty describes this situation in a letter to Brentano from the 1st March, 1870: “My dear Dr. Stumpf sent me your lectures on the immortality of the soul and some notebooks from the logic lectures. I am now like Goethe on the Zurich Lake: ‘fresh food, new blood, etc.’—with a bit of imagination, I can transpose myself back to your lecture hall and extend somewhat the two short semesters that I had the opportunity to attend. I would give a lot to be able to buy myself an extra evening course under your supervision, in order to ask you some more questions” (German original: “Mein lieber Dr. Stumpf hat mir Ihre Vorlesungen über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele und einige Bogen der Logik zugeschickt und es geht mir wir Goethe auf dem Zürcher See: ‘Frische Nahrung – neues Blut etc’ – Ich kann mich nun mit ein bisschen Phantasie in Ihren Hörsaal versetzen und so die 2 kurzen Semester, die mir bloß vergönnt waren, etwas verlängern. Ich

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Brentano, who was also a priest, resigned from the priesthood on the 11th April, 1873, after undergoing an important crisis of faith caused by his rejection of papal infallibility.⁵ This crisis affected Marty as well, and it is safe to suppose that Brentano’s defection acted as a trigger for Marty’s decision to abandon priesthood the same year.⁶ In early 1873, Marty prepared an application for another position at the Kantonschule in Lucern. In preparation for this application, he began to write his PhD dissertation and planned, together with Stumpf (who was already Privatdozent in Göttingen at this point), to submit it in Göttingen under the supervision of Lotze. On the 23rd May, 1873, a first draft was completed and was sent to Brentano for comments. In parallel with the preparation of his PhD dissertation, during the summer and autumn of 1873, he prepared for his abandonment of the priesthood, which he justified to Brentano in a lengthy letter written in October 1873. He probably left the priesthood in the spring of 1874, since he sent his resignation letter from Schwyz in May 1874.

würde wohl um Vieles mir wieder eine Abendstunde bei Ihnen erkaufen, um Sie über Manches zu fragen”).  See for instance Fisette and Fréchette 2007: 25 ff.  Kraus 1916: 5 states quite the contrary: “Brentano never spoke with him about his doubts nor did he so in letters”. This however contradicts a discussion to this effect reported by Utitz (1954: 77), but also Brentano’s letter to Marty from the 8th March, 1872: “You know that I have more pressing concerns. They are getting more pressing every day. Every attempt to solve a difficulty just makes new difficulties appear that seem insurmountable. I am looking forward to leaving a position in which I become more and more perfect a hypocrit” (German original: “Sie wissen, dass schwerere Sorgen mich drücken. Sie thun es täglich mehr. Jeder Versuch, eine Schwierigkeit zu lösen macht nur neue und wie es scheint völlig unüberwindliche offenbar. So sehne ich mich danach eine Stellung zu verlassen, in der ich mehr und mehr zum vollkommenen Heuchler werden würde”). His letter from the 21st August, 1873 also makes quite clear that Brentano’s move was a factor in Marty’s decision: “I am happy that you decided to reflect upon the most important questions in life, and this thoroughly and without prejudice. Though I am not deluding myself that the knowledge of truth will first bring you some bitter results, as it was in my case and by many others… Even if your position in Schwyz is difficult, I ask you not to make any move before your decision concerning your religious doubts. When everything is over, if you believe that a break with the Church is necessary, then there is no other choice than to leave your position, and I completely approve your plan to teach first as a Privatdozent. If I get a position in Vienna, I may be able to do something for you” (German original: “Ich freue mich darüber, dass Sie sich entschlossen haben, einmal vorurtheilslos und gründlich über die wichtigsten Lebensfragen nachzudenken. Und doch verberge ich mir nicht, dass Ihnen die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit zunächst manche bittere Frucht tragen werde. So war es bei mir, so bei gar Vielen… So peinlich Ihre Stellung in Schwyz ist, so bitte ich Sie doch nicht vor der Entscheidung Ihrer religiösen Zweifel daran zu rühren. Ist Alles fertig und sollten Sie einen Bruch mit der Kirche notwendig finden, so können Sie selbstverständlich nicht anders als niederlegen und ich billige vollkommen Ihren Plan zunächst als Privatdocent aufzutreten. Komme ich nach Wien, so kann ich vielleicht etwas für Sie thun”).

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2 From Göttingen to Prague: Dissertation and habilitation The resignation caused a scandal, which made Marty a persona non grata in Schwyz and forced him to leave, also seriously endangering his prospects for the continuation of his academic career. After leaving Schwyz, he then spent some time in Aschaffenburg (living with Brentano’s mother) where he finished his dissertation with the help of Stumpf. In June 1875, his PhD dissertation was finally accepted in Göttingen.⁷ The dissertation (Marty 1875) began with a critique of nativistic positions on the origins of language, according to which there is an innate connection between some articulated sounds and some intuitions or thoughts. For Marty, language is not innate. It emerges from a series of voluntary but unconcerted attempts on the part of human beings to influence other human beings’ psychic lives. As Marty puts it, linguistic expressions are formed ‘purposively but without planification’ (absichtlich aber planlos). Such an account of the origins of language has aptly been coined an ‘empirical teleological’ account—in opposition to Steinthal, but also to Wundt (Funke 1927: 129 sq.). To argue against the nativistic position, Marty follows Brentano in saying that the methods of philosophy are nothing other than the methods of natural science. This is why his work on linguistics, anthropology, and zoology relies heavily on building a case against nativism. According to Marty, one could reasonably suppose that the first humans had primitive mental phenomena similar to ours and mastered the ability to perform voluntary movements. Since communication is the essence of language, the first humans most likely wanted to communicate their mental states, and by analogy, information about physical events. Linguistic tools were then developed out of this intention, following different laws of genetic psychology (such as the laws of association and habit). Similar ideas in the line of Marty’s empirical teleological account were being developed by his contemporaries, for instance by Austrian economists such as Carl Menger (1969). A few days before his promotion, Marty had already been appointed to the newly founded University of Czernowitz, the most remote university of the Austrian Empire in Bukovina. This appointment was the result of Brentano’s efforts to secure Marty a position in Austria. Not much is known about Marty’s Bukovinian period, besides the fact that he apparently spent most of his time preparing his habilitation thesis, which was submitted in Göttingen in 1879, and approved by Lotze once again. This

 See Lotze’s Report from the 23rd June, 1875. The viva took place on the 10th July, 1875. See Lotze 2003: 609.

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work in genetic psychology pursues the same perspective developed in 1875 on the origins of language, focusing on the relation between colour names and colour perception. In his habilitation thesis, Marty argues against a view of physiology and linguistics from the mid-19th century, according to which the perception of colours would have been subject to evolution in the course of history. This idea had been made popular by Gladstone (1858), who suggested that Homer had a deficient and indeterminate perception of colours, using colournames for some phenomena that we wouldn’t use today. This suggestion was much debated among linguists, historians, and physiologists. Marty’s position in the debate follows the lines of his position on the genesis of language in Marty 1875: our ability to linguistically discriminate between specific shades of colour certainly depends upon our ability to perceive them. This does not imply, however, that the absence of a linguistic discrimination between shades a and b depends upon the absence of the physiological preconditions, in the visual system, that would allow us to perceptually discriminate between a and b. Here, Marty’s main argument refers to Brentano’s distinction between perceiving and noticing: not only does one not necessarily notice everything one sees,⁸ but language does not always capture the differences we perceive or notice (Wenning 1990). With the publication of his (1879), Marty also fulfilled the last requirement for obtaining a full professorship. In April 1880, with the help of Stumpf and Brentano, Marty was finally appointed professor of philosophy at the Charles University in Prague, where he remained until his retirement in 1913. He passed away a year after his retirement, on October 1, 1914. During his 34 years as a philosophy professor in Prague, Marty played a central role in the development and the diffusion of the philosophical programme that Brentano often spoke of as ‘our school’ to his first students, Stumpf and Marty.⁹ Indeed, the appointment of Marty in Prague in 1880 somehow confirmed Brentano’s hopes that Austria, and not Prussia or Bavaria, was the perfect soil for the development of a new scientific philosophy.¹⁰ With two of his students,

 See Brentano 1982: 23 – 24. The distinction was discussed in early lectures on psychology, which were the basis of the unpublished second and third books of his Psychology. See for instance Ps 53, n°53003, dated 1875, and Fréchette 2014 on these manuscripts. See also Marty 1879: 109: “All the time, phenomena which were first confused are later distinguished, not because the differences in the sensation have become greater, bur rather because one sees them better as a consequence of other modifications”.  See Brentano’s letter to Marty, 31st March, 1873: “Without doubt, the future belongs to our School” (German Original: “Unserer exakten Schule gehört eben zweifelsohne die Zukunft”).  Compare with Brentano’s letter to Bergman of the 1st June, 1909, in Brentano 1946: 125 – 126.

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Stumpf and Marty, occupying important positions in the second biggest university of the Empire, the conditions seemed favourable for a renaissance of scientific philosophy. Although these hopes were disappointed after Stumpf’s defection to Prussia and Bavaria, but also and more importantly after the treatment Brentano experienced from the Ministry of Education due to his marriage, the School of Brentano in Prague, thanks to Marty, had the greatest longevity of any branch of the School. Over sixty years (1879 – 1939), many students of Brentano, often very distinguished, occupied chairs in both the Czech and the German divisions of the University: Carl Stumpf, Thomas Masaryk, Anton Marty, Christian von Ehrenfels, Alois Höfler, Josef Eisenmeier, and Oskar Kraus all occupied chairs at the Charles University; many other philosophers belonging to the School of Brentano or influenced by it were originally from Prague or spent extended stays there: this was the case for Franz Kafka, Hugo Bergman, Max Brod, Vilem Mathesius, Emil Arleth, Benno Urbach, Emil Utitz, Alfred Kastil, Otto Funke, Ludwig Landgrebe, and Georg Katkov, to name but a few. Thanks to Marty, the programme of the School was developed further in Prague over the years, with one of the main centres of interest being the philosophy of language. Marty’s dominant interest in the descriptive psychology of language, which he called ‘semasiology’, was not only seminal for the later development of the Cercle linguistique de Prague —the young Mathesius, for instance, attended Marty’s lectures on the philosophy of language in 1904—, it also played an important role in the development of Karl Bühler’s philosophy of language, which is heavily influenced by Marty’s Sprachphilosophie, Külpe’s Denkpsychologie, and Husserl’s Phänomenologie.

3 From language to mind As we have seen, Marty’s first philosophical works were concerned with language, and more precisely with its genetic aspects (Marty 1875, 1879). Later on, following Brentano’s interest in descriptive research, Marty began his project of a ‘descriptive semasiology’, i. e. a descriptive theory of meaning that builds upon the theoretical foundations of descriptive psychology and which finds its most complete expression in Marty’s Investigations towards the Foundation of General Grammar and Philosophy of Language (1908), the first of two projected volumes on the topic. Marty’s philosophy and theory of language is based upon his philosophy of mind. His three classes of meaningful linguistic expressions, i. e. names, assertions, and emotives, correspond to the three classes of psychic phenomena established by Brentano, namely presentations, i. e. the mere thinking of an object,

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judgments, i. e. the acceptance or rejection of an object, and emotions, i. e. the loving or hating of an object. These three kinds of psychic phenomena, which Marty takes to be exhaustive (see Richard, this volume), have a common feature, namely intentional directedness, but they differ with regard to their correlates: presentations are directed toward simple objects, judgements towards states of affairs, and emotions towards states of value. In short, the classification of meaningful expressions is grounded in the classification of intentionality in three kinds of psychic phenomena. The specificity of the different intentional correlates led Marty to an investigation of the ontological implications of both his psychology and his philosophy of language. Taking over a distinction made by his master Brentano, he admitted both realia and irrealia in his ontology. This allowed him to posit a mind-independent account of problematic categories, such as: relations, states of affairs, possibilia, past and future entities, etc., all included among irrealia. Despite the strong influence that Brentano had on him, Marty should be considered an independent philosopher, as shown by some of his most original achievements on the topics of mind, language, and ontology, and more precisely with respect to three fundamental notions connected to these topics: intentionality, meaning, and being. Marty initially followed Brentano in understanding intentionality as a correlation between a mental act and an immanent object, both accessible from the point of view of self-consciousness (Brentano 1982: 21, Marty 2011: 9 and 166; see Fisette, this volume). However, it remains problematic whether the so-called immanent object has any important link with the reality of the outside world, and what the contribution of intentionality to our relation with the world is. One finds at least one tentative answer to these questions in Marty’s descriptive psychology, where he defends the thesis that when something in the outer world corresponds to an immanent object, i. e. when a mental act has an external object, the two objects entertain a relation of ‘quasi-equivalence’, i. e. a primitive sort of specific identity, about which Marty does not go into much detail.¹¹ In the Vienna Logic Lectures of the 1880s, Brentano played with the idea that a ‘quasi-equivalence’ holds between the immanent object and its external counterpart, unfortunately without offering any more explanation than Marty about the exact nature of this quasi-equivalence (see Brentano, EL 72, Logikkolleg, 1878/ 1879: n°12540 – 12543). At any rate, both on the very structure of the intentional directedness of thoughts and on their connection to the outer world, Marty initially followed Brentano. As a matter of fact, when his teacher decided to aban-

 See Marty 2011: 110 and the discussion of this passage in Cesalli and Taieb 2013: 209 – 211.

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don immanent objects—in order to avoid the various intricate problems that they create—Marty adopted the same stance (see Brentano 1930 and 1952, Marty 1908; see Taieb, this volume). What’s more, the most well-developed arguments against immanent objects in the Austro-German tradition can be found in Marty, not in Brentano (see Marty 1908: 385 – 406). Yet in his account of the structure of intentional acts, the later Marty distinguishes himself from Brentano: for the later Marty, intentionality is relational, and is described in terms of a similarity holding between the act and the outer object (see Cesalli, this volume). Here, the relation of quasi-equivalence discussed above seems to play an important role in linking the mental act with external reality and seems to allow Marty to describe intentionality in terms of similarity. This is an avenue that Brentano obviously did not explore. Besides, according to Marty, intentionality is an actual or potential relation of ideal similarity, where ‘ideal’ means ‘mental’; if the object exists, the relation is actual, whereas if the object is merely possible, the relation is potential, and amounts to what Marty calls a ‘relative determination’ (Marty 1908: 406 – 431). Although some aspects of Marty’s concept of ideal similarity remain problematic (see Majolino, this volume), this idea is clearly related to the correspondence theory of truth and epistemological realism, as we can see, for instance, in Marty’s account of the correctness of judgements and emotions as grounded in the state of the world. Marty argues not only that correct judgments are grounded in the way the world is but also that correct emotions are grounded in the exemplification of value. He thus defends versions of realism that are rejected by Brentano in his mature period.¹² It is probably the topic of meaning on which Marty has the most original account, in comparison to Brentano. Brentano seems to distinguish between what words express and what they mean. In some lecture notes from around 1870, Brentano holds that words express psychic phenomena, and more precisely that utterances can be expressions of judgments or of emotions (Brentano, EL 75, Zur Logik: n°12921, quoted in Rollinger 2009: 87). In other logic lectures from the same period,¹³ Brentano says that the meaning of a name is the content of a presentation, and the meaning of an assertion is the content of a judgment. Something similar seems to hold for a request, whose meaning is ‘that which is wanted as such’ (see Brentano 2011: 35 – 37). The contents in question are mental. As a matter of fact, when Brentano was giving these lectures, he was still admitting immanent objects in his ontology. Now, one finds similar theses in Marty.¹⁴

 See Mulligan 2017.  See Rollinger 2011 for more information on the dates of these lectures.  For these proximities between Brentano and Marty on language, we follow Rollinger 2009.

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Indeed, Marty holds that language expresses psychic phenomena: names express presentations, assertions judgments, and emotives emotions (Marty 1908: 280 – 287). Besides, in contrast to Brentano, Marty distinguishes between two kinds of meaning: meaning in the narrow sense and meaning in the broad sense. As regards meaning in the narrow sense, this is explained in terms of the content of psychic phenomena: the meaning of a name is the content of a presentation, the meaning of an assertion is the content of a judgment, and the meaning of an emotive is the content of an emotion (Marty 1908: 312– 315, 399 – 406 and 447). This narrow sense of meaning echoes points made in Brentano’s logic lectures. However, there is a major difference between the two authors: since the later Marty does not admit immanent objects, the ‘contents’ he is talking of cannot be immanent, despite their name, but are extra-psychic entities, or more precisely objects, states of affairs, and states of values, corresponding to presentations, judgements, and emotions. Thus one could say that Marty, in opposition to Brentano, has an ‘objectivist’ theory of meaning, at least as regards so-called ‘meaning in the narrow sense’ (Spinicci 1991). Marty’s second sense of meaning, meaning in the broad sense, seems to anticipate Grice’s intentionalist theory of meaning. Indeed, Marty understands the meaning of words in terms of the utterer’s intention. More precisely, for Marty, meaning in the broad sense of a name, assertion, or emotive is the utterer’s intention that the listener performs a presentation, a judgement, or an emotion analogous to the one expressed by the uttered name, assertion, or emotive. This intention itself is meant to be fulfilled if another intention of the utterer is fulfilled, namely the intention to express a presentation, a judgement, or an emotion in uttering a name, an assertion, or an emotive (Marty 1908: 280 – 287; on these questions, see Liedtke 1990 and Cesalli 2013). This Gricean-like account of meaning is absent from Brentano’s writings as they have come down to us. On being, Marty follows Brentano in his understanding of the relation between existence, reality, and unreality. For the Viennese Brentano, beings, which are all existent, are either real or unreal. Reality is understood in terms of causal efficacy and receptivity: real beings are those which have their own generation and destruction and which can act or be acted upon, whereas unreal items appear and disappear concomitantly to real items, and cannot act or suffer. The class of irrealia welcomes items such as abstracta, collectives, possibilia, and past and future entities (see Brentano 2013 and Chrudzimski 2004: 138 – 139). The later Brentano will defend ‘reism’, a position stating that existence and reality overlap: only real things exist, whereas unreal items are excluded from ontology. On these questions, Marty refuses to follow his master, and argues in favour of irrealia (see notably Marty 1908: 330 – 335). One interesting argument given by Marty is at the crossroads of ontology and psychology. For

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Marty, states of affairs are unreal entities: they have no causal efficacy and sensitivity. However, such items are required to explain the correctness of judgments (see Bacigalupo and Janoušek, this volume). Indeed, a judgment is correct when it enters into a relation of ideal similarity with a state of affairs, either positive or negative. If one were to reject unreal items, no state of affairs would exist, and no adequation between thoughts and reality would be possible (on this question, see Marty 1916: 148 – 159 and Cesalli 2008: 220 – 221). Marty’s original views on intentionality, meaning, and being offer a contrasting account of the central disciplines of psychology, philosophy of language, and ontology, which is strongly inspired by Brentano but which also brings in original elements, making of Marty a philosopher in his own right.

4 Further sources There is a complex network of influence to be found in Marty’s works. Besides the influence of Brentano discussed above, further sources played an important role in the shaping of Marty’s views on mind, language, and ontology. Among these, three sources are worth mentioning in the present context: Medieval philosophy. Like Brentano, many of Marty’s philosophical sources are found in medieval philosophy, especially in the philosophy of Aquinas. In his still unpublished dissertation of 1867, before his first meeting with Brentano, Marty already builds on Aquinas’ theory of ideas in his account of abstraction. Marty believes with Aquinas that the form of the object exists in the subject like the ‘form of the stone in the soul’ (forma lapidis in anima) (De Veritate, q. 8, a. 11, ad 3); he also believes that the form ‘represents the form existing in the material stone’ (forma lapidis in anima inquantum repraesentat formam lapidis in materia) (De Veritate, q. 8, a. 11, ad 3), where this representing is an intentional relation (see Fréchette, this volume). It is striking that this Thomasian idea was developed by Marty and Brentano at the same time in 1867 as an early characterization of intentionality in terms of the scholastic ‘objective existence’ of a representional form in the subject.¹⁵ Beside other resources taken from medieval philosophy, it is worth noting that Marty’s philosophy of language shares a common interest with medieval grammarians in their focus on the invariant structures of language (see Leblanc, this volume), similar in some respects but

 See Brentano 1867: 80, Brentano 1874: 106.

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in others contrasting Husserl’s theses in the 4th Logical Investigation (see Seron, this volume).¹⁶ Lotze. Marty’s conception of the opposition between the real and the unreal displays an interesting similarity with a distinction developed by his mentor Lotze, in Göttingen, between being and validity or value (Geltung).¹⁷ Where Marty suggests that the judgment expressed by ‘A is b’ is correct because of the being b of A (where the being b of A is a content of judgement, an irreale), or that the love of A being b is correct because A being b exemplifies a value (Marty 1908: 370), Lotze too proposes seeing the being b of A as a value, or as having a validity—or as Marty would say, as being an irreale. Linguistics. The young Marty developed his philosophical and linguistic interests at a time when many comprehensive studies or introductions to linguistics were starting to appear: Max Müller’s Lectures on the Science of Language (1862– 1864), Whitney’s Language and the Study of Language (1867) and The Life and Growth of Language (1875), Steinthal’s posthumous edition of Heyse’s System der Sprachwissenschaft (1856), and Benfey’s Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft (1869), which led, among other things, to Delbrück’s works discussed by Marty and Saussure (1916). One central topic in the linguistic texts of the mid-19th century mentioned above was the question of the origin of language: the question of whether all languages originate from one single language or if they come from different sources depending on the context of specific linguistic communities. This question is not only of the utmost generality, but it is not even clear what kind of position is at play in the debate. This is where Marty’s contribution is particularly innovative, combining the influence of Brentano’s empiricism with new elements: Marty believes that language is simply a means to communicate mental phenomena, and that the question of the genesis has to be answered as a question about the link between a mental phenomenon and its expression. Here, nativist conceptions of language are excluded from the picture. But what about the empiricist positions? Marty rejects the nativist views developed by Steinthal and Lazarus and sides with Withney on his understanding of the first expressions as onomatopoeic, i. e. as imitations of sounds. One of Marty’s most ingenious ideas was to reform Humboldt’s idea of an inner form of language, understood as a Weltanschauung, into an empiricist framework inspired by Whitney,

 Among these other resources from medieval philosophy, the medieval theory of supposition seems to play an important role in Marty’s distinction between indication (Kundgabe) and meaning (Bedeutung). See Marty 1908: 210 sq. and 507 sq., as well as Cesalli and Goubier (forthcoming).  Besides Marty, Stumpf and Frege also studied under Lotze. Smith (1994) suggests that the influence of Lotze’s distinction might reach not only to Marty but also to Frege and Stumpf.

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where the link between mental phenomena and words is mediated by imitating sounds (e. g. onomatopoeiae) expressing auxiliary mental acts and their contents, which Marty describes as the inner form of language. The concept of imitation discussed in Marty’s genetic psychology of language anticipates his later investigations into similarity in general (see Rollinger, this volume), but also mental similarity in particular. Another important debate that influenced Marty’s development was that between Heymann Steinthal and Franz Bopp. Bopp—who, like Brentano, was taught by Joseph Merkel in Aschaffenburg—held that linguistics could be developed as a science, while Steinthal and Lazarus argued that studies of the development of language should be grounded in Völkerpsychologie, since historical linguistics is not self sufficient: ‘it has no autonomy; consequently it cannot be called a science. It takes its categories from philosophical grammar and does not stop to ask how they have been reached’ (Steinthal 1850/1970: 129).¹⁸ The nature of Marty’s contribution to this debate is already aptly described in the introduction of his (1875): Some have gone before us in the attempt to conceive of language as a human acquisition. Let us see if the lacunae of its derivation, which others sought to fill by means of new assumptions, are more successfully filled by us by means of a more correct evaluation of familiar forces we find at work both in the history of language and still at present wherever something analogous to spoken language is produced. (Marty 1875/2010: 175)

5 Posterity The reception of Marty’s innovations in 20th century philosophy is particularly rich in the field of descriptive psychology of language. In 1902, Kafka attend Marty’s lectures on descriptive psychology. These lectures, and the meetings of Brentanians at the Cercle du Louvre, which he attended with Max Brod for some time, had a strong impression on Kafka and influenced some of his writings.¹⁹ Some time later, in 1904, the young Vilem Mathesius, founder of the Cercle linguistique de Prague, attended Marty’s lectures on Basic Questions of Philosophy of Language (Grundfragen der Sprachphilosophie), which was Marty’s first formulation of his opus magnum of 1908. The conception of language exposed in the very first of the Thèses of the Cercle linguistique seems to be strongly influenced by Marty’s

 See also Davies 1998: 191.  On the influence of Brentanian and Martyian psychology on Kafka, see Wagenbach 1958, Neesen 1972, and Smith 1981/1999.

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conception of language, an influence also stressed by Jakobson (1933/1971: 542; see also Raynaud, this volume).²⁰ Marty’s philosophy of language, as noted, also influenced Karl Bühler. Bühler reviewed Marty’s Untersuchungen in 1909, a review that Husserl used in writing his own review in 1910 (Husserl 1979). But Bühler not only contributed to the public discussion of Marty’s works, he also incorporated Marty’s descriptive psychological analyses of meaning and linguistic acts into many of his own works, for instance on the psychology of attention (Bühler 1912: 733), on behavioural patterns in child psychology (Bühler 1918: 20 sq.), and arguably on the representative function of language.²¹ Marty’s posterity was also secured by one of his most interesting students, Hugo Bergman. In his (1909), Kafka’s schoolmate built on Marty’s theory of relative determination in his interpretation of Bolzano’s conception of objectless presentations, and it is reasonable to suppose that it is thanks to his mentor Hugo Bergman in Jerusalem that the young Bar-Hillel came to be exposed to the philosophy of Marty, which made some impression on him.²² Later on, Bar-Hillel spent some time as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. According to Noam Chomsky (private communication), they never discussed Marty and the School of Brentano at any length in that time. It seems therefore that Kuroda’s work on Marty, undertaken in the context of Chomsky’s seminars on Cartesian linguistics at MIT (see Kuroda 1990), is not linked to Bar-Hillel’s presence at MIT. In his papers on Marty, Kuroda stresses the important resemblances between Marty and Chomsky, notably the link between Marty’s inner form of language and Chomsky’s idea of surface structure (see Kuroda 1971, 1972, 1973). Also in linguistics, Marty indirectly influenced the theory of meaning-change through the work of Gustaf Stern (see his 1931). Stern borrowed the idea that the characteristics of metaphors ‘must be sought in the speaker’s mental processes’ from Marty (1931: 301)—or more simply, in Marty’s terms, the idea that metaphors are dependent upon the inner form of language, which serves as an ‘associative connection’ (assoziativer Band) between mind and language. This idea is still current in some fields of cognitive linguistics (see Fritz 2009 on the history of theories of meaning change). Another aspect of Marty’s conception of meaning was influential in discussions of the mid-20th century. Indeed, Marty’s idea that meaning in the broad  According to him, the Brentanian influence on the Prague Circle not only came from Marty, but also from Masaryk’s conception of language in his (1885/1887).  See for instance Funke 1927: 138 against Bühler 1909: 966. See also Fréchette 2014: 97 sq.  Since Bergman introduced Bar-Hillel to Husserl and Bolzano, it is likely that he did the same regarding Marty. On Bergman and Bar-Hillel, see Fréchette 2017.

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sense of the term is a function of the mental acts of the speaker, which influence the hearer’s mental life thanks to the expression of the relevant acts, was discussed by one of the central figures of analytic philosophy in Finland, Erik Ahlman, who developed it into a theory of the normativity of meaning and of linguistic rules, an idea which went on to play a central role in Wittgenstein’s late philosophy of language (see Ahlman 1926; for the comparison with Wittgenstein, see Mulligan 2012). In the same spirit, Marty’s theory of meaning also influenced Eduard Martinak, who taught in Graz after having studied there with Meinong. Martinak (1901) adopted the ‘empirico-teleological’ account of language, as well as Marty’s original notion of ‘internal form’ (see Mulligan 2012: 111 and 125, as well as Fisette and Fréchette 2007: 157– 158 n. 2). Besides Bühler and Ahlman, major theoretical developments of Marty’s philosophy of language can be found in Landgrebe (1934). Thanks to Husserl, who was his mentor in Freiburg, Landgrebe had the opportunity to habilitate in Prague with a thesis on Marty’s theory of meaning, under Oskar Kraus. Not only did Landgrebe insist on the functional aspects of Marty’s theory of meaning, he also anticipated some ideas discussed many years later by Kripke in Naming and Necessity (on Marty, Landgrebe, and Kripke, see Gabriel 1990; on Marty and Landgrebe, see Cesalli 2014). The Martian conception of meaning in the broad sense was not only influential in Central Europe and Finland, but in England as well, as Mulligan shows. In 1922, Gardiner discussed the Martian conception very favourably (see Gardiner 1922: 361). A year later, Ogden and Richards (1923) published their influential The Meaning of Meaning, in which they develop a theory of meaning along the lines of Marty’s, which they also explicitly discuss, in reference to Gardiner as well. Building mainly on Ogden and Richards, Stevenson (1944) develops this theory further into a theory of emotive meaning. Ogden and Richards (1923) indeed deal with the emotive theory of values at length in their volume. This is probably why Satris (1982: 120) suggests that ‘Marty’s account of a kind of linguistic sign which he calls “an emotive” (ein Emotiv) is the ultimate source of Ogden and Richards, and hence of Stevenson’s, concept of emotive meaning’. However appealing this suggestion might be, the link between Stevenson and Marty seems rather indirect, if it exists at all.²³ Nowhere in Ethics and Language  Stevenson (1937: 23) acknowledges that his conception of emotive meaning is based on the theory exposed by Ogden and Richards (1923: 125). The theory in question is a combination of Moore’s idea (Moore 1903a) that the concept expressed by ‘good’, as the subject matter of Ethics, is unanalysable, with Ogden and Richard’s idea that this use of ‘good’ is a purely emotive one. It is of course traceable to Moore’s (1903a) discussion of Sidgwick and to Moore’s discussion of

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does Stevenson explicitly discuss Marty. In fact, Marty never formulated an emotivist view, although the central claims of his (and Martinak’s) philosophy of language provides the basis of such an account. In contrast, Scheler formulated the view already in 1913 but did not endorse it (see Mulligan, this volume). The existence of such a link could of course be a welcome explanation for the striking resemblance between some of Grice’s ideas in Grice 1957 and Marty’s theory of the utterer’s intentions, which have been noted in recent years (see Mulligan 1990 and Liedtke 1990) and which are still debated today (see Cesalli 2013 as well as Longworth and Reboul, this volume). Since Stevenson 1944 is the only work referred to in Grice 1957, and since Ogden and Richards 1923 was very popular in Britain, it is tempting to think that the resemblance between Grice’s 1957 and Marty’s theories of the speaker’s intention is more than a mere coincidence. *** On the centenary of the death of Anton Marty (1914– 2014), an international conference took place at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague, where Marty’s philosophy of mind and language was the focus of discussion. The same year, in Marty’s Alma Mater of Einsiedeln, these discussions continued into a second international conference, marking both the centenary of Marty’s death and the beginning of the SNF research project Meaning and Intentionality in Anton Marty at the University of Geneva. Participants at these two conferences were invited to submit papers developing on the ideas discussed at the meetings, which are at the basis of the present volume.²⁴

References Ahlman, E. (1926), Das normative Moment im Bedeutungsbegriff, Helsingfors, Finnish Literature Society. Benfey, Th. (1869), Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, Munich, Cotta. Bergman, S. H. (1909), Das philosophische Werk Bernard Bolzanos, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Betschart, I. (1934), Der Apostel der Siouxindianer: Bischof Martinus Marty O.S.B., 1834 – 1896, Einsiedeln, Benziger.

Brentano’s concept of good as the next best after Sidgwick (Moore 1903b), but this alone is not sufficient to support Satris’ thesis.  We would like to thank the SNF for its financial support (project Meaning and Intentionality in Anton Marty, n°152921), as well as Kevin Mulligan and Laurent Cesalli for their help and suggestions.

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Bischof, F. X. (2009), ‘Marty, Martin’, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, http://www.hlsdhs-dss.ch/textes/f/F9951.php/. Brentano, F. (1867), Die Psychologie des Aristoteles, insbesondere seine Lehre vom ΝΟΥΣ ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΟΣ, Mainz, Verlag von Franz Kirchheim. Brentano, F. (1874 – 1911/1924 – 1925), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, 2 vol., edited by O. Kraus, Leipzig, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1930), Wahrheit und Evidenz, edited by O. Kraus, Leipzig, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1946), ‘Briefe Franz Brentanos an Hugo Bergmann’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 7, p. 83 – 158. Brentano, F. (1952), Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, edited by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Bern, Francke. Brentano, F. (1968), Über die Zukunft der Philosophie, edited by O. Kraus, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1982), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by R. M. Chisholm and W. Baumgartner, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (2011), EL 80, Logik, edited by R. D. Rollinger, http://gandalf.uib.no/Brentano/ texts/el/logik/norm/. Brentano, F. (2013), ‘Abstraction und Relation’, edited by G. Fréchette, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 465 – 482. Bühler, K. (1909), ‘[Review of] A. Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, 1908’, Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen 171, p. 947 – 979. Bühler, K. (1912), ‘Aufmerksamkeit’, in Handwö rterbuch der Naturwissenschaften I, edited by E. Korschelt et al., Jena, Verlag Gustav Fischer, p. 732 – 741. Bühler, K. (1918), Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes, Jena, Verlag Gustav Fischer. Cercle Linguistique de Prague (1929), Thèses. Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague 1. Mélanges linguistiques dédiés au premier Congrès des philologues slaves, Prague, Jednota československých mathematikú a fysikú. Cesalli, L. (2008), ‘Relative Bestimmung: une relation martyienne’, in Compléments de substance. Études sur les propriétés accidentelles offertes à Alain de Libera, edited by Ch. Erismann and A. Schniewind, Paris, Vrin, p. 215 – 229. Cesalli, L. (2013), ‘Anton Marty’s Intentionalist Theory of Meaning’, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 139 – 163. Cesalli, L. (2014), ‘Marty, Bühler, and Landgrebe on Linguistic Functions’, in Marty et Bühler. Philosophes du langage, edited by L. Cesalli and J. Friedrich, Basel, Schwabe, p. 59 – 75. Cesalli, L. and Goubier, F. (forthcoming), ‘Anton Marty on Naming (nennen) and Meaning (bedeuten). A Comparison with Medieval Theory of Supposition’, in Medieval logic and Modern Applied Logic, edited by C. Kann, B. Löwe, C. Rode, and S. Uckelman, Leuven, Peeters. Cesalli, L. and Majolino, C. (2014), ‘Making Sense. On the Cluster significatio-intentio in Medieval and “Austrian” Philosophies’, Methodos 14. Cesalli, L. and Taieb, H. (2013), “The Road to ideelle Verähnlichung. Anton Marty’s Conception of Intentionality in the Light of its Brentanian Background”, Quaestio 12, p. 171 – 232. Chrudzimski, A. (2004), Die Ontologie Franz Brentanos, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Fisette, D. and Fréchette, G. (2007), ‘Le legs de Brentano’, in À l’école de Brentano. De Würzbourg à Vienne, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Paris, Vrin, p. 13 – 160. Fréchette, G. (2014), ‘Fixer, déterminer, interpréter. Éléments de psychologie descriptive de Brentano à Marty’, in Marty et Bühler. Philosophes du langage, edited by L. Cesalli and J. Friedrich, Basel, Schwabe, p. 79 – 101. Fréchette, G. (2017), ‘Bergman and Brentano’, in Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, edited by U. Kriegel, London, Routledge, p. 323 – 333. Fritz, G. (2009), ‘Theories of Meaning Change—An Overview’, in An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, edited by C. Maienborn, K. Heusinger, and P. Portner, Berlin, De Gruyter, p. 2625 – 2651. Funke, O. (1927), Studien zur Geschichte der Sprachphilosophie, Bern, Francke. Gabriel, W. (1990), ‘Why a Proper Name has a Meaning: Marty and Landgrebe vs. Kripke’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 67 – 75. Gardiner, A. H. (1922), ‘The Definition of the Word and the Sentence’, British Journal of Psychology 12, p. 352 – 361. Gehrig-Straube, C. (2008), ‘Marty, Anton’, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, http://www. hls-dhs-dss.chF42916.php/. Gladstone, W. E. (1858), Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Grice, P. (1957), ‘Meaning’, Philosophical Review 66, p. 377 – 388. Heyse, K. W. L. (1856), System der Sprachwissenschaft, edited by H. Steinthal, Berlin, Dümmler. Husserl, E. (1979), ‘[Review of] A. Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, 1908’, Deutsche Literaturzeitung 31 (1910), p. 1106 – 1110; reprinted in Husserl, E., Aufsä t ze und Rezensionen (1890 – 1910), Hua XXII, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, p. 261 – 265. Jakobson, R. (1971), ‘La scuola linguistica di Praga’, La Cultura 12 (1933), p. 633 – 641; reprinted in Jakobson, R., Selected Writings II: Word and Language, The Hague, Mouton, p. 539 – 546. Kraus, O. (1916), ‘Marty’s Leben und Werke. Eine Skizze’, in Marty, A., Gesammelte Schriften I.1, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil, and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer, p. 1 – 68. Kuroda, S.-Y. (1971), ‘Anton Marty et la théorie transformationnnelle’, Langage 24, p. 48 – 66. Kuroda, S.-Y. (1972), ‘Anton Marty and the Transformational Theory of Grammar’, Foundations of Language 9, p. 1 – 37. Kuroda, S.-Y. (1973), ‘Edmund Husserl, Grammaire Générale et Raisonnée and Anton Marty’, Foundations of Language 10, p. 169 – 195. Kuroda, S.-Y. (1990), ‘The Categorical and the Thetic Judgment Reconsidered’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 77 – 88. Landgrebe, L. (1934), Nennfunktion und Wortbedeutung. Eine Studie ü ber Martys Sprachphilosophie, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Liedtke, F. (1990), ‘Meaning and Expression: Marty and Grice on Intentional Semantics’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 29 – 49.

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Lotze, H. (2003), Briefe und Dokumente, edited by R. Pester and E. W. Orth, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann. Martinak, E. (1901), Psychologische Untersuchungen zur Bedeutungslehre, Leipzig, J. A. Barth. Marty, A. (1875), Über den Ursprung der Sprache, Würzburg, A. Stuber; English translation by R. D. Rollinger, in Rollinger, R. D., Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty. Analysis and Translation, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2010, p. 133 – 234. Marty, A. (1879), Die Frage nach der geschichtlichen Entwicklung des Farbensinnes, Vienna, Carl Gerold’s Sohn. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1916), Raum und Zeit, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil, and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (2011), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by M. Antonelli and J. Ch. Marek, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann. Masaryk, T. G. (1885), Základové konkretné logiky, Prague, Bursík & Kohout; German translation, Versuch einer concreten Logik, Vienna, Konegen, 1887. Menger, K. (1969), Untersuchungen über die Methode der Sozialwissenschaften, und der politischen Oekonomie insbesondere, Leipzig, Duncker & Humbolt, 1883; reprinted in Menger, C., Gesammelte Werke, vol. II, edited by F. A. Hayek, 2nd ed., Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr. Moore, G. E. (1903a), Principia Ethica, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Moore, G. E. (1903b), ‘[Review of] F. Brentano, The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong’, International Journal of Ethics, 14(1), p. 115 – 123. Morpurgo Davies, A. (1998), History of Linguistics, vol. IV: Nineteenth-Century Linguistics, London, Routledge. Müller, M. (1862 – 1864), Lectures on the Science of Language, 2 vol., London, Longman, Green, Longmans and Roberts. Mulligan, K. (1990), ‘Marty’s Philosophical Grammar’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 11 – 27. Mulligan, K. (2012), Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande, Paris, Vrin. Neesen, P. (1972), Vom Louvrezirkel zum Prozess. Franz Kafka und die Psychologie Franz Brentanos, Göppingen, Kümmerle. Ogden, C. K. and Richards, I. A. (1923), The Meaning of Meaning, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Příhonský, F. (1850), Neuer Anti-Kant oder Prüfung der Kritik der reinen Vernunft nach den in Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre niedergelegten Begriffen, Bautzen, A. Weller. Rollinger, R. D. (2009), ‘Brentano’s Logic and Marty’s Early Philosophy of Language’, Brentano Studien 12, p. 77 – 98. Rollinger, R. D. (2011), ‘Editor’s Preface’, in Brentano, F., EL 80, Logik, edited by R. D. Rollinger. Rollinger, R. D. (2014), ‘Anton Marty’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by. E. N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/marty/. Satris S. A. (1982), ‘The Theory of Value and the Rise of Ethical Emotivism’, Journal of the History of Ideas 43, p. 109– 128.

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de Saussure, F. (1916), Cours de linguistique générale, Lausanne, Payot. Smith, B. (1981), ‘Kafka and Brentano: A Study in Descriptive Psychology’ in Structure and Gestalt: Philosophy and Literature in Austria-Hungary and their Successive States, edited by B. Smith, Amsterdam, Benjamins, p. 113 – 159. Smith, B. (1994), Austrian Philosophy. The Legacy of Franz Brentano, La Salle, Open Court. Smith, B. (1999), ‘Kafka et Brentano’, Philosophiques 26, p. 349 – 371. Spinicci, P. (1991), Il significato e la forma linguistica. Pensiero, esperienza e linguaggio nella filosofia di Anton Marty, Milano, Angeli. Steinthal, H. (1970), ‘Der heutige Zustand der Sprachwissenschaft’, Allgemeine Monatsschrift für Literatur 1, 1850, p. 97 – 110 and p. 208 – 217; reprinted in Steinthal, H., Kleine sprachtheoretische Schriften, ed. by W. Baumann, Hildesheim, Olms, p. 114 – 138. Stern, G. (1931), Meaning and Change of Meaning, Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Stevenson, Ch. L. (1937), ‘The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms’, Mind, 46(181), p. 14 – 31. Stevenson, Ch. L. (1944), Ethics and Language, New Haven, Yale University Press. Stumpf, C. (1919), ‘Erinnerungen an Franz Brentano,’ in Kraus, O., Franz Brentano. Zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Lehre, München, C. H. Beck, p. 87 – 149. Thomas Aquinas (1970 – 1976), Quaestiones disputatae De veritate, edited by A. Dondaine, 3. vols., Opera Omnia t. XXII, Roma—Paris, Commissio Leonina—Éditions du Cerf. Thouard, D. (ed.) (2004), Aristote au XIXe siècle, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses universitaires du Septentrion. Utitz, E. (1954), ‘Erinnerungen an Franz Brentano’, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg 4, p. 73 – 90. Wagenbach, K. (1958), Franz Kafka. Eine Biographie seiner Jugend, 1883 – 1912, Bern, Francke. Wenning, W. (1990), ‘Marty and Magnus on Colours’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 103 – 110. Whitney, W. D. (1867), Language and the Study of Language, New York, Scribner, Armstrong & Co. Whitney, W. D. (1875), The Life and Growth of Language: An Outline of Linguistic Science, New York, D. Appleton & Co.

Archive Materials Brentano, F. (dated from 1875), Ps 53, Psychologie (Fragment des geplanten III. Bandes der ‘Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt’), Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, F. (dated from 1878/1879), EL 72, Logikkolleg, Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, F. (undated), EL 75, Zur Logik (altes Logikkolleg), Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, F., Letter to Marty, March 8, 1872, Franz Clemens Brentano Correspondence (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, F., Letter to Marty, March 31, 1873, Franz Clemens Brentano Correspondence (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University.

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Brentano, F., Letter to Marty, August 21, 1873, Franz Clemens Brentano Correspondence (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Marty, A., Letter to Brentano, March 1, 1870, Franz Clemens Brentano Correspondence (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University.

I Intentionality, Similarity, and Their Objects

Denis Fisette

Consciousness and Intentionality in Anton Marty’s Lecture on Descriptive Psychology Abstract: In this study, I propose to examine Marty’s reconstruction of the general framework in which Brentano develops his theory of consciousness. My starting point is the formulation, at the very beginning of the second chapter of the second book of Brentano’s Psychology, of two theses on mental phenomena, which constitute the basis of Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects. In the second part, I examine the objection of infinite regress raised against Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects and Marty’s interpretation of Brentano’s theory of the unity of consciousness. The third part bears on the important distinction between implicit and explicit consciousness, which Brentano introduces in his lectures on descriptive psychology. Here, I analyse Marty’s principle of individuation in light of the modifications which Brentano made to his theory of consciousness after the publication of his Psychology in 1874. The last section is an examination of Marty’s conception of consciousness as self-consciousness with respect to his principle of individuation.

1 Introduction Consciousness presently attracts a great deal of interest in Brentanian studies.¹ Anton Marty’s lecture on descriptive psychology, published recently, contributes in an original way to these discussions on consciousness and more generally to Brentano’s philosophical program.² For, as Antonelli points out in the substantial introduction to his edition of Marty’s lecture, this work can be considered a ‘systematic summary’ of Brentano’s psychology which takes into consideration the evolution of Brentano’s thought from his 1874 Psychology to a series of lectures on descriptive psychology that he held in the late 1880s. In this study, I propose to examine Marty’s reconstruction of the general framework in which Brentano develops his theory of consciousness. The originality of Marty’s reconstruction lies

 See Fisette and Fréchette 2013, section I; Leclerc and Silva (eds.) 2015; Fisette 2015a, b.  A. Marty’s book Deskriptive Psychologie contains the edition by M. Antonelli and J. C. Marek of his lecture on descriptive psychology held in Prague in the winter semester of 1894– 1895. I will also use another version of Marty’s lecture on descriptive psychology, the so-called Chitz-Mitschrift, which Marty held in Prague in 1904. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-002

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among other things in the importance he attaches to the notion of self-consciousness with respect to several questions still pending in the early writings of Brentano’s Vienna period, and more specifically in his 1874 Psychology. One of the important questions left open in the Psychology is the question of the individuation of mental states, which Marty emphasizes in his lecture. Marty claims that the individuation moment is the soul, the self, or what he also calls the mental substance. Marty draws several consequences from this principle that bear on Brentano’s initial definition of mental states as conscious states, namely that internal consciousness must be considered self-awareness. My main contribution to this collective work on Marty consists in analysing several aspects of Marty’s reconstruction of Brentano’s theory of consciousness. My starting point is the formulation, at the very beginning of the second chapter of the second book of Brentano’s Psychology, of two theses on mental phenomena, which constitute the basis of Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects. In the second part, I examine the objection of infinite regress raised against Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects and Marty’s interpretation of Brentano’s theory of the unity of consciousness. The third part bears on the important distinction between implicit and explicit consciousness, which Brentano introduces in his lectures on descriptive psychology. In the third part I analyse Marty’s principle of individuation in light of the modifications which Brentano made to his theory of consciousness after the publication of his Psychology in 1874. The last section is an examination of Marty’s conception of consciousness as self-consciousness in relation to the principle of individuation.

2 Two theses on mental states In his lecture on descriptive psychology, Marty examines two theses explicitly formulated by Brentano at the beginning of the second chapter of Book II of his Psychology (§2): 1. Every mental phenomenon is (a) consciousness. 2. Every mental phenomenon is conscious.

In the first thesis the term consciousness is used in its transitive sense, i. e. as consciousness of something, such that it therefore stands for intentional consciousness. In Marty’s own words: ‘It is characteristic of every mental process, that it is a consciousness, i. e. that it has a relation to an immanent object’ (2011: 11). Like most students of Brentano, in his lecture Marty advocates an ontological interpretation of intentionality, according to which intentionality

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stands for a particular class of relations whose characteristic feature is that one of their terms is an immanent object that exists intentionally in an act. This intentional relation has the characteristic that it is a real relation of which only one terminus is real, the other one is not real. For one of the terms, we have no other name than just judgment, love and hate, or, in the most general expression, consciousness, self, and I. The other terminus is the object, the recognized, the loved, etc. But this second term is not real, because what is meant by that is not the real but merely the intentional object which inhabits in me, and what is represented, loved, and judged as such is not even real. (Marty 2011: 166)

Marty’s main argument in support of his interpretation is based on cases like misperceptions, where the perceived object is a mere intentional object. Hence the essential characteristic of psychical phenomena, to wit, that they always have an immanent object that inhabits the act and of which it is the content (Marty 2011: 166, 16). The second thesis constitutes the basis of Brentano’s theory of consciousness, which he develops in the second book of his Psychology. There he claims that every mental phenomenon has the property of being conscious. Accordingly, Brentano’s main question in the second book is what it is for a mental state to be conscious. One of his responses in the Psychology is that every mental phenomenon is an object of consciousness, i. e. in the hearing of a sound, for example, the mental phenomenon of hearing a sound is about the sound, whereas the act of hearing is itself an object of consciousness. This interpretation is consistent with Marty’s reformulation, at the beginning of his lecture, of the second thesis: Every mental act is a consciousness. Manifestly, however, it also happens that the mental act itself is in turn the object of a consciousness. […] For example, I hear a sound, which is an awareness of a sound. But I am also aware that I hear a sound, and the consciousness of the sound is itself the object of a consciousness, and indeed of internal consciousness. (Marty 2011: 11)

In light of Marty’s own formulation, Brentano’s two theses can be reformulated in the following way: 1b. It is characteristic of every mental process that it is a consciousness, i. e. that it has a relation to an immanent object; 2b. The mental act itself is in turn the object of a consciousness.

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Marty’s theses fit well with Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects, by means of which he articulates his two first theses on consciousness.³ But his own formulation also raises several issues related to his interpretation of the two main concepts involved in the two theses, i. e. intentionality and consciousness. The first issue pertains to Marty’s ontological interpretation of Brentano’s first thesis on the intentional character of mental states, an interpretation which is actually the object of a lively controversy on Brentano’s conception of intentionality.⁴ Nevertheless, I shall take Marty’s ontological interpretation of intentionality for granted and focus on his understanding of the second thesis on consciousness, which presents difficulties of its own. There are several ways of understanding Brentano’s second thesis on consciousness. The first consists in conceiving of consciousness as internal perception and the latter as a judgment, i. e., as an immediately evident cognition of the primary object. This emphasis on the epistemic function of internal perception amounts to reducing consciousness to a kind of cognition. But as Marty explains at length in §§ 6 – 10 of the first chapter of his 1894– 1895 lectures, this option faces many difficulties, namely the fact that judgment is just one of the modes by which inner consciousness relates to its objects. Marty’s main argument against the identification of internal consciousness to judgment is based on the important distinction, introduced by Brentano in his Vienna lecture on descriptive psychology, between implicit and explicit consciousness, which I will examine further below. In a nutshell, Marty claims that internal consciousness, understood as a secondary relation of a mental state to itself, is a noticing (Be According to Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects, every mental phenomenon refers at the same time to a primary object (a sound that is heard) and to itself as a ‘secondary object’ (the hearing of the sound), i. e. the presentation of the primary object is always accompanied by a consciousness of itself: ‘In the same mental phenomenon in which the sound is present to our minds we simultaneously apprehend the mental phenomenon itself. What is more, we apprehend it in accordance with its dual nature insofar as it has the sound as content within it, and insofar as it has itself as content at the same time. We can say that the sound is the primary object of the act of hearing, and that the act of hearing itself is the secondary object.’ (Brentano 1973: 126).  As Mauro Antonelli points out in his introduction to Marty’s lecture, this ontological interpretation of intentionality does not go without saying. He argues that Marty’s ontological interpretation of intentionality is highly problematical due to his “Gleichsetzung des intentionalen Objektes bzw. Gegenstandes eines psychischen Aktes mit dessen intentionalem Korrelat. Denn ein solcher Objektbegriff entspricht in keiner Weise demjenigen Brentanos, der sich den klassischen, im Mittelalter gebräuchlichen und letztlich auf Aristoteles zurü ckgehenden Begriff des Gegenstandes zu Eigen gemacht hat” (Antonelli 2011, XXXIII). On the current debates in the interpretation of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, see Cesalli and Taieb 2013, and especially Fréchette 2015, 2013 for a good discussion of the ins and outs of these debates.

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merken) (Brentano 1995: 36 – 37), i. e., ‘an explicit recognition of what is given or included in perception’ (Marty 1950: 92; see Marty 2011: 13) However, we shall see that noticing understood as an explicit consciousness presupposes primary or implicit consciousness. Another way of understanding the idea that the representation of a primary object is always accompanied by a consciousness of itself is in terms of self-representation: a mental state has a self-representational structure in virtue of which it represents its own occurrence (see Kriegel 2003). According to a self-representational theory of consciousness, a mental state is conscious in virtue of self-representing, i. e., in virtue of its self-referential structure (self-directed intentionality). But we shall see that Marty’s notion of self-consciousness is slightly different from such a reductive analysis of consciousness insofar as self-consciousness is understood quite literally and involves the participation of the soul understood as a mental substance. An alternative to self-representationalism is based on the notion of a mode of consciousness, which refers to one’s stance, attitude, or perspective towards an object or, more precisely, to the modes by which an object can be present to the mind.⁵ According to Marty, the intentional relation has different modes depending on one’s attitude (Stellungnahme) towards the object, and these stances are considered the modes through which the mental agent relates to its objects. There are three general modes by which consciousness stands in relation with its objects: presentational, judgemental, and emotional. The mode of relation to the object that includes a presentation alone is the poorest and consists merely in the fact that the object is present to consciousness. The other two modes presuppose the active stance of consciousness with regard to its objects and are characterized by the opposition between recognition and rejection in the case of judgement, and by love and hate in the case of emotions. However, the class of presentations is not only the simplest, it is also ontologically independent from the class of judgments, while the classes of judgments and emotions one-sidedly (einseitig) depend on the class of presentations. It follows that consciousness has more extension than internal perception (in its epistemic function), as it applies equally to all classes of mental states, including that of presentations. Now, there are at least two ways of understanding what Brentano and Marty mean by mode of consciousness. There is a psychological sense, which stands

 It is worth mentioning that this notion of ‘mode’, or what John Searle calls ‘aspectual shape’, has a central function in Tim Crane’s theory of intentionality, which is itself inspired by Brentano’s psychology (see Crane 1998).

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out clearly from Brentano’s use of this concept in the context of his classification of acts. In the psychological sense, the notion of a mode corresponds to the quality of an act on which Brentano’s classification is based and the ways in which consciousness is related to its objects. On the other hand, in the ontological sense, this notion stands for the attributes or moments of a substrate and it corresponds to what Brentano in his metaphysics calls a ‘metaphysical part’. In his Psychology, Brentano uses the notion of Divisiv, by which, as we shall see, he characterises mental phenomena as parts or attributes of a complex and unitary phenomenon.

3 The objection of infinite regress and the unity of consciousness In Book II of Psychology, Brentano examines several objections raised against his theory of primary and secondary objects, particularly what has been known since Aristotle as the threat of infinite regress. This objection is discussed by Brentano in connection with the hypothesis of unconscious mental states and the duplication problem, i. e., the idea that in any mental state a physical phenomenon would have to be represented twice (once in the representation of the sound and once again in the hearing of the sound, i. e., the representation of the representation of the sound). The threat of infinite regress is in fact the fourth objection Brentano addresses in §7 of the second book of his Psychology (p. 93 sq.). For if one denies that the presentation that accompanies the hearing of a sound is unconscious, as most higher-order theories of consciousness maintain, it would seem that one must therefore necessarily postulate an infinite number of mental states. Brentano’s answer consists in denying one of the premises shared by both objections, namely that the consciousness that accompanies the representation of the sound is numerically distinct from such a presentation. Thus, Brentano attempts to demonstrate that they both belong to one and the same mental act, i. e., the presentation of the sound and the presentation of the presentation of the sound are one and the same act about two objects, a primary and a secondary object. Marty claims that there is in fact no regression because the series comes to an end with the second term (Marty 2011: 30). Brentano’s response to the infinite regress objection and moreover his theory of primary and secondary objects raise what I shall call the complexity problem. This is clearly visible in the following quote: Every mental act is conscious; it includes within it a consciousness of itself. Therefore, every mental act, no matter how simple, has a double object, a primary and a secondary

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object. The simplest act, for example the act of hearing, has as its primary object the sound, and for its secondary object, itself, the mental phenomenon in which the sound is heard. Consciousness of this secondary object is threefold: it involves a presentation of it, a cognition of it and a feeling toward it. Consequently, every mental act, even the simplest has four different aspects under which it may be considered. It may be considered as a presentation of its primary object, as when the act in which we perceive a sound is considered as an act of hearing; however, it may also be considered as a presentation of itself, as a cognition of itself, and as a feeling toward itself. In addition, in these four respects combined, it is the object of its self-presentation, of its self-cognition, and (so to speak) of its self-feeling. (Brentano 1973: 119)

To address the problem of complexity, Brentano makes recourse to the principle of the unity of consciousness, which Marty examines in §15 of his 1894– 1895 lectures. This principle is first invoked by Brentano as a criterion in his classification of mental and physical phenomena, in order to explain why multiple mental phenomena that are involved in the simplest mental acts appear to consciousness not as an aggregate or a bundle, but rather as a unified reality. It is in this context that Brentano refers to his theory of wholes and parts, in which mental phenomena are conceived as ‘parts (Teilphänomene) of one single phenomenon in which they are contained, as one single and unified thing’ (Brentano 1973: 74). This principle is required both in the context of the complexity problem, which stems from the theory of primary and secondary objects, and of the infinite regress problem, which seems to be insoluble unless one presupposes with Marty that ‘all simultaneous mental states, which we experience in ourselves, make up one single reality’ (2011: 31– 32). Thus, as Marty points out in this lecture, the purpose of this principle is not to do away with complexity in favour of simplicity, but to account for the fact that what is present to the mind is experienced, despite this complexity, as something unified. The next question raised by Marty in his lecture pertains to the nature of this unity. Marty argues that this unity is not a collective (Kollektiv) (Marty 1894: 145), i. e., to use Brentano’s definition, ‘a multiplicity of parts grouped under the same point of view and each of these parts is an independent thing’ (Brentano 1954: 225). A collective such as, for example a company of soldiers or the trees of a forest, may be apprehended from the point of view of a unity and represents in itself a homogeneous totality. However, in contrast to the whole, the elements preserve their independence in their relationship to the collective, to which they belong, as their existence does not depend upon their participation in this whole. Conversely, the collective is dependent neither on the existence of its parts nor on the relations between its parts, since one can take away a tree or modify the relations between the trees and still have a collective. Marty argues that these parts form a whole, of which they are the moments, the metaphysical

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parts, or the divisives, which stand in a relation of dependence to the whole. Every mental activity constitutes a whole whose mental states are divisives. In this respect, consciousness of the primary object and consciousness of the secondary object are both metaphysical parts that belong to one and the same phenomenon and reality. Hence the principle of the unity of consciousness, through which Brentano attempts to account for the relationship of these elements as a whole to one and the same reality (1973: 124– 125) The originality of Marty’s analysis of this principle consists in his taking into account an important dimension, which Brentano left undetermined in his Psychology, i. e., the individuality moment. Marty claims that this unity is a ‘real individual unity’ and maintains that this unity is individually experienced and that ‘the awareness of personal particularity is only given in this way’ (Marty 1904: 146). But the connection between unity and individuality in Marty’s lecture also presupposes the existence of the soul, as we shall see below.

4 Unconscious mental states and the distinction between implicit and explicit consciousness Should we take for granted that there is no unconscious mental state in the field of our experience? Not necessarily, responds Marty, if one means by unconscious what is unnoticed, or even indiscernible (unmerklich): One has overlooked the fact that much in our mental life is indiscernible (unmerklich). Very often, when one has presupposed unconscious presentations, the correct explanation is rather that the presentation was indiscernible, and this indiscernibility is a well known fact. (Marty 2011: 13)

Following Brentano 2011: 120, Marty distinguishes the active from the passive meaning of unconscious, i. e., in the sense that ‘unconscious’ is said of a thing of which one is not aware. Applied to consciousness, this amounts to saying that in the hearing of a sound, the act of hearing, in the active sense, is about the sound, while in the passive sense, the act of hearing is itself an object of consciousness in accordance with the second thesis. In his lecture, Marty introduces another important distinction between primary consciousness (thesis I), the Gegenwärtighaben of a primary object, from the secondary consciousness (thesis II), which refers to the internal perception of a secondary object. In light of this latter distinction, the question arises as to whether ‘there could not be a consciousness which would not be itself an object of a consciousness. […] That there

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is a consciousness which is not itself an object of a consciousness is not a priori contradictory’ (Marty 1904: 107). As we saw above, the central notion of noticing, which roughly corresponds to the epistemic mode of consciousness in Brentano’s Psychology, is closely related in Marty’s lecture to the notion of explicit consciousness (or consciousness understood in the narrow sense), which he opposes to implicit consciousness. In his own lectures on descriptive psychology, Brentano applies this distinction to the external perception of a primary object and argues that one can implicitly see or hear something that one does not explicitly notice. Whoever sees a lark in the blue of the sky does therefore not yet notice it, and hence will just as little notice his seeing of the lark, even though his seeing of the lark is concomitantly experienced (mitempfinden) by him. However, were he, at some point, not only to see the lark, but also to notice it, then he would certainly notice simultaneously that he sees it […]. To see is different from being clear about what is seen. And thus, the concomitant experience of the seeing will be different from being clear about this concomitantly experienced seeing. (Brentano 1995: 26)

Brentano supposes that the lark is not the explicit object of the act even though it appears in the subject’s visual field, and that the subject is only implicitly conscious of it. Brentano also applies this distinction to the hearing of a chord and argues that one can be conscious of the chord without distinguishing or being explicitly conscious of the particular notes.⁶ This amounts to maintaining that a state may be implicitly conscious, without the subject being explicitly conscious of it. Conversely, Brentano maintains that the subject can only be explicitly conscious of experiencing something (say, a lark) if she is implicitly conscious of it (Brentano 1995: 36). Explicit consciousness, or consciousness in a narrow sense, constitutes an act of noticing (Bemerken), conceived by Brentano in these lectures as an explicit perception of what is implicitly contained in consciousness (Brentano 1995: 36). Implicit self-awareness is by nature pre-reflective and does not require, Brentano says, the participation of the will (1993: 123). However, the question arises as

 ‘If someone hears a chord and distinguishes the notes which are contained in it, the one has a distinct awareness of the fact that she hears it. But if one does not distinguish the particular notes, then one has only an indistinct awareness of them. In such a case, he does hear them together and she is aware of the whole which is this hearing and to which the hearing of each of the particular notes belongs; but she does not hear the whole in such a way that she distinguishes each of its parts. Particular hearings of particular notes are contained in the whole and she does not distinguish them’ (Brentano 1981: 117).

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to whether explicit consciousness (noticing) involves the will or a form of reflection.

5 The mental substance and the principle of individuation In his lecture, Marty takes the changes that occurred in Brentano’s conception of psychology after the publication of his Psychology in 1874 into account, namely in his Vienna lectures on descriptive psychology from the late 1880s. One of the important modifications made to Brentano’s views on consciousness after 1874 bears on the second thesis on consciousness that Brentano criticizes in the well-known passage of the 1911 appendix to his Psychology: As I have already emphasized in my Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, however, for the secondary object of mental activity one does not have to think of any particular one of these references, as for example the reference to the primary object. It is easy to see that this would lead to an infinite regress, for there would have to be a third reference, which would have the secondary reference as object, a fourth, which would have the additional third one as object, and so on. The secondary object is not a reference but a mental activity, or, more strictly speaking, the mentally active subject, in which the secondary reference is included along with the primary one. (Brentano 1973: 215)

This taking into account of the ‘mentally active subject’ has major metaphysical and psychological consequences, not only on the second thesis on consciousness but also on Brentano’s conception of psychology as a whole. The secondary object is no longer a mental state about itself (in parergo) as a secondary object, as Brentano seems to hold in his Psychology, but rather the mentally active subject that includes both primary and secondary objects. Let us bear in mind that a mental state as such cannot be conscious or unconscious without taking into account the mentally active subject which is the bearer of that state.⁷

 Does this move involve a shift from state to creature consciousness, i. e., of the attribution of the predicate ‘is conscious’ to the self rather than to mental states? To use David Rosenthal’s terminology, does this shift involve one’s giving up an Aristotelian conception of mind and instead adopting a Cartesian and immaterialist conception of mind, according to which the predicate ‘is conscious’ stands for an intrinsic and intransitive property of the mind? Even though this hypothesis cannot be discarded out of hand, we can leave the question open because Brentano’s main question remains the same—i. e., What it is for a mental state to be conscious?—and there are no signs that he ever abandoned his theory of primary and secondary objects. However, as Brentano makes quite clear in the except from 1911, as in several other writings, an adequate answer to our question now involves taking into account the creature or the self understood as a mental substance (see Fisette 2015a, b).

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Another important change after the publication of Brentano’s Psychology concerns the distinction between descriptive and genetic psychology and the shift from psychology understood as a science of mental phenomena to what Brentano defines in his lecture on descriptive psychology as the science of the human soul⁸ (see Marty 2011: 3). Recall that as early as 1869, in his paper ‘Auguste Comte und die positive Philosophie’, Brentano criticised Aristotle for the metaphysical presuppositions in a number of his doctrines, notably in that of substance and accidents (see Brentano 1968: 132). Brentano raises the same objection at the very beginning of his Psychology, when he compares the Aristotelian conception of psychology as a science of the soul to that defining it as a science of mental phenomena. Brentano criticised Aristotle for conceiving of the object of psychology, i. e., the soul, as a substance, and of psychical phenomena as its accidents or essential properties. He argued that, from an empirical point of view, this is nothing but a metaphysical postulate, i. e., a fiction, which, because it is not (and cannot be) an object of experience, consequently cannot constitute the object of psychology. Hence the alternative conception, based on a ‘psychology without a soul’—i. e., a psychology free of metaphysical presuppositions, which Brentano advocated in his Psychology. However, the later Brentano maintains that the mental substance is not a mere a priori postulate but an object of experience insofar as ‘each of us is conscious of himself as being a determinate individual and as being the one individual substance that underlies all our psychical activities’ (Brentano 1981: 121). According to Marty, the shift to psychology as a science of the soul brings about another important modification to the first thesis, more precisely to the terms of an intentional relation. In the 1904 version of his lecture on descriptive psychology, Marty argues that the bearer of the intentional relation is the soul and, indirectly, mental states because, from this new perspective, the intentional relation ‘primarily belongs to the soul’ (Marty 1904: 7). Accordingly, the intentional relations are subordinated to the subject–object relations: ‘What I have called the mental relation in an eminent sense is by its nature a subject-object relation, the relation of a subject to an object, which is present in a peculiar way’ (Marty 1904: 68 – 69). The modes of consciousness can henceforth be considered the modes of subject–object relations, as we shall see below.  In his lecture on descriptive psychology, Brentano proposes the following definition: “Psychology is the science of the soul. As such, its task is, above all, to analyse the phenomena of the soul in order to arrive at the parts of which all phenomena of the human soul are composed, and to determine each of these parts according to its manifold characteristics” (Brentano 1995: 165).

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Finally, the most important modification is associated with the problem of individuation, which Brentano left pending in his Psychology. ⁹ This important topic is directly related to our own interest in consciousness insofar as the problem of individuation boils down to the question of what gives consciousness its own individuality. In Marty’s own words, the main question is ‘what is it that gives this individual determination to the content of our consciousness?’ (Marty 2011: 33). The required individualizing principle has to account for the invariant element in our conscious self, understood as an individuum which, by analogy with the domain of physical phenomena, is based on a physical substrate abstracted from the relations between sensory quality and spatial location (Marty 2011: 34). However, the self cannot be individuated through location because mental states are never experienced as localized and extended. Marty considers several other options, including that of mental states, which he rules out because mental sates are constantly changing whereas my individuality remains constant and invariable. The psychical substance, the invariant in our mental life, is nothing but the soul, which constitutes the foundation of mental states and the individualizing moment that Marty is looking for in his lecture. According to Marty, what preserves one’s identity through the constant changes in one’s internal life and also constitutes the individuality of one’s mental life is the soul, which, in the final analysis, is what distinguishes the self from any other individual. Psychology is the science of the soul and the psychical relations, whereby the soul is what distinguishes, in our mental life, what is mine and what is yours in the last instance. Each of us, as he is inwardly present, appears to himself in a personal unity and peculiarity, and what constitutes this unity and peculiarity is the soul. It would be conceivable that someone presents, judges, hates and loves what someone else presents, etc., but he would not be me, but someone else. There is something in all similarity that constitutes the difference between me and you, and that is the soul. (Marty 1904: 7)¹⁰

 In the conclusion to his analysis of the unity of consciousness, Brentano deliberately leaves open the question of the individuality of mental states, arguing that the unity of consciousness and the unity of the conscious self are two distinct things: “Finally, the unity of consciousness does not imply that the mental phenomena which we ordinarily refer to as our past mental activities, were parts of the same real thing that encompasses our present mental phenomena. […] It remains an open question, then, for the moment, whether the continued existence of the self is the persistence of one and the same unitary reality or simply a succession of different realities linked together in such a way that, so to speak, each subsequent reality takes the place of the reality which preceded it” (1972: 129 – 130).  German original: “die Psychologie ist die Lehre von der Seele und den psychischen Beziehungen, wobei Seele das ist, was in unserem psychischen Leben das Mein und Dein in letzter Instanz unterscheidet. Jeder von uns sowie er sich innerlich gegenwärtig ist, erscheint sich

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The ‘mentally active subject’ to which Brentano refers in the appendix can thus be considered an individual substance, a soul, whose moments or properties are mental states (Marty 1904: 135). However, in virtue of what Marty calls the law of noticing—i. e., “the unchanging, the unique is not noticeable for us and not graspable in its nature” (Marty, 2011: 35)—, since the thinking substance is itself invariant and unchanging, it cannot therefore be directly noticed or apperceived, but only indirectly through the changing mental phenomena. To use Brentano’s distinction between implicit and explicit consciousness, the soul is always implicitly experienced but cannot, for reasons of principle, be explicitly noticed or apperceived: “This individualizing principle is also with our psychical relations implicitly apperceived, but it is not by itself apperceivable. That is why we are not able to describe it in a proper way because we are not capable to explicitly notice it” (Marty 1894: 135).

6 Marty’s third thesis: Consciousness as self-consciousness Let us now turn to what I will refer to as Marty’s third thesis, according to which internal consciousness is self-consciousness. Marty’s first step in his reconstruction rests on the individuality of the conscious self, or what he calls in §16 of his 1894 – 1895 lecture the individualizing moment of our mental life, which, as we saw above, is what confers an individual character on our mental contents, or what makes me (‘me’ in the sense of my consciousness) an individual (Marty 2011: 32). Accordingly, Marty’s first step can be formulated as follows: conscious states are mental states of one’s own. I can only be aware of my experiences, not yours. The content of a state of pain, for instance, can be formulated as follows: ‘I now have (or feel) pain’. All conscious states are one’s own in the sense that a pain or any other state can only be experienced in the first person. Marty’s second step, which he emphasises in the 1904 version of his lecture on descriptive psychology, rests on the fact that one does not have direct access to the individualizing moment, but can access this only through one’s mental states, and more specifically via one’s intentional relations to objects: ‘The psychical relations are the main subject matter of psychology. For the soul itself can

selbst in persönlicher Einheit und Besonderheit und das was diese Einheit und Besonderheit ausmacht, ist die Seele. Es wäre denkbar, das einer dasselbe vorstellt, urteilt, hasst und liebt, was ein anderer vorstellt etc. trotzdem wäre er nicht ich, sondern ein anderer. Es gibt etwas was bei aller Gleichheit doch die Verschiedenheit von ich und du ausmacht, und das ist die Seele”.

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only be experienced and present in these activities and conscious relations to objects’ (Marty 1904: 8). It is in this sense that one speaks of the self as the psychisch Tätige, i. e., in terms of the intentional relations that one entertains with one’s objects. And being conscious of a state is a relation that a subject bears to that state. According to Marty, internal consciousness ‘always has simultaneously the threefold character of presenting, judging and taking interest in something’: Thus one may say that in each primary psychical act, be it a presentation, a judgment or an interest, the soul manifests itself simultaneously in all three modes of consciousness in so far as every mental activity is accompanied by a triple secondary consciousness. (Marty 2011: 27– 28)

Marty’s argument is based on the so-called principle of noticing, whereby selfawareness is not to be accounted for in terms of an explicit judgment and it is not graspable in itself solely through internal perception or cognition. How then does he explain the implicit self-awareness that is presupposed in his overall analysis of consciousness? In the last quote, Marty acknowledges that internal consciousness involves the three modes, including judgement, even in the mere hearing of a sound. Internal consciousness is therefore not reducible to one of its modes and the self as such is not accessible through an isolated single mode. Moreover, there is a significant difference between ‘consciousness of’, which characterizes the primary consciousness of physical phenomena, and ‘consciousness de se‘ which, according to Marty, seems to replace the secondary consciousness that was meant to accompany all mental states. And the self cannot be the intentional objet of one of its modes. Moreover, as Brentano points out in his Theory of Categories, the self is a whole that is not reducible to its parts. If one thinks of anything at all, then one is not completely devoid of self-awareness. For if he thinks or senses distinctly, then at the same time he is distinctly aware of himself as one who is sensing or thinking. And if he thinks or senses indistinctly, then the self is comprised in a larger complex which is at least apperceived as a whole, even if not in respect to its relevant particular parts. In such a case one has a confused self-awareness with no distinction of the relevant particular psychical activities. (Brentano 1981: 123)

We now have a good idea about what implicit self-awareness is not, but we do not have yet the relevant information about what it is. Let us now consider the next step in Marty’s reconstruction, which bears on his interpretation of secondary or internal consciousness as self-consciousness. The term secondary consciousness is opposed to primary consciousness, which Marty seems to associate with the external perception of physical phenomena

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such as colour and sound. He seems therefore to interpret the first thesis on consciousness, whereby every psychical phenomenon is consciousness, literally. This interpretation raises another important question about Brentano’s early theory of consciousness, which, as I said above, was limited to internal consciousness in so far as only mental states were internally perceived. The question is whether consciousness as a whole extends beyond intentional mental states to the primary consciousness of physical phenomena, as the case of the lark and that of the chord that Brentano uses in his Vienna lectures to exemplify the distinction between implicit and explicit consciousness seem to suggest. There are reasons to believe that the qualitative dimension of experience is itself a datum of implicit primary consciousness and that it pre-exists secondary consciousness. This of course presupposes a broadening of the limits imposed on experience in Brentano’s theory of 1874, but as Marty suggests in his lecture, this broadening would leave enough room to integrate both primary and secondary consciousness in the agent. Be that it as it may, Marty understands self-consciousness in terms of the consciousness of consciousness, i. e. as secondary consciousness. This consciousness of a consciousness is called internal consciousness or self-consciousness in the scientific sense of the word. It is rightly called self-consciousness, because our self can only be grasped and apperceived in its activities in this way. One can call it internal or secondary consciousness, and the other, with which it has always been, primary consciousness. (Marty 1904: 106)¹¹

That is to say, according to the first thesis, when I hear a sound, my representation is in fact about the sound heard, but my consciousness of that state shall be understood as my being aware that I am hearing a sound. But taking into account the psychical agent in this formulation still does not explain the role of self-awareness in the agent’s experience of the primary object. It only shows that: – A mental state is conscious iff the mentally active subject is somehow conscious of that state. A further step seems to be needed in order to account for self-consciousness. For this formulation does not seem to take the fact that mental states are the agent’s  German original: “Dieses Bewusstsein von einem Bewusstsein heisst man das innere Bewusstsein oder das Selbstbewusstsein im wissenschaftlichen Sinne des Wortes. Es heisst mit Recht Selbstbewusstsein, da uns unser Selbst nur in dieser Weise in seinen Tätigkeiten erfassbar oder appercipierbar ist. Man kann dieses innere Bewusstsein, auch das secundäre Bewusstsein nennen, und jenes andere womit es immer gewesen ist, das primäre”.

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own into account, i. e., the initial presentation is not any state but a state in which the subject is. Moreover, our formulation has to take Brentano’s important remark in the passage of the 1911 appendix into account, which I quoted above and according to which secondary consciousness stands in relation not to a mere object, but to the mental agent in which both the intentional object and the state are included. I take it that Brentano means that the hearing of a sound is a state that the agent is in and that a state is conscious only if she is conscious of being in that state. In short, an adequate response to the question ‘What makes a state conscious?’ could be formulated along the following lines: – A mental state is conscious iff one is aware of oneself as being in that (intentional) state. This formulation is consistent with Marty’s reconstruction insofar as it combines Marty’s four steps: 1. Mental states are conscious. 2. Conscious states are mental states of one’s own. 3. Mental states are conscious iff the mentally active subject is somehow conscious of these states. 4. A mental state is conscious iff one is aware of oneself as being in that (intentional) state This formulation seems to be consistent with Brentano’s conception of self-consciousness in his late writings, specifically in a passage of his Theory of Categories where he explains his conception of self-consciousness through the distinction between implicit and explicit consciousness. Self-awareness, too, is sometimes distinct and sometimes indistinct. If a person feels a pain, then he is aware of himself as one that feels the pain. But perhaps he does not distinguish the substance, which here feels pain, from the accident by means of which the substance appears to him. It may well be that animals have only an indistinct self-awareness. But in the case of man, the substance which thinks in him (die in ihm denkt), and experiences, judges, loves and hates, can be brought to awareness as a result of the frequent change of its accidents; the indistinct awareness is then replaced by a distinct awareness of the subject. One then grasps this substance as that which permanently underlies this change and which gives unity to its manifold character (als das, was bleibend ihrem Wechsel und einheitlich ihrer Mannigfaltigkeit unterliegt). (Brentano 1981: 117)

Just as in the case of the hearing of a chord we presuppose that one is aware of the fact that one hears the chord, and in the case of pain we assume that one is aware of being in that state, Brentano also assumes in this passage that explicit self-consciousness involves implicit self-awareness and confirms the thesis that

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one cannot be explicitly or distinctly aware of being in this state of pain, for example, unless one is implicitly aware of it (Brentano 1982: 34). This implicit selfawareness is not reflective; it does not require, as Brentano says, the participation of the will (1981: 123); it is therefore pre-reflective, i. e., an awareness that we have before explicitly reflecting on our experience. Self-awareness is therefore more primitive than reflection and, for this reason, pervades our experience as a whole.

References Brentano, F. (2011), Sämtliche veröffentlichte Schriften, vol. I, Schriften zur Psychologie, Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunke/Von der Klassifikation der Psychischen Phänomene, edited by. T. Binder and A. Chrudzimski, Frankfurt, Ontos. Brentano, F. (1973), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, translated by A. C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell, and L. L. McAlister, London, Routledge. Brentano, F. (1995), Descriptive Psychology, translated and edited by B. Müller, London, Routledge; transl. of: (1982), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by R. M. Chisholm and W. Baumgartner, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1981), The Theory of Categories, translated by R. M. Chisholm and N. Guterman, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff. Brentano, F. (1980), Vom Dasein Gottes, edited by A. Kastil, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1968), ‘Auguste Comte und die positive Philosophie’, Chilianeum. Blätter für katholische Philosophie, Kunst und Leben 2 (1869), p. 15 – 37; reprinted in Die vier Phasen der Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Stand, nebst Abhandlungen über Plotinus, Thomas von Aquin, Kant, Schopenhauer und Auguste Comte, edited by O. Kraus, Hamburg, Felix Meiner, p. 97 – 133. Brentano, F. (1954), Religion und Philosophie, edited by F. Mayer Hillebrand, Bern, Francke. Brentano, F. (1930), Wahrheit und Evidenz, edited by O. Kraus, Leipzig, Felix Meiner. Cesalli, L. and Taieb, H. (2013), ‘The Road to ideelle Verähnlichung: Anton Marty’s Theory of Intentionality in the Light of its Brentanian Background’, Quaestio 12, p. 25 – 86. Crane, T. (1998), ‘Intentionality as the Mark of the Mental’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 43, p. 229 – 251. Fisette, D. (2015a), ‘Franz Brentano and Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness’, Argumentos 7(3), p. 9 – 39. Fisette, D. (2015b), ‘Brentano’s Theory of Consciousness Revisited. Reply to my Critics’, Argumentos 7(3), p. 129 – 156. Fisette, D. and Fréchette, G. (eds.) (2013), Themes from Brentano, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Fréchette, G. (ed.) (2015), ‘Brentano’s Conception of Intentionality: New Facts and Unsettled Issues’, Brentano Studien 13. Fréchette, G. (2013), ‘Brentano’s Thesis (revisited)’, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 101 – 129. Kriegel, U. (2003), ‘Consciousness as Intransitive Self-Consciousness: Two Views and an Argument’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33(1), p. 103 – 132.

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Leclerc, A. and Silva, M. (eds.) (2015), Brentano and Philosophy of Mind, in a special issue of the journal Argumentos, 13, online: http://www.dvprppg.ufc.br/argumentos/index.php/ar gumentos/issue/current Marty, A. (2011), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by M. Antonelli and J. C. Marek, Würzburg, Königshausen and Neumann. Marty, A. (1950), Über Wert und Methode einer allgemeinen beschreibenden Bedeutungslehre, edited by O. Funke, Bern, A. Francke. Mulligan, K. (2004), ‘Brentano on the Mind’, in The Cambridge Companion to Brentano, edited by D. Jacquette, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 66 – 97.

Archive Materials Marty, A. (1904), Deskriptive Psychologie. Nach den Vorlesungen des Prof Dr. Marty (Mitschrift verfasst von A. Chitz), Graz, Forschungsstelle und Dokumentationszentrum fü r Österreichische Philosophie (Signatur Appendix I.10).

Hamid Taieb

Austro-German Transcendent Objects before Husserl Abstract: In the famous Appendix to paragraphs 11 and 20 of his 5th Logical Investigation, Husserl criticizes the concept of ‘immanent object’ defended by Brentano and his pupils. Husserl holds that intentional objects, even non-existent ones, are ‘transcendent’. Yet long before Husserl’s criticism, Brentano and his pupils, in their theories of intentionality, besides immanent objects also took into account transcendent ones, in a similar way to Husserl, since such transcendent objects were not necessarily objects that exist. The ‘immanent object’ (immanenter Gegenstand) was also called ‘presented-thing as presented’ (Vorgestelltes als Vorgestelltes), whereas the ‘transcendent object’ was called ‘object tout court’ (Gegenstand schlechtweg) or ‘presented-thing tout court’ (Vorgestelltes schlechtweg). Even if it is in Marty that one finds the clearest distinction between these two kinds of objects, other pupils of Brentano, and Brentano himself, made similar distinctions. Despite its importance, this point has been neglected in the Brentanian literature. In the first part of this article, I present the way in which immanent and transcendent objects have been distinguished in the School of Brentano. In the second part of the article, I present some problems linked to the distinction of two objects for every mental act, an immanent and a transcendent one; these problems could explain the abandonment of the notion of ‘immanent object’ by many philosophers of the Brentanian tradition. I conclude with some remarks on the distinction between content and object in the School of Brentano.

1 Introduction In his 1890’s Logic, in paragraph 6, called ‘act of thought and content of thought’, Höfler affirms that the word ‘object’ (i. e. indistinctly ‘Object’ or ‘Gegen-

This paper was presented at the conference ‘Mind and Language—Franz Brentano’s Legacy in Prague. Commemorating the Centenary of Anton Marty’s Death’, at the Academy of Sciences of Prague in May 2014. I thank the participants for their comments. I am especially grateful to Guillaume Fréchette and Maria van der Schaar for their written remarks on previous drafts of this paper. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-003

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stand’) has two meanings.¹ In one sense, ‘object’ stands for the ‘immanent’ or ‘intentional object’ (immanentes, intentionales Object) of the mental act. The role of this object with respect to the mental act is said to be analogous to that of the grammatical object with respect to psychic activity understood as a verb.² This immanent or intentional object is the correlate of the mental act, something described as a ‘presented-thing’ (Vorgestelltes), a ‘judged-thing’ (Beurtheiltes), etc. Moreover, it is called ‘content’ (Inhalt) by Höfler. This object is meant to be an ‘image’ (Bild) or ‘quasi-image’ (quasi-Bild), i. e. a ‘sign’ (Zeichen), of a thing. This last consideration leads to the second sense of ‘object’. In this second sense, the word ‘object’ (Object or Gegenstand) stands for ‘that which subsists in itself’ (das an sich Bestehende), a ‘thing in itself’ (Ding an sich), or a ‘reality’ (Wirkliches, Reales), ‘toward which our presentations and judgments are so to speak directed’ (worauf sich unser Vorstellen und Urtheilen gleichsam richtet).³ Thus, we have two objects here, which are apparently both the term of an intentional relation: the immanent object or content is the term of an intentional relation because Höfler calls it an ‘intentional object’, i. e. such an expression leads to think that this entity is intended; and the ‘thing in itself’ (Ding an sich) is also the term of an intentional relation, since Höfler says that it is that towards which presentations and judgments are ‘directed’. The first entity seems to be a kind of mediator, in the sense that its cognition leads, in one way or another, to cognition of the second entity. Twardowski is being quite charitable when, in On the Content and Object of Presentations, published in 1894,⁴ he affirms that the first clear distinction between content and object was made in Höfler’s Logic. In fact, there is no clear distinction in Höfler’s text between content and object, since the ‘content’ is precisely the term of an intentional relation, and is described as an intentional object.⁵ Nevertheless, Höfler’s Logic underlines an important point: a theory of in-

 Höfler 1890: 6 – 7.  Usually, grammarians distinguish between the ‘internal’ and the ‘external’ object of a verb (e. g. hitting a stroke vs. hitting a ball). One way to understand the opposition is to hold, like Twardowski (1996: 160 – 161 and 171– 172), that the internal object appears concomitantly to the activity expressed by the verb, whereas the external object pre-exists that activity. Höfler’s reference to the object in grammar here rather evokes the internal object.  In view of the aforementioned grammatical distinction, Höfler could have equated this second sense of object with the grammatical notion of external object.  Twardowski 1894: 4.  Note that in the second edition of his Logic, published in 1922, Höfler no longer calls the content ‘object’, and talks of his initial account of the distinction between content and object as ‘partially deficient’ (teilweise mangelhaft) (see Höfler 1922: 33 n. 2). I thank Guillaume Fréchette for prompting me to take the second edition of Höfler’s text into account.

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tentionality that wants to give an account of the link between thought and reality cannot reduce the meaning of ‘object’ to ‘immanent entity’. In the final analysis, one should admit that there is a sense of ‘object’ which means ‘non-immanent thing’. As a matter of fact, Höfler’s reason for offering such a distinction among ‘objects’ concerns the problem of access to the outer world: if the objects of mental acts were only immanent things, then the link between ‘thought and being’ (Denken und Sein) would become impossible. Thus, ‘object’ should also refer to mind-independently actually existing entities. Now, there are other reasons for rejecting the reduction of ‘object’ to ‘object existing in the mind’. If the objects of mental acts were just immanent, every judgment would have an existent term, i. e. a judgment directed towards a square, a judgment directed towards a circle, and a judgment directed towards a square circle would all have an existent term. Thus, every negative existential judgment would be incorrect, and, as a corollary, every affirmative existential judgment would be correct. As Marty says: We have to ask the one who admits, besides the true object, also a mental object, which should be called “object” in the proper sense. Because it is obvious, given that the meaning is different here and there, that only one of them can be the proper and first one. Thus, should the immanent object be the proper object, and the true one simply called “object” relatively, on the basis of its similarity with it? It is not hard to see that this assumption is impossible. Because what should be called “proper object of a presentation” is what should exist if the affirmative judgment grounded on the presentation is to be correct. But then, since an immanent object exists always and for every presentation, every affirmative judgment would be correct, and anything that anybody actually considers true would be true. (Marty 1916: 57)

Thus, a theory of intentionality, even beyond the question of access to the outer world, cannot reduce the category of ‘object’ to that of ‘immanent object’: mental acts, in the final analysis, must be understood as directed towards non-immanent objects, whether these objects exist or not. At any rate, Husserl takes such objects into account in his theory of intentionality. He calls them ‘transcendent’ (transzendente Gegenstände), in contrast to immanent objects. In the famous Appendix to paragraphs 11 and 20 of the 5th Logical Investigation, published in 1901, Husserl writes: If I present God, or an angel, or an intelligible thing-in-itself, or a physical thing or a round square etc., what I mean is what is named and transcendent in each case, in other words the intentional object: it makes no difference whether this object exists or is imaginary or absurd. (Husserl 1984: 439.20 – 24; transl. Findlay, slightly modified)

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Note that for the act to be directed toward such a transcendent object, the existence of the former is not required—as is made clear by Husserl, who talks of ‘imaginary’ or ‘absurd’ objects as ‘transcendent’. Thus, it seems to be recommended, even if one admits immanent objects, to widen the category of object, and to talk also of ‘transcendent objects’, in order to avoid a Protagorean, absurd theory of intentionality in which every affirmative existential judgment would be correct. I stress that in the School of Brentano, as shown by the quotation from Marty, and as affirmed in Brentano’s Psychology, ‘nothing is judged which is not presented’ (nichts wird auch beurtheilt, was nicht vorgestellt wird). In other words, it is ‘the object of a presentation’ that ‘becomes the object of an affirmative or negative judgement’.⁶ Thus, among Brentanians, in order to avoid Protagoreanism, even the objects of presentation should be considered non-immanent.⁷ It is well known that Brentano and Marty, from approximately 1904 onwards, abandoned the notion of ‘immanent object’ because of the philosophical problems that such a concept entails.⁸ What is less known is that distinctions between immanent intentional terms and non-immanent, or ‘transcendent’, intentional terms had been made in the School of Brentano long before Husserl’s Logical Investigations. ⁹ The immanent intentional term was called the ‘presented-thing as such’, i. e. ‘as presented’ (Vorgestelltes als solches, i. e. als Vorgestelltes)¹⁰ or, more simply, ‘immanent object’ (immanenter Gegenstand), whereas the transcendent intentional term was called ‘presented-thing tout court’ (Vorgestelltes schlechtweg) or ‘object tout court’ (Gegenstand schlechtweg). Even if it is in Marty that one finds the clearest distinction of this kind (Vorgestelltes als Vorgestelltes vs. Vorgestelltes schlechtweg and immanenter Gegenstand vs. Gegenstand schlechtweg), other pupils of Brentano have made similar distinctions. One can even find them in Brentano himself. However, in view of such distinctions, the question also arises as to whether mental acts are directed towards immanent or transcendent objects. As an answer, the Brentanians seems to have introduced

 Brentano 1925: 38.  The idea here is not to hold that Brentanians want to defend Protagoreanism, but that they may be committed to such a theory if they admit immanent objects without transcendent ones.  On this point, see notably Chrudzimski 2001a and 2001b.  Husserl started developing his own theory of the intentional object in the summer of 1894, after having read Twardowski’s Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen. See the texts Husserl 1990/1991 and 1979. Note that these two texts are posthumous. For more philological information, see Schumann 1990/1991 and Rang 1979.  The fact that ‘presented-thing as such’ is a terminus technicus in the School of Brentano is confirmed by the presence of the entry ‘Vorgestelltes als solches’ in the index of subjects of Marty’s Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie (1908: 748 b).

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a ‘perspectival’ theory of intentionality: one and the same object, the immanent object, would be grasped differently according to the points of view of primary, or outer consciousness, and secondary, or reflexive consciousness, i. e. primary consciousness would grasp it as transcendent, whereas secondary consciousness would grasp it as immanent.¹¹ In the first part of this article, the longest one, which will be rather historical, I will give an overview of the way immanent and transcendent objects have been contrasted by Austro-German thinkers before Husserl. In the second part, which will be rather systematic, I will discuss the problems linked to the distinction of two objects for every mental act, an immanent and a transcendent object, i. e. the problems of the perspectival account of intentionality. These problems could have contributed to the abandonment of the immanent object by many philosophers of the Brentanian tradition. In the light of my analyses, I will conclude with some remarks of clarification on the distinction between content and object in the School of Brentano.¹²

2 ‘The presented-thing as presented’ and ‘the presented-thing tout court’: An overview 2.1 Marty In his lectures on Descriptive Psychology, held in 1893 – 1894, Marty affirms that every mental act has an ‘intentional relation’ (intentionale Relation) to an ‘immanent’ or ‘intentional object’ (immanentes, intentionales Object).¹³ He also calls the immanent object ‘content’ (Inhalt). Thus, just as in Höfler, ‘object’ (in a certain sense) and ‘content’ are somehow equated: the content is the term of an intentional relation. Marty says that the immanent object is the ‘correlate’ (Korrelat) of the mental act, a ‘presented-thing’, a ‘loved-thing’ or a ‘judged-thing as such’ (Vorgestelltes, Geliebtes, Beurteiltes als solches), i. e. as presented, loved, or judged. Whereas the act is real, the immanent object is said to be ‘unreal’ (nicht real). Thus, in the reduplication ‘as presented’, ‘presented’ is a ‘modifying

 As will be seen below, this perspectival interpretation is found in Chrudzimski 2001.  The following pages, above all those on Marty, will develop some of the analyses presented in Cesalli and Taieb 2012. I will distance myself somewhat, in my own name, from the conclusions of this article as regards Brentano’s theory of intentionality, namely concerning the idea, defended in the article, that the ‘correlate’ of the mental act, in Brentano, is not an ‘intentional object’.  Marty 2011: 9, 166.

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determination’ (modificierende Bestimmung), which changes the meaning of the name to which it is added: whereas a wise man is a real man, a presented man is not a real man, but an unreal entity.¹⁴ For Marty, following Brentano, an unreal entity is something that does not have proper generation or corruption, but is generated or corrupted when something else is generated or corrupted, and cannot act or undergo a causal effect.¹⁵ By contrast, a real entity, or a ‘thing’ (Ding, res), has proper generation and corruption, and can act and undergo a causal effect.¹⁶ Thus, the immanent object is something that is only generated when the mental act is generated and corrupted when the mental act is corrupted. In sum, the immanent object is a mind-dependent unreal entity, described as a ‘presented-thing as such’, i. e. as presented (ein Vorgestelltes als solches, i. e. als Vorgestelltes). Marty compares this object to an ‘image’ (Bild), like Höfler. In his lectures, Marty contrasts the ‘immanent’ or ‘intentional object’ and the ‘true object’ (wirkliches Objekt), and says that every act has an immanent object, whereas only some mental acts have a true object. Thus, by ‘true object’ (wirkliches Objekt), Marty seems to refer to mind-independently actually existing entities, like Höfler with his second sense of ‘object’.¹⁷ Yet, in 1894, in the 5th article of the series On Subjectless Propositions,¹⁸ Marty again distinguishes the ‘immanent object’, or ‘presented-thing as presented’ (Vorgestelltes als Vorgestelltes) from another kind of object, namely the ‘object tout court’ (Gegenstand schlechtweg) or ‘presented tout court’ (Vorgestelltes schlechtweg). Marty again affirms that every act has an immanent object understood as a correlate. Thus, the immanent object exists in every case. By contrast, he says of the object tout court or presented tout court that it can be existent or non-existent. He gives ‘horse’ as an example of an existent object tout court and

 On modifying determinations in the Brentanian tradition, see Brentano 1925: 61– 62 n. 1, as well as Twardowski 1984: §4, 1979.  Note that although causally inefficacious, an unreal entity exists, so that ‘unreal’ does not mean ‘non-existent’.  On this definition of reality, see Brentano, Ps 34, Von den Relationen, undated: n° 51075; 2013: 466 – 467, as well as Chrudzimski 2004: 138 – 139.  The German term ‘wirklich’ has different translations in English, notably ‘actual’ and ‘efficient’. On the legitimacy of translating it as ‘true’ in this context, see Brentano 2013: 465, where ‘a true triangle’ (ein wirklicher Dreieck) is contrasted with ‘a presented triangle’, just as ‘a true King’ (ein wirklicher König) is opposed to ‘a King on the chessboard’. Once the ‘true’ and the ‘immanent object’ have been contrasted in such a manner, one can still further ask, like Marty 1916: 57, quoted above, which of these objects can ‘properly’, i. e. ‘truly’, be considered the ‘object’ of the act, in the sense of that toward which the act is intentionally directed (I thank Maria van der Schaar for having drawn my attention to this point).  Marty 1918: 164– 166.

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‘centaur’ as an example of a non-existent object tout court. Thus, apparently, an object tout court does not need to exist in order to be, precisely, an intentional object, i. e. in order to be intended, by contrast with the true object of Marty’s Descriptive Psychology, which seems to be an existent thing. In other words, Marty’s object tout court is equivalent to the Husserlian transcendent object (mentioned in the introduction), which can exist or not, be ‘imaginary’ or even ‘absurd’.¹⁹ Thus, there is a distinction between two objects, the immanent one and the object tout court. The target-object, in the final analysis, is not the immanent object but the object tout court. Marty explicitly says that the act of acknowledgement (Anerkennung) is intentionally directed towards the object tout court: ‘horse’ and not ‘presented-horse’ is acknowledged in a judgment. Moreover, in a letter to Husserl from 1901, Marty, who again distinguishes between ‘presented-thing as such’ (Vorgestelltes als solches) and ‘presented-thing tout court’, writes: The object of the presentation of blue is: blue, not: presented blue. But this is quite compatible with my view that there corresponds to every presentation a correlate which necessarily exists if the presentation exists. For this does not assert that this correlate as such (that is, the presented blue) is the object of my presentation. At all events this is not the case for a primary act of consciousness. The presented-thing as such is in fact the object of secondary consciousness. (Marty 1990: 233; transl. Mulligan and Schumann, slightly modified)

Thus, even in presentations, the target-object is the object tout court. Nevertheless, Marty maintains the existence of an immanent correlate for every mental act. He says that such an immanent correlate does not forbid the act being directed towards blue, because its admission ‘does not assert that this correlate as such (that is, the presented blue) is the object of my presentation’. Marty affirms that the correlate as such, i. e. the presented blue as presented, is the object of secondary consciousness, i. e. reflexive consciousness, whereas primary consciousness, i. e. outer consciousness, is directed towards blue. It not easy to understand what Marty means here. I suggest following A. Chrudzimski’s interpretation of this text.²⁰ According to Chrudzimski, who also uses this text to understand Brentano’s theory of intentionality in the same period, Marty would say that primary consciousness is directed toward the immanent correlate, but that it ‘falsely’ sees this correlate as something transcendent, whereas secondary conscious For a confirmation, see Marty 1908: 395 n. 1, where (the later) Marty explicitly equates his ‘object tout court’ (Gegenstand schlechtweg) with Husserl’s ‘transcendent object’ (transzendenter Gegenstand).  The text is quoted in Chrudzimski 2001: 105 n. 123.

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ness would ‘rightly’ see it as something in the mind. Thus, the distinction between immanent object and object tout court would be somehow ‘perspectival’, one and the same entity being ‘seen as’ something different according to different kinds of consciousness (see Figure 1: the undashed circle, which is grasped by secondary consciousness, stands for the immanent object appearing rightly, or with its correct nature, i. e. as immanent, whereas the dashed circle, which is grasped by primary consciousness, stands for the immanent object appearing falsely, or with its incorrect nature, i. e. as transcendent; the overlapping of the circles serves to indicate that they both stand for one and the same entity, namely the immanent object).

Figure 1. This figure is inspired by that in Chrudzimski 2001: 106.

In brief, primary consciousness is directed towards an immanent object, a presented-thing as presented, but in the final analysis, it grasps something tout court. Thus, the target-object of primary consciousness, from the perspective of primary consciousness itself, is the object tout court.

2.2 Kerry and Hillebrand As stated in the introduction of this article, the distinction between presentedthing as presented and presented-thing tout court is not only to be found in Marty. Indeed, a similar distinction seems to be present in Benno Kerry’s texts. In the 8th article of the series ‘On Intuition and its Psychic Working’, published

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in 1891,²¹ Kerry distinguishes between ‘presented-thing’ (Vorgestelltes) and ‘presented-thing as presented’ (Vorgestelltes als Vorgestelltes). These two expressions also have as synonyms, respectively, ‘content of presentation’ (Vorstellungsinhalt) and ‘content of presentation as content of presentation’ (Vorstellungsinhalt als Vorstellungsinhalt). Here, again, it seems that there is a kind of perspectival comprehension of intentionality:²² every act would be directed toward a presentedthing, but this thing would not be seen ‘as presented’, but ‘tout court’. Indeed, as Kerry writes: One can only judge about a presented-thing, but one does not have to judge about a presented-thing-as-presented: round and square, even if they can only exist as presented, are not considered for this reason to be distinct-as-presented. (Kerry 1891: 135)

Just as in Höfler and Marty, content and object are somehow assimilated in Kerry’s text, since that towards which the act is directed is said to be a ‘presentedthing’ (Vorgestelltes), also called ‘content of presentation’ (Vorstellungsinhalt). Franz Hillebrand makes some similar distinctions. Marty, in the passage of On Subjectless Propositions quoted above,²³ says that he follows Hillebrand and the points made in his book The New Theories of Categorial Inferences, published in 1891.²⁴ In this text, Hillebrand distinguishes between ‘object’ (Gegenstand), also called ‘content’ (Inhalt), and ‘presented object’ (vorgestellter Gegenstand) or ‘presented-thing as presented’ (Vorgestelltes als Vorgestelltes). He considers primary consciousness to be directed towards the object or content, whereas secondary consciousness is directed towards the ‘presented object’ or ‘presented-thing as presented’. Hillebrand affirms that every presentation entails the existence of a ‘presented object’. Besides, he holds that the ‘object’ can be existent or non-existent. Thus, Hillebrand seems to theorize a distinction similar to that made by Marty.

2.3 Brentano One finds some distinctions in Brentano’s texts that are similar to those mentioned above.

   

Kerry 1891: 135. This text is quoted and discussed in Twardowski 1984: 19. On this perspectival account, see the section on Marty directly above. Marty 1918: 164– 166. Hillebrand 1894: 36 – 38, 39 n. 1.

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As said before, the immanent object in Marty’s Descriptive Psychology is an unreal correlate of the mental act. Now, such considerations are present in Brentano’s own lectures on Descriptive Psychology. In a well known passage from these lectures, Brentano affirms that the intentional relation, ‘relating a subject to an object’, is peculiar, because in this relational situation, by contrast with other relational situations, one of the correlates, the mental act, is a real entity, whereas the other, the ‘seen-thing’ (Gesehenes), ‘presented-thing’ (Vorgestelltes), etc., is an unreal entity: 1. Hence, the peculiarity which, above all, is generally characteristic of consciousness, in that it shows always and everywhere, i. e. in each of its separable parts, a certain kind of relation, relating a subject to an object. This relation is also referred to as “intentional relation”. To every consciousness belongs essentially a relation. 2. 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, Presenting and what is presented, Wanting and what is wanted, Loving and what is loved, Denying and what is denied etc. As highlighted already by Aristotle, these correlates display the peculiarity that the one alone is real, [whereas] the other is not something real. (Brentano 1982: 21; transl. B. Müller)

There are many places in Brentano’s texts where he equates this unreal correlate with an ‘object’.²⁵ For example, in the Appendix of 1911, in the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, when Brentano lists all fictional entities—as opposed to real entities—, he counts as fictional ‘the objects as objects, like acknowledged-thing, denied-thing, loved-thing, hated-thing, presented-thing’ (die Objekte als Objekte, wie Anerkanntes, Geleugnetes, Geliebtes, Gehaßtes, Vorgestelltes).²⁶ Very clearly, in a text from the Nachlass, manuscript M 76, Zur ‘Metaphysik’, dated 1915, Brentano includes in a proper a class of ‘entia rationis’ (beings of reason) entities like ‘thought-of-thing’ (Gedachtes), ‘acknowledgedthing’ (Anerkanntes), etc. This class of entia rationis is called the class of the ‘intentional’ or the class of the ‘objective’:

 Note that according to a recent, minority opinion, the unreal correlate and the immanent object in Brentano are distinct entities. This opinion is defended in Sauer 2006, Antonelli 2008, and Fréchette 2013. For the classical interpretation, which equates the unreal correlate and the immanent object, and which I follow, see Chisholm and Baumgartner 1982: XIII, Mulligan and Smith 1985: 637, Smith 1994: 55 – 56, and Chrudzimski 2001: 21– 22, 2004: 155 – 156. On this debate, see Cesalli and Taieb 2012.  Brentano 1925: 162.

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23. The so-called ens rationis. 24. Different classes of it. […] 29. The expressions “thought-of-thing”, “acknowledged-thing”, “negated-thing”, “correctly negated-thing”, “loved-thing”, “correctly loved-thing”, etc. also designate entia rationis. One cannot present something as thought-of, but as thinking, whereby the thing that the one who is thinking thinks is presented in modo obliquo. One would err if one was to consider the thought-of object thought-of in modo obliquo to be the thought-of thing as thought-of, for example, when someone is thinking a table, a thought-of table, it is rather a table. We can designate this class with an expression already used in the Middle Ages as the class of the “intentional”. (Another designation, usual at that time, as the class of the “objective”, i. e. that which subsists as the object of someone who is thinking, would be very misleading nowadays […]). (Brentano, M 76, Zur “Metaphysik”, 1915: n° 30874– 30876)²⁷

In the last mentioned text, manuscript M 76, the object is said to be a ‘thought-of thing as thought-of’ (gedachtes Ding als Gedachtes). This reminds us of the distinction made by Marty between the presented thing as presented and the presented thing tout court. And indeed, Brentano offers a similar distinction. In his logic lectures of the 1870s, collected in the manuscript EL 80,²⁸ Brentano mentions the distinction between ‘the presented as presented’ (das Vorgestellte als Vorgestelltes) and ‘the presented as that, as what it is presented’ (das Vorgestellte als das, als was es vorgestellt wird).²⁹ He says that one can present a ‘fiction’ (Fiktion) as a ‘thing’ (Ding), for example when one presents people living on Mars or a phantom. It is clear that here ‘people living on Mars’ or ‘a phantom’ are not understood as mind-dependent objects, precisely because they are presented as things: mind-dependent objects are not things, but irrealia. In the same lectures, Brentano distinguishes between the immanent object, which is also called ‘con-

 German original: “23. Das sog. ens rationis. 24. Verschiedene Klassen desselben. […] 29. Ebenso bezeichenen die Ausdrücke ‘Gedachtes’, ‘Anerkanntes’, ‘Geleugnetes’, ‘Mit recht Geleugnetes’, ‘Geliebtes’, ‘mit recht Geliebtes’ u. drgl.—entia rationis. Man kann nicht etwas als gedacht vorstellen, sondern als Denkendes, wobei dann das Ding, das das Denkende denkt, in modo obliquo vorgestellt wird. Man würde irren, wenn man meinte, das in modo obliquo Gedachte Objekt sei das gedachte Ding als Gedachtes, z. B. wenn einer einen Tisch denkt, ein gedachter Tisch, vielmehr ist es ein Tisch. Wir können diese Klassen nach einem schon im Mittelalter üblichen Ausdruck als die Klasse des ‘Intentionalen’ bezeichnen. (Eine andere, damals übliche, Bezeichnung als Klasse des ‘Objektiven’ d. h. als Gegenstand eines Denkenden Bestehenden, würde heutzutage sehr missverständlich sein. […]).”  Brentano 2011: 28, 35, 41. For a more precise dating of the lectures, see Rollinger 2011.  The importance of the notion of ‘presented-thing as such’ (das Vorgestellte als solches) in Brentano’s logic lectures has been underscored by Rollinger 2009: 6 – 8. The distinction between, on the one hand, the ‘presented as such’ and, on the other hand, ‘the presented as that, as what it is presented’ (das Vorgestellte als das, als was es vorgestellt wird) is not mentioned.

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tent’, and ‘that which is presented through the content of the act’ (das, was durch den Inhalt einer Vorstellung vorgestellt wird). That which is presented through the immanent object or content is, I think, an object tout court—including things which do not exist, like people on Mars, a phantom, etc.³⁰ If this object tout court exists, then the act has what Brentano calls an ‘external object’ (äußerer Gegenstand), i. e. a mind-independently actually existing entity, Höfler’s ‘thing in itself’ (Ding an sich) or Marty’s ‘true object’ (wirkliches Objekt). Thus, it seems that there is, in these lectures, a distinction between, on the one hand, mind-dependent, immanent objects, and, on the other hand, transcendent objects, which can sometimes, though not always, be given in the outer world. In a text from the Nachlaß, in the manuscript Ps 34, Von den Relationen, dated 1908, Brentano again mentions the distinction between ‘the presented as presented’ and ‘the presented as that, as what it is presented’. He says that ‘the presented as presented’ is a correlate, and he contrasts this correlate and ‘the presented as that, as what it is presented’, which seems to be a transcendent object. At least, the ‘presented as presented’ or correlate, seems to be mind-dependent, since Brentano also calls it the ‘objectified’ or the ‘objectized object’ (das Objekt als objektiviertes objiziertes), which apparently indicates that it is produced by the subject: The so-called psychic relation, for example when someone presents something. One says that it is a relation from the one who is presenting to something that he presents. What he presents need not to be in reality; but one says that it is in his presentation. This being is not a being in the proper sense. The requirement that both things between which there is a relation should be or at least be somehow effectively does not properly hold for this relation; as correlatio, the presented-thing appears as such, not as that as what it is presented. The one who is presenting is very misleadingly called “subject”; one should call him the “objectifying” one or the “objectizing” one, since the object is cor-

 The claim that Brentano has a concept of object tout court has been defended in Kent (1984: 33, 44). More precisely, Kent attributes a concept of ‘object per se’ to Brentano, which clearly echoes Husserl’s transcendent object: “‘Intentional inexistence’ and ‘immanent objectivity’ do not denote an ontological category. They are used as ontologically neutral ways of saying that something is an object of a mental act. […] Whenever we mentally refer to something, we refer to it as an object. We are in a sense referring thereby to neither an existent object nor a non-existent object. To have an object before the mind, as Brentano suggests, is for something to be presented independently of its existential status. In itself this is merely a contingent fact about our epistemic powers. The world is so constituted that we are able to perceive and think about things independently of perceiving or thinking about them as existing or not existing”.

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relatio as “objectified”, “objectized”. (Brentano, Ps 34, Von den Relationen, 1908: n°51001– 51002)³¹

Thus, once again we have a distinction between an immanent object understood as an unreal correlate—rejected in 1908, the date of the text above—, and an object tout court, which can exist or not, be ‘imaginary’ or even ‘absurd’. The distinction between immanent object and object tout court that one finds in Marty’s texts, or in Hillebrand, seems to have its roots in Brentano.³² I stress that O. Kraus, in the notes of the volume Truth and Evidence, clearly attributes the distinction between immanent object and object tout court to Brentano. Indeed, he says: Some people distinguish now—following old lectures from Brentano—act (= intentional relation), content (immanent object) and thirdly: object tout court. (Kraus 1930: 191)

However, I do not think that Brentano always used a very clear terminology, sometimes using the expression ‘immanent object’ to mean the unreal correlate, i. e. the content of the act, for example in the intentionality-quote of the Psychology or in EL 80,³³ and sometimes using it to refer to the object tout court, for example in the famous letter to Marty of the 17th of March 1905.³⁴

3 The perspectival theory: Some critical remarks I would now like to make some critical remarks concerning the perspectival theory of intentionality, according to which one and the same entity, the immanent  German original: “Die s.g. psychischen Beziehungen z. B. wenn jemand sich etwas vorstellt. Man sagt, es sei dies eine Beziehung des sich Vorstellenden zu etwas, was er sich vorstellt. Das was er sich vorstellt, braucht dabei nicht in Wirklichkeit zu sein; man sagt aber, es sei in seiner Vorstellung. Dieses Sein ist kein Sein im eigentlichen Sinn. Die Bedingung, daß jedes der beiden, zwischen denen die Relation statt hat, sei oder wenigsten irgend wie tatsächlich sei, wird also bei dieser Relation nicht eigentlich gestellt; als Correlatio erscheint das Vorgestellte als solches, nicht als das, als was es vorgestellt wird. Das Vorstellende wird sehr mißverständlich Subjekt genannt; man sollte es das Objektivierende oder Objizierende nennen, denn das Objekt als objektiviertes objiziertes correlatio ist.”  Other texts where Brentano mentions, in a similar manner, ‘the presented as presented’ and ‘the presented as that, as what it is presented’ are Ps 48, Zur Psychognosie (Vorarbeiten), and EL 81, Fragmente, both quoted in Fréchette 2015.  Brentano 1924: 124– 125 and Brentano 2011: 35.  Brentano 1930: 87– 89, 1952: 119 – 121. This also explains why Kent 1984, quoted above, equates Brentano’s immanent object with an object tout court.

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object or unreal correlate, would be ‘seen as’ something different depending on the different kinds of consciousness involved: primary consciousness would grasp the immanent object not as presented, but as an object tout court, i. e. as transcendent, whereas secondary consciousness would grasp it as that what it is, namely as presented or as immanent (see Figure 1 above). This theory seems to me to be problematic. To begin with, the Brentanian- or Martyian-like perspectival theory of intentionality should probably not be understood as saying that the difference between the immanent and transcendent object is a logical difference. One could refer here to some remarks made by Twardowski concerning the distinction between the content and object of mental acts. Twardowski, in the 6th paragraph of On the Content and Object of Presentations, affirms that the difference between content and object is not a mere logical distinction, depending on two different ‘points of view’ (Gesichtspunkt) on one and the same entity. First of all, he stresses that nobody would claim, in the case where the object exists, that the distinction between content and object is merely logical: someone who judges about the existence of the sun does not mean the psychic content ‘sun’, but ‘something toto genere different from this content’ (etwas von diesem Inhalt toto genere Verschiedenes).³⁵ But even in the case where the object does not exist, the distinction between content and object cannot be a mere logical distinction: It is tempting to believe that in this case [i. e. in the case where the object does not exist] there is no real difference between content and object, but only a logical one; and that this one entity appears sometimes as content, sometimes as object, because of the two points of view from which one can look at it. But this is not so. […] Namely, if the content and the object of a presentation were not really but only logically different, then it would not be possible, say, for the content to exist while the object does not exist. But this often happens. If one makes a true judgment which denies an object, the one must surely have a presentation of the object which one judges and denies. The object is therefore presented as an object by means of a corresponding content. Whenever this is the case, the content exists, but the object does not exist; for it is this object which is denied in a true negative judgment. If content and object were really the same, then it would be impossible for the one to exist and for the other at the same time not to exist. (Twardowski 1894: 29 – 30; transl. Grossmann)

I think that Brentano or Marty would defend exactly this position with respect to the distinction between immanent object and object tout court. Quite clearly, they say that the immanent object is always existent, whereas the object tout

 Twardowski 1894: 29.

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court is sometimes existent, sometimes non-existent (Marty, for example, affirms this in the aforementioned 5th article of the series On Subjectless Propositions ³⁶). Now, as I have said, I think that there is a problem with such a theory. Indeed, in this theory, primary consciousness is directed toward the immanent object, e.g. an unreal man, but it does not see this object as immanent, but as something ontologically very different from what it is, e.g. as a real man. In other words, primary consciousness does not have, as an intentional term, an immanent object, but the object tout court. Since primary consciousness does not see the immanent object at all, it does not see an immanent object as the object tout court, but only, and strictly, the object tout court. Marty says that the immanent object is like an image. Yet an image that leads to the perception of something else without being seen as an image is a peculiar kind of image, namely a trompe-l’œil. The immanent object, since it directly leads primary consciousness to the cognition of something that is non-immanent, functions like a trompe-l’œil. In sum, the immanent object is transparent for primary consciousness (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

But in that case, the problem is that the immanent object losses its main utility. Indeed, the immanent object is supposed to give an existent term to every intentional relation. Marty, for example, says it in a letter to Husserl from the 7th of June 1901:

 Marty 1918: 164– 166.

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Yet the nature of every relation entails, in my opinion, that if one term of the relation exists, the same necessarily holds also of the other term. The intentional object must therefore exist as often as the “intention” exists. (Marty 1990: 227; transl. Mulligan and Schuhmann)

But if one considers that the immanent object is absolutely not intentionally grasped by primary consciousness, the intentional relation is no longer directed toward the immanent object, and mental acts do not all have an existent term anymore. Thus, it becomes quite useless to admit immanent objects in a theory of intentionality. The preceding considerations could be part of the reasons which led to the rejection of such objects in the School of Brentano.

4 Conclusion: On content and object On the basis of my analyses, I would like to conclude with some clarificatory remarks on the distinction between content and object in the School of Brentano. For Austro-German authors, every mental act undoubtedly has a content, in the sense that every mental act has a feature that directs the act toward such and such an object. Thus, even if one abandons immanent intentional terms in one’s theory of intentionality, one should maintain mental contents. This is precisely what Twardowski does in On the Content and Object of Presentations. As we saw above, in Brentano, Marty, and Höfler, the ‘content’ (Inhalt) of the act is also an immanent object. It is the term of an intentional relation (see Figure 3).

Figure 3.

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Twardowski has a very different comprehension of what a content is. For Twardowski, the content of a mental act is never the term of an intentional relation, but is part of the fundament of the intentional relation. The intentional relation has its starting point in the act enriched by its content, and is directed toward an object, which is understood as object tout court, and which can exist or not, be ‘imaginary’ or even ‘absurd’ (see Figure 4 below).

Figure 4.

More precisely, Twardowski thinks that the act and the content form ‘a single psychic reality’ (eine einzige psychische Realität). The act is real, whereas the content is unreal. The object, as Twardowski explicitly says, can be ‘real’ or ‘unreal’, ‘existent’ or ‘non-existent’, ‘possible’ or ‘impossible’.³⁷ Thus, there is no unreal correlate understood as something in front of the act anymore. Certainly, Twardowski says that the content is ‘presented’ (vorgestellt), but in a peculiar sense: following a distinction found in Robert Zimmermann’s Philosophical Propaedeutic,³⁸ Twardowski affirms that the content is presented ‘in the presentation’ (in der Vorstellung), but not ‘through the presentation’ (durch die Vorstellung). The only thing that is presented through the presentation, i. e. the only thing that is the term of an intentional relation, is the object tout court. In consequence, the intentional relation does not always have an existent term. Twardowski says this explicitly:  Twardowski 1984: 40.  Zimmermann 1867: §18, §26, quoted and discussed in Twardowski 1984: 18, 20.

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It is not surprising that we assert here relations which are such that one of their terms exists, while the other does not—and hence relations between existents and nonexistents. (Twardowski 1894: 27; transl. Grossmann)³⁹

Even if Twardowski, in On the Content and Object of Presentations, says that he is following Brentano’s and Höfler’s theories, he is in fact not, but is bringing something quite new into the School of Brentano: a clear distinction between content and object. This distinction, as Höfler says, took some time to filter through, and I do not think it was Höfler who invented it, at least not in his Logic: even if Höfler, in his paper Are we Psychologists?, published in the Proceedings of the 5th Congress of Psychology held in Rome in 1905,⁴⁰ mentions the fact that Twardowski attributes the distinction between content and object to him, and agrees with this attribution, Meinong, who worked with Höfler on his Logic, does not attribute this invention to Höfler or to himself, but to Twardowski. Indeed, Meinong, in On Objects of Higher Order,⁴¹ says that he missed the aforementioned distinction in Psychological-Ethical Research on the Theory of Values, written in 1894,⁴² i. e. three years after Höfler’s Logic, and quotes Twardowski as a reference on the distinction between content and object. In On Objects of Higher Order, Meinong argues that a strict distinction between content and object leads to the rejection of ‘immanent objects’, i. e. things like ‘the presented golden mountain, the presented difference, the presented past, the presented round square’ (der vorgestellte goldene Berg, die Vorgestellte Verschiedenheit, die Vorgestellte Vergangenheit, das vorgestellte runde Viereck). He says that the affirmation of the existence of a ‘presented golden mountain’ is nothing more than the affirmation of the presentation itself. This is exactly what we will find in Brentano during his so-called ‘reism’, that is, in his later theory, in which he only admits realia, or ‘res’, i. e. things, in his ontology. For example, in a text published in the volume The Renunciation of the Unreal, under the title ‘About Thinking and About Ens Rationis’—dated 1907 or 1908 by Franziska Mayer-Hillebrand, the editor—, Brentano affirms:

 A similar reading of Twardowski’s theory of intentionality has recently been defended by M. van der Schaar, who holds that the content, for Twardowski, is not the ‘target’ of the act, and that intentionality, for him, is ‘a directedness of the act towards an object that transcends the act’ (see van der Schaar 2016: 57 and 65).  Höfler 1906: 327. This is the place where Höfler says that it took time for the distinction between content and object to be made.  Meinong 1971: 382– 383.  Meinong 1968.

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When I say: “there is a thought-of red thing” and “there is someone thinking a red thing”, I say the same thing. (Brentano 1952: 369)

The only entity that exists is someone who is thinking a mental act with a content. The existence of the immanent object is rejected. Höfler, in Are we Psychologists?, affirms that Brentano missed the distinction between content and object.⁴³ It is true that Brentano and Marty, before the rejection of immanent objects, somehow equated content and object, since they admitted an internal term for every intentional relation, namely the unreal correlate or ‘presented as presented’. But at the same time, they distinguished between ‘the presented as presented’ and ‘the presented tout court’ or ‘the presented as that, as what it is presented’. It shows that they were aware of the fact that the content cannot be the ultimate target of the mental act, and that the object, in the final analysis, should not be considered an internal entity. In fact, in a very problematic way, they talked of two different objects for every mental act, one being a kind of mediator, an image, a sign, or maybe a trompe-l’œil, the other being that of which the image or sign is the image or sign. Since such a theory entails many philosophical problems, they decided to reject it. Marty, in his Investigations Towards the Foundation of General Grammar and Philosophy of Language,⁴⁴ when he criticizes the notion of ‘immanent object’, quotes the Appendix to paragraphs 11 and 20 of the 5th Logical Investigation, in which Husserl says: The transcendent object would not be the object of this presentation, if it was not its intentional object. (Husserl 1984, 439.15 – 17; transl. Findlay)

One could somehow invert the proposition, and say: ‘if the object of this presentation is the transcendent object, the immanent object cannot be its intentional object’. As soon as one considers the target-object of a presentation to be an object tout court, or a presented tout court, one has to admit that no immanent object, unreal correlate or presented as presented, can be the intentional object of the presentation. It took a long time, but finally, Brentano and Marty admitted that the only thing that is presented is a presented tout court. Paradoxically, the presented as presented is, in fact, absolutely not presented. Unless one says that the word ‘presented’, in the reduplication, means ‘presented tout court’, ‘Vorgestelltes schlechtweg’. Such an interpretation of the reduplication is in no way forbidden, as Marty himself realizes in his Investigations:  Höfler 1906: 327 n. 1.  Marty 1908: 395.

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Some people call also the immanent object of the presentation the “presented as such”. But we avoid this expression, because it is not unequivocal and also surely has a meaning from the point of view of one who denies immanent objects. (Marty 1908: 392 n. 1)⁴⁵

References Antonelli, M. (2008), ‘Eine Psychologie, die Epoche gemacht hat’, in Brentano, F., Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte. Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene, edited by A. Chrudzimski and Th. Binder, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag, p. IX–LXXXVI. Antonelli, M. (2013), ‘Thoughts Concerning Anton Marty’s Early Conception of Intentionality. Was He Thinking What Brentano Was Thinking?’, Quaestio 12, p. 233 – 241. Brentano, F. (1924 – 1925), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, 2 vol., edited by O. Kraus, Leipzig, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1930), Wahrheit und Evidenz, edited by O. Kraus, Leipzig, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1952), Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, edited by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Bern, Francke. Brentano, F. (1982), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by R. M. Chisholm and W. Baumgartner, Hamburg, Felix Meiner; English translation by B. Müller, London, Routledge, 1995. Brentano, F. (2011), EL 80, Logik, edited by R. D. Rollinger, Franz Brentano Archiv, Graz. Brentano, F. (2013), ‘Abstraction und Relation’, edited by G. Fréchette, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 465 – 482. Cesalli, L. and Taieb, H. (2013), ‘The Road to ideelle Verähnlichung. Anton Marty’s Conception of Intentionality in the Light of its Brentanian Background’, Quaestio 12, p. 171 – 232. Chisholm, R. M. and Baumgartner, W. (1982), ‘Einleitung der Herausgeber’, in Brentano, F., Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by R. M. Chisholm and W. Baumgartner, Hamburg, Felix Meiner, p. IX–XXI. Chrudzimski, A. (2001a), Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Chrudzimski, A. (2001b), ‘Die Intentionalitätstheorie Anton Martys’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 62, p. 175 – 214. Chrudzimski, A. (2004), Die Ontologie Franz Brentanos, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Chrudzimski, A. and Smith, B. (2004), ‘Brentano’s Ontology: from Conceptualism to Reism’, in The Cambridge Companion to Franz Brentano, edited by D. Jacquette, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 197 – 219. Fréchette, G. (2013), ‘Brentano’s Thesis (Revisited)’, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 91 – 120. Fréchette, G. (2015), ‘Content and Object’, handout, Workshop ‘Intentional Objects Allsorts. Varieties from Austro-German and Medieval Philosophy’, University of Geneva, 9th June, 2015.

 Besides this, on the fact that the reduplication ‘as presented’ is ambiguous and applies both to the content and to the object tout court with two distinct meanings, see Twardowski (1984: 19 – 20).

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Hillebrand, F. (1894), Die neuen Theorien der kategorischen Schlüsse. Eine logische Untersuchung, Vienna, Alfred Hölder. Höfler, A. (1890), Logik. Unter Mitwirkung von Dr. Alexius Meinong, Prague—Vienna—Leipzig, F. Tempsky—G. Freytag; (1922), Logik. Mit vier Beiträgen als Überleitungen von der Logik zur Logistik von Univ. Prof. Ernst Mally, Graz, 2nd ed., Vienna—Leipzig, Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky—G. Freytag. Höfler, A. (1906), ‘Sind wir Psychologisten?’, in Atti del V Congresso Internazionale di Psicologia tenuto in Roma dal 26 al 30 Aprile 1905, Rome, Forzani, p. 322 – 328. Husserl, E. (1984), Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis (Husserliana XIX/2), edited by U. Panzer, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff; English transl. by J. N. Findlay, London, Routledge, 1970. Husserl, E. (1990/1991), ‘Intentionale Gegenstände’, edited by K. Schuhmann, Brentano Studien 3, p. 142 – 176. Husserl, E. (1979), ‘[Review of] K. Twardowski, Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen. Eine psychologische Untersuchung, Vienna 1894’, in Husserl, E., Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890 – 1910) (Husserliana XXII), edited by B. Rang, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, p. 349 – 356. Kent, O. T. (1984), ‘Brentano and the Relational View of Consciousness’, Man and World 17, p. 19 – 51. Kerry, B. (1891), ‘Ueber Anschauung und ihre psychische Verarbeitung’, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 15, p. 127 – 167. Kraus, O. (1930), ‘Anmerkungen des Herausgebers’, in Brentano, F., Wahrheit und Evidenz, edited by O. Kraus, Leipzig, Felix Meiner, p. 167 – 220. Marty, A. (1918), ‘Über subjectlose Sätze und das Verhältnis der Grammatik zu Logik und Psychologie’, 5th art., Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 18 (1894), p. 421 – 471; reprinted in Marty, A., Gesammelte Schriften II.1, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil, and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer, p. 146 – 189 Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1916), Raum und Zeit, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil, and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1990), ‘Two Letters from Marty to Husserl’, edited and translated by K. Mulligan and K. Schuhmann, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 225 – 236. Marty, A. (2011), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by M. Antonelli and J. Ch. Marek, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann. Meinong, A. (1968), Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, Graz, Leuschner und Lubensky, 1894; reprinted in Meinong, A., Gesamtausgabe, edited by R. Haller and R. Kindinger, vol. III, Graz, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, p. 1 – 244. Meinong, A. (1971), ‘Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 21 (1899), p. 182 – 272; reprinted in Meinong, A., Gesamtausgabe, edited by R. Haller and R. Kindinger, vol. II, Graz, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, p. 377 – 480. Mulligan, K. and Smith, B. (1985), ‘Franz Brentano on the Ontology of Mind’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45, p. 627 – 644.

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Rang, B. (1979), ‘Einleitung des Herausgebers’, in Husserl, E., Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890 – 1910) (Husserliana XXII), edited by B. Rang, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, p. IX-LVI. Rollinger, R. D. (2011), ‘Editor’s Preface’, in Brentano, F., EL 80, Logik, edited by R. D. Rollinger. Rollinger, R. D. (2009), ‘Brentano’s Psychology and Logic and the Basis of Twardowski’s Theory of Presentations’, The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 4, p. 1 – 23. Sauer, W. (2006), ‘Die Einheit der Intentionalitätskonzeption bei Brentano’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 73, p. 1 – 26. van der Schaar, M. (2016), Kazimierz Twardowski: A Grammar for Philosophy, Leiden—Boston, Brill—Rodopi. Schuhmann, K. (1990/1991), ‘Husserls Abhandlung “Intentionale Gegenstände”. Edition der ursprünglichen Druckfassung’, Brentano Studien 3, p. 137 – 142. Smith, B. (1994), Austrian Philosophy. The Legacy of Franz Brentano, La Salle, Open Court. Twardowski, K. (1894), Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen. Eine psychologische Untersuchung, Vienna, Alfred Hölder; English transl. by R. Grossmann, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1977. Twardowski, K. (1979), ‘Issues in the Logic of Adjectives’, in Semiotics in Poland 1894 – 1969, edited by J. Pelc, Dordrecht—Warsaw, Reidel—PWN, p. 28 – 30. Twardowski, K. (1996), ‘Funktionen und Gebilde’, edited by J. L. Brandl, Conceptus XXIX, (75), p. 157 – 189. Zimmermann, R. (1867), Philosophische Propaedeutik, 3rd ed., Vienna, Wilhelm Braumüller.

Archive Materials Brentano, F. (undated), EL 81, Fragmente, Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, F. (1915), M 76, Zur ‘Metaphysik’, Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, F. (partly dated 1908), Ps 34, Von den Relationen, Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, F. (undated), Ps 48, Zur Psychognosie (Vorarbeiten), Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Laurent Cesalli

Mental Similarity: Marty and the Pre-Brentanian Tradition Abstract: The later Anton Marty describes intentionality as a mental assimilation (ideelle Verähnlichung). This paper aims to clarify that notion, in particular with respect to its possible sources and antecedents. Section 1 presents mental similarity (MS) as a relational property of which there are two kinds: correlation and relative determination; section 2 explores the relationship between MS, which is a sui generis similarity, and standard similarity; section 3 considers the possible sources of Marty’s theory, first with respect to terminology, and second with respect to the philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Aquinas, Gabriel Biel, Suárez, Hermann Schwarz, Hugo Bergmann); section 4 argues for a possible analysis of MS in terms of structure-isomorphism and considers possible antecedents in Descartes, Leibniz, and Twardowski; section 5 is an attempt to defend Marty’s position against Goodman’s ‘symmetry objection’.

Is intentionality a relation, and, if so, what kind of relation is it? It is well known that after ca. 1906, Anton Marty, probably the closest of Brentano’s pupils—came to conceive of intentionality as a relation of mental assimilation (ideelle Verähnlichung). The relation of mental similarity is sui generis, says Marty, but it nonetheless deserves to be called ‘similarity’ because it resembles standard similarity in several respects. In a recent study, Hamid Taieb and I offered a predominantly immanent analysis of the notion of mental similarity (see Cesalli and Taieb 2013). In what follows, I come back to Marty’s mental similarity from a more extrinsic perspective, my aim being to trace Marty’s crucial idea back to some possible sources, including medieval ones.

1 Mental similarity (MS) as relational property Before considering the relation between Marty’s mental similarity and previous philosophical traditions, we should settle on some technical terminology, from a Marty-inspired point of view, so to speak. Mental similarity (MS)—I take ‘mental similarity’ (MS) to stand for the proprium of intentional relatedness (intentionale Beziehung). Although Marty sometimes talks of MS as of a relation (intentionale Relation, e. g. Marty 1908: 321), I https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-004

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will adopt a slightly different convention in order to prevent possible confusion, and talk of ‘relational property’ (which I explain below) instead of simply ‘relation’. MS is a relational property of a presenter (Vorstellender):¹ in presenting the object x, presenter P becomes mentally similar to x. Note that MS is common to all mental phenomena: in judging that x exists, P becomes mentally similar to the judgement-content (or Sachverhalt) x’s being; in loving z, lover P becomes mentally similar to the emotion-content (or Wertverhalt) z’s being valuable (Marty 1908: 425). Relational properties are non-real consequences (nichtreale Folgen) of real entities. Non-real entities (or irrealia, according to Marty) always supervene on real ones (note that a ‘Folge’ is causally inert: the non-real is nicht wirklich in the etymological sense of the expression). Thus MS, as a relational property, is a non-real consequence of an act of presenting (and similarly for other mental phenomena or acts). MS is called ‘mental’ because one of its fundaments² is always a mental phenomenon (whereas the objectual term of MS varies in nature—x, x’s being, x’s being valuable—its subjectual term does not: it is always a mental phenomenon).³ Relational property (RP)—A relational property is something such that whatever has it cannot be thought without something else, the two non-relational items at stake being the ‘extremes’ of the RP. For example: a parent cannot be thought without a child, a whole cannot be thought without a part, and, more generally, a presenter cannot be thought without something presented; which means, for example, that a parent has an RP with respect to a child, or that a presenter has an RP with respect to something presented. Now, RPs can take three different forms: Relation—both extremes exist, but only one RP is given. For example: in causation, both the cause and the effect exist, but there is only one RP (namely from the effect to the cause).⁴ Correlation—both extremes exist and two mutual RFs are given. For example, in Socrates’ being taller than Plato, there are, besides the extremes Socrates and Plato, the RF of being taller than Plato, and the (other) RF of being smaller than Socrates (in this sense, ‘correlation’ means ‘two relations’).

 This holds, of course, for every type of mental phenomenon, and not only for presentings. But since presentings are the most fundamental type, the present explanation is given in terms of that special mental phenomenon.  The technical term ‘fundament’, as well as the notion of a ‘term’ (subject-term/object-term) are introduced below.  I shall come back to this problematic point below, in section 5.  See Brentano 1976: 125 – 126.

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Relative determination—only one extreme exists, so that the RP cannot be a relation, nor a correlation.⁵ It is nonetheless an RP in the sense that it is a possible relation or correlation. For example: Socrates’ presenting a chimera. The relational character consists in that if a chimera existed, then it would necessarily be the correlate of Socrates’ presenting (‘counterfactuality’ does not suspend ‘relationality’). Fundaments—following Marty, I take up the medieval terminology according to which the absolute features of the extremes on which RPs are grounded—for example the colour of X and Y for the RP of being-of-the-same-colour-as-… are called the fundaments of the RPs at stake. All RPs have extreme(s), but not all of them have fundaments (only grounded RPs do). Grounded & grounding RPs—An RP can be grounded (or conditioned), or grounding (or conditioning). A grounded RP supervenes on its fundament; for example, X’s being-the-same-colour-as-… is an RP supervening on X’s colour. A grounding RP, by contrast, supervenes on a grounded RP and its fundament; for example, the RP holding between X’s colour and X’s being-the-same-colouras-… is a grounding RP.⁶ Note that whereas a grounded RP can be a relation, a correlation, or a relative determination, a grounding RP is necessarily a correlation. Figure 1 represents the relational situation in the case of a presenting:

Fig. . MS as a relational property (I) S: subject O: object p: fundament (S’s presenting) RP: grounded RPs (relations or relative determinations) RP: grounding RPs (relations only)

 In this sense, Chrudzimski 2014 is right against Cesalli 2008, where I (mistakenly) took Marty’s relative Bestimmung to be a species of the genus relation.  The distinction between grounded and grounding relations is designed to avoid Bradley-like regresses. On the distinction between grounded and grounding relations in Marty, see Johansson 2004: 110 – 123.

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‘p is a presentation of O’ means: p is such that it has, as a non-real consequence, a RP such that S is mentally similar to O (RP1 supervenes on p). a grounding relation is a 0-sided conditioned RP (it is what ‘to be conditioned’ means) a relative determination is a 1-sided conditioned RP (by its fundament only) a grounded relation is a 2-sided conditioned RP (by its fundament and by its correlate)

2 MS as sui generis similarity Marty labels Brentano’s rediscovery of intentionality ‘ideelle Verähnlichung’, a technical expression we translate as ‘mental similarity’ (MS). Marty insists that MS is to be distinguished from standard similarity: as he explains in a short paper of 1901, two items are similar in the standard sense when they are different, but not so different that one could not recall the other.⁷ As a matter of fact, MS is to be conceived as a kind of sui generis similarity: And thus, [mental similarity] obviously differs from the usually so called concordance in such essential features […] that one inevitably must refer to it as a relation sui generis which is adequately named thus [namely “similarity”] only in virtue of a certain analogy. (Marty 1908: 408)⁸

Nonetheless, Marty considers MS to be a kind of similarity, and this in virtue of its being a grounded relation, like standard similarity. As it stands, this point is a quite weak one: is it sufficient for an RP to be grounded in order for it to qualify as a kind of similarity (be it sui generis or otherwise)? We shall come back to a possible further reason to consider this claim, a reason linked with the traditional (i. e. Aristotelico-Scholastic) idea that knowing is to be explained in terms of a

 Marty 1901: 110: “Similar is what is different, provided its difference is not such as to preclude it from reminding one of what it is similar to”. Cf. the traditional (i. e. Aristotelian) conception of similarity (or being alike): ‘Those things are called like which have the same attributes in every respect; and those which have more attributes the same than different; and those whose quality is one; and that which shares with another thing the greater number of the more important of the attributes (each of them one of two contraries) in respect of which things are capable of altering, is like that other thing. The uses of “unlike” correspond to those of “like”’ (Aristotle, Metaphysics V.9, 1018a15 – 19; see also ibid V.15, 1021a13, where the third case alone is mentioned, i. e. sameness of quality).  See also Marty 1908: 407, where Marty talks of MS as a kind of modified similarity.

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kind of becoming similar (assimilatio, in Latin).⁹ That said, MS differs from standard similarity in four respects (see Marty 1908: 407– 8, 413 – 15). First, MS is a positive determination whereas standard similarity is a negative one;¹⁰ second, unlike standard similarity, mental similarity does not come in degrees (an act of presenting an apple cannot be more or less similar to an apple, but only similar or not similar to it); third, whereas the terms of a relation of standard similarity stand on an equal footing with respect to that relation, this is not the case for mental similarity; ¹¹ fourth and last, mental similarity is not reducible to one of the three possible types of standard similarity, namely: iconic, mereological (holding between two complexes that have equal parts), and logical similarity (holding between two species of the same genus). Let us—benevolently—assume that all mental phenomena have MS as their proprium. How does the analogy with standard similarity work, then? Just as an apple A is similar to another apple B in virtue of its colour, a subject presenting A becomes mentally similar to A in virtue of its act of presenting; and just as the colour of A is the fundament of A’s being-the-same-colour-as-B, so the subject’s act of presenting A is the fundament of the MS holding between the subject and A.

3 Where does MS come from? 3.1 The origin of the expression ‘ideelle Verähnlichung’ Marty does not say anything about possible sources regarding his terminological choice. However, two possible and even plausible sources can be identified. The first is a certain Virgil Grimmich, a professor of philosophy for theologians in Freiburg im Breisgau and later in Prague (where he might very well

 See below, section 3.2. For an alternative reading of Marty on mental similarity, see the contribution of Claudio Majolino in the present volume.  It is not clear what Marty means by the negative character of standard similarity. Presumably it lies in the fact that the analysis of the notion of standard similarity involves a twofold negative delimitation: A is similar to B iff A is not identical to B, and A is not so different from B that it is unable to recall it. As for the corresponding positive character of MS, this is even more obscure. It might consist in the fact that the notion of being assimilated, adequate, or conform to something else tends towards a kind of identification, whereas standard similitude excludes this.  On this issue, see below, section 5.

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have been in direct contact with Marty),¹² whose Lehrbuch der theoretischen Philosophie auf Thomistischer Grundlage, published in 1893, uses ‘ideelle Verähnlichung’. The context is that of a critique of the mechanistic conception of mental life: The life of the senses cannot be explained in terms of purely mechanical forces because it is of an essentially different character […] : we have to do with a purely immanent process, with an immaterial reproduction of the material object of cognition within the cognizing subject, with a mental assimilation [ideelle Verähnlichung] of the latter to the former. (Grimmich 1893, §93)

The second source is Ludwig Schütz’ 1895 edition of his famous Thomas Lexikon (i. e. the second edition of the work), according to which the Latin ‘assimilatio’ is to be translated as Verähnlichung. The first edition (1881) does not have such an entry. Remarkably, Marty and Schütz belong to the same intellectual tradition, for the author of the Lexikon had also been a student of Brentano in Würzburg, probably between 1870 and 1873.¹³

3.2 The origin of the idea of MS The roots of Marty’s idea that intentionality is nothing but MS can be traced back deep into the philosophical tradition. We find it in Aristotle, where one can read that cognition in general (and perception in particular) is a process by which the form of an object becomes present (‘is received’) in a cognitive faculty without matter, i. e. in mental or ‘ideal’ form: ‘[T]he sense-organ is capable of receiving the sensible object without its matter. […I]t is not the stone which is present in the soul, but its form’ (De anima III.2, 425b23 – 24 and III.8, 431b29 – 432a1). And what holds for sense perception holds for intellectual cognition as well: ‘The thinking part of the soul must be […] capable of receiving the form of an object. […] Thought must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible’ (De anima III.4, 429a15 – 18). Furthermore, the idea of becoming similar (which is clearly contained in the notion of Verähnlichung, which points to something like a process) is expressed in the claim that in thought, the intellect

 From 1901 to 1903, the date of his death, Grimmich was professor of moral theology at the German University in Prague, and thus a colleague of Marty. For more information, see Grimmich’s entry in Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 2003 – 2014.  See Fisette and Fréchette 2007: 24. Schütz is also mentioned by Carl Stumpf in his Erinnerungen an Franz Brentano (Stumpf 1919: 103).

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becomes all things: ‘[T]hought, as we have described it, is what it is by virtue of becoming all things’ (De anima III.5, 430a14– 15).¹⁴ In short, then, one reads in Aristotle that for a subject, thinking (or perceiving) consists in becoming an object in a peculiar, non-material way. In this sense, ‘to become an object’ means ‘to have the same form as the object’, i. e. to be ‘formally’ identical to it. The medievals—Aquinas, for example—will take up a similar idea: ‘[E]very cognition is achieved by the assimilation [assimilatio] of the cognizing subject to the cognized thing’ (De veritate, q. 1, a. 1, arg. 1). Thus, in Aquinas, Aristotle’s ‘becoming the object’ is rendered by ‘being assimilated to the object’.¹⁵ Such an assimilation of a subject to an object is achieved by means of a species, the species being itself a similarity of the object: One has to consider that the external things cognized by us do not exist in our intellect according to their own nature; but what has to be in our intellect is their species. […] Intellection […] stands with the cognized thing in a relation which depends on the species’s being a similarity of the thing. (Summa contra gentiles I, 53)

The similarity at stake is not standard, as it were, for cognizer and cognized object are (as a rule) of very different natures (i. e. a soul or intellect for the cognizer and a thing for the cognized object)—as a matter of fact, since standard similarity is typically understood as the sharing of some quality, it entails sameness of nature (the nature of an entity determines what kind of qualities it can bear): [A] similarity between two things can be understood in one of two senses. In one sense, according to an agreement in their very nature, and such a similarity is not needed between the cognizer and the cognized thing […]. The other sense has to do with similarity by representing [similitudo quantum ad repraesentationem], and this similarity is required between the cognizer and the cognized thing. (De veritate, q. 2, a. 3)¹⁶

 See also Aristotle, De interpretatione 1, 16a3 – 9 and De anima II.5, 418a3 – 6, where he also speaks about similarity.  In De anima III.5, 418a5, Aristotle uses the term ‘homoiotai’, meaning literally ‘being assimilated’.  But there is more, for according to Aquinas, at the end of the day, the whole cognitive process involves not just one, but two entities that are similar to the cognized thing: one is the species—that by which (id quo) something is cognized—the other is the mental word (verbum in mente, intentio intellecta)—that which (id quod) is cognized: “This intellected intention (i. e. the mental word), since it is like the term of the intellectual operation, differs from the intelligible species which actualizes the intellect […] although both are a similarity of the cognized thing” (Summa contra gentiles, IV, c. 11).

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Summing up, Aristotle conceives of cognition as the receiving of an object’s form without matter, a process he also describes as becoming the object. Along the same lines, Aquinas talks of having a similarity of the object in the mind, something he describes as being representationally assimilated to the object. Whereas Aristotle and Aquinas are certainly the remote sources of Marty’s doctrine of MS, it is also very plausible to think that authors of late and even second (Spanish) scholasticism influenced the Swiss philosopher on this issue. Marty himself, as far as I can tell, does not say anything about such a connection. However, one of his closest students in Prague, Samuel Hugo Bergmann, gives some remarkable indications.¹⁷ After having assessed Marty’s later conception of intentionality, Bergmann notes: They [i.e. the objects] are apprehended [werden bewusst] […] when there is a consciousness that stands in ideal adequation with respect to them, [a consciousness that] means them, [and] is their naturalis similitudo. […] Schwarz has recently pointed to that fortunate terminology of Biel’s. (Bergmann 1908: 42)

At the end of the passage Bergmann alludes to Hermann Schwarz’ Die Umwälzung der Wahrnehmungshypothese durch die mechanische Methode nebst einem Beitrag über die Grenzen der physiologischen Psychologie (1895), and to Gabriel Biel (1410 – 1495), the famous late-medieval, nominalist theologian. Schwarz¹⁸ devotes long pages to what he calls ‘the scholastics’ (i. e. mainly Aquinas, Biel, and Suárez). When reconstructing Biel’s position, Schwarz characterizes the process of cognition (Vorgang des Erkennens) as being… …the consciousness’ directedness to an object, [a directedness] made possible by a peculiar configuration [Beschaffenheit] corresponding to the object, that is: [made possible] by the object’s expression [Ausdruck] in consciousness, [an expression by means of which the object] points to something beyond itself. (Schwarz 1895: 146)

 Hugo Bergmann (1883 – 1975) was a pupil of Marty in Prague. He is the author of the Untersuchungen zum Problem der Evidenz der inneren Wahrnehmung (1908), a work he dedicated to his master only a few months after Marty himself dedicated his own Untersuchungen to Brentano. Bergmann was to become a professor of philosophy at the Hebraic University of Jerusalem, where he taught from 1925 onwards. On Bergmann and his position within the Brentanian tradition, see Fréchette 2017.  The psychologist and philosopher Hermann Schwarz (1864–1951, not to be confused with the homonymous mathematician) was Privatdozent in Halle when he published his Umwälzung der Wahrnehmungshypothese (1895). He later (1908) became extraordinary professor in Marburg, and then (1910) ordinary professor in Greifswald (cf. Sieg 1994).

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This doesn’t exactly sound scholastic. As a matter of fact, what we have in Biel’s Collectorium circa quattuor libros Sententiarum (c. 1450) is the following: The acts of intellection have true subjective being in the soul, for they are inhering qualities of the soul. And those acts are natural similitudes (similitudines naturales) of the things after which they are formed (a quibus formantur) and which are their objects; and there is no need to posit any intermediary between intellective cognition and its real object. (Collectorium I, 2, viii, ad 2).

An analogous observation can be made regarding the way in which Schwarz reconstructs Aristotle’s theory of cognition. Commenting on De anima III.2 and 8 (quoted above in section 3), Schwarz notes that when Aristotle describes cognition as the object’s form being present in the cognizing subject without its matter, what he means is that the subject ‘becomes mentally similar to the things cognized’; more precisely: the subject’s ‘becoming similar’ is explained in terms of the act’s ‘becoming configured in a certain way’.¹⁹ So the question arises as to why Schwarz describes Biel’s and Aristotle’s theories in these prima facie anachronistic, that is, quite inappropriate, terms? The answer lies in the importance of Suárez in Schwarz’ book (1548 – 1617), and more precisely, of his philosophy of mind. The author of Die Umwälzung is reading Biel and Aristotle through Suárezian glasses. And the result, interestingly, echoes Marty. Reconstructing Suárez’s account, Schwarz says that according to the Jesuit thinker, the directedness of consciousness in cognition is to be explained by the fact that ‘the whole of consciousness becomes a cognitive means or image of the object’.²⁰ Yet ‘image’ is to be taken in a special sense here, for Suárez calls the similarity of the act with respect to its object an ‘intentional similarity’ (similitudo intentionalis), comparable to the relation holding between a body and the shadow it projects.²¹

 Schwarz 1895: 4*: “Aristotle says that the cognizing subject takes up the form of the object without its matter. [… i. e.] perceiving subjects undergo a certain change of state under the effect of the external object, they are brought into a cognitive configuration, namely that of the act of perceiving, in which they become mentally assimilated to the things in so far as they receive their form”—see above, note 15.  Schwarz 1894: 25*: “[According to Suárez,] the whole of consciousness becomes a means of cognition, and, as such, an image […] of the object […]. Consciousness …is brought into a special cognitive configuration that […] causes it to be directed towards the […] object. It is the living activity that, by means of the species, cognizes the object–an object foreign to consciousness–[…] and is designated as what is similar to the object”.  Schwarz 1895: 25*–26*: “Provided that cognition and object are similar in this sense, one can obviously talk of similarity here only in a strongly metaphorical way. Similarity is introduced as

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As Meier-Oeser notes, however, late scholastic authors conceived of such a similitudo intentionalis—which, by the way, they also called similitudo naturalis (the very expression used by Biel) or similitudo obiectiva—as being primitive: concepts are not presentings of objects in virtue of some kind of ‘figural conformity’ but ‘on their own account’, that is ‘per se’.²² Provided Marty was indeed inspired by the scholastic (and late scholastic) tradition in coining his notion of MS or ideelle Verähnlichung, did he, like Suárez, for example, take it to be a primitive notion as well?

4 Is MS primitive? In view of the very peculiar nature of MS as compared to standard similarity, one might think that MS is not only sui generis, as Marty claims, but also primitive. This impression is easily reinforced by the lack of information on MS in Marty’s works. However, a notion that cannot be subsumed under a higher genus can still be further analysed (e. g. by distinguishing constitutive elements and relations entailed in the notion). The following subsections are intended to show that some points made by Marty in his later works (the Untersuchungen, Raum und Zeit) not only suggest that MS is analysable, but also show how it is to be analysed. As in the case of the origin of the notion of MS, the support for such a claim will be found in Marty’s immediate intellectual context (Twardowski), but also in philosophers of the past (Descartes, Leibniz) with whose thought Marty was familiar.

similitudo intentionalis, and sharply distinguished from any real similarity with the object. It is taken to hold only analogically. […] Consciousness, in cognizing configuration, corresponds to the object in a way that does not differ from that of a shadow, that is, in a highly imperfect and incomplete way, quodammodo tantum” (for the reference to Suárez, see his commentary on Book III of De anima, in Opera omnia, ed. Vivès, vol. III, p. 621– 622). On this topic, see Meier-Oeser 2004, who points to the fact that the idea of representation as similitudo intentionalis is present in Domingo de Soto’s Summulae (ed. of 1529, fol. 8rb; ed. of 1554, fol. 5va) and in another work of Suárez, De sanctae Trinitatis mysterio (Opera Omnia, vol. I, p. 744). In his Cursus philosophicus thomisticus, Jean Poinsot (or Johannes a Sancto Thoma, 1589 – 1644) will make use of the same notion of similitudo intentionalis and also compare it to a shadow of the object (In tres libros De anima: de ente mobile animato et de anima intellectiva, q. 6, a. 2, prima difficultas).  Meier-Oeser 2004: 153 – 170 (esp. 158).

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4.1 The later Marty One of the few passages pointing towards a possible analysis of MS can be found in Raum und Zeit, a text published by Alfred Kastil in 1916. There, Marty comes back to a feature of his early—that is ante 1906²³—theory of intentionality. The early Marty conceived of intentionality as a relation holding between a mental act and an immanent object (e. g. thought-Socrates), where the immanent object itself is similar in a modified sense to a transcendent one (in the case at stake: Socrates). The later theory will get rid of immanent objects, but not of modified (or sui generis) similarity, for MS is precisely that kind of relational property. MS however—as the name tells us—does not hold between an immanent and a transcendent object, but between a mental act and a transcendent object. That said, the properties of the relational property called ‘modified similarity’ in the early theory and ‘MS’ in the later one are exactly the same. Consequently, the fact that in Raum und Zeit Marty talks about the similarity holding between an immanent and a transcendent object is irrelevant when it comes to the nature of the relational property at stake. The passage reads as follows: When, in virtue of such a similarity, we say that an object is immanent, we have in fact to do with […] a fiction of the inner linguistic form; just the same happens when one takes a portrayed person to be in the portray in virtue of the similarity of the lines and colours on the canvas with the ones of the portrayed body or face. Just as all what there is in the latter case boils down to a coloured canvas and an actual or possible similarity to what we refer to as the item portrayed, in the same way, in a presenting, as in consciousness in general, […] there is nothing more than a real mental process in the soul, which has, as non real consequence, a real or hypothetical relation of ideal adequation [read: MS] to something called its object. (Marty 1916: 58)

The idea is that just as a painting possesses structural features (the relative disposition of colour patches) that match some features of the thing of which it is a painted image, a mental act—say a presenting—possesses some structural features that match some features of the object it presents. The Untersuchungen offer another passage expressing a similar idea. Considering the question of whether the presentings of two similar objects A and B are themselves similar (which they are not), Marty writes: One cannot mean that the same relation of equality, difference, etc. holds between presentings and between their objects. For sure, acts display a real difference in that they are thus

 On the reasons for and the chronology of this development, see Cesalli and Taieb 2013.

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configured [so beschaffen] that they present different [objects]; and again, [they display] a real affinity [Verwandtschaft] when their objects are equal or similar. (Marty 1908: 410 n.)

The comparison involves two objects A and B, and two corresponding presentings a and b. Further, three types of relational properties are involved: R1 between a and b; R2 between the acts a and b and their respective objects A and B; and R3 between A and B:

Fig. 2.

The text says the following: i) in case R3 is a relation (say) of similarity, R1 is also a relation of similarity, but of a different nature (it is not ‘the same relation’ of similarity); ii) a presents A (and b, B) in virtue of its ‘real difference’ or ‘configuration’; iii) in case A and B are (say) similar, a and b display ‘a real affinity’. Does such a setting tell us anything about how R2 is to be analysed? For R2 is nothing but MS. What it tells us, I take it, is this: acts (a, b) have an internal structure (= configuration) which ‘mirrors’ (in one way or another) the internal structure of objects (A, B) in virtue of which those objects stand in certain relations—for example in a relation of similarity. If this is correct, then the passage could be read as suggesting that MS is to be analysed as structural isomorphism: a presents A because a is structurally isomorphic with respect to A.

4.2 Twardowski Independently of relatively remote possible sources such as Descartes or Leibniz —to whom we shall turn below—Marty’s suggestion that MS is to be analysed as a kind of structural isomorphism might be linked with what one reads in Chapter 12 of Twardowski’s 1894 On Content and Objects of Presentings (a work with which Marty was familiar):

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Having described the parts of objects and contents, the question now arises as to what relationship there is between the content and the object of one and the same presenting. A primitive psychology replied readily that the presenting (in the sense of the content) is simply a mental picture of the object […]. People have become convinced that the relationship between the presenting and its object is an irreducible, primitive relationship […]. [However] this relationship consists in this … that the parts of the object are presented through constituents in a way which is determined by the manner in which the parts of the object are united into a whole, uniform object. Hence, there is an analogy between the composition of the parts of the object and the composition of the constituents, an analogy, to be sure, of a rather peculiar nature, one which is determined by the relationship of being presented [holding] between an object and a content. (Twardowski 1894: §12)

The passage is quite explicit: the relational property holding between a presenting (here Twardowski equates the act of presenting and its content) is not iconic, as ‘primitive psychology’ would have it, but sui generis. This, however, does not mean that the relational property at stake is also primitive. Twardowski offers the following analysis: just as objects have parts, presentings (or their contents) have parts (constituents), and the way the parts of the object are unified into a whole is analogous to the way in which the parts of the content are unified into a whole. In other words: a presenting presents its objects in virtue of having an internal structure analogous to that of its object.

4.3 Descartes and Leibniz In a 2004 paper on representation in Descartes, Dominik Perler points out that Descartes, in the appendix of his second replies to the Meditationes, gives a definition of idea in terms of form: ‘Idea: I understand this term to mean the form of any given thought’ (Définitions, II). Perler further remarks that in the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes claims that the whole universe consists of just one kind of matter, and that… …all the properties we distinctly perceive to belong to it are reducible to its capacity of being divided and moved according to its parts; and accordingly, it is capable of all those affections which we perceive can arise from the motion of its parts. […A]ll variation of it, or diversity of form, depends on motion. (Principes II, 23)

Thus one can conclude (with Perler) i) that Descartes substitutes the Aristotelian notion of form for a weaker one, according to which ‘form’ means nothing but

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‘organization or structure’; and ii) that for a given idea to be of a given object means nothing but its having the same structure.²⁴ But does Descartes conceive of such a structural isomorphism as a kind of similarity? A passage from the Dioptrics (IV, 6) suggests that he does. There, Descartes argues that ‘ideas are not images of the objects’ and ‘do not need to be like them’, that is: at least not in the sense in which an image is like its object. Since he nonetheless maintains that ‘objects we perceive are really depicted in the brain’, the relation at stake must be one of similarity but not without qualification. As a matter of fact, Descartes talks of ‘rough similarity’ (rudis similitudo): Thus, we see that engravings formed merely by the placing of ink here and there on paper, represent to us forests, cities, men, and even battles and tempests; and yet, of the innumerable qualities of these objects which they exhibit to our thought, there is none except the figure of which they really bear the likeness. (Dioptrics IV, 6)

Quite remarkably, among the other examples given by Descartes in this passage, one finds the relation holding between geometrical figures and their projections, but also between words and the things they designate:²⁵ in all these cases, we have representation without similarity in the standard sense. Rather, such a ‘rough similarity’ is comparable to geometrical transformation, which preserves some structural features of what is transformed without producing a picture of it. One finds a similar view in Leibniz: It is not necessary to suppose that ideas […] are arbitrary and without relation or natural connection with their causes […] rather, there is a kind of resemblance, not complete and, so to speak, in terminis, but expressive, or a kind of orderly relation, as an ellipse […] resembles in some sense the circle of which it is a projection upon a plane, since there is a certain exact and natural relation between what is projected and the projection […] each point of the one corresponding by a certain relation to each point of the other. (Nouveaux essais II, 8)

The technical notion of expression is crucial in this passage, since ‘that is said to express a thing in which there are relations which correspond to the relations of  Perler 2004: 76.  The association of geometry and semantics will play a role in Karl Bühler’s semantics, in particular in his account of representation (Darstellung) as the most fundamental function to be considered in a theory of language. In order to make clear what he means by representation, Bühler compares it to the geometrical relation of coordination (Zuordnung)—Bühler 1918: 3 – 4. Wittgenstein’s account of representation as picturing (Abbild), as developed in the Tractatus (e. g. 2.1514), runs along the same lines. On this topic see Mulligan 2012: 105 – 111. On Wittgenstein’s theory of intentionality in the Tractatus, see Crane 2011.

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the thing expressed’ (Quid sit idea, Philosophische Abhandlungen III, in Schriften VII, p. 263). According to a contemporary commentator—Swoyer (1995)—, Leibnizian expression is to be understood as structural similarity (or ‘homomorphism’) between the intension and the extension of an idea, a notion, in turn, that is akin to the one of ‘structure preserving mapping’ used in modern algebra.²⁶ In short, we find in Leibniz, just as in Descartes, the claims i) that ideas are similar to their objects in a non-standard way, and ii) that the similarity at stake is best understood as structure preserving mapping (in this respect, the Leibnizian notion of expression seems to have replaced the Cartesian notion of form).

5 The symmetry objection (and a reply) Let us take for granted that, as the later Marty claims, intentionality is to be accounted for in terms of a special relational property, MS or ideelle Verähnlichung, holding between a thinking subject and its object. How is the theory supposed to work? Let us look at it in more detail. Let us recall the general idea: MS is the relational property (RP) supervening on (e. g.) an act p of presenting which makes it true that p is a presenting of an object O (and not of something else). MS not only supervenes on p but is also conditioned by p (MS is a grounded RP)—see figure 1, above. If the hypothesis of MS as structure preserving mapping holds, then we have something like the following: i) The object O has properties q which make up a certain configuration or structure of O; ii) this configuration of properties constitutes the aspect under which O is presented (every object is presented under a certain aspect): these properties are the relevant parts of O in the case at stake; iii) p itself (like O) has parts making up a certain configuration or structure; iv) the relevant parts of p are mapped onto the relevant parts of O so that the structure of O is preserved in p; v) the internal structure of p (its innere Beschaffenheit) conditions the MS supervening on it:

 On the notion of ‘structure preserving mapping’ in algebra, see the explanations given in Swoyer 2005: 107– 108.

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Fig. . MS as a relational property (II) S: subject O: object p/q: fundament (S’s presenting/O’s qualities) RP: grounded RPs (relations or relative determinations) RP: grounding RPs (relations only)

The resulting picture is obviously symmetrical. And this has the embarrassing consequence that if intentionality is sufficiently explained by such a constellation of entities (fundaments, RPs), then both terms of the RP at stake must be said to have intentionality. In other words (and provided it has been correctly reconstructed), Marty’s account seems to entail not only that S presents O, but also vice versa, that O presents S, which sounds absurd. Marty’s account, then, might very well be vulnerable to the famous objection of Nelson Goodman, who pointed out that representation cannot be explained in terms of resemblance (or similarity, for that matter), for representation, unlike resemblance (or similarity), is not symmetric.²⁷ And indeed, one finds a passage in the Untersuchungen where Marty seems to acknowledge precisely this kind of problematic symmetry:²⁸ “[H]aving an object” in a presenting [means] often just this: in case what is at stake were to exist, it would be the object of that presenting; and vice versa, one can also talk of “being an object” [Objekt- oder Gegenstandsein] in the sense of a mere relative determination, thereby only saying that in case a conform presenting [of x or y] were to exist, a correlation would then subsist between it and the x or y at stake. (Marty 1908: 432; italics mine)

 Goodman 1976: 4. For an exposition and discussion of Goodman’s position (as well as further literature), see Blanc-Benon 2012.  This, at least, is the reading I suggested in Cesalli and Taieb 2013: 202.

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In spite of the ‘and vice versa’, which definitely points towards symmetry, a closer look at the text reveals that one cannot infer from this passage that Marty means something like the following: since MS is a kind of similarity (and since similarity is symmetric), one has to accept as true both sentences ‘S presents O’ and ‘O presents S’. That said, there is a symmetry here, but of a different kind. The symmetry at stake concerns the fact that S and O have absolute determinations (p and q) on which relational properties (RPs) supervene. It follows that those RPs can take the form of correlations (when both fundaments exist) or of mere relative determinations (when one of the fundaments does not exist). In other words, the symmetry expressed by ‘vice versa’ concerns the structure of the RPs involved in the situation captured by the sentence ‘S presents O’: on both sides we have RPs of the same kind, namely grounded ones. Let us call that symmetry ‘structural symmetry’. The claim, then, is that the clause ‘and vice versa’ is motivated by structural symmetry alone. But is this sufficient in order to escape Goodman’s objection? It is sufficient, for one has to distinguish between structural and functional symmetry, so that the claim can now be further specified: the ‘and vice versa’ clause entails structural, but not functional symmetry. That there is a functional asymmetry is suggested by Marty in the passage quoted above: it is one thing to have an object; it is another to be an object. Remarkably, the functional asymmetry is built in the very notion of object, i. e. in what is common to both functions. As a matter of fact, the notion of object (Gegenstand), regardless of the nature of the entity at stake, necessarily involves another notion, namely that of a presenting subject: Thus, the notion of “object” (Gegenstand) cannot be thought without the thought of a possible presenting. An object is—I repeat—what can be presented. But what that is, nothing can be a priori determined on that point. (Marty 1916: 152).

The upshot is this: in spite of the structural symmetry of the two RPs involved, they display a functional asymmetry, for one of the terms—namely S—occupies a dominant position. As Marty puts it, the two fundaments—in our case the presenting p in S and the qualities q in O—‘are not on an equal footing’ (nicht ebenbürtig, 1908: 413 – 415): only thinking subjects (and nothing else) have presentings; but anything whatsoever can be the object of a presenting.

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6 Conclusions In the two introductory sections of this short study of the notion of mental similarity (MS), I first attempted to capture Marty’s notions of relation (or correlation) and relative determination under the same concept of relational property (RP), and then to explain his reasons for claiming that MS is only analogous to standard similarity, and thus not reducible to any kind of standard similarity. Two main sections followed, dedicated to more historical and more systematic issues, respectively. In the first, I considered the question of the origin of Marty’s doctrine of MS, from a terminological and a doctrinal point of view. The terminology seems to be neo-Thomist (Grimmich, Schütz), while the doctrine clearly has Aristotelian and scholastic (Aquinian) roots; in this respect, some passages from Bergman and Schwarz also point to late- and second scholasticism (Biel, Suárez). In the second main section, I addressed the issue of the primitive (or analysable) character of MS. Elements present in Marty’s work, but also in Twardowski and in modern philosophy (Descartes, Leibniz), make it plausible that MS is not primitive, and one can indeed conceive of it as a kind of ‘structure preserving mapping’ (a presenting of x is such because its internal structure maps the structure of x). Finally, I suggested a way of dealing with the Goodmanian objection of symmetry in line with Marty. Several questions remain, though. Let me conclude by simply pointing to two lines for possible further research. The first concerns the comparison of Marty’s late theory of intentionality as MS with Bühler’s Zuordnung (or Darstellung), as well as with Wittgenstein’s Abbild theory.²⁹ The second also consists in a comparison, but with more remote sources, namely with 14th-century nominalists (William of Ockham, in the first place) and their claim that intentionality is (at least partly) to be explained in terms of similarity.³⁰

 See Mulligan 2012.  See Panaccio 2004: 118 – 143. This paper was written in the frame of the FNS research project n° 100012_152921 ‘Signification et intentionnalité chez Anton Marty. Aux confins de la philosophie du langage et de l’esprit’ (Genève, 2014– 2017). Many thanks to the participants of the Einsiedeln conference of December 2014 for their questions and suggestions, in particular to Arkadiusz Chrudzimski, Denis Fisette, Guillaume Fréchette, Guy Longworth, Kevin Mulligan, and Mark Textor. I am especially grateful to Hamid Taieb, who made extremely valuable suggestions, in particular with respect to Aristotle and the symmetry objection.

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References Bergmann, H. (1908), Untersuchungen zum Problem der Evidenz der inneren Wahrnehmung, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Blanc-Belon, L. (2012), ‘Logique des relations et/ou logique de la perception: le sens de l’héritage goodmanien’, in Ésthétique et logique, edited by C. Morel, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, p. 101 – 114. Bühler, K. (1918), ‘Kritische Musterung der neueren Theorien des Satzes’, Indogermanisches Jahrbuch 6, p. 1 – 20. Brentano, F. (1976), Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum, edited by S. Körner and R. M. Chisholm, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Cesalli, L. (2008), ‘Relative Bestimmung—une relation martyienne’, in Compléments de substance. Études sur les propriétés accidentelles offertes à Alain de Libera, edited by C. Erismann and A. Schniewind, Paris, Vrin, p. 216 – 229. Cesalli, L. and Taieb, H. (2013), ‘The Road to ideelle Verähnlichung. Anton Marty’s Conception of Intentionality in the Light of its Brentanian Background’, Quaestio 12, p. 25 – 86. Chrudzimski, A. (2014), ‘Marty on Truth-Making’, in Anton Marty, Karl Bühler. Between Mind and Language, edited by L. Cesalli and J. Friedrich, Basel, Schwabe, p. 201 – 234. Crane, T. (2011), ‘Wittgenstein on Intentionality and Mental Representation’, in Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Kevin Mulligan, edited by A. Reboul, http://www.philosophie.ch/ kevin/festschrift/Crane-paper.pdf. Fisette, D. and Fréchette, G. (eds.) (2007), À l’école de Brentano. De Würzbourg à Vienne, Paris, Vrin. Fréchette, G. (2017), ‘Bergman and Brentano’, in Handbook of Brentano and the Brentano School, edited by U. Kriegel, London, Routledge, p. 323 – 333. Goodman, N. (1976), Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company. Grimmich, V. (1893), Lehrbuch der theoretischen Philosophie auf thomistischer Grundlage, Freiburg i. Br., Herder. Johansson, I. (2004), Ontological Investigations. An Inquiry into the Categories of Nature, Man and Society, Frankfurt, Ontos. Marty, A. (1901/1920), Über die Ähnlichkeit, in Marty, A., Gesammelte Schriften II.2, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil, and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer, p. 107 – 111. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1916), Raum und Zeit, edited by O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Meier-Oeser, S. (2004), ‘Mental Language and Mental Representation in Late Scholastic Logic’, in John Buridan and Beyond. Topics in Language Sciences 1300 – 1700, edited by R. L. Friedman and S. Ebbesen, Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, p. 237 – 265. Mulligan, K. (2012), Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande, Paris, Vrin. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (2003 – 2014), Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815 – 1950. Online Edition, Vienna, www.biographien.ac.at. Panaccio, C. (2004), Ockham on Concepts, Aldershot, Ashgate. Perler, D. (2004), ‘Inside and Outside the Mind. Cartesian Representation Reconsidered’, in Perception and Reality, edited by R. Schuhmacher, Paderborn, Mentis, p. 69 – 87.

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Schwarz, H. (1895), Die Umwälzung der Wahrnehmungshypothese durch die mechanische Methode nebst einem Beitrag über die Grenzen der physiologischen Psychologie, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot. Sieg, U. (1994), Aufstieg und Niedergang des Marburger Neukantianismus. Die Geschichte einer philosophischen Schulgemeinschaft, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann. Stumpf, C. (1919), ‘Erinnerungen’, in Franz Brentano. Zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Werke, edited by O. Kraus, Munich, Beck, p. 85 – 149. Swoyer, C. (1995), ‘Leibniz on Intension and Extension’, Noûs 29, p. 96 – 114. Twardowski, K. (1894), Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen. Eine psychologische Untersuchung, Vienna, A. Hölder.

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Talking about Intentionality: Marty and the Language of ‘Ideal Similarity’ Ill seen, ill said Samuel Beckett

Abstract: The present study is aimed at reconstructing Marty’s mature account of intentionality. In trying to enhance discussion on what has been called ‘the road to ideelle Verähnlichung’ (Cesalli and Taieb 2012), it will be suggested that the aim of Marty’s treatment of ‘ideal similarity’ is not limited to the abandonment of immanent objects. Noteworthy elements can also be identified in the way in which such an abandonment takes place. Such a way, we will argue, has to do with the specifically linguistic context within which Marty’s talk of ‘ideal similarity’ takes place. Through a detailed commentary on the relevant sections of the Untersuchungen, where intentional reference is compared and contrasted with ordinary similarity, we will try to show how notions such as ‘inner speech-form’ and ‘analogy of proportion’ contribute to shaping Marty’s discussion of intentionality as ‘ideal similarity’.

1 Correlation, relative determination, actual/possible ideal similarity 1.1 In §95 of the Untersuchungen, Marty famously rejects the theory of ‘immanent objects’ and maintains that intentionality is better portrayed in terms of a ‘possible or actual ideal similarity’ or ‘mental adequacy’ between an actually existing act and its object. One of the main passages summarizing this rejection is the following: Even if it is not always the case—as one used to believe—that every consciousness obtains a subject-object reference in the sense of a correlation, is it not perhaps the case that something akin occurs, motivating the belief that such a correlation exists in any case? I think the answer lies in what follows. […] What is in the subject, is nothing but the real event of the presentation or an occurring presentation as such. However, under certain circumstances, one can ascribe to the latter (zuschreiben) such an ideal similarity with the presented [object] and in this respect one could simply name (nennen) the act of presentation as an event of possible or actual ideal similarity or mental adequacy with an object. (Marty 1908: 406; my emphasis) https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-005

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This text already prompts four preliminary remarks. (1) To begin with, Marty’s aim is not limited to the rejection of immanent objects. Marty is also willing to show the ‘reason’ or the ‘cause’ (Anlaß) for the wrong ‘belief’ (Glaube) in their existence. In this sense, his task is not only critical but also etiological. (2) Such ‘cause’, Marty adds, lies—at least prima facie—in the tendency to see the ‘subject–object reference’ (Subjekt-Objektbeziehung) as a sheer form of correlation (Korrelation). As he will explain later, a ‘grounded belief’ (begründete Glaube) in the existence of a correlation depends on the ‘grounded belief in the existence of all of its fundaments’ (von der Existenz aller Fundamente) (1908: 412). Accordingly, seeing intentionality as a form of correlation would be tantamount to taking as a fact the existence of both of its terms—a fact that is not granted by the authority of inner perception. (3) While leading to a false belief, this tendency is nevertheless grounded on a true fact. For it is true that ‘something akin’ (Verwandte) to a correlation occurs every time intentionality is involved. Though sometimes given as an actual correlation, the ‘subject–object reference’ always takes at least the form of a ‘relative determination’ (relative Bestimmung). As Marty puts it, an ‘evident judgment about the existence of a relative determination’ (einsichtige Urteil über die Existenz einer relative Bestimmung) takes place whenever ‘the presentation of all terms is required’ (die Vorstellung aller Termini [ist] gefordert) but ‘only one of the fundaments is recognized as being there’ (als bestehend erkannt) (1908: 412). In other words, while the grounded belief in the existence of a correlation rests on the fact that both fundaments are rightly judged as existing, the grounded belief in the existence of a relative determination only needs the presentation of two fundaments, one of which is also rightly judged as existing.¹ In order to obtain, the fact of intentional reference requires at least the (correctly judged) existence of a ‘real event in the soul’ (reale Vorgang in der Seele) and the (merely presented) appearance of its object (1908: 406). (4) This fact, Marty continues, could fittingly be called (genannt) ‘ideal similarity’ or ‘mental adequacy’ (ideelle Verähnlichung, mentale Adäquation) (1908: 406). More precisely, when a subject–object relation is established on the

 The distinction is thus between relations whose terms are both presented and judged as existing (= correlations) and others where only one term is judged as existing while the second is simply presented (= relative determinations). Marty repeatedly insists on this point: “I cannot even merely think the correlation of two similar objects without representing both of its fundaments, but the same holds for the corresponding relative determination” (1908: 414). “Accordingly, the ‘reference to the object’ occurs not in the sense of a correlation but of a relative determination. In both cases, however, each representation is given” (1908: 417).

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basis of fundaments that are both presented and evidently judged as existing, one should talk of an ‘actual ideal similarity’. ‘Actual ideal similarity’ (wirkliche ideelle Verähnlichung) is thus an actual correlation (wirkliche Korrelation) whose fundaments are an (actually existing) act and an (actually existing) object. By contrast, in order to name ‘possible ideal similarity’ (mögliche ideelle Verähnlichung), a relative determination whose fundaments, the act and the object, are both presented though the former alone is judged as existing, an additional sophistication is needed. To begin with, the second fundament (i. e. the presented object) should turn into the content of a judgment; and the newly formed judgment has to be the hypothetical premise of an inference (Schluss) whose consequence is another judgment stating the counterfactual existence of the correlation itself (1908: 410). What was simply presented as the second fundament of a relative determination (the object) is now judged hypothetically, as that which, if it existed, would be the correlate of the first existing fundament (the act). ‘Possible ideal similarity’ is thus the name of a relative determination turned into a possible or hypothetical correlation (einer möglichen oder hypothetischen Korrelation), i. e. the correlation that would obtain between an (actually existing act) and a (possibly existing but actually presented) object (410 – 1). Marty’s overall account can be illustrated in the following diagram:

2 Talking about intentionality 2.1 If the above is correct, at least three elements appear to be entangled in Marty’s account: the existence of intentionality, which is attested beyond any doubt by inner perception; the specificity of its descriptive relational features, i. e. its ‘how and what’ (seinem Wie und Was) (1908: 406), misconceived by the (understandable and yet erroneous) propensity to conflate correlation and relative determination, actual and possible correlation; and the appropriateness of our way

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of talking about it (Redeweise, Ausdruckweise) (1908: 415) by means of certain expressions alluding to ‘similarity’ (Ähnlichkeit) or ‘adequacy’ (Adäquation), as opposed to expressions whose ‘images’ (Bilder) suggest the idea of an ‘indwelling’ (Innewohnen), an ‘inherence’ (Inhärieren) (1908: 357), or an ‘in-existence’ (Inexistenz) (1908: 406, 415). The importance of this third, specifically linguistic element should not be overlooked. For it lies at the heart of Marty’s etiological project. As already pointed out, it is one thing to have a more or less motivated false belief, and to conflate two similar-looking although structurally different phenomena, and quite another to elaborate an entirely wrong descriptive theory out of it. What lurks between the two are the pernicious side-effects of the ‘images of the inner speech form’ (Gebilde der inneren Sprachform) on the conceptual meanings that the language of the theory has to convey and clarify (1908: 405). 2.2 As is well known, the distinction between the ‘meaning’ (Bedeutung) and the ‘inner speech-form’ (innere Sprachform) of a linguistic expression plays a pivotal role in Marty’s overall theory of language (see Marty 1893: 68 – 85; Marty 1908: 134 sq.). As Marty puts it in one of his early articles: An “internal form” consists of certain presentations that, although conveyed by our linguistic expressions, do not constitute as such the latter’s meaning, for they only serve the purpose of conveying it through the laws of the association of ideas. The first example of metaphor or metonymy, and all language is full of such items, makes clear what we are talking about. (Marty 1893: 68)

A linguistic expression is not only meant to convey a certain set of presentations determining its meaning.² It also necessarily triggers a host of ‘auxiliary’ or ‘collateral’ presentations (Nebenvorstellungen, Hilfsvorstellungen, Begleitvorstellungen) that ‘do not quite constitute its sense’ (sie bilden durchaus nicht deren Sinn) but provide a ‘mediation of the understanding’ (Vermittlung des Verständnisses) (Marty 1908: 135, 140). For example, in order to facilitate the association between a vocal sound (Laut) and the actual meaning that it is meant to convey (wirklich gemeinte Bedeutung), one can talk about mental phenomena by means of expressions usually employed to designate something physical (1908: 135). In the same vein—if needed for practical purposes—one can also convey the presentation of a specific thing or a substance (die Vorstellung eines Dinges oder einer Substanz) by talking about it as a process (Vorganges). And one can even

 For an overall presentation of Marty’s pragmatic and intentionalist theory of meaning see Cesalli 2013.

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talk about language itself by means of ontological ‘images’ (Bilde, Gebilde), as when the words occurring as the subject-term and the predicate-term of a categorical sentence are designated by expressions suggesting the presentations of a substance and an action or a passion (1908: 135). In sum, whatever helps in ‘enabling and simplifying’ (ermöglicht und begünstigt) the understanding of a spoken sound—be it simple or complex—and ‘leads to’ (hinzuführt) its actual meaning thanks to the detour of a host of auxiliary presentations, belongs to what Marty calls the ‘internal speech form’ of language.³ Obviously, since the true goal of the images of the ‘inner speech form’ is not descriptive but merely ‘economical’ (1908: 140), practical rather than theoretical, their cognitive role is both extremely important and highly problematic. In fact— as thoroughly shown in the essay ‘Über subjektlose Sätze’ on the nature of judgment, and explicitly recalled in the Untersuchungen—’the failure to recognize’ (Verkennung) what belongs to the former and what to the latter has often lead and still leads to ‘totally false conceptions’ (ganz falschen Auffassungen) about the true nature (Natur) of the phenomena at stake (1908: 135, 142). Descriptive psychology and Sprachkritik go hand in hand, Marty claims. And knowing the ‘how and what’ of consciousness leads to the knowledge of the ‘how and what’ of language—and vice-versa. 2.3 In light of this fact, it comes as no surprise that the relevant sections of the Untersuchungen introducing the talk of ‘ideal similarity’ end up tackling a twofold task. On the one hand, Marty is clearly interested in seeing intentionality in the right way, i. e. spelling out the descriptive features of the subject–object relation delivered by inner perception. And, as we have seen, these can be fully expressed by the technical vocabulary distinguishing relative determinations, correlations, actual and possible correlation, etc. At this stage there is no need to talk about ‘ideal similarity’. But on the other hand, having previously exposed the unwanted effects of language on theory, Marty is also trying to talk about intentionality in the right way. ⁴ ‘Ideal similarity’ is introduced not as a descriptive feature

 The classical, and at the moment most extensive study on the topic is Funke 1924.  It would probably be useful here to remind ourselves of Brentano’s warnings in the Psychologie (1874: 124– 5) about the ‘not totally unambiguous expressions’ (nicht ganz unzeideutigen Ausdrucken) used to talk about intentionality—as delivered by inner perception—in terms of the ‘inexistence (Inexistenz) of an object’ or ‘reference (Beziehung) to a content’, ‘direction (Richtung) toward an object’, ‘immanent objectivity’ (immanente Gegenständlichkeit), etc. In the fifth Logical Investigation Husserl criticizes Brentano’s language precisely for having suggested the idea of an ‘inclusion’ of the intentional object in the act (see Husserl 1901: 384– 9). For Brentano, just as for Marty and Husserl, the way one talks about what is perceived is not neutral with regards to

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of the subject–object relation, but as a good way to talk about it, a way to ‘name’ (nennen) the peculiar form of correlation that seems to be at work when an act refers (sich bezieht auf) to an object even if the latter does not actually exist, by conveying the right images (1908: 406). Marty couldn’t be clearer on this point: ‘Ideal similarity’ is not a descriptive term, but a suitable way of talking about intentionality and its specific form of correlation by means of a heuristically useful analogy: Of course, I know quite well that this [i. e. the talk of “ideal similarity” and “mental adequacy”] is not a description that says anything about the fact at stake to the one who does not experience it from within. Ideal similarity means (heißt), again, nothing other such that occurs between the ‘idea’ or the [act of] presenting on the one hand and its object on the other; as for mental adequacy is nothing but that which can only be given by the mind vis-à-vis its objects. But what matters to me, after all, is to stress that—in case both correlates are given—we are dealing with a correlation that, although it does not quite coincide with what is usually called similitude or equality or accordance, can nevertheless be most easily accounted for with this name (doch am ehesten mit diesem Namen belegt werden kann). However, one would and should hasten to add that the name is not to be understood in the same sense here and there, but in a modified and only somehow analogical sense. (1908: 406 – 7; Marty’s emphasis)

Hence what we take to be Marty’s double move: (1) he explains away immanent objects as ‘fictional doubles’ (fiktive Doppelgänger) of objects as such (1908: 410 n.); and (2) he suggests that the theoretical belief in their putative in-existence is a form of collateral damage caused by the pernicious confusion of meaning and internal speech-form (Marty 1908: 415 – 6). Saying that the ‘immanent object’ is a ‘fiction’ (Fiktion) or a ‘verbal entity’ (ens elocutionis) (1908: 405) is in fact only a slightly different way of claiming that a mere figure of the ‘inner speech-form’ (i. e. ‘inclusion’, ‘indwelling’ etc.), originally used to ‘mediate the understanding’, has been surreptitiously taken to be a full-fledged meaning and lifted into the descriptive content of the phenomena to be described: By trying to fathom consciousness in its how and what, one should have avoided taking speech images for conceptual clarifications, and this happened insofar as the presented, the judged, etc. was awarded with a kind of existence or immanence in the presenting (1908: 406).

Once held captive by a set of images of the inner speech-form, what was a mere tendency to conflate relative determination and correlation, etc., turns into the the way in which what is perceived is thought and, ultimately, theoretically conceptualized. See also Brentano, EL 80: 20 – 27.

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basic tenet of a flawed descriptive theory of mind and intentionality. Correlatively, a non-flawed theory of mind should, at the same time, (1) get intentionality right, with the descriptive features delivered by analysing the data of inner perception; (2) use the right images of the speech-form to talk about it; and (3) explicitly avoid any conflation of the presentational features playing an auxiliary role (Hilfen der Verständnisvermittlung) (1908: 51) and those actually belonging to the properly descriptive content of the intentional relation. For it is only to the latter that the operation of ‘conceptual explication’ (begriffliche Klärung), on which the correctness of a theoretical description ultimately rests, rightfully applies (1908: 406). If one disregards the intertwinement of these three elements—two of which are tightly related with his philosophy of language—, the complex originality of Marty’s account of intentionality in terms of ‘ideal similarity’ is likely to be missed. 2.4 So Marty is well aware that the images of the inner speech-form are both practically unavoidable—unless one uses an artificial symbolic language (1908: 755)—and heuristically useful. He also knows that their heuristic advantages often entail a fair amount of risk, especially when employed for descriptive purposes. It is precisely for these reasons that—right after having introduced for the first time the talk of ‘ideal similarity’ in §95 of the Untersuchungen, and claimed its heuristic usefulness—he elaborates a careful strategy in order to both justify and set the limits of the employment of analogical talk of ‘similarity’ within the language of the theory. In this sense, Marty does not simply pick some images he finds appropriate to name and make us think of the distinctiveness of the intentional correlation in the easiest and most descriptively faithful way possible, i. e. the family of images of similarity, equality, and adequacy (Ähnlichkeit, Gleichheit, Übereinstimmung, Adäquation); he also, and more importantly, fixes the rules of their use, so as to reduce the ambiguities attached to the ‘analogical’ talk of ‘ideal similarity’ or ‘mental adequacy’ and avoid any conflation of what belongs to the auxiliary image and what belongs to the concept signified (1908: 407).

3 Neutralizing ambiguities 3.1 The first ambiguity to be dispelled has to do with the talk of mental ‘adequacy’ (Adäquation), briefly examined at the beginning of §95. Although somehow appropriate to talk about intentionality, the image of adequacy is possibly misleading and should be avoided. The reason for this is quite

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straightforward: such an image is already exploited by the language of the theory in order to characterize the distinction between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ presentations: Such adequacy, of which we are talking here, should not be conflated with what is called the “adequacy of presenting” in the sense of the proper presenting as opposed to so-called improper [presenting]. (1908: 407 n. 1)

An improper presentation, Marty says a few sections later, is a presentation whose object is not grasped according to its ‘constitutive moments’ (konstituierende Momente) or ‘essential marks’ (wesentliche Merkmale), but only through ‘negative features’ (Negativa) (1908: 459), ‘propria’ (Propria), ‘relations’ (Relationen), ‘relative determinations’ (relative Bestimmungen) (1908: 458 – 9) or whatever ‘happens to have something to do with’ it (zufällige Verhältnis) (1908: 456). This specific mode of presentation, Marty continues, occurs only in two cases: when confronted with objects of possible intuition that are not factually intuited (and whose constitutive moments are therefore unpresented); or when it comes to objects that, although factually intuited, are presented by means of ‘incomplete apprehensions’ (unvollständigen Auffassungen) (1908: 456). On the contrary, a ‘proper presentation’ grasps an object according to its ‘essence’ (Wesen) and, in this sense, it presents the latter exactly ‘as it is’ (als was es ist).⁵

 See Marty 1908: 458 – 9. The distinction proper/improper in Marty is the difference between two modes of presentation: an object can be presented either ‘as it is’ (als was es ist), i. e. according to its essential features, or by means of (durch) its accidents, relations, by negation, etc. The identification, quite widespread in the literature, of ‘proper’ and ‘intuitive’ is thus erroneous at least for three reasons. (1) In the EL 80 manuscript—i. e. one of Marty’s primary sources— Brentano already suggests a threefold way of classifying presentations: according to the differences in what is presented (nach der Unterschiede der Vorgestellten), according to their mode of presentation (nach der Weise der Vorstellung), and according to their expression (nach dem Unterschied des sprachlichen Ausdruck) (EL 80: 57– 8). Unlike conceptual pairs like ‘general/individual’, ‘simple/complex’ etc., the pair ‘proper/improper’ is openly presented by Brentano as ‘a difference not in the content but in the mode of presentation of the content’ (nach der Weise der Vorstellung, d. h. nach dem Unterschied der Weise, wie der Inhalt der Vorstellung unserem Geist gegenwärtig ist). (2) In his early review of the Principles of Psychology, Marty openly criticizes James for ‘committing the error of regarding only the intuitions as proper presentations and assigning the entire domain of conceptual and relational thoughts to the improper presentations. And by doing this he most clearly betrays the fact that he is in the dark about the true nature of improper presenting’ (Marty 1892: 147). (3) The same identification between ‘presented as it is’ and ‘presented properly’ can be found also in Husserl (1890: 341): “concepts, contents in general can be only given to us in a twofold way: first in a proper way, namely as what they are; second in an improper or symbolic way”.

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It is within this descriptive context that the talk of ‘adequacy’ occurs. If the distinction between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ presentations rests on the difference between the presentation of something in its ‘essential features’ (per se) and by means of ‘whatever has anything to do with it’ (per alio), it seems descriptively appropriate to dub the former ‘adequate’ and the latter ‘inadequate’.⁶ In both cases, however—the ‘adequate’ (proper) and the ‘inadequate’ (improper)—the presentation is nonetheless intentional. Improper, inadequate presentations are in fact unquestionably presentations of something. As a result, lifting up to the language of theory, a somehow modified sense of ‘adequacy’ in order to describe intentionality as such (and not a proper subset of intentional acts), although to some extent fitting, is likely to cause a great deal of confusion. In fact, while in some sense ‘improper’ presentations are never ‘adequate’ to their objects (for the latter are always presented by means of surrogate non-essential features, like negations, relations etc.), in another sense they are always ‘adequate’ (for they are just as intentional as ‘proper’ presentations) (1908: 406). Put differently, in the first case presentations are said to be ‘adequate’ with respect to the essential features of the object they refer to; in the second, they are said to be ‘adequate’ with respect to the fact that they refer to an object. In sum, although somehow appropriate, it does not seem to be right to talk about intentionality in terms of ‘adequacy’. After being briefly examined, the expression ‘mental adequacy’ will seldom be used. 3.2 Quite unsurprisingly, the second—far more important—ambiguity to dispel has to do with talk of ‘similarity’ (Ähnlichkeit) (1908: 407 sq.). Compared with the brief remarks on proper presentations and adequacy just discussed, Marty’s second argument is far more complex. It spreads over at least three sections (§§96 – 98) and follows a rather convoluted strategy. One thing should be clear from the outset, though: Marty’s aim here is not to describe intentionality as a sui generis form of ‘mental’ similarity (as opposed to the sui generis form of ‘mental’ inclusion defended by the partisans of immanent objects).

 The examples used in §109 mirror and modify Aristotle’s list of predicables in Top. 4– 5 (101b11– 102b25), namely the definition (ὅρος) (i. e. the essence: τὸ τί ᾖν εἶναι), the proper (ἴδιον), what pertains to the genus (γένος), the difference (διάφορα), and the accident (συμβεβηκός). Quite remarkably, Marty has, on the side of the ‘proper’ (eigentlich), presentations of what is essential (wesentliche; als was es ist); and on the side of the improper (uneigentlich), presentations by means of propria, accidents, negations, relations, relative determinations or incomplete features, etc. Marty’s list seems to be obtained by transforming and merging some of the elements of Aristotle’s list along the scholastic distinction between ‘in itself’ (per se) and ‘with reference to something else’ (ab alio).

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Nor is he trying to present a full-fledged general theory of relations within which intentionality could finally find a place. Again, what he is trying to show is rather the extent to which, if properly clarified, the image of ‘similarity’ appears to be the most suitable for expressing and formulating our descriptions in the most practically effective and theoretically accurate and least ambiguous way possible.⁷ And it is precisely within this context that he brings up some relevant distinctions among relations. Now, as already pointed out (see supra §2.1), clarifying the descriptive resources of a ‘linguistic expression’ (sprachliche Ausdruck) or a ‘way of talking’ (Redeweise) is tantamount to distinguishing between the set of presentations playing an auxiliary (heuristic) role from those that actually belong to its (descriptive) conceptual meaning. Consequently, clarifying the talk of ‘ideal similarity’ with reference to the subject–object relation entails setting apart what the expression simply suggests from what it actually means (see supra §§2.2– 2.3). The talk of ‘ideal similarity’ should make us think of the actual descriptive properties of intentionality through the ‘image’ of similarity, i. e. by means of certain relevant features of the latter ‘leading to’ an appropriate conceptual presentation of the former. Marty’s main question is thus the following: how is the ‘modified’ (modifiziert) and ‘somehow merely analogical’ (nur irgendwie analoge) sense in which intentionality is called ‘ideal similarity’ related to similarity ‘in the ordinary sense’ (im gewöhnlichen Sinne) (1908: 407)? Put differently, what are the features of the relation ordinarily called ‘similarity’ that should be evoked in order to fittingly ‘lead to’ the concept of intentionality without actually being part of it? And what are, if any, the features that ordinary similarity and intentionality actually share, i. e. those features whose presentations truly belong to the meaning of the expression and not to its inner speech-form?

4 The way of analogy 4.1 In order to answer these questions, §96 of the Untersuchungen follows a very precise three-step strategy. (1) The first step is a concedo: intentionality does not fall under the species similarity, for there are indeed major differences between what is called ‘similarity in the ordinary sense’ and ‘ideal similarity’.  ‘Ideal similarity’ is thus a metaphor. And yet, within the broad context of Marty’s theory of the inner speech form (as well as in the even broader context of his acquaintance with Aristotle) the auxiliary-cognitive role of metaphors is far from being secondary (see for instance Marty 1908: 505 – 17 and sq.). Marty’s theory of metaphor, in my view, deserves closer attention.

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(2) The second step is a nego: even so, the term ‘similarity’ as employed in both expressions is not merely equivocal. (3) The third step is a distinguo: if they are both called ‘similarity’ it is neither because they belong to the same species (as in the synonymy ‘καθ’ἓν’ or ‘κατὰ μίαν ἰδέαν’), nor because one has surreptitiously conflated meaning and inner form (as in cases of homonymy ‘ἀπὸ τύχης’). And it is not even because the meaning of one refers to that of the other as a ‘focal meaning’ (as in the homonymy πρὸς ἓν or analogy of attribution). Ideal and ordinary ‘similarity’ display certain non-generic features, and it is precisely because of such features that one is allowed to establish a very specific analogical use of the term ‘similarity’ (as in the homonymy κατ’ἀναλογίαν) (1908: 501– 4). Put differently, it is only thanks to an analogy of proportion (A stands to B like C stands to D) that the act and the object are said to be ‘similar’ in a descriptively useful sense (1908: 407– 8). The problem now is to show where the analogy of proportion actually lies and how it should be construed. 4.2 Let us look closely at Marty’s three steps. (Ad 1) Marty begins by admitting that, contrary to what is called ‘ideal similarity’, ‘similarity’ in the ordinary sense has two distinctive features: (i) it is a negative feature rather than a positive determination, for it is nothing but a limit case of difference; (ii) it always comes in degrees, for something is always more or less similar to something else. The expression ‘similarity’ is thus ordinarily used to talk about situations in which a perceived difference between A and B is so negligible that, under certain circumstances, the presentation of A reminds one of B and vice-versa (see also Marty 1901: 110). ‘Similarity’ is thus employed, in an ordinary non-analogical sense, to convey the idea of ‘a joint recollection because of a relatively small difference’ (ein bloßes Aneinander-erinnern infolge relativ geringer Verschiedenheit) (1901: 110). This happens only in the following two cases: – when A and B are complex wholes standing in a relation of partial equality (teilweise Gleichheit) (say a red cube and a red sphere); – when A and B have parts belonging to the same inferior species of a genus (say a red cube and a blue cube) (1908: 407; 1901: 111). In both cases the degree of similarity depends on the capacity of A to convey or recall B because of the relative lack of difference noticed between some of their remarkable features.

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If this is a suitable description of what similarity is, leading to an appropriate account of what the ordinary non-analogical talk of ‘similarity’ means, Marty is adamant that none of these features count as a descriptive mark of the subject–object relation. If intentionality were a species subordinated (species/ genus) or coordinated (species/species) to similarity, then the generic features of the latter would not merely work as ‘images’ of the inner speech-form; they would rather belong to the meaning of the expression ‘ideal similarity’ itself, i. e. to what should be conceptually clarified by the theory. But this is clearly not the case. Since intentionality is not the limit case of a difference and has no degrees, it cannot be taken to belong to the same genus as ordinary similarity nor as being one of its species. ⁸ An act and ‘its’ object are in fact neither wholes standing in a relation of partial equality, nor species of the same genus (1908: 407– 8). The two following options should therefore be ruled out:

From a linguistic point of view this twofold exclusion has three implications. (a) On the one hand, as we have seen, it certainly implies that the expression ‘similarity’ is equivocal, i. e. it does not have the same meaning when used to talk about red cubes/blue cubes or acts/objects. (b) More specifically, it also implies that when used to talk about intentionality, ‘similarity’ is not meant to convey any conceptual cluster including (i) and (ii) as its partial contents. Put differently, since intentionality is neither a particular kind of similarity nor a species belonging to the same genus proximum as similarity, none of the defining features of similarity/equality in the ordinary sense belong to the meaning of the expression ‘ideal similarity’. The first step of Marty’s argument thus leads to a negative conclusion. It explicitly excludes that intentionality is either a species of ‘similarity’ (Ähnlichkeit) or a species of similarity’s higher genus, i. e. ‘the ordinarily so-called equality’

 There might however be a complete or incomplete ‘mental adequacy’ between the act and the objects, according to the difference between abstract and concrete presentations. But this is not a matter of degree of ‘ideal similitude’. See Marty 1908: 408.

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(die gewöhnlich sog. Gleichheit) (1908: Marty’s emphasis), and therefore that the generic/specific features of similarity belong to the meaning of the expression ‘ideal similarity’. But it also implicitly suggest that such features, once recognized in their heterogeneity, can somehow operate as images of the inner speech-form so as to make us think about intentionality’s distinctive form of correlation. 4.3 (Ad 2) That ‘ideal similarity’ does not name a species of similarity/equality does not entail, however, that the expression is merely equivocal. On the contrary, as Marty urgently reminds, intentionality is called ‘similarity’ only by analogy, with respect to similarity in the usual sense. And analogies can also hold between things that are ‘wholly heterogeneous’ (Analogien können ja zwischen toto genere Verschiedenem bestehen)’: Thus, with respect to such essential traits, it [i. e. ideal similarity] is so manifestly different from the ordinarily so-called correspondence (von der gewöhnlich sog. Übereinstimmung) (and we will mention later other fundamental differences), that it has to be inevitably dubbed as a relation sui generis; a relation that could suitably be called this way [i. e. correspondence, similarity, equality] only by means of a certain analogy—and analogies can also hold between wholly heterogeneous items, like temporal duration and spatial distance or the pitch of a sound and the brightness of a colour, etc. (1908: 408)

Hence, it is only in an ‘analogical’ and ‘modified’ sense that intentionality should be ‘suitably named’ (passend genannt wird) ‘similarity’. Intentionality is—as Marty says quite explicitly—a ‘relation sui generis’ (sui generis Verhältnis), i. e. a relation constituting a genus in itself, irreducible to any other genus (toto genere Verschieden), included the genus variously covered by a family of expressions such as ‘similarity’, ‘equality’, ‘correspondence’, etc. However, it is a relation sui generis whose particular relational features can be usefully highlighted thanks to a certain analogy with some parallel features occurring within the otherwise very different genus called ‘similarity’. Needless to say again, ‘‘modified’ meanings’ (‘modifizierte’ Bedeutung), analogies, metaphors and metonymies are precisely phenomena belonging to the sphere of the inner speech-form (Marty 1908, p. 140 sq.).

5 The analogy of proportion between intentionality and similarity 5.1 (Ad 3) Now, analogy traditionally comes in two forms: ‘analogy of attribution’ or, as Marty also puts it, ‘ὀμωνυμία πρὸς ἕν’; and ‘analogy of proportion’ or

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‘analogy (in the strictest sense of this word)’ (Analogie (im strengen Sinne dieses Wortes)) (1908: 517). The latter is extensively described in §122: Some have also called both classes of equivocations “equivocations by analogy”, but then one should distinguish different modes of this “analogy”, i. e. an analogia proportionis and an analogia attributionis. Nowadays one calls “analogy” only the first case, namely when a proportion, i. e. an equality of relations (a ἰσότης λόγων), occurs between something that is absolutely different (was absolut genommen verschieden ist). We have an analogy in this sense, for instance when a judgment of acknowledgment or an affective grasp of love of something is called a “leaning” toward it, or when the most important piece of a chessboard and the lion among the animals are called “king”. (1908: 503)

What kind of analogy allows intentionality to be ‘suitably called’ ‘similarity’? The first part of the argument (see supra §4.2) has certainly excluded that act and object are literally similar, ruling out the idea that the defining features of similarity (i) and (ii) somehow belong to the meaning (Bedeutung) of ‘ideal similarity’ (see supra §4.2). But it also seems to exclude that the analogy at stake could be an analogy of attribution. The analogia attributionis, in fact, holds between two objects A and B, of which a property or a name is attributed ‘per prius et posterius’, i. e. in a prior sense to A and in a posterior sense to B. When attributed to B the property or the name makes sense only ‘with reference to’ (in Beziehung zu) the property or the name primarily attributed to A. As Marty puts it, by alluding to a famous passage of Aristotle’s Met. Γ 2 (1003b 1– 4): This latter difference […] was already known by Aristotle as he distinguished equivocal names into ὁμ. κατ’ἀναλογιὰν and ὁμ. πρὸς ἕν, i. e. those where among different meanings of the same term there is a proportion (Proportion) at work, and those where one or many contents acquire a certain designation in virtue of such and such other relation (Beziehung), with something carrying the designation in a primary and proper sense (primär und im eigentlichen Sinn). A telling example of this latter case (the πρὸς ἕν) is illustrated by the equivocity of the term “healthy”, which in the proper sense belongs to human, animal, and vegetal organisms, but is sometimes transposed (übertragen) to something else that is in relation (in Beziehung) to what is called “healthy” in the proper sense as its cause or effect etc.; like when we talk (Rede) of a healthy (or health promoting) food or place or, again, of a healthy (or health indicating) complexion. (1908: 502– 3)

Now, as the examples clearly show, it is certainly not by ‘referring to’ the original (prius, primär) or proper (eigentlich) sense of ‘similarity’ that the subject–object reference is, derivatively (posterius) said to be similar.⁹

 In Γ 2, Aristotle’s example of ‘healthy’ is paralleled with ‘being’. And it is meant to show that, although it does not circumscribe a true genus, the unity πρὸς ἕν is strong enough to justify the existence of one unique science, dealing with whatever is called ‘healthy’ or ‘being’ with refer-

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This brings us back to the third and most important step of Marty’s strategy, i. e. the justification of the homonymy κατ’ἀναλογίαν ‘in the strictest sense’ between intentionality and similarity, and the identification of the positive features on which the analogy actually rests. For if there is an analogy of proportion, even if there is no genus/species commonality, there must be something that, mutatis mutandis, grounds the parallel between heterogeneous terms. In any case such an analogy is actually there. Despite all the eye-catching differences both the ordinarily so-called equality and what we have called ideal equality (die gewöhnmoch sog. und die von uns ideell genannte Gleichheit) have nevertheless some traits (Zuge) in common justifying the fact of giving the latter more easily the name of the former instead of that of any other class of relations (der letzeren eher den Namen dieser, als iregnd einer anderen Klasse von Relationen). (1908: 408)

According to Marty, this ground has to be found in what follows: So the peculiar relationship of consciousness to its object (or content) has essential traits in common (gemein) with that proper to the ordinary so-called similarity or conformity. In both cases one deals with a grounded relation and in both cases we also find a relative determination next to the correlation. (1908: 413)

At least at first sight, it might seem puzzling that Marty is suggesting, on the one hand, that intentionality and ordinary similarity are ‘totally heterogeneous’ (toto genere Verschieden) (Marty 1908, p. 408) and, on the other, that they show some shared ‘essential traits’ (wesentliche Züge) (Marty 1908, p. 409). Yet the ambiguity is dispelled as soon as one realizes that the ‘essential trait’ just mentioned is something different from ‘generic feature’. It is a formal trait, not a material one. Following Marty’s previous example, a lion, a piece in the game of chess, ence to one principle (πρὸς μίαν ἀρχήν). “The term ‘being’ is used in various senses, but with reference to one central idea and one definite characteristic, and not as merely a common epithet. Thus as the term ‘healthy’ always relates to health (either as preserving it or as producing it or as indicating it or as receptive of it), and as ‘medical’ relates to the art of medicine (either as possessing it or as naturally adapted for it or as being a function of medicine)—and we shall find other terms used similarly to these—so ‘being’ is used in various senses, but always with reference to one principle. For some things are said to ‘be’ because they are substances; others because they are modifications of substance; others because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance or of terms relating to substance, or negations of certain of these terms or of substance. […] And so, just as there is one science of all healthy things, so it is true of everything else” (Γ 2, 1003a 33 – 1003b 15). The study of the subject–object relation and that of what is ordinarily called ‘similarity’ do not fall under the scope of one single science, i. e. the science of what is similar in the primary sense and of whatever is related to it πρὸς ἕν!

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and a monarch, notwithstanding their full heterogeneity, can nevertheless be brought together by the formal feature of, say, ‘being the most important items (animal, piece, person) of their respective domains (the savannah, the chessboard, the kingdom) (1908: 503). The same holds for the even more explicit examples of time/duration and space/distance or colour/brightness and tone/ pitch (1908: 408). Although there is no common genus of which brightness and pitch are the species, one could nevertheless put the latter under the common (formal and not generic) heading ‘absolute determinations of physical phenomena’ so as to establish the analogy of proportion according to which brightness stands to colours as pitch to tones. In the same vein, although ‘totally heterogeneous’, ordinary similarity and intentionality share the following formal ‘traits’: (T.1) they are both ‘grounded relations’ (see also Marty 1908, 409); (T.2) they both allow for the difference between ‘correlation’ and ‘relative determination’ (Marty 1908: 410; Marty 1910: 66 – 67). These are the relevant features grounding the analogical talk of ‘similarity’. And these are ultimately the conceptual contents whose presentations are actually conveyed qua meanings by the otherwise figurative talk of ‘ideal similarity’. Neither T.1 nor T.2 are material genera of which similarity and intentionality are the species. ‘Being a grounded relation’ and ‘allowing for the difference between correlation and relative determination’ are neither generic nor specific predicates. They are, at best, formal predicates that can be used for classificatory purposes, and indifferently attributed to quite heterogeneous kinds of relations,¹⁰ ultimately granting the possibility of heuristically useful analogies of proportion. As Marty puts it, qua ‘absolute determinations of physical phenomena’, pitch and tone, although ‘toto genere Verschieden’, are somehow analogous (1908: 408). Accordingly, one can suitably (passend) handle expressions ordinarily used to talk about the former so as to convey images of the inner speechform that might be helpful in conceiving some descriptive features difficult to grasp that, mutatis mutandis, belong to the former. The same holds for the analogy between intentionality and similarity taken qua ‘grounded relations’ and ‘relations allowing for the difference correlation/relative determination’. The distinctive relatedness of intentionality—including both actual and possible correlations (see above §1.1)—now becomes heuristically more understandable and descriptively more plausible if expressed, mutatis mutandis, through the ‘Redeweise’ of similarity (see Marty 1908: 415).

 No matter whether involving mental or physical phenomena, parts or wholes, abstract or concrete entities belonging to this or that science, etc.

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5.2 Marty’s overall strategy can thus be summarized as follows. (a) What is ordinarily called ‘similarity’ displays formal features (T.1) and (T.2): it is indeed a grounded relation and allows for the difference between correlation and relative determination; (b) intentionality too displays such formal features; (c) similarity and intentionality are otherwise utterly heterogeneous and the descriptive generic/specific features of the former do not apply to the latter; (d) however, granted that there is no species/species or species/genus relation between intentionality and similarity, since they both share (T.1) and (T.2), they can be suitably brought together by an analogy of proportion; (e) one could therefore say that an act is related to an object, somehow in the same way as two similar objects are related to each other; (f) thus, since the latter relation is easier to grasp than the former, one can take advantage of its linguistic resources and lift its Redeweise into the language of the theory; (g) as a result, what is actually contained in the meaning (Bedeutung) of the analogical expression ‘ideal similarity’ is only the reference to (T.1) and (T.2), which actually belong to the concept of intentionality conveyed; (h) everything else, all further features of ordinary similarity evoked by the analogy (starting from the idea of a ‘likeness’ occurring between the act and its object) (1908: 413 – 4) turn out to be nothing but useful images (Gebilde) of the inner speech-form, working as collateral presentations or auxiliary means and justifying their employment uniquely because of their usefulness (see above §1.2). As a result, although they are said to stand in a relation of ‘ideal similarity’ the act and the object are not really similar. But they are not even peculiarly similar, i. e. they do not have a ‘strange kind of similarity’ or a ‘similarity sui generis’. Similarity simply provides the best stock of images of the internal speech-form to talk about intentionality in suitably descriptive terms. That’s all.

6 The heuristic clue 6.1 A further argument in support of this eminently practical-linguistic reconstruction of Marty’s strategy has to do with the uneven and rather selective way in which the two ‘essential traits’ introduced to ground the analogy are discussed. (T.1) rests on a formal distinction among relations according to their dependence on other relations. It is a very broad, general, and quite exhaustive formal ontological distinction. Relations, Marty says, can be sorted into ‘conditioning’ or ‘grounding’ (Bedingungsrelationen) and ‘grounded’ or ‘conditioned’ (begründete ober bedingte Relationen) (1908: 408 – 9). He also adds that ‘whenever a relation of the first class is given, there is always one of the second at hand, but not

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vice-versa’ (1908: 409). No grounded relations without some grounding relations; all relations have terms but not all relations have fundaments—and this holds true for both similarity and intentionality. So far, so good. But nothing more can be gleaned from these passages. By contrast, right after having presented this very general distinction, Marty hastens to introduce the only kind of grounded relation in which he is strategically interested, i. e. that of ‘equality’ or ‘similarity’. The example immediately examined is that of ‘equality of colour’ (Gleichfarbigkeit), a relation that would ‘not be possible’ (nicht möglich) without ‘resting’ (beruhen) on two or many things with some absolute colour-determinations. The same holds with difference of colour (Farbenverschiedenheit) and, certainly, also with all the relations affirming particular modes of equality/difference or greater/smaller similarity, such as: juxtaposed, consecutive, farther, closer, prior to, later than, above, below, bigger, smaller, having such and such a shape, etc., etc. (nebeneinander, nacheinander, näher, ferner, früher, später, oben, unten, größer, kleiner, so oder so gestaltet usw. usw.). Everywhere here, at the basis of the relations, there are absolute determinations of a certain kind. (1908: 409)

Similarity, equality, and all other grounded relations are now, somehow unexpectedly, lumped together under the common heading of ‘relations affirming particular modes of equality and difference’ (Relationen, welche besondere Weisen der Gleichheit und Verschiedenheit…besagen). The reason for this, Marty says, is that in all these cases we are always dealing with similarity, equality, etc. for some ‘absolute determinations’ (absolute Bestimmungen): colour, size, location, shape, etc. (see supra §4.2). By turning to the Kasusbuch, one also learns that ‘Grounded Relation/Fundaments’ is not the only example of ‘grounding’ or ‘groundless’ relation, for also ‘Grund/Folge’ belongs to this same class (1910: 65 – 6; see also 1908: 409):¹¹ Next to the latter [i. e. the class of grounded relations] there is also a totally different class of relations, i. e. the relations of foundation. And we already have one of those in front of us in what has been called since ancient times the relationship (Verhältnis) of foundation between certain absolute determinations and the relation of equality, similarity, difference, and the like. This correlation, occurring between the fundament of a founded relation

 The relevance of this fact can be hardly underestimated. This is especially so if one thinks that (1) intentional relation is described as ‘an actual real event in the soul’ and its ‘nichtreale Folge’ (1908: 406; see supra §1.1); and (2) the parallel relation between a sign and what it designates is thoroughly discussed by means of a detailed analysis of the various forms of Grund/Folge relations (1908: 281– 3; see Majolino 2014: 21– 38). We will discuss this topic at length in a further study.

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and the relation itself, has no fundament itself. Assuming the opposite would clearly lead to a regressus in infinitum. Other examples of relations of foundation (Begründungsrelationen) are the relations (Beziehungen) of reason and outcome in all their varieties, the real as well as the ideal, i. e. of cause and effect, but also relating certain truths to others that are their consequences, etc. (Andere Beispiele von Begründungsrelationen sind die Beziehungen von Grund und Folge in ihrer ganzen Mannigfaltigkeit, sowohl die realen als die nichtrealen, also das von Ursache und Wirkung, aber auch das gewisser Wahrheiten zu anderen, die ihre Folgen sind usw.). (1910: 66)

If we combine the information gleaned in the Untersuchungen and the Kasusbuch we can draw the following, tentative and incomplete diagram:

This diagram, classifying relations according to the formal criterion of their different forms of dependency, tell us at least two things. On the one hand, it tells us that the act/object relation is a grounded relation sui generis (= a proper genus of grounded relations). It also shows to which toto genere different genus of grounded relations it can be usefully analogized. Again, (T.1) only classifies relations according to the formal criterion having/not having fundaments, and does not say anything about the nature of the relation itself, nor of its fundaments. As for (T.2), it operates with the less general distinction having/not having two existing fundaments. But, as a matter of fact, similarity is not the only grounded relation to which (T.2) applies. Marty himself reminds us about the following case: a certain quantity (Menge) could be judged as smaller than an infinite one without actually assuming that ‘an infinitely great quantity actually ex-

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ists’ (1908: 411– 12). It is readily apparent, then, that the grounded relation smaller/bigger allows for ‘the difference between correlation and relative determination’ too. But if this is the case, why shouldn’t we call intentionality ‘ideal quantity’ instead of ‘ideal similarity’? If the gist of the analysis laid out on the previous pages is correct, the answer to this question is not ontological but practical: because the images conveyed by the analogical talk of ‘similarity’ are heuristically more useful and descriptively more relevant than those activated by the talk of quantity. They make us see something that no analogy with any other grounded relation allowing for both correlation and relative determination would be able to show. The images of ‘similarity’¹²—if rightly understood qua images—constitute the most powerful resources for bringing to language that peculiar relation existing between the subject and the object: The act of presentation […] is a real event occurring in the soul, from which follows as a non-real outcome (Folge), that the presenting soul entertains—in case what is called its presented [object] exists—peculiar relations with it; [a relation] that could be somehow designated as that of ideal similitude or adequacy. I say: the presenting soul or the occurring presentation as such, not the “immanent object of the presentation”. For there is nothing of the sort, and therefore it cannot resemble anything. (1908: 406) It is [i.e. the act of presentation] first and foremost grounded in some real event in the soul, which is different when I present red, when I present blue, or when I present a sound. Along with such a modification of the soul (knüpft sich)—as we have already pointed out —as a non-real outcome (Folge), the presenting subject in a peculiar way (in eigentümlicher Weise) conforms or is similar, whether actually or possibly, to the so-called object, for instance the red or the blue, a colour or a sound. (1908: 413)

Such a ‘peculiarity’ can only become visible thanks to a linguistically expressed analogy of proportion. One does not proceed by first comparing and contrasting Gleichfärbigkeit and intentionality and, subsequently, spot some resemblances: for a thinking subject with some mental states and a cube with an absolute colour-determination are toto genere different kinds of beings. They can both occur as fundaments of a grounded relation, but that is all. Accordingly, Gleichfärbigkeit and intentionality are toto genere different kinds of relations. It is only by establishing the analogy that the resemblance between heterogeneous relations grounded on heterogeneous fundaments eventually appears. Thus, it is only mutatis mutandis that a presentation-of-blue or a subject that actually has such a presentation can be said to be ‘similar’ to a blue colour, just like two blue colours  And, more precisely, those of visual similarity, like the ‘Gleichfärbigkeit’ (1908: 409) or the similarity of the ‘portrait’ (Porträt) (1908: 411).

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of two different things. And it is also mutatis mutandis that a real event in the soul functioning as the Grund of a non-real Folge can be said to establish a similarity between its substantial bearer (the soul, the thinking subject) and the (actually or possibly) existing object, just as the form of a picture might call to mind a familiar face to which it appears to be similar. Intentionality and similarity do not actually share such features—neither in a ‘standard’ nor in a ‘non-standard’ way. It is only the existence of a justified (rechtertigte) analogy of proportion (1908: 408) that provides the theory with a language that makes such connections heuristically visible. Thus, in the sections of the Untersuchungen we have examined, Marty is not trying to actually locate intentionality within a general theory of relations. Nor is he attempting to develop a full-fledged and comprehensive theory. If some elements of a Relationstheorie are introduced, it is precisely because of his twofold worry:¹³ to get intentionality right, and to talk about intentionality correctly. Thus he only conveys the relevant notions of a theory of relations needed to ‘justify’ (rechtfertigen) the analogy, i. e. to highlight the significant traits by means of which the talk of ‘similarity’ might and should legitimately be lifted to the level of the descriptive language of science. This is a nice way to show how the ‘images of the inner-speech form’, if duly mastered, have an important, practical and theoretical role to play.

References Aristotle (1989), Metaphysics, translated by H. Tredennick, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Aristotle (2009), Topics Books I and VIII, translated with a commentary by R. Smith, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Brentano, F. (1874/1924), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt vol. I, edited by O. Kraus, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (2011), (ms. EL 80), Logik edited by R. D. Rollinger, Franz Brentano Archiv, Graz. Cesalli, L. and Taieb, H. (2012), ‘The Road to ideelle Verähnlichung. Anton Marty’s Conception of Intentionality in the Light of its Brentanian Background’, Quaestio 12, p. 171 – 232. Cesalli, L. (2013), ‘Marty’s Intentionalist Theory of Meaning’, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 139 – 163. Funke, O. (1923), Innere Sprachform. Eine Einführung in Anton Marty’s Sprachphilosophie, Reichenberg i. Br., Sudetendeutscher Verlag Franz Kraus.

 One might notice that a similar strategy also occurs in the Kasusbuch, where Marty evokes some fundamental distinctions among relations in order to discuss the semantics of the casus obliquus (1910: 66 sq.).

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Husserl, E. (1890), Zur Logik der Zeichen (Semiotik), Husserliana XII, edited by L. Eley, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1970, p. 340 – 373. Husserl, E. (1901), Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, Husserliana XIX, edited by U. Panzer, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1984. Majolino, C. (2014), ‘Par-delà la suppléance. Contributions à une sémiotique phénoménologique: Bühler et Marty’, in Anton Marty & Karl Bühler. Between Mind and Language, edited by L. Cesalli and J. Friedrich, Basel, Schwabe, 2014, p. 3 – 41. Marty, A. (1892), ‘Anzeige von William James’ Werk Principles of Psychology’, in Marty 1916, p. 105 – 156. Marty, A. (1894 – 1895), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by M. Antonelli and J. Marek, Würzburg, Könighausen & Neumann, 2011. Marty, A. (1901), ‘Über die Ähnlichkeit’, in Marty (1920), p. 107 – 112. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1910), Zur Sprachphilosophie. Die ‘logische’, ‘lokalistische’ und andere Kasustheorien, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1916), Gesammelte Schriften. I Band, 1. Abteilung, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1920), Gesammelte Schriften. II Band, 2. Abteilung, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer.

Robin D. Rollinger

Abstraction and Similarity: Edition and Translation of the Correspondence between Marty and Cornelius 1 Editor/translator’s introduction Anton Marty’s earliest philosophical concern, as far as we know, was with abstraction (Marty 1867). This topic continued to be important for him throughout his career. As he had taken it upon himself to criticize modern theories of abstraction in his early work, he was no less concerned, when working on a manuscript against nominalism (Marty 1901b), with arguing against attempts of those contemporaries who did not acknowledge the important role of abstraction in mental life. The theory of abstraction which Hans Cornelius put forward in his Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft (1897), especially as it was formulated in an article regarding Gestalt qualities (Cornelius 1900a, which deals with the concept presented in Ehrenfels 1890, translated in Ehrenfels 1988), drew Marty’s attention. It is noteworthy that Cornelius came under fire in this regard not only from Marty, but also from Marty’s fellow students of Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong (1900: 34– 82; Meinong 1993) and Edmund Husserl (Rollinger 1991, revised in Rollinger 2008: 189 – 220).¹ Cornelius is all but unknown in our time. It is therefore necessary to say a word or two about him and his philosophical endeavours (see Cornelius 1921). He studied natural science and mathematics in Munich, but also spent some time in Berlin, attending lectures of Carl Weierstrass and Gustav Kirchhoff. Though he took his doctorate in chemistry, he wished to widen his horizons by doing a habilitation in philosophy of science. After a rejection of his efforts in this regard, he followed the recommendation of Carl Stumpf, at that time a professor of philosophy in Munich, to read the literature, especially in German

This chapter is an outcome of the project “From Logical Objectivism to Reism: Bolzano and the School of Brentano” P401 15 – 18149S (Czech Science Foundation), realised at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences.  In addition, the theory of abstraction that Cornelius put forward was criticized in Mally 1900 and Calkins 1900. Ernst Mally was a student of Meinong. Marty Whiton Calkins was a student of William James and very attentive to developments in the school of Brentano and its periphery. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-006

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and English, on philosophical and psychological matters. This would prepare him for a second attempt at habilitation. After doing this and habilitating successfully in 1894, he joined the philosophical faculty in Munich, though he did not enjoy a harmonious relationship with Theodor Lipps, who came to occupy the professorship that Stumpf had left vacant, and who was the teacher of Johannes Daubert and Alexander Pfänder. After Lipps retired due to illness, Cornelius made an attempt to take on the role as a leader of the Munich phenomenologists, but they did not find him acceptable in this role (see the letter from Moritz Geiger to Husserl, 28.12.1909, in Husserl 1994: 98 sq.). Eventually he took a professorship in Frankfurt, where he directed the dissertations of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Though he initially made an impression on them, he does not seem to have left any distinguishable mark on the ‘critical theory’ for which they have come to be famous.² The writings of Cornelius that are relevant to his correspondence with Marty are his already-mentioned Psychologie (1897) and his article on Gestalt qualities (1900a), as well as an additional text (1900b), a copy of which he apparently sent to Marty (cited in Marty 1901b). In the Psychologie Cornelius proposes to do for the realm of the mental what Kirchhoff had done for the realm of the physical, namely always to be in search of simple or primary ‘facts’ or ‘factual matters’ (Tatbestände) and to describe the more complex in terms of these simpler ones, the so-called ‘basic facts’ (Grundtatsachen). An outstanding example of this is his attempt to describe abstraction in terms of the simpler factual matter of the ‘apprehension of similarity’ (Erkenntnis der Ähnlichkeit).³ As abstraction has been traditionally understood as the process whereby ‘general presentations’ (allgemeine Vorstellungen) are obtained, Cornelius thinks that the apprehension of similarity is involved in reaching presentations of this kind, but he also insists upon the role of ‘memory-images’ (Gedächtnisbilder), which are, just like sensation and imagination, ‘intuitive’ (anschaulich), but also ‘inexact’ (ungenau) or, as he also says in his letters, vague and not fully determinate. An additional important point for Cornelius, as can be seen in his correspond-

 It should be remarked, however, that Cornelius did to some extent have at least one follower. In Munich he apparently influenced Ernst von Aster. See von Aster 1913, in which a revised version of Cornelius’ view of concept-formation is adopted. Also a young Stanisław Łeśniewski attended lectures of Cornelius in Munich and was under his influence (Wołeński 1990: 221).  According to Cornelius 1900a: 108, his view on abstraction is not nominalism. For he sees nominalism as the view that merely the association of contents of consciousness with a general name (or word) fully explains their generality. A nominalist would thus say that what unites various instances of red together into a general concept is the fact that the word “red” is associated with them.

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ence with Marty, is that the primary factual reality that he calls ‘apprehension of similarity’ precedes all judgement and therefore does not involve the concept of similarity (i. e. similarity as a predicate). It is moreover possible, on his view, to apprehend different kinds of similarity by inserting the contents of consciousness into different similarity-groups, e. g. a red circle in one group which also includes a red square, but in another series that includes a white circle. This aspect of Cornelius’ psychological theory has precedence in Hume’s explanation of ‘distinctions of reason’ (A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part I, Section VI). Here we should emphasize what an important claim this is from the philosophical and psychological perspective that Marty learned from Brentano. First of all, we must note that from this perspective all philosophical problems involve psychology, for philosophy is regarded as the whole spectrum of disciplines that work with concepts drawn from inner perception, i. e. the domain of psychology (Marty 1916: 69 – 93, translated in Marty 2010a). Secondly, Brentano and Marty attempt to develop a branch of psychology, called ‘descriptive psychology’, but sometimes designated by Brentano as ‘phenomenology’ or ‘psychognosy’, in which ‘we must become acquainted with the elements from which the whole psychical fabric is composed and their most important constant connections, and [to know] which connections are constantly excluded’ (Marty 2011: 5; cf. Brentano 1982: 1, translated in Brentano 1995b: 3). If abstraction is not a basic fact of mental life, this means for Marty that it does not have the status of an element of consciousness and must somewhow be described in terms of the connections between elements.⁴ Accordingly we see Marty, in a letter dated 23rd January 1900, expressing complete sympathy with Cornelius in the desire to describe the complex in terms of the simple, wherever possible, as this desire is expressed in the Occamist motto: ‘Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity’ (cf. Marty 1908: 49, 230, 387, 691, where we find the same motto in Latin, which is not an actual quote from Occam). It is therefore perfectly understandable why the thesis that Cornelius was arguing, namely that abstraction is reducible to the cognition of similarity-groups and is accordingly not an element,⁵ was of considerable interest to Marty, especially as it also concerns the traditional problem of universals.

 The term Grundtatsachen is not as a rule used in the school of Brentano, though it does occur in Husserl’s notes from Stumpf’s Halle lectures on psychology (Stumpf 1886/87, Q 11/1: 84 and 89). It is possible, though not confirmed, that Cornelius attended lectures given by Stumpf in Munich.  It can be argued that Brentano and his students were engaged in comparable reductions. For instance, Brentano argues that existential statements best represent judgements and that predications would be best translated into existential statements in order to make clear the nature of

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The topic of abstraction and universal concepts was especially a concern for Marty in the year 1900, most likely because at that time Brentano was dealing with the same problem, as we see in one of his manuscripts (Brentano 1900) in which he was criticising a recent version of nominalism that was inspired by John Stuart Mill.⁶ Here of course we must carefully note that ‘nominalism’ for Brentano and Marty does not mean the view that there are no objective universals. As they understand the term, it refers only to the claim that there are in fact no general (or abstract) concepts or presentations (Vorstellungen). On their view, John Locke who maintained that abstraction is a genuine mental operation that only human beings have, but also that only particulars exist, was not a nominalist, whereas George Berkeley and David Hume were nominalists because these two found it objectionable to say that there is such a mental operation as abstraction. At the end of the nineteenth century, nominalism in this sense was very much on the rise. While Brentano attacked one particular version that he encountered in one of his sojourns in Palermo, Marty was apparently encouraged by him to attack other versions of nominalism that had gained ground in the philosophical literature of the time. Such is, in very brief terms, the background of the correspondence published here and of the related manuscript on the refutation of nominalism (Marty 1901b). The first page of that manuscript indicates that it was written in the summer and autumn of 1901. The handwriting indicates that it was nearly ready for publication, although the discussion breaks off at page 151. There is, however, an additional folder of material on abstraction (Marty c. 1901) among Marty’s unpublished papers in Prague. Some of this material, apparently from different times (though undated), includes earlier drafts of some parts of Marty 1901b. As for the arguments against Cornelius that are found in Marty’s manuscript on the refutation of nominalism, these are essentially the same as those we find

judgements. In other words, when we judge, we accept something (as existent) or reject it (as non-existent). Judgements are accordingly reduced to acceptances and rejections. At the same time, judgements have an elementary status in conscious life and cannot be reduced to combinations of presentations. The entire fifth chapter of Book II of Brentano 1874 (translated in Brentano 1995a) consists of elaborations on such matters.  Though Marty initiates the correspondence with Cornelius at the beginning of 1900, Brentano had already met the proponent of nominalism, Cosmo Guastella, in 1899, and had actually informed Marty (in a letter dated 23rd April 1899) that this man had been influenced by John Stuart Mill and “is even more of a nominalist than Mill” (Fisette and Fréchette 2013: 460, 494). This encounter could have very well been the occasion for the ensuing concern with the refutation of nominalism.

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in the letters. According to two highly competent commentators (Mulligan and Schuhmann 1990: 230 n.), the following points can be found in these letters: 1. General entities cannot be any sort of intuitive presentations, since these are always concrete but never general presentations. 2. If general entities were similarities amongst individual objects taken together then this would already presuppose the general concept of what belongs to the same class of these objects. 3. The extension of objects named by the same name is not something that can be intuitively presented.

The term ‘general entities’, however, must be taken with a grain of salt in connection with Marty’s discussion of abstraction. Nowhere in these letters does he use any expression of this sort, which would all too easily suggest a realist position regarding universals. Marty in fact never was a realist in this sense. We may note that he comfortably moves back and forth between the terms ‘object’ (Gegenstand) and ‘content’ (Inhalt), as if these were synonyms. While this is only natural in his exchange with Cornelius, who prefers to speak of similarities between contents rather than objects,⁷ we must bear in mind that at the time of this correspondence Marty still maintained that there is an object immanent to any given presentation. Hence, we should understand the above-cited points to pertain to general entities qua immanent objects, if not to the acts themselves. This point is made abundantly clear in the following passage from one of the letters from Marty to Husserl (7th June, 1901), which is indeed closely linked to the present edition and translation: I have also read with lively interest that part of your work “on modern theories of abstraction”, and I by and large approve of your well-aimed opposition to nominalism with regard to the existence of general concepts. I had already advanced similar reasons against Cornelius, with whom I entered into a correspondence about the issue of abstraction soon after publication of his paper […] [Cornelius 1900a]. I believe, however, that I must disagree with what you say here concerning the nature of general thoughts. You protest against a “psychological hypostatization of the universal” [Husserl 1901: 121– 136, translated in Husserl 2001: 248 – 313], i. e. if I understand you correctly, against the view that the universal is an immanent object of presenting. Your view is therefore similar to that of James, who stresses that thoughts “are not what they mean” [James 1890: 471].

 In Linke 1929: 83 sq. a new concept of “content” is attributed to Cornelius. It would however take us too far afield to discuss this point in the present introduction.

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But the point I made years ago in my review of James’ book still seems to me to hold, that there can be no “meaning-something” [Meinen] without an object that is immanent to the presentation.⁸ (Husserl 1994, vol. I: 72 sq.)⁹

Hence, Marty does not at all want to defend the notion of universals as entities that are somehow transcendent to consciousness. Rather, he finds Husserl’s view that universals exist in this sense, as so-called ‘ideal’ objects, objectionable. In this connection we may also speculate as to why Marty did not finish his manuscript on the refutation of nominalism. This manuscript consists only of polemical arguments against nominalism and does not offer any substantial positive theory of universals. If Marty had done so at the time, the theory would indeed have been thoroughly oriented in his immanentism. In Husserl’s Logical Investigations, however, he confronted something very alien, namely a rejection of both nominalism and immanentism. Moreover, we know that in the following years Marty abandoned immanentism, as we see in his magnum opus [Marty 1908]. In this later work, however, we also find an opposition to Husserl’s view that universals are ideal (not immanent) objects.¹⁰ The intellectual struggles that Marty went through in the early twentieth century, not only in his confrontation with Husserl, but also with Brentano regarding immanentism and the ontological status of various entities, including universals, had to be settled before he could publish a substantial work in defense of a theory of abstraction. He had been used to thinking of abstraction in purely psychological terms, but now he had to confront the issue in ontological terms. The following letters are presented here in the original German and in English translation. The German edition leaves intact the original spelling and punctuation, even though this is not entirely consistent. Where words are abbreviated in the manuscripts, the abbreviations are not expanded in this edition, although they are in translation.

 See Marty 1892: 322, translated in Marty 2010b: 285: No presenting without something presented, and this is in a certain sense immanent to that which presents.  This passage is a revision of the translation in Mulligan and Schuhmann 1990: 229 sq.  For a discussion of the relation between Marty and Husserl, see Rollinger 1999: 209 – 243, especially 229 – 234 regarding their views on the real and the ideal.

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2 German edition Hochgeehrter Herr College! Ihre bemerkenswerthe Abhandlung über „Gestaltqualitäten“ im letzten Hefte der Zeitschrift von Ebbinghaus [Cornelius 1900a] habe ich mit großem Interesse gelesen u. mit um so größerem, als ich eben mit einer Arbeit über Abstraktion [Marty 1901b] beschäftigt bin u. Sie dieses Thema auch berühren. Sie glauben, wenn ich recht verstehe, die Thatsache allgemeiner Namen ohne die Annahme wirklicher Abstraktion dh. eines besonderen Bewußtseins von abstrakten Inhalten wie Farbe, Gestalt, Ort u.sw. erklären zu können. Doch gestehe ich offen, daß mir, auch nach dem, was Sie darüber ausführen, noch manche Fragen u. Bedenken bleiben, u. es würde mich in hohem Grade interessiren, was Sie auf dieselben erwiedern würden. Ich erlaube mir darum sie im Folgenden vorzubringen, u. wenn ich es der Kürze u. Einfachheit halber ohne viele „dürfte u. möchte“ od. ähnliche verbindliche Wendungen thue, so bin ich sicher, daß Sie die zuversichtliche Form meiner Darstellung nicht übel deuten. Sollten Sie Zeit finden auf eine kürzere od. längere briefliche Erörterung meiner Zweifel einzugehen, od. mir wenigstens mitzutheilen, ob u. wie weit ich Sie richtig verstanden habe, so wäre ich Ihnen herzlich dankbar. Mit collegialem Gruße Ihr aufrichtig ergebener Prof. Dr. A. Marty Prag II Mariengasse 35 am 2 Januar 1900. 1. Ein abstraktes Bewußtsein von Farbe, Gestalt u. dgl. soll es nach dem Autor nicht geben. Für die Frage, wie wir dazu kommen an einem psychischen Phänomen diese verschiedenen Eigenschaften od. Seiten zu unterscheiden, sieht er die Lösung darin, daß wir fähig sind die Ähnlichkeit eines u. desselben anschaulichen Inhalts mit verschiedenen Gruppen anderer unter sich ähnlicher conkreter Inhalte zu erkennen, u. er glaubt, daß dazu keine Abstraktion, auch nicht der abstrakte Begriff der Ähnlichkeit, nöthig sei. 2. Nichtsdestoweniger lehnt er es ab, Nominalist zu sein, da es nach ihm doch etwas Allgemeines im Bewußtsein gebe außer den Namen, nämlich eben jene Ähnlichkeit, die vielen conkreten Inhalten gemeinsam ist. 3. Demgegenüber habe ich vor Allem das Bedenken, wie es möglich sein soll, daß etwas Allgemeines in besonderer Weise Gegenstand des Bewußtseins (sei es nun Gegenstand eines besonderen Vorstellens sei es eines besonderen Urtheils u.

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Beachtens) ist, ohne daß eben damit etwas Abstraktes in besonderer Weise Gegenstand des Bewußtseins sei. Das Conkrete, Anschauliche, ist niemals allgemein. Wenn im Falle, wo ich zb. eine Rose od. ein andermal ein Stück Papier roth nenne, im Bewußtsein nichts Anderes gegeben ist als mehrere conkrete Vorstellungen von Rothem, worin wäre dann das Bewußtsein des allen Gemeinsamen, der Ähnlichkeit, die prädicirt wird, gelegen? In concreto ist die Ähnlichkeit zwischen a u. b etwas Anderes als die zwischen b u. c u. die zwischen c u. d. Vermag ich nicht die Ähnlichkeit vom Ähnlichen zu unterscheiden, so ist für mein Bewußtsein hier nichts Gemeinsames gegeben. Kurz: um im selben Sinne in den verschiedenen Fällen prädicirt zu werden muß die Relation der Ähnlichkeit von dem, was ähnlich ist, unterschieden u. irgendwie für sich Gegenstand des Bewußtseins werden. Dies ist dann ein besonderes Bewußtsein von etwas, was nicht concret-anschaulich ist, u. dies nenne ich Abstraktion. Es ist das, was D. Hume hartnäckig geleugnet aber durch seine Theorie nicht entbehrlich gemacht hat. 4. Aber nicht genug. Nicht bloß der Name roth sond. zB. auch der Name dreieckig bezeichnet nach dem Autor die Ähnlichkeit eines conkreten Inhalts mit einer Gruppe anderer. Worin besteht das, was den Unterschied der Bedeutung dieser Namen ausmacht? Ist er darin zu suchen, daß im einen Falle die Ähnlichkeit mit einer anderen Gruppe von Inhalten gemeint ist als im anderen? Wenn dies, dann könnten wir den Sinn von roth nicht in eigentlicher Weise denken, ohne die ganze Gruppe von roth genannten Gegenständen u. den von dreieckig nicht ohne alles Dreieckige uns zu vergegenwärtigen. Allein schlechthin alles Rothe od. alles Dreieckige vorzustellen ist unmöglich. Denn der Umfang jedes allgemeinen Begriffs ist der Möglichkeit nach unendlich. Ich sage: wenn der eigenthümliche Sinn von roth gegenüber dreieckig durch den Umfang der damit benannten conkreten Gegenstände bedingt sei, dann könne damit nur der volle dh. unendliche Umfang gemeint sein. Denn wenn ich, von roth sprechend, mir nur ein beschränktes Collektiv von rothen Gegenständen zu vergegenwärtigen brauche, so hat, falls in dem Gedanken der Zugehörigkeit zu dieser Gruppe die Bedeutung des Namens roth liegt, dieser offenbar nicht immer denselben Sinn. Jenes Collektiv wird bei verschiedenen Personen u. auch bei derselben zu verschiedenen Zeiten ein verschiedenes sein, u. damit würde also auch die Bedeutung des Namens roth wechseln. Nur der unendliche Umfang des allgemeinen Namens ist stets derselbe. Doch selbst wenn wir uns diesen zu vergegenwärtigen vermöchten, könnte dies wirklich in allen Fällen zur Charakteristik der Bedeutung des Namens dienen? Äquipollente Begriffe haben denselben Umfang. Kann es also hier überhaupt der Umfang sein, was ihren Unterschied für das Bewußtsein begründet? 5. Und auch die Frage erhebt sich, wie es denn gekommen sei, daß man eine Mehrheit von festen Gruppen ähnlicher Gegenstände gebildet u. mit Consequenz

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die zur einen gehörigen Glieder gleich, dagegen verschieden von den zu einer anderen gehörigen benannt hat? Wenn überall nur das bemerkt wird, daß eine Ähnlichkeit besteht, wodurch wird es verhindert, daß, nachdem ich zwei rothen Kugeln den Namen roth gegeben, ich ihn nicht auch auf eine weiße übertrage, da ja auch zwischen ihr u. den rothen eine Ähnlichkeit besteht? Mitunter kommen solche Entgleisungen in der Namengebung in der That vor. Aber dann bezeichnen wir den Vorgang nicht als Generalisation sond. als Äquivokation durch Verwechslung. Wir unterscheiden beide Fälle scharf voneinander u. erkennen die erstere Erscheinung nur da an, wo eine gewisse Einheitlichkeit u. Gleichsinnigkeit in der Richtung der Association des Ähnlichen u. der Namengebung zu Tage tritt. Aber wie eine solche eingehalten u. von den Fällen, wo sie nicht statthat, unterschieden werden könne, das ist nur dann begreiflich, wenn wir verschiedene Ähnlichkeiten auseinanderzuhalten vermögen, die in sich selbst als verschieden charakterisirt erkannt werden, nicht durch den Complex der Gegenstände, denen sie zukommen. 6. So komme ich zu dem Resultat, daß wir verschiedene Ähnlichkeiten zu unterscheiden vermögen. Wenn unterscheidbar, müssen sie aber nach dem princip. ident. indiscernib. irgend eine (u. zwar nach dem Vorausgehenden eine innerliche) Differenz aufweisen, u. diese muß für uns erfaßbar sein. M.a.W. Wir müssen die verschiedenen Züge od. Momente erkennen, wodurch u. worin das Ähnliche im einen u. anderen Falle übereinstimmt, denn nur dies kann hier das die verschiedenen Ähnlichkeiten Unterscheidende sein. Da aber dies jedenfalls nichts Conkret-Anschauliches sond. ein Abstraktum ist, wie etwa Farbe, Röthe, Ort u. dgl., so ist auch darin Abstraktion involvirt. Sie wäre allerdings nicht möglich, wenn, wie der Autor vorauszusetzen scheint, Alles, was reell untrennbar ist, auch schlechterdings einfach wäre. Aber die Erfahrung zeigt deutlich, daß nicht alle Theile, die ein Gegenstand od. Inhalt aufweisen kann, reell trennbare sein müssen, daß es vielmehr auch inseparable u. bloß distinktionelle gibt. 7. Der Autor spricht S. 108 von der Beurtheilung eines Inhalts in verschiedener Richtung, von Erkenntniß einer Ähnlichkeit in verschiedener Hinsicht. Ist damit gemeint, daß wir dasjenige Moment erkennen, worin das Ähnliche innerlich übereinstimmt? Dann wäre, wie schon bemerkt, damit Abstraktion zugegeben. Auch würde dadurch die Angabe, der allgemeine Name bedeute die Zugehörigkeit zu einer Gruppe ähnlicher Gegenständen zu einem überflüssigen Umweg. Oder ist bloß gemeint, unter Erkenntniß der Ähnlichkeit in verschiedener Hinsicht sei nichts Anderes zu verstehen, als: Erkenntniß der Zugehörigkeit zu verschiedenen Gruppen ähnlicher Inhalte, nicht ein Erfassen der Besonderheit

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eines Ähnlichkeitsverhältnisses gegenüber einem anderen? Wenn dies, dann würde das unter 4 u. 5 Gesagte gelten. *** München, Kaulbachstraße 20. 12 Jan. 1900. Hochgeehrter Herr Professor! Nachstehend erlaube ich mir, Ihnen meine Verteidigung gegen Ihre Bedenken zu unterbreiten. Dafür, daß ich auch meinerseits mich rein sachlicher und zuversichtlicher Ausdrucksformen bediene, bin ich Ihrer Zustimmung sicher. Wie weit ich Ihre Einwände richtig verstanden habe muß ich natürlich dahingestellt sein lassen; aus der Form der Antworten werden Sie entnehmen können, ob meine Auslegung Ihrer Worte mit dem Sinne zusammentrifft in welchem sie gemeint waren. Ich bin selbstverständlich gerne bereit zu weiteren Discussionen, wenn Ihnen solche bezüglich irgend eines Punktes wünschenswert erscheinen sollten. ad 1.) Daß ich ein abstractes Bewußtsein von Farben, Gestalt etc. leugne, ist nicht ganz zutreffend: meine Darlegungen wollen dieses abstr. Bew. nicht leugnen, sondern den Thatbestand desselben näher zergliedern, d. h. auf andere, bekanntere und einfachere Thatsachen zurückführen. Ein solcher einfacherer Thatbestand scheint mir in der Erkenntniß von Ähnlichkeiten concreter Inhalte vorzuliegen. Zu solcher Erkenntniß der Ähnlichkeit (z. B. des Zinnobers auf meiner Palette und der Geraniumblüte an meinem Fenster) bedarf es weder des abstracten Begriffs der Farbe noch auch desjenigen der Ähnlichkeit. Ich sehe vielmehr in dieser Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß ein primäres, vor jeder Abstraction vorhandenes (und nicht auf einfachere Daten zurückführbares) Factum. (Um freilich diesen Thatbestand mit Worten zu bezeichnen, um zu sagen: diese Dinge sind ähnlich, muss der abstracte Begriff „ähnlich“ bereits bekannt sein. Aber ich rede nicht von solcher Benennung jenes Factums, sondern von dem Factum selbst.) ad 2 und 3.) Die Frage nach den „allgemeinen Vorstellungen“ ist in meiner Abhandlung nicht ausführlich behandelt; es war mir dort nur um die „Abstraction“ im Sinne der „Ausscheidung und Betrachtung eines Merkmals unter Vernachlässigung der übrigen“ zu thun. Ich muß daher, um Ihren Bedenken gerecht zu werden, hier etwas nachholen, was ich dort als—aus meiner Psychologie [Cornelius 1897]—bekannt voraussetze.

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Meine Meinung ist nicht die, daß wir, um zum abstr. Begriff „rot“ zu gelangen, die Ähnlichkeit etwa zwischen den oben (ad 1.) erwähnten beiden Inhalten, weiter zwischen jedem von diesen und einem dritten bez. vierten, und so fort, einzeln erkennen und als gleichartige Erlebnisse auffassen müßten. Ein solcher Vorgang würde nach meiner Ansicht nicht zum abstracten Begriff rot, sondern zum abstr. Begr. einer bestimmten Art von Ähnlichkeit führen. Wären wir auf die Erkenntniß von Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Empfindungsinhalten (Wahrnehmungsvorstellungen in Meinongs Terminologie) beschränkt, so würde freilich kaum ein anderer Process, der zu allgemeinen Begriffen führte, zu denken sein. Allein unsere Begriffe bilden sich nicht in dieser Art, sondern mit Hilfe der Gedächtnißvorstellungen, die, als ungenaue Repräsentanten der Empfindungserlebnisse, das Moment in sich entfalten, welches zur Allgemeinvorstellung nötig ist. Ein Inhalt a1 erinnert mich an einen Inhalt a0 und erscheint mir—auf Grund meiner Erinnerung an den letzteren—als ähnlich mit diesem. Aber weil meine Erinnerung an a0 ungenau ist, so bleibt auch jene Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß eine in gewissen Grenzen unbestimmte. Ich unterscheide nachträglich die Qualität der Gedächtnißvorstellung von a1 und derjenigen von a0 überhaupt nicht mehr: dasselbe Gedächtnisbild dient mir als Repräsentant für beide. Alsdann wird aber ein weiterer Inhalt a2, der mit diesem Gedächntnißbild als ähnlich erkannt wird, in einem Acte als ähnlich mit beiden Inhalten a0 u. a1 erkannt (ev. mit so vielen, als bisher qualitative ununterschieden in meinem Leben aufgetreten und durch dasselbe Vorstellungsbild repräsentiert sind.) Oder kurz: die „Allgemeinheit einer Vorstellung“ ist durch die „Vieldeutigkeit eines Gedächntnißbildes“ von vornherein gegeben. (Sollte meine Meinung in dieser Hinsicht nicht deutlich genug werden, so würde ich freundlichst bitten, meine Psychologie S. 25, S. 30 f. und bes. S. 33 f. nachzulesen.) Ich glaube hiernach den Einwand nicht mehr besorgen zu müssen, daß die Ähnlichkeit, die einer Gruppe von Inhalten a, b, c, d—gemeinsam ist, nur dadurch erkannt werden könne, daß wir die Ähnlichkeit zwischen a u. b als dieselbe erkennen, wie die zwischen b u. c, a u. c etc. ad 4.) Der Unterschied der Namen „rot“ und „rund“, die ich beide dem roten Kreise beilege, gründet sich auf die Erinnerung—nicht etwa an die sämmtlichen bisher so bezeichneten Inhalte, sondern die Erinnerung an irgendwelche Inhalte aus der einen und der anderen Ähnlichkeitsgruppe, verbunden mit der Erkenntniß, daß nicht gerade diese einzelnen, sondern noch eine Reihe weiterer (nicht einzeln erinnerten, aber im Bedarfsfalle sofort bereitstehender) Inhalte die Bedeutung des Wortes bestimmen. Diese Gruppen sind geschieden, und um uns ihre Verscheidenheit deutlich zu machen, brauchen wir nicht ihren ganzen Umfang durchzugehen, sondern nur irgend einen solchen Inhalt der einen Gruppe zu

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beachten, der sich der anderen Gruppe nicht einreihen lässt, weil er unmittelbar als nicht mit deren Gliedern ähnlich erkannt wird.) (Beispiel: „weiß“.

„rund“. Außer dem ersten Bilde ist jedes der übrigen in die andere Reihe nicht einzuordnen. Die Erinnerung aber, daß noch andere—derselben Ähnlichkeitsgruppe einzuordnende—Inhalte mitbezeichnet sind, bewahrt vor einseitigen Auslegung des Wortes.) Vgl. Psychologie S. 50 f. Nachdem einmal Reihen solcher Art bekannt sind, wird die Bildung des Begriffs der besonderen Arten von Ähnlichkeit von selbst erfolgen, indem die Gleichartigkeit der bei Vergleichung innerhalb derselben Reihe gemachten Erfahrungen und ihre Verschiedenheit von den in der anderen Reihe zu machenden erkannt wird. Daß diese Unterscheidung der Ähnlichkeitsarten alsdann auch zur Bestimmung der Merkmale Verwendung finden kann, ist wol außer Frage; daß aber dieser Begriff verschiedener Arten von Ähnlichkeit nicht die Voraussetzung jener Unterscheidung der Merkmale ist, sondern erst nach derselben—bez. durch dieselbe—entsteht, ist darum klar, weil für seine Bildung die Unterscheidung jener Ähnlichkeitsreihen die Voraussetzung ist. Vielleicht wäre die am wenigsten missverständliche Formulierung diese: Die Grundthatsache, auf welcher die „distinctio rationis“ beruht, ist die, daß sich zwischen a und b ( u. ) eine Ähnlichkeit findet, ebenso zwischen a und c u. ), daß aber zwischen b und c keine Ähnlichkeit besteht. Diese Thatsache gibt uns Anlaß zur Behauptung, daß an a „mehrere Merkmale“ zu unterscheiden sind oder, was dasselbe heißt, daß es „verschiedene Arten von Ähnlichkeit“ des a mit anderen Inhalten gibt. Für b und c sind hier, um die Theorie nach der ad 3. bezeichneten Richtung zu vervollständigen, die vieldeutigen Gedächtnißbilder vergangener Inhalte (Inhaltsgruppen, Ähnlichkeitsreihen) einzusetzen. Hiermit meine ich denn auch zugleich gezeigt zu haben, daß es nicht der Umfang eines Begriffes ist, der nach meiner Theorie dessen Bedeutung bestimmt, sondern die „Art der Ähnlichkeit“ die er bezeichnet. Der scheinbare Cirkel, der darin liegt, daß die Bedeutung eines Begriffs, wie rot, auf den viel abstracteren einer besonderen Art von Ähnlichkeit reducirt wird, löst sich dadurch, daß wir die Entstehung dieses Begriffes in eben den Thatbeständen finden, die zur Bildung jenes Begriffes führen. Wir bezeichnen das Wesentliche dieses Bildungsprocesses nachträglich durch den Hinweis auf die zu Grunde liegende „Art der Ähnlichkeit“;

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aber die Erkenntniß dieses Begriffes ist nicht die Voraussetzung des genannten Bildungsprocesses. Der Einwand No 5 scheint mir hiermit implicite erledigt; ad 6 aber würde ich erwidern, daß die Unterscheidbarkeit der verschiedenen Ähnlichkeitsarten zwar selbstredend zuzugegeben, aber nur in der Verschiedenheit der fundirenden Inhaltsreihen—also in einem concret-anschaulichen Thatbestande—zu finden ist. Die ad 3 erwähnte Thatsache, daß wir nämlich solche Inhaltsreihen mit einer Vorstellung „reproducieren“ können, bedingt den Schein, als ob auch ursprünglich schon ein Inhalt den „bestimmten Zug“ oder das „bestimmte Moment“ aufweise, wodurch die betr. „Art der Ähnlichkeit“ charakterisirt ist. Nr 7 ist mit dem Vorigen ebenfalls erledigt. Mit Erkenntniß v. Ähnlichkeit in verschiedener Hinsicht ist nicht gemeint, daß wir „das Moment erkennen, worin das Ähnliche innerlich übereinstimmt“, sondern die Erkenntniß der Zugehörigkeit eines Inhalt zu verschiedenen Gruppen ähnlicher Inhalte, die untereinander nicht ähnlich sind, oder, wie wir dies nachträglich begrifflich formulieren, deren Glieder miteinander von Gruppe zu Gruppe nicht die Ähnlichkeit aufweisen, die innerhalb jeder einzelnen Gruppe zwischen deren Gliedern besteht. Hiermit glaube ich zunächst Ihre Bedenken beantwortet zu haben; sollte ich mich hinsichtlich der Beweiskraft meiner Auseinandersetzung im Irrtum befinden, so werde ich Ihnen sehr dankbar sein, wenn Sie mich auf deren Schwächen hinweisen wollen. Inzwischen bin ich in bester Erwiderung Ihres freundlichen Grußes Ihr sehr ergebener H. Cornelius *** Hochgeehrter Herr College! Für Ihr ausführliches Eingehen auf meine Fragen bin ich Ihnen zu aufrichtigem Danke verpflichtet. Doch will ich nicht verhehlen, daß meine Bedenken noch nicht gehoben sind u. erlaube mir einige Gegenbemerkungen zu machen, sie möglichst concentrirend um Ihre Zeit nicht über Gebühr in Anspruch zu nehmen. 1. Sie suchen—auch schon in der Psychol.—die beiden Processe der Abstraktion u. Generalisation zu trennen. Die allgemeine Vorstellung soll etwas wie ein ungenaues Gedächtnißbild sein. Ich frage: Alle allgemeinen Vorstellungen, die nicht durch einen abstrakten Namen wie Farbe, Gestalt bezeichnet sind? Also auch die allgemeine Vorstellung

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des Farbigen, Gestalteten, des Sehenden, Hörenden, Denkenden im Allgemeinen, des Menschen, des Thiers, des Organismus, des Guten, Wahren etc etc? Doch, wie dem sei; ich gestehe, daß nach meiner Meinung keine Vorstellung anders als durch Abstraktion wahrhaft allgemein werden kann, die mit sog. conkreten so wenig wie die mit „abstrakten“ Namen bezeichneten, u. die minder allgemeinen wie Rothes od. Dreieckiges so wenig wie die allgemeineren zb. Farbiges, Figur usw. Ein ungenaues Gedächtnißbild od. etwas dem Ähnliches, wenn es überhaupt ein Bild d. h. anschaulich ist, ist niemals wahrhaft allgemein. Es mag „vieldeutig“ sein od. Vieles Andere „repräsentiren“, in dem Sinne, daß es an Mehreres Andere erinnert od. mit der Vorstellung davon verwechselt wird. Allein zum Wesen einer wahrhaft allgemeinen Vorstellung gehört, daß ihr Vieles (u. zwar der Möglichkeit nach unbegrenzt Vieles) entspreche dh. daß sie nur Züge enthalte, worin alle jene Inhalte in gleicher Weise mit ihr übereinstimmen. Die allgemeine Vorstellung des Farbigen darf nichts enthalten, was nicht in jedem conkreten Farbigen gegeben wäre. Dagegen einer durch Vergessen „ungenau“ gewordenen anschaulichen Vorstellung entspricht entweder gar kein Gegenstand od. wenn, so könnte es nur Einer sein. In Bezug auf jeden Anderen wird sie nicht etwa bloß zu wenig enthalten um ihm entsprechend zu sein sond. auch zuviel. So wenig ein äquivoker Name mit einem allgemeinen zusammenfällt, so wenig ist ein „vieldeutiges“ Gedächtnißbild mit einer allgemeinen Vorstellung identisch. Auch der universelle Name nennt zwar Vieles, aber er thut es unter Vermittlung derselben Bedeutung (dh. der Vorstellung von etwas, das sich in allen Fällen der Verwendung in gleicher Weise wieder findet); der äquivoke Name dagegen nennt Vieles unter Vermittlung verschiedener (wenn auch vielleicht ähnlicher) Bedeutungen. Gibt es keine allgemeinen Vorstellungen im obigen Sinne, dann muß man m. E. überhaupt leugnen, daß es solche gebe.Wer aber nicht auch das Vorkommen einer Abstraktion gänzlich leugnet, muß doch zugeben, daß etwas wahrhaft Allgemeines irgendwie Inhalt eines besonderen „Beachtens“ od. dgl. sein könne. Wenn ich „ein Merkmal unter Vernachlässigung der übrigen betrachten“ kann, dann ist damit eo ipso etwas Universelles, dem unbegrenzt Vieles entsprechen kann, zum Gegenstand besonderer psychischer Beschäftigung (sei dies nun ein besonderes Vorstellen od. Beurtheilen u.sw.) geworden. Individuell ist ja das Merkmal nur durch seine Concrescenz mit anderen; für sich betrachtet ist es ein Universale. Dieses „Betrachten“ müßte dann dasjenige sein, was Locke u. A. für allgemeine Vorstellungen gehalten haben, u. jedenfalls ist es Produkt der Abstraktion. Durch sie, u. nur durch sie, kommt es zur besonderen Beschäftigung mit einem Inhalt wie Farbe, aber auch wie Farbiges im Allgemeinen, wie Ort, aber auch wie örtlich Bestimmtes im Allgemeinen usw. usw.

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2. Sie wollen die Abstraktion nicht leugnen, aber auf einfachere Thatsachen zurückführen. Allein, was Sie als solche anführen, scheint mir stets die Abstraktion schon zu involviren. a So, wie ich schon früher erwähnte, die Erkenntniß der Ähnlichkeit überhaupt. Sie bemerken dem entgegen: Um zu sagen, diese Dinge (zb Zinnober auf der Palette u. Geranium am Fenster) sind ähnlich, müsse allerdings der abstrakte Begriff der Ähnlichkeit schon bekannt sein. Allein Sie redeten nicht von solcher Benennung jenes Faktums sond. von dem Faktum selbst. Dieses sei ein conkreter Thatbestand. Ich erwiedere: Zwei od. mehrere conkrete Gegenstände, die sich ähnlich sind, bilden gewiß einen conkreten Thatbestand, u. das bloße Vorhandensein der Anschauungen¹¹ von ihnen in meinem Bewußtsein hat nichts mit Abstraktion zu thun. Aber damit ist eben auch keine Erkenntniß der Ähnlichkeit gegeben. Diese, das Erfassen des Ähnlichen als solchen, ist etwas Neues, zu jenen conkreten Anschauungen Hinzukommendes. Sie involvirt Abstraktion u. darum thut es auch die auf diese Erkenntniß gebaute Benennung. Ganz analog steht es m. E. mit der Verschiedenheit conkret-anschaulicher Inhalte. Etwas Anderes ist das bloße Vorhandensein zweier verschiedener Anschauungen in meinem Bewußtsein. Etwas Anderes die Erkenntniß dieser Verschiedenheit. Um nochmal auf die Ähnlichkeit zurückzukommen, so muß man, scheint mir, wohl auseinanderhalten: 1’ Das Faktum, daß der Inhalt zweier Anschauungen, die in meinem Bewußtsein sind, ähnlich ist; 2’ den Umstand, daß diese Ähnlichkeit sich irgendwie wirksam erweist zb. indem in Folge derselben die Inhalte verwechselt werden, od. auch indem sie sich gegenseitig in Erinnerung rufen (NB. auch das Letztere ist möglich ohne daß die Ähnlichkeit bemerkt wird) u. 3’ das Faktum, daß das Ähnliche als Ähnliches Gegenstand meines Bemerkens ist. Letzteres setzt Abstraktion voraus. Das Erste u. Zweite freilich nicht. Aber indem Sie von Erkenntniß der Ähnlichkeit sprechen, können Sie nur 3 meinen.

 Randbmerkung: Ich verstehe unter „Anschauung“ hier jede anschauliche Vorstellung, gleichviel ob durch Gedächntiß oder Empfindung gegeben.

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b Allein auch, was Sie als Erklärung des Faktums, daß wir verschiedenartige Ähnlichkeiten zu erkennen vermögen, anführen, scheint mir Abstraktion vorauszusetzen. α Sie sagen: „der Unterschied der Namen roth u. rund, die ich beide dem rothen Kreise beilege, gründet sich“ – u.sw. Wie sieht der Gedanke „daß nicht gerade diese einzelnen sond. noch eine Reihe weiterer, nicht erinnerter usw.“ aus, wenn es nicht ein abstrakter Gedanke ist? β Auch die Erklärung des Vorgangs, daß u. wie „nach Bedarf“ sich noch andere conkrete Vorstellungen einfinden, wovon schon D. Hume sprach, scheint mir Abstraktion vorauszusetzen. Und nicht minder der Umstand, daß wir gewisse Inhalte als „Reihen“ auffassen, indem dies, wie es hier gemeint ist, nicht möglich ist außer indem wir Gemeinsames (u. Unterscheidendes) an ihnen auseinanderhalten. Doch will ich nicht näher darauf eingehen, um unsere Correspondenz nicht allzusehr anzuschwellen. γ Sie sagen weiter: die Grundthatsache, auf welcher die distinctio rationis beruhe, sei die, daß sich zwischen a u. b ( u. ) u. ebenso zwischen a u. c ( u. ) eine Ähnlichkeit finde, daß aber zwischen b u. c keine Ähnlichkeit bestehe. Dies erkennen heiße verschiedenartige Ähnlichkeiten zwischen a u. anderen Inhalten erkennen. Allein im angegebenen u. gar manchem anderen Falle ist es zwar richtig, daß zwischen a u. anderen Inhalten eine verschiedenartige Ähnlichkeit besteht, aber nicht wahr, daß zwischen b u. c keine Ähnlichkeit bestehe – Ähnlichkeit in so weitem Sinne genommen wie Sie es in Übereinstimmung mit D. Hume u. Anderen thun. b u. c stimmen ja doch darin überein, daß sie überhaupt irgendeine Gestalt u. auch irgendeine Farbe haben. Sie sagen denn auch später etwas anders: Mit der Erkenntniß der Ähnlichkeit in verschiedener Hinsicht sei gemeint die Erkenntniß der Zugehörigkeit eines Inhalts zu verschiedenen Gruppen ähnlicher Inhalte, deren Glieder miteinander nicht die Ähnlichkeit aufweisen, die innerhalb der Gruppe besteht. „Nicht die Ähnlichkeit usw.“ d. h. wenn doch eine Ähnlichkeit, jedenfalls eine andere, verschiedenartige etc. Aber damit stehen wir, scheint mir, wieder aber bei dem Punkte, der zu erklären war. Das Bestreben, aus dem Ihr Versuch die Abstraktion auf bekanntere Thatsachen zurückzuführen entspringt, hat meine volle Sympathie. Entia non sunt multiplicanda pr. n. Aber ich kann mich in diesem Falle nicht überzeugen, daß es sich nicht um ein letztes Faktum handle, u. mit der Abstraktion scheint mir – wie

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früher bemerkt – eo ipso die Generalisation gegeben, ohne sie aber nur eine Pseudo-allgemeinheit. Indem ich nochmal für Ihr freundliches Eingehen auf meine Bedenken den verbindlichsten Dank ausspreche, zeichne ich mit collegialem Gruße Ihr ergebener A, Marty Prag II Mariengasse 35. am 23 Januar 1900. *** München 26/I. 1900. Kaulbachstr. 20. Hochgeehrter Herr Professor! Vielleicht ist es nicht überflüssig, wenn ich meine Ansicht über die strittigen Puncte noch einmal kurz zusammenfasse. Ich versuche das in folgenden Thesen: 1) Zu jeder Bestimmung eines Inhalts (Erkenntniß des Inhaltes als „dieses“ Inhaltes im Gegensatz zu einem anderen) ist Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß vorausgesetzt. (Begründung:) Mit der bloßen Unterscheidung zweier Inhalte ist noch keiner derselben charakterisirt: um in einem folgenden Augenblick zu wissen, ob ich „den einen“ oder „den andern“ (oder „den dritten, von beiden verschiedenen“) betrachte, ist ein Bewusstsein der Ähnlichkeit (Übereinstimmung, Gleichheit) zwischen dem jetzt Betrachteten und einem der „früheren Inhalte“ (bez. ein Bewußtsein der „Verschiedenheit“ zwischen diesen Inhalten) notwendige Voraussetzung. Eventuell ist dieses Bewußtsein mit dem betr. Gedächtnißbilde allein gegeben (Betrachtung bloß erinnerter Inhalte). Um aber irgend einen Empfindungsinhalt („Wahrnehmungsvorstellung“) als „diesen bekannten“ zu erkennen, ist „Erkenntnis der Ähnlichkeit“ zwischen ihm und früheren Inhalten nötig— nämlich zwischen dem betreffenden Teil-Inhalt des gegenwärtigen Augenblicks und dem des vergangenen. Ohne solche Ähnlichkeitserkenntnis gibt es keinen Zusammenhang unserer Erlebnisse;—das bloße Bewußtsein der Verschiedenheit würde alles Neue eben nur als „neu“, als ein durchaus Unbekanntes, ohne Zusammenhang mit schon Bekanntem erscheinen lassen. 2) Dies „Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß“ begründet überall Abstraction (sie begründet sie—setzt sie aber nicht voraus.) (Anwendung.) Unter Abstraction versthe ich das Beachten (= Bewusstwerden) eines Merkmals an einem Inhalte, welcher außerdem noch andere Bestimmungen zulässt.

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(NB. Vielleicht hängt unsere Differenz an einer verschiedenen Deutung dieses Wortes?) (Begründung ad 2.) Oben (ad 1) wurde gezeigt daß bloße „Unterscheidung“ noch nicht „Bestimmung“—in dem näher besprochenen Sinne dieses Wortes ist. Mit der Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß (ad 1) ist eine solche „Bestimmung“ gegeben. Sobald sie aber gegeben ist, ist mindestens eine weitere Bestimmung des betr. Inhalts möglich wenn auch noch nicht gegeben—diejenige, durch welche sich der eine der „als ähnlich erkannten“ Inhalte von dem andern unterscheidet (und die, analog der ersten, durch irgend welche anderweitige! Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß zu fixieren ist.) 3) Wie zur „Bestimmung“ eines Inhaltes, so ist auch zu derjenigen eines Merkmals Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß vorausgesetzt. (Folgt aus 1 & 2.) 4) Wie ein Inhalt selbst durch eine Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß bestimmt—und zwar nach 2 abstract bestimmt—wird, so wird auch durch ein entsprechendes Wiedererkennen der Ähnlichkeit (strenger: der betr. Complexe zu zwei Inhalten) eine „bestimmte Art von Ähnlichkeit“ charakterisirt. Der abstracte Begriff der Ähnlichkeit entsteht also mit dem ersten Wiedererkennen eines „Ähnlichkeitserlebnisses“. Die Grundthatsachen, welche zur Unterscheidung verschiedener Ähnlichkeiten führen, sind also a) die Erlebnisse der Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß von a mit b und von a mit c b) das Wiedererkennen dieser Ähnlichkeitserlebnisse—ohne welches die Unterscheidung beider als verschiedener Arten nach Argum. 1 nicht denkbar ist. Ehe ich noch eine weitere—mit diesem Thema noch nicht notwendig zusammenhängende, aber für unsere Discussion notwendige—These formuliere, möchte ich die vorigen benützen, um Ihren Bedenken zu begegnen. I. Nicht die Processe, sondern die Begriffe der Generalisation und Abstraction war ich zu trennen bestrebt. (Sollten meine Worte die erstere Deutung ergeben so ist es mir nicht gelungen mich präcis genug auszudrücken.) Die beiden Processe fallen m. E. vielmehr immer zusammen, soweit es sich um die ursprüngliche Entstehung allgemeiner (sinnlicher) Vorstellungen und nicht um die nachträgliche Zusammenfassung des bewusst Geschiedenen unter gemeinsame Namen handelt. (Mit letzterer Distinction soll angedeutet sein, wie ich auf Ihre erste Zwischenfrage: „alle allgemeine Vorstellungen etc.?“ antworten möchte.) Daß die fragl. Processe für mich zusammenfallen, ergibt sich aus These 2, sobald die Entstehung allg. Vorstellungen auf Ähnlichkeitserkenntnis zurückgeführt wird. Hierüber cfr. unten, These 5. Daß das Betrachten eines Merkmals mit der Betrachtung von etwas Universellem zusammenfällt, ist natürlich auch meine Meinung (ich habe das früher so

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ausgedrückt, daß die Erinnerung an eine Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß geradezu eine „allgemeine Vorstellung“ nannte, in der Abh. über Gestaqualitäten, No II). Aber ich meine nicht, daß das Betrachten eines Merkmales Product der Abstraction sei, sondern daß es selbst die Abstraction ist. (Es „involvirt“ also Abstraction; – aber nicht in dem Sinne „involvieren“ = voraussetzen, sondern „involviren“ = „mit sich bringen“, oder geradezu—„damit identisch sein“.) Hiermit komme ich zu No II. Daß die von mir angeführten Thatsachen, auf die ich die Abstraction zurückführen will, die letztere bereits involviren, gebe ich im zuletzt genannten Sinne dieses Wortes natürlich zu: ich stelle die Frage nach dem primären Thatbestand, der das Gemeinsame all’ der Fälle bildet, in welchen man von Abstraction spricht; ich finde, daß in all’ diesen Fällen eben dasjenige vorliegt, was ich als „Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß“ aufzuzeigen suche; folglich wird notwendiger Weise auch in allen Fällen der letzteren Art irgend etwas von dem zu finden sein, was „Abstraction“ heißt. Damit aber meine Theorie alsdann mehr sei, als eine neue Benennung alter Thatsachen, muss sie eben zeigen, daß der Thatbestand der Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß der einfachere, ursprünglichere ist—d. h. daß man mit Abstraction nicht bloß jenen primären Thatbestand (der Ähnlichk. erk.) sondern noch weitere, darauf gegründete (und nicht unmittelbar als identisch damit zu erkennende) Thatbestände bezeichnet. Dies aber meine ich in obigen 4 Thesen gezeigt zu haben. Sollte aber auch diesen gegenüber noch daran festgehalten werden, daß Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß den abstracten Begriff von Ähnlichkeit voraussetze, so möchte ich, um den Unterschied der in den Thesen gemeinten (primären) Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß von der (secundären) Einordnung des betr. Complexes unter den Begriff „ähnlicher“ Inhalte zu verdeutlichen, den von Ihnen angezogenen analogen Fall der Unterscheidung heranziehen. Sie sagen: etwas Anderes ist das bloße Vorhandensein zweier verschiedener Anschauungen in meinem Bewußtsein; etwas Anderes die Erkenntnis dieser Verschiedenheit. Ich stimme zu, wenn unter letzterer Erkenntniß die Einordnung des Falles unter den—bereits bekannten—Begriff der Verschiedenheit gemeint ist. Aber vor dieser Einordnung muß jenes Vorhandensein des Verschiedenen und seiner Verschienheitsrelation in meinem Bewußtsein schon vorhergesehen—sonst hätte die Einordnung je nichts, was einzuordnen wäre. Vorhandensein „in“ und „für“ m. Bewußtsein aber kann ich nicht anders verstehen als: unmittelbar bekannt sein, gegeben sein—und dieses unmittelbar-gegeben-Sein wäre das, was ich als die primäre Verschiedenheitserkenntniß jener secundären einordnenden, abstrahierenden Beurteilung entgegensetze.

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Analog bei der Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß. Gewiss müssen wir die von Ihnen mit 1’, 2’ und 3’ bezeichneten Unterschiede machen; nur meine ich, daß 3’ noch eine weitere Unterabteilung fordert, entsprechend dem eben über die Unterscheidung Gesagten. Die Einwände b α, β, γ halte ich durch These 2, 3, 4 für erledigt; bin aber auch bereit noch näher darauf zurückzukommen—für heute aber muss ich mich beschränken, nur noch—zur Beantwortung Ihres ersten Bedenkens—meine These 5 zu formulieren. Sie wird lauten: 5) Gedächtnisbilder sind stets innerhalb gewisser Grenzen unbestimmte und deshalb allgemeine Vorstellungen. Nicht: „durch Vergessen allgemein geworden“; die ungenaue Ged. Vorst. enthält nicht mehr als irgend eine bestimmte der innerhalb jener Grenzen gegebenen Empfindungen und stimmt nicht mit einer derselben mehr als mit der anderen überein, sondern sie ist in den fragl. Grenzen vag—nicht variabel, sondern eine, (noch) nicht völlig bestimmte. Sie würden das nicht mehr „anschaulich“ nennen—ich bediene mich dieser Benennung unbedenklich, obwohl ich auch bei meinen schärfsten Erinnerungsbildern mir dieser (meistens freilich sehr geringfügigen) Unbestimmtheit deutlich bewusst bin. Wir erscheinen hier an einen Punkt angelangt, wo unsere beiderseitige „innere Erfahrung“ nicht mehr übereinstimmt. Sie ersehen hieraus aber, daß ich in Sachen der „abstracten Vorstellungen“ ziemlich weitseitig bin: eine rote Figur, die keine völlig bestimmte Farbe und keine völlig bestimmte Form hat, meine ich mir ganz gut anschaulich vorstellen zu können. Da indessen dieser Punkt für unsere Discussion im Übrigen nicht allzuviel Bedeutung hat u. nur meine Stellungnahme zu Ihrem Vergleich meiner Generalisationstheorie mit den äquivoken Namen bezeichnen soll, so darf ich für diesmal wol abbrechen. Ob es mir nunmehr gelungen ist, meine Position deutlich zu bezeichnen und Ihre Bedenken zu zerstreuen? Ich wage es nicht zu hoffen. Mit größtem Interesse sieht Ihrer gütigen Antwort entgegen in bester Erwiderung Ihres freundl. Grußes Ihr ergebener H. Cornelius. *** Hochgeehrter Herr College! In Folge von mancherlei Abhaltungen komme ich erst heute dazu für Ihren freundlichen Brief vom 26 Jan. zu danken, u. ungern erwiedere ich die Mühe Ihrer ausführlichen Darlegungen mit dem Geständniß, daß wir allem Anschein nach in der Auffassung der Thatsachen, die beim sog. begrifflichen Denken im Spiele

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sind, in zu mannigfacher Richtung differiren um durch brieflichen Meinungsaustausch leicht zu einer Einigung kommen zu können. 1. Sie sagen, Sie wollten nur die Begriffe nicht die Processe der Abstraktion u. Generalisation scheiden. Damit wäre ich völlig einverstanden. Allein Sie scheinen damit nicht dasselbe zu meinen wie ich. Denn Sie nehmen doch Vorstellungen an, die, obwohl unbestimmt (also nach mir allgemein), Bilder dh. anschaulich, also nach mir nicht Produkt der Abstraktion od. – wenn man diese Terminologie vorzieht – nicht im abstrakten Denken sind. Sie berufen sich auf die innere Erfahrung, die Ihnen dergleichen zeige, vermuthen aber, daß uns beiden diese Erkenntnißquelle hier etwas Verschiedenes bezeuge. In der That kann ich nichts Derartiges in mir finden, begreife aber wohl, daß Manches, was auch mir die innere Erfahrung zeigt, den Schein erwecken kann von der Art zu sein. Was thatsächlich vorliegt ist m. E. stets eines von Folgendem: entweder wir haben nicht etwas durchaus Anschauliches sond. ein Surrogat einer vollen Anschauung vor uns, welches neben der theilweisen anschaulichen Reproduktion eines Gegenstands auch darauf bezügliche begriffliche Gedanken enthält; od. wenn es durchaus anschaulich ist, so besteht seine „Unbestimmtheit“ nur darin, daß es schwer zu deuten (zu classificiren) ist u. thatsächlich in schwankender u. unsicherer Weise gedeutet od. in bloß ungefährer Weise bestimmt wird. Dies aber sind Urtheils- nicht bloße Vorstellungsvorgänge. Eine in sich selbst unbestimmte u. doch anschauliche Vorstellung halte ich nicht bloß für niemals gegeben sond. für schlechterdings unmöglich. Wenn etwas dergleichen, zb. eine Figur, die keine völlig bestimmte Form u. Farbe hätte, anschaulich vorgestellt werden könnte, wie sollte es einleuchten, daß es [sic] nicht existiren kann? Thatsächlich aber leuchtet dies zweifellos ein. 2. Sie beschreiben die Abstraktion zb. die abstrakte Erkenntniß der Ähnlichkeit od. Verschiedenheit als die Einordnung eines Falles unter die bereits bekannten Begriffe der Ähnlichkeit resp. Verschiedenheit, u. es ist dies, wenn ich recht verstehe, ein Beispiel desselben Vorganges, den man auch Bestimmen, Deuten (Classificiren) nennt. Ohne Zweifel spielen diese Vorgänge, wodurch Späteres mit Früherem verknüpft wird u. unsere Erkenntnisse in Zusammenhang gebracht werden, eine wichtige Rolle in unserem psychischen Leben. Aber sie sind nicht das, was ich Abstraktion nenne. Letzteres ist etwas mehr Primäres, wodurch die Begriffe, unter welche „eingeordnet“ od. mit Hilfe deren classificirt, „bestimmt“ wird, erst entstehen. Es ist z. B. im Falle der „Verschiedenheits- od. Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß“ das, was Sie selbst als dem „Einordnen unter den Begriff der Ähnlichkeit“ vorausgehend bezeichnen: „das Vorhandensein des Verschiedenen und seiner Verschie-

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denheitsrelation für mein Bewußtsein“. Sie können mit dem, was Sie so nennen, ja nicht wohl das bloße Gegebensein zweier verschiedener Anschauungen im Bewußtsein ohne daß sie als verschieden erfaßt würden, meinen sond. nur dieses Letztere. Dieses Vorhandensein der Verschiedenheit als solcher für mein Bewußtsein ist gewiß etwas Primäres gegenüber der einordnenden, classificirenden Thätigkeit (wenn diese sich auch sofort daran knüpfen mag); aber ebenso sicher ist, daß es keinen anschaulichen sond. einen abstrakten Inhalt hat. Es ist das was man im angeführten Falle die abstrakte Vorstellung od. den Begriff der Ähnlichkeit nennen kann, u. erst, indem dieser u. andere solche Begriffe gewonnen sind, wird jenes Einordnen od. Classificiren möglich. Mit meiner Definition von Abstraktion ist verwandt, wenn Sie sagen, Sie verständen darunter das Beachten eines Merkmals an einem Inhalte usw. Das Allererste an diesem „Beachten“ ist das Auftreten der abstrakten Vorstellung des betreffenden für sich nicht anschaulichen Moments einer Anschauung. Dann mögen sich weiter mannigfache Prädikationen, Deuten, Bestimmen usw. daran knüpfen. 3. Geht aus dem Gesagten hervor, daß, was Sie zb. „sekundäre, einordnende, abstrakte Ähnlichkeitserkenntniß“ nennen, dasjenige schon voraussetzt, was ich Abstraktion nenne (hier: die einfache Gewinnung des Begriffs Ähnlichkeit), so erhellt – scheint mir – aus dem Folgenden, daß der Begriff der Ähnlichkeit keineswegs das Früheste auf dem Gebiete solcher Abstraktion u. Begriffsbildung ist. Sie gebrauchen den Terminus Ähnlichkeit, wie auch D. Hume es thut, in so weitem Sinne, daß jegliche Übereinstimmung, auch die Gleichheit damit gemeint ist. Was ist aber Gleichheit? Auf diese Frage scheint mir keine andere Antwort möglich als die folgende: Gleich sind Gegenstände, welche unter denselben Begriff fallen. Spezifisch gleich, wenn sie unter denselben Speziesbegriff, der Gattung nach gleich, wenn sie unter denselben Gattungsbegriff fallen. Damit ist aber gesagt, daß die Erkenntniß, daß etwas einem Anderen gleich sei, schon den Begriff von etwas voraussetzt, worin sie einander gleich sind zb. Farbe, Gestalt usw. NB. Wenn gefragt wird, was heißt „derselbe Begriff,“? so ist zu antworten: „derselbe“ heißt hier identisch. Identisch aber ist, was von einander prädikabel ist. Gegenstände sind identisch, wenn ich sagen kann, der eine sei der andere. Ebenso Begriffe. Ich weiß nicht ob ich annehmen darf in dieser Kürze meine Gedanken, insbesondere über Gleichheit u. Identität, klar gemacht zu haben. Ich hoffe aber im Laufe des Jahres zu einer besonderen kleinen Publikation [Marty 1900a] über den Terminus Ähnlichkeit (der m. E. vieldeutig verwendet wird) zu kommen u. dabei

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auch das unter 3. Angedeutete weiter auszuführen. Vielleicht gelingt es mir dann eher zu überzeugen od. wenigstens völlig verständlich zu sein. Für heute schließe ich mit den besten Grüßen Ihr aufrichtig ergebener A Marty Prag II Mariengasse 35. am 18. Febr. 1900. *** München 5/III 1900 Hochgeehrter Herr Professor! Nach reiflicher Überlegung—die ich als Entschuldigungsgrund für die Verzögerung meiner Antwort zu betrachten bitte—erscheint es auch mir am Besten, nicht weiter brieflich über unseren Dissens zu discutiren. Ich hoffe demnächst in einer Abhandlung [Cornelius 1900b] zu einem Teil der berührten Frage Stellung zu nehmen; auf die von Ihnen zu gewärtigende Arbeit und die von meiner Seite zu veröffentlichenden Erwägungen wird sich vielleicht alsdann eine neue und fruchtbarere Discussion gründen lassen. Ich darf aber die erste Discussion nicht schließen ohne meine Freude darüber Ausdruck zu geben, daß ich durch dieselbe Ihre Bekanntschaft habe machen dürfte; ich hoffe daß sich in nicht zu ferner Zeit Gelegenheit ergibt, diese Bekanntschaft nicht bloß schriftlich, sondern mündlich zu erneuern und zu ergänzen. In hochachtungsvollsten Erwiderung Ihrer freundlichen Grüße Ihr ergebener H. Cornelius *** Hochgeehrter Herr College! Da ich seit längerer Zeit von Prag abwesend bin u., auf Umwegen in meine Heimath reisend, ohne feste Adresse war, ist mir Ihre freundliche literarische Gabe verspätet zugekommen. Ich habe dieselbe mit großem Interesse gelesen u. danke Ihnen herzlich dafür, wie für die freundliche Berücksichtigung meiner brieflichen Einwendung gegen Ihre Aufstellungen.

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Zwei Publikationen, mit denen ich beschäftigt bin, berühren sich mit Ihrer Theorie [wahrscheinlich Marty 1900a und Marty 1900b], u. ich werde nicht unterlassen, da od. dort dieselbe zur Sprache u. Discussion zu bringen. Inzwischen verbleibe ich mit collegialem Gruße Ihr aufrichtig ergebener A Marty z. Zeit in Seewen bei Schwyz (Schweiz) Hôtel Rössli am 17 Aug. 1900.

3 English translation Highly honoured colleague! I have read with great interest your remarkable article on ‘Gestalt qualities’ in the last issue of the journal of Ebbinghaus [Cornelius 1900a], and all the greater since I am occupied at present with a work on abstraction [Marty 1901b] and you also touch upon this topic. You believe, if I understand correctly, that you can explain the fact of general names without the assumption of real abstraction, i. e. a special consciousness of abstract contents such as colour, shape, place, etc. However, I openly confess that there still remain some questions and misgivings for me, even after what you argue regarding this matter, and what you would say in reply to them would be highly interesting to me. Hence, I take the liberty in the following to put them forth, and if for the sake of brevity and simplicity I do so without using many phrases beginning with ‘maybe’, ‘perhaps’, and the like, I am sure that you will not take the confident form of my exposition the wrong way. If you find time to enter into a shorter or longer correspondence regarding my doubts, or at least to convey whether and to what extent I have correctly understood you, I would be cordially grateful to you. Sincerely, your colleague, Prof. Dr. A. Marty Prague II, Mariengasse 35 2 January 1900 1. There is not an abstract consciousness of colour, shape, etc., according to the author. Regarding the puzzle as to how we come to distinguish in a psychical

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phenomenon these different properties or aspects, he sees the solution in the view that we are able to apprehend the similarity of one and the same intuitive content with different groups of other concrete contents that are similar to each other, and he believes that this does not require abstraction or even the abstract concept of similarity. 2. Nonetheless, he denies that he is a nominalist, for there is on his view something general in consciousness besides names, i. e. that very similarity that is common to many concrete contents. 3. In response to this view I especially have misgivings about how it is to be possible that something general is the object of consciousness in a special manner (whether it be the object of a special presenting or of a special judgement and attention) without something abstract thereby being the object of consciousness in a special manner. Something concrete, intuitive, is never general. If in the case of calling a rose, for instance, or at some other time a piece of paper red I have in consciousness as given nothing but several concrete presentations of red, wherein would then lie the consciousness of what is common to all, of the similarity that is predicated? In concreto, the similarity between a and b is something different from that between b and c and that between c and d. If I am not to distinguish similarity from the similar, nothing common is given here for my consciousness. In short: in order for it to be predicated in the same sense in different cases, the relation of similarity must be distinguished from that which is similar and somehow as such become the object of consciousness. This is therefore a special consciousness of something that is not concreteintuitive, and this I call abstraction. It is what D. Hume stubbornly denied, but did not make dispensable by means of his theory. 4. But this is not enough. Not only the name red, but also the name ‘triangular’, for instance, designates the similarity of a concrete content with a group of other ones, according to the author. Wherein consists that which constitutes the distinction between the meanings of these names? Is it to be sought in the similarity with another group of contents being meant in one case and in the other one? If so, we could not conceive of the sense of red in a proper way without bringing to mind the entire group of objects named red and that of triangular without everything triangular. It is, however, impossible simply to present everything red or everything triangular. For the extension of every general concept is potentially infinite. I say: if the peculiar sense of red as opposed to triangular is conditioned by the extension of the concrete objects that are thereby named, what this could mean is only the full, i. e. infinite extension. For if, in speaking of red, I need to bring to mind only a restricted collective of red objects, this obviously does not always have the same sense, assuming that the meaning of the name ‘red’

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lies in the thought of belonging to this group. That collective will be a different one for different people and also for the same person at different times, and thus the meaning of the name ‘red’ would also change. But the infinite extension of the general name is always the same. And even if we could bring this to mind, could this really serve in all cases for the characterization of the meaning of the name? Equipollent concepts have the same extension. Can it therefore be the extension that grounds their difference for consciousness? 5. And the question also arises how it has come about that we have formed a plurality of fixed groups of similar objects and consistently called the members belonging to one of them equal, yet different from those belonging to another one? If the only thing noticed in all cases is that a similarity obtains, what will keep me, once I have given two red balls the name red, from transferring the name to a white ball—for there is, after all, a similarity between it and the red ones? Such derailments in giving names do indeed occur at times. But in those cases we do not refer to the process as generalization, but rather as equivocation through confusion. We sharply distinguish the two and accept the former phenomenon only where a certain unity and equivalence of sense comes to light in the direction of associating similars and in giving names. But how this can be retained and distinguished from cases where it does not occur is conceivable only if we are able to keep separate different similarities that are apprehended as different in character in themselves, not in terms of the complex of objects to which they are ascribed. 6. Thus I come to the result that we are able to distinguish different similarities. If distinguishable, however, they must, according to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, exhibit some difference (an intrinsic one, according to what has been said), and this must be graspable to us. In other words, we must apprehend the different features or moments whereby and wherein similars agree in one case and in the other, for only this can be that which distinguishes the different similarities. But since this is certainly nothing concrete-intuitive, but rather an abstractum, such as colour, red, place, etc., abstraction is also involved here. It would certainly be impossible if, as the author seems to presuppose, everything that is really inseparable would also be absolutely simple. But experience clearly shows that not all parts that an object or content can exhibit must be really separable, and that there are also inseparable and merely distinctional parts. 7. The author speaks of the judgement of a content in different directions, of apprehension of a similarity in different respects (p. 108).

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Does this mean that we apprehend the moment in which similars intrinsically agree? In that case abstraction would be conceded, as already remarked. It would then be a superfluous detour to say that the general name means a belonging to a group of similar objects. Or does it only mean that by apprehension of similarity in different respects we are to understand nothing but: apprehension of a belonging to different groups of similar contents, not a grasping of the speciality of a similarity-relation in contrast with another one? If so, what was said under 4 and 5 would hold. *** Munich, Kaulbachstraße 20 12 Jan. 1900 Highly honoured professor! In the following I take the liberty to submit to you my defence against your misgivings. I am assured of your approval if I also make use of purely matter-of-fact and confident forms of expression. The extent to which I have correctly understood your objections I must of course leave undecided; from the form of the answers you can gather whether my interpretation of your words coincides with the sense in which they were meant. I am of course willingly ready for further discussions if they should seem desirable to you on any given point. ad 1.) It is not quite correct to say that I deny an abstract consciousness of colours, shape, etc.: my arguments are not meant to deny this abstract consciousness, but rather to break down the factual matter thereof more closely, i. e. to reduce it to other, more familiar and simpler facts.Such a simpler factual matter, it seems to me, lies in the apprehension of similarities of concrete contents. Such an apprehension of similarity (e. g. of the chochineal-red on my palette and the geranium blossom at my window) requires neither the abstract concept of colour nor that of similarity. Rather, I see in this apprehension of similarity a primary fact, given prior to any abstraction (and not reducible to anything simpler). (In order to designate this factual matter with words, in order to say that these things are similar, the abstract concept ‘similar’ must already be familiar. But I am not talking about such a naming of the fact, but rather about the fact itself.) ad 2 and 3.) The question concerning ‘general presentations’ is not treated in detail in my article; my concern there was with ‘abstraction’ in the sense of ‘selection and consideration of a feature while omitting the others’. In order to do

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justice to your misgivings, I must therefore repeat something that I presupposed there as familiar—from my Psychologie [Cornelius 1897]. It is not my view that in order to arrive at the abstract concept ‘red’ we would have to apprehend one by one and grasp as like experiences the similarity between the two above-mentioned (ad 1.) contents, and further between each of these and a third or fourth, and so forth. Such a process, on my view, would not lead to the abstract concept red, but rather to the abstract concept of a determinate kind of similarity. If we were restricted to the cognition of similarities between contents of sensation (perceptual presentations in Meinong’s terminology), hardly any other process that leads to general concepts would indeed be conceivable. Yet our concepts are not formed in this manner, but rather with the aid of memory-presentations, which, as inexact representatives of sensory experiences, reveal the moment in themselves which is needed for the general presentation. A content a1 reminds me of a content a0 and appears to me—on the basis of my memory of the latter—as similar with this. However, because my memory of a1 is inexact, the apprehension of similarity also remains an indeterminate one within certain boundaries. Afterwards I no longer distinguish the quality of the memory-presentation from a1 and those of a0: the same memory-image serves me as a representative for both. After that, however, a further content a2, which is apprehended as similar with this memory-image, is apprehended in one single act as similar with both contents a0 and a1 (possibly with as many qualitatively undifferentiated ones as have thus far appeared in my life and are represented by the same presentational image). Or in short: the ‘generality of a presentation’ is given from the outset by the ‘ambiguity of a memory-image’. (Should my view not be clear enough in this respect, I would most kindly ask you to read my Psychologie, pp. 25, 30 sq. and especially 33 sq.) I therefore believe that there is no need to be concerned with the objection that the similarity that is common to a group of contents a, b, c, d can be apprehended only insofar as we apprehend the similarity between a and b as the same as that between b and c, a and c, etc. ad 4.) The distinction between the names ‘red’ and ‘round’, both of which I attach to the red circle, is based on memory—certainly not of all contents designated thus far in those ways, but rather the memory of some contents from one group of similarity and from the other, connected with the knowledge that it is not these particular ones, but rather yet another series of contents (not singly remembered, but at once ready at hand if need be) that determine the meaning of the word. These groups are separated, and to make their difference clear to us we need not run through their entire extension, but rather only to attend to one con-

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tent of this kind in the group, a content that cannot be inserted in the other group, because it is immediately apprehended as not similar with that group’s members.) (Example: ‘white’.

‘round’. Besides the first image, none of the others can be inserted into the other series. But the memory that yet other contents—to be inserted into the same similaritygroup—are co-designated keeps us from a one-sided interpretation of the word.) Cf. Psychologie, pp. 50 sq. Once we are familiar with series of this kind, the formation of the concept of special kinds of similarity automatically arises insofar as the uniformity of experiences had in comparing within the same series, and their difference from experiences to be had in the other series, is apprehended. There is no doubt that this distinguishing between similarity-kinds can then also be applied to the determination of features; but that this concept of different kinds of similarity is not a presupposition of such a distinguishing of features, but rather comes about after it—or through it—, which is clear because the requirement for the formation of this concept is the disthinguishing of those similarity series. Perhaps the least misleading formulation would be this: The basic fact on which the distinctio rationis rests is that between a and b ( and ) we find a similarity, and likewise between a and c ( and ), but there is no similarity between b and c. This fact motivates our claim that there are ‘several features’ to be distinguished in a, or, what means the same, that there are ‘different kinds of similarity’ of a with other contents. The ambiguous memory-images of past contents (content-groups, similarity-series) can, in order to complete the theory following the direction indicated ad 3., replace b and c here. In saying this I think that I have shown that it is not the extension of a concept that determines its meaning, according to my theory, but rather the ‘kind of similarity’ that it designates. The apparent circularity that lies in the meaning of a concept, such as red, being reduced to the much more abstract one of a special kind of similarity is solved by the fact that we find the origination of this concept in the very factual matters [or phenomena] that lead to the formation of that concept. We characterize the essence of this formation-process afterwards by indicating the underlying ‘kind of similarity’; but the apprehension of this concept is not the requirement for the so-called formation-process.

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Objection no 5, it seems to me, is implicitly settled with what has been said; ad 6 I would however reply that the distinguisability of the different similaritykinds is conceded, but is only to be found in the difference of the funding content-series—hence in a concrete-intuitive factual matter [or phenomenon]. The fact, mentioned ad 3, that we can ‘reproduce’ such content-series with one presentation makes it seem as if one content originally exhibits the ‘determinate feature’ or the ‘determinate moment’ whereby the relevant ‘kind of similarity’ is characterised. Nr 7 is likewise settled by the foregoing. What is meant by apprehension of similarity in different respects is not that we ‘apprehend the moment in which similars intrinsically agree’, but rather the apprehension of a content’s belonging to different groups of similar contents which are not similar with each other or, as we formulate this afterwards, their members do not exhibit similarity with each other from group to group, while this similarity obtains within each single group among its members. Thus I believe that I have initially answered your misgivings; if I am in error regarding the ability of my arguments to prove their point, I will be very grateful to you if you point out their weaknesses to me. In the meantime I am ready to reply to you. Sincerely yours, H. Cornelius *** Highly honoured colleague! For your detailed discussion of my questions I am sincerely obliged to you. However, I will not conceal the fact that my misgivings are not yet removed and take the liberty to make some counter-remarks in a form as concentrated as possible so as not to make too great a demand on your time. 1. You seek—already in the Psychologie—to separate the two processes of abstraction and generalization. The general presentation is supposed to be something like an inexact memory-image. I ask: all general presentations that are not designated by an abstract name, such as colour, shape? Hence also the general presentation of what is coloured, what is shaped, of someone seeing, someone hearing, someone thinking in general, of man, of animal, of the organism, of the good, true, etc., etc.? However this may be, I concede that on my view no presentation can become truly general except by means of abstraction, and this is so whether it be one of

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those designated with so-called concrete names or one of those designated with ‘abstract’ names, whether it be one of the less general ones, such as something red or something triangular, or one of the more general ones, e. g. what is coloured, figure, etc. An inexact memory-image or something similar to this, if indeed it is an image, i. e. intuitive, is never truly general. It may be ‘ambiguous’ or ‘represent’ many other things in the sense that it reminds us of many things or is confused with the presentation of them. But there belongs to the essence of a truly general presentation many things (and possibly many things without restriction) corresponding to it, i. e. its containing only features in which all those contents agreeing with it in like manner. The general presentation of something coloured should contain nothing that would not be given in every concrete coloured thing. However, either no object corresponds to the intuitive presentation that has become ‘inexact’ through forgetting, or, if one does, it could only be one. As regards every other object, it will contain not only too little to correspond with it, but also too much. As an equivocal name does not coincide with a general one, an ‘ambiguous’ memory-image is not identical with a general presentation. The universal name does, to be sure, name many, but it does so through the mediation of the same meaning (i. e. the presentation of something that is again found in all cases of the application in the same manner); the equivocal name, however, names many by mediation of different (though perhaps similar) meanings. If there are no general presentations in the above sense, it is my view that it must be denied that there are any. Someone who does not also totally deny the occurrence of an abstraction, however, must concede that something general can somehow be the content of a special ‘attending’ or something of that nature. If I can ‘consider a feature while omitting the others’, something universal, to which many things without restriction can correspond, has thereby eo ipso become an object of special psychical occupation (whether this be a special presenting or judging, etc.). The feature is indeed individual only through its concrescence with others; considered in itself, it is a universal. This ‘considering’ would thus be that which Locke and others regarded as general presentations, and it is certainly a product of abstraction. By means of this, and only by means of this, does a special occupation with a content such as colour, but also coloured thing in general, and place, but also the locally determinate in general, etc., come about. 2. You do not mean to deny abstraction, but to reduce it to simpler facts. However, what you adduce as such facts always already involve abstraction, it seems to me.

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a It is so, as I have said already earlier, for the apprehension of similarity in general. You remark in opposition: in order to say that these things (e. g. chochinealred on the palette and geranium at the window) are similar, the abstract concept of similarity must of course already be familiar. But you were not talking about such a naming of that fact, but rather about the fact itself. This is a concrete factual matter [or phenomenon]. I reply: two or several concrete objects that are similar to each other certainly do form a concrete factual matter [or phenomenon], and the mere presence of intuitions¹² of them in my consciousness has nothing to do with abstraction. But what is thereby given is likewise not an apprehension of similarity. This, the grasping of similar as such, is something new, added to those concrete intuitions. It involves abstraction, and thus the naming that is built upon this cognition does so as well. This, in my view, is quite analogous with the difference between concrete-intuitive contents. The mere presence of two different intuitions in my consciousness is something different from the apprehension of this difference. And to return once again to similarity, we must indeed, it seems to me, keep separate: 1’ the fact that the content of two intuitions that are in my consciousness is similar; 2’ the circumstance that this similarity proves itself to be somehow effective, e. g. insofar as the contents are as a result of this confused, or also insofar as they evoke each other in memory (please note: the latter is also possible without the similarity being noticed) and 3’ the fact that similars as similars are an object of my noticing. The latter requires abstraction. The first and second, however, do not. But when you speak of apprehension of similarity, you can only mean 3. b However, also that what you adduce as an explanation of the fact that we can apprehend different kinds of similarities presupposes abstraction, it seems to me. α You say: ‘the distinction between the names red and round, both of which I attach to the red circle, is based’, etc. How does the thought ‘that not these particular ones, but rather yet another series of contents, not remembered, etc.’ look when it is not an abstract thought?

 Marginal note: By “intuition” I mean here every intuitive presentation, whether it is given through memory or sensation.

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β The explanation of the process, that and how yet other concrete presentations occur ‘if needed’, of which D. Hume already spoke, also presupposes abstraction, it seems to me. And no less the circumstance that we grasp certain contents as ‘series’—for this, as it is meant, is not possible unless we keep something common (and distinctive) in them separate. But I will not go into this point further, in order to keep our correspondence from becoming much too voluminous. γ You say further: the basic fact on which the distinctio rationis rests is that between a and b ( and ) we find a similarity and likewise between a and c ( and ); but there is no similarity between b and c. Apprehending this for you means apprehending different kinds of similarity between a and other contents. In the stated cases and in many others, however, it is correct to say that between a and other contents there are different kinds of similarity, but it is not true that between b and c there obtains no similarity—similarity understood in such a broad sense as the one in which you, in agreement with Hume and others, understand it. As a mater of fact, b and c agree in their having any shape whatsoever and also any colour whatsoever. You later also say something different: What is meant by the apprehension of similarity in different respects, on your view, is the apprehension of a content’s belonging to different groups of similar contents whose members do not exhibit a similarity with each other that obtains within the group. ‘Not that similarity, etc.’, that is to say, if any similarity, another one, one of a different kind, etc. But with this we are, it seems to me, back again at the same point that was to be explained. I am fully sympathetic with the desire from which your attempt to reduce abstraction to more familiar facts arises. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitam [Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity]. But in this case I fail to see that it is an ultimate fact under consideration; and with abstraction, it seems to me, as remarked earlier, generalization is eo ipso given, but without it only a pseudo-generality. Thanking once again for your kind discussion of my misgivings. Sincerely yours, A. Marty Prague II, Mariengasse 35 23 January 1900 ***

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Munich 26/I. 1900. Kaulbachstr. 20. Highly honoured professor! Perhaps it is not superfluous if I once again briefly summarize my view concerning the disputed points. I attempt to do this in the following theses: 1) For every determination of a content (apprehension of the content as ‘this’ content in contrast with another one) the apprehension of similarity is required. (Justification:) In merely distinguishing two contents neither of them is yet characterised: in order to know in the following instant whether I consider ‘the one’ or ‘the other’ (or ‘the third, different from both’), a consciousness of the similarity (agreement, equality) between the one considered now and one of the ‘earlier contents’ (or a consciousness of the ‘difference’ between these contents) is a necessary requirement. Perhaps this consciousness is given with the relevant memory-image alone (consideration of merely remembered contents). But in order to apprehend some content of sensation (‘perceptual presentation’) as ‘this familiar one’, the ‘apprehension of similarity’ between it and earlier contents is needed—namely between the relevant part-content of the present instant and that of the past one. Without such an apprehension of similarity there is no connection between our experiences; the mere consciousness of difference would involve everything new appearing only as ‘new’, as something totally unfamiliar, without any connection with what is already familiar. 2) This ‘apprehension of similarity’ in all cases grounds abstraction (it grounds it—but does not require it). (Application.) What I mean by abstraction is attending to (= becoming conscious of) one feature of a content that also allows for other determinations. (Please note: perhaps our disagreement is due to a different interpretation of this word?) (Justification ad 2.) It was shown above (ad 1) that mere ‘distinguishing’ is not ‘determining’—in the more closely discussed sense of this word. Such a ‘determination’ is given with the apprehension of similarity (ad 1). As soon as it is given, however, at least one additional determination of the relevant content is possible, though not yet given—that whereby one of the contents ‘apprehended as similar’ is distinguished from the other (and, analogous to the first determination, to be fixed by some additional apprehension of similarity). 3) As the apprehension of similarity is required for the ‘determination’ of a content, it is also required for that of a feature. (Follows from 1 & 2.) 4) As a content itself is determined by an apprehension of similarity—more particularly, abstractly determined according to 2—, a ‘determinate kind of sim-

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ilarity’ is characterised by a corresponding recognition of similarity (more strictly: of the relevant complexes with two contents). The abstract concept of similarity therefore arises with the first recognition of a ‘similarity-experience’. The basic facts that lead to distinguishing different similarities are thus: a) the experiences of the apprehension of similarity of a with b and of a with c, b) the recognition of these similarity-experiences—without which the distinguishing of the two as different kinds is, according to argument 1, inconceivable. Before I formulate one more thesis—not yet necessarily connected with this topic, but necessary to our discusssion—I would like to use the previous ones in order to confront your misgivings. I. I was engaged in separating the concepts, not the processes, of generalization and abstraction. (If my words should make you think otherwise, I have not succeeded in expressing myself precisely enough.) The two processes rather always coincide, on my view, insofar as we are dealing with the original coming-about of general (sensory) presentations, not with the subsequent grasping-together of the consciously differentiated under common names. (With regard to the latter distinction, it is to be indicated how I would reply to your first intermediate question: ‘all general presentations, etc.?’.) The fact that the processes in question coincide for me follows from thesis 2, as soon as the coming-about of general presentations is reduced to the apprehension of similarity. On this point, cf. below, thesis 5. It is of course my opinion too that the consideration of a feature coincides with the consideration of something universal (I have earlier expressed myself thus: that the memory of an apprehension of similarity is simply named a ‘general presentation’, in the article on Gestalt qualities, No II). But I do not think that the consideration of a feature is the product of abstraction, but rather that it is itself abstraction. (It therefore ‘involves’ abstraction; —but not in the sense that ‘involves’ = requires, but rather ‘involves’ = ‘entails’, or simply ‘is identical with’.) With this I arrive at No. II. Of course I concede that the cited facts to which I want to reduce abstraction already involve it in the last-mentioned sense of this word: I pose the question concerning the primary factual matter [or phenomenon] which is the common to all cases in which we speak of abstraction; I find that in all these cases there is what I seek to exhibit as ‘apprehension of similarity’; consequently, as a matter of necessity, in all cases of the latter kind there is something of that to be found which is called ‘abstraction’.

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However, in order for my theory to be more than a new name for old facts, it must show that the factual matter [or phenomenon] of the apprehension of similarity is the simpler, more original one—i. e. that by abstraction we designate not only that primary factual matter [or phenomenon] (of apprehension of similarity), but also yet additional factual matters [or phenomena] that are based on it (and not to be apprehended immediately as identical with it). But I think that I have shown this in the above 4 theses. If, however, in opposition to these it should still be maintained that the apprehension of similarity requires the abstract concept of similarity, I would draw upon the analogous case of distinguishing, which you draw upon, in order to clarify the difference between the (primary) apprehension of similarity, as meant in my theses, and the (secondary) insertion of the relevant complex under the concept of ‘similar’ contents. You say: The mere presence of two different intuitions in my consciousness is something different from the apprehension of this difference. I agree, if what is meant by this apprehension is the subsumption of the case under the—already familiar—concept of difference. Prior to this subsumption, however, that presence of different items and their relation of difference must already be seen in advance in my consciousness, for otherwise the subsumption has nothing to subsume. Being present ‘in’ and ‘for’ my consciousness, however, is something I can understand only as: being immediately familiar, being given—and this being-immediately-familiar would be that which I call the primary apprehension of difference in contrast with that secondary subsuming, abstracting judgement. Analogous with the apprehension of similarity. We must certainly make the distinctions designated by you as 1’, 2’, and 3’; but I think that 3’ demands a further subdivision, corresponding to what has just been said about distinguishing. The objections b α, β, γ I regard as settled by theses 2, 3, 4; I am also prepared to return to these points more closely. For today, however, I must restrict myself to formulating thesis 5 in answer to your first misgiving. This thesis is the following: 5). Memory-images are always within certain limits indeterminate and therefore general presentations. Not: ‘having become general through forgetting’; the inexact memory-presentation contains nothing more than a determinate presentation of sensations within those limits and does not agree with one of these anymore than with the other, but rather it is within the limits in question vague—not variable, but rather one, not (yet) fully determinate. You would no longer call that ‘intuitive’. I make use of this name without any misgivings, while I am also clearly aware of this (usually of course very slight) indeterminacy even in the case of my most acute memory-images.

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We seem to have reached a juncture here where our ‘inner experiences’ no longer agree with each other. From this, however, you take it that my understanding is rather broad in matters of ‘abstract presentations’: a red figure that does not have a fully determinate colour or a fully determinate form, on my view, is something that I can quite well present intuitively. Since this point does not have very much significance for our discussion, however, and is only meant to characterize my standpoint towards your comparison of my theory of generalization with equivocal names, I may close here. Have I succeeded in clearly characterising my position and in dispelling your misgivings? I dare not hope so. With great interest I look forward to your kind reply. Yours sincerely, H. Cornelius *** Highly honoured colleague! After all kinds of commitments, today I finally get a chance to thank you for your friendly letter of the 26th January, and in response to your efforts at detailed arguments I am not pleased to admit that in the conception of the facts that are involved in so-called conceptual thought we apparently differ in so many ways that we cannot easily come to an agreement via an exchange of opinions in letters. 1. You say that you wanted only to separate the concepts, not the processes of abstraction and generalization. I would be in full agreement with this. But you do not seem to mean the same thing that I mean. For you assume presentations that, though indeterminate (hence general for me), are images, i. e. intuitive, hence for me not a product of abstraction or—if one prefers this terminology— not in abstract thought. You appeal to inner experience that supposedly shows you such images, but suspect that this source of knowledge here testifies to something different for us. Indeed, I cannot find in myself anything of the sort, but quite well understand that many things that inner experience shows me as well can make it seem that they are of this sort. What we in fact have here, on my view, is always one of the following [possibilities]: Either we have before us something that is not altogether intuitive, but rather a surrogate of a full-fledged intuition, something that contains, besides the partial intuitive reproduction of an object, also related conceptual thoughts connected with this;

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or if it is totally intuitive, its ‘indeterminacy’ consists only in the fact that it is difficult to interpret (to classify) and is in fact interpreted in a wavering and insecure manner or determined only in a rough manner. These, however, are processes of judgement, not merely of presentation. I regard an intrinsically indeterminate and yet intuitive presentation not only as never given, but as absolutely impossible. If something of this sort, e. g. a figure that would have no determinate form and colour, could be presented intuitively, how would it be evident that it cannot exist? But this is, as a matter of fact and without any doubt, evident. 2. You describe abstraction, e. g. the abstract apprehension of similarity or difference as the subsumption of a case under the already familiar concepts of similarity or difference, and this, if I understand correctly, is an example of the same occurrence that we also call determining, interpreting (classifying). Without a doubt, these occurrences, whereby something later is connected with something earlier and our apprehensions are joined together, play an important role in our psychical life. But they are not what I call abstraction. This is something more primary, whereby the concepts, under which items are ‘subsumed’ or classified by means of them, initially come about. For instance, in the case of the ‘apprehension of difference or similarity’, this is what you yourself characterise as preceding the ‘subsumption under the concept of similarity’: ‘the presence of different items and their relation of difference for my consciousness’. By what you call this you cannot mean the mere givenness of two different intuitions in consciousness without their being grasped as different, but rather only the latter. This presence of difference as such for my consciousness is certainly something primary in contrast with the subsuming, classifying activity (though this may get its start from that); but it is likewise certain that it has an abstract content, not an intuitive one. It is what we can call in the cited case abstract presentation or the concept of similarity, and only insofar as this concept or others of this kind are obtained does subsuming or classifying become possible. There is an affinity with my definition of abstraction when you say that you would mean by this the attending to a feature of a content, etc. The first thing about this ‘attending’ is the emergence of the abstract presentation of the relevant and not in itself intuitive moment of an intuition. Then various predications, interpreting, determining, etc. may start from this. 3. If what has been said entails that what you call, for instance, ‘secondary, subsumptive, abstract apprehension of similarity’ already presupposes what I call abstraction (here: the simple obtaining of the concept ‘similarity’), it is clear from the following, it seems to me, that the concept of similarity is by no means the earliest one in the domain of abstraction and concept-formation.

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You use the term ‘similarity’, as D. Hume also does, in such a broad sense that it means any agreement, even equality. But what is equality? No other answer to this question seems possible to me but the following: objects that fall under the same concept are equal. Specifically equal when they fall under the same species-concept, generically equal when they fall under the same genus-concept. This is to say, however, that the knowledge that something is equal to something else already requires the concept of something wherein they are equal to each other, e. g. colour, shape, etc. Please note: if asked, what does ‘the same concept’ mean, the answer is: ‘the same’, here means identical. But any items are identical that are predicable of each other. Objects are identical when I can say that the one is the other. The same goes for concepts. I do not know if I may assume that I have with such brevity made my thoughts clear, especially regarding equality and identity. However, I hope in the course of the year to publish a small piece [Marty 1900a] on the term ‘similarity’ (which is, on my view, used ambiguously) and to elaborate further on what I have indicated under 3. Perhaps then I will succeed in being convincing or at least fully intelligible. For now I conclude with the best regards. Yours sincerely, A. Marty Prague II, Mariengasse 35. 18 February 1900 *** Munich, 5/III, 1900 Highly honoured professor! After extensive deliberation—which I ask you to regard as the reason for the hesitation in my reply—it also seems best to me not to discuss our disagreement further in letters. I hope soon in an article [Cornelius 1900b] to take a position towards some of the questions that have been touched upon; perhaps a new and fruitful discussion will be based on your expected work and the considerations to be published by me. However, I should not close the first discussion without expressing how glad I am that it allowed me to make your acquaintance; I hope that in the not so dis-

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tant future there will be an opportunity to renew and to expand this acquaintance not merely in writing, but orally. Responding to your friendly greetings with the highest respect, sincerely yours, H. Cornelius *** Highly honoured colleague! Since I have been away from Prague for a long time and was travelling via detours to my home country, without a fixed address, your kind literary gift was delayed in reaching me. I have read it with great interest and thank you cordially for it, and also for the friendly consideration of the objections I made in letters against your arguments. Two publications with which I am occupied [probably Marty 1901a and 1901b] are concerned with your theory, and I will not fail here or there to write about it and discuss it. In the mean time, I greet you as a collegue. Sincerely yours, A. Marty Currently in Schwyz (Switzerland), Hotel Rössli 17 August 1900

References Aster, E. v. (1913), Prinzipien der Erkenntnislehre. Versuch zu einer Begründung des Nominalismus, Leipzig, Quelle & Meyer. Brentano, F. (1874), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot. Brentano, F. (1982), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by W. Baumgartner and R. M. Chisholm, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1995a), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, translated by A. Rancurello et al., London, Routledge. Brentano, F. (1995b), Descriptive Psychology, translated by B. Müller, London, Routledge. Calkins, M. W. (1900), Review of Cornelius 1900a, Psychological Review 7, p. 298 – 300. Cornelius, H. (1897), Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft, Leipzig, B. G. Teubner. Cornelius, H. (1900a), ‘Über “Gestaltqualitäten”’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 22, p. 101 – 121. Cornelius, H. (1900b), ‘Zur Theorie der Abstraktion’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 24, p. 117 – 141. Cornelius, H. (1921), ‘Leben und Lehre’, in Schmidt 1921, p. 81 – 99.

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Ehrenfels, C. von (1890), ‘Über “Gestaltqualitäten”’, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 14, p. 242 – 292. Ehrenfels, C. von (1988), ‘On “Gestalt Qualities”’, translated by B. Smith, in Smith 1988, p. 82 – 117. Fisette, D. and Fréchette, G. (eds.) (2013), Themes from Brentano, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Hume, D. (1739), A Treatise of Human Nature, original edition: http://www.davidhume.org. Husserl, E. (1901), Logische Untersuchungen, vol. II, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Husserl, E. (2001), Logical Investigations, vols. I–II, translated by J. N. Findlay, London, Routledge. Husserl, E. (1994), Edmund Husserl. Briefwechsel, vols. I–X, edited by K. Schuhmann, in collaboration with E. Schuhmann, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. James, W. (1890), Principles of Psychology, vols. I–II, New York, Henry Holt. Linke, P. (1929), Grundfragen der Wahrnehmungslehre, Munich, 2nd ed., Ernst Reinhardt. Lipps, T. (1900), ‘Zu den “Gestaltqualitäten”’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 22, p. 383 – 285. Mally, E. (1900), ‘Abstraktion und Ähnlichkeitserkenntnis’, Archiv für systematische Philosophie 6, p. 291 – 310. Marty, A. (1892), Review of James 1890, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinneorgane 3, p. 297 – 333, reprinted in Marty 1916, p. 105 – 156. Marty, A. (1901a), ‘Über Ähnlichkeit’, IVe Congrès international de Psychologie. Tenu à Paris du 20 au 26 Août 1900. Compte rendu des séances et textes des mémoires, publie sous les soins du Dr Paul Janet, Paris, Alcan, p. 360 – 362, reprinted in Marty 1920, p. 109 – 111. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1916), Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I/1, edited by J. Eisenmeier et al., Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1920), Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II/2, edited by J. Eisenmeier et al., Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1990), ‘Two Letters from Marty to Husserl’, edited by K. Mulligan and K. Schuhmann, in Mulligan 1990, p. 225 – 236. Marty, A. (2010a), ‘What is Philosophy?’, translated by R.D. Rollinger, in Rollinger 2010, p. 235 – 254. Marty, A. (2010a), Review of James 1890, translated by R.D. Rollinger, in Rollinger 2010, p. 255 – 299. Marty, A. (2011), Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by M. Antonelli and J. Marek, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann. Meinong, A. (1900), ‘Abstrahieren und Vergleichen’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 24, p. 34 – 82. Meinong, A. (1993), ‘Abstracting and Comparing’, translated by R.D. Rollinger, in Rollinger 1993, p. 137 – 182. Mulligan, K. (ed.) (1990), Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Rollinger, R. D. (1991), ‘Husserl and Cornelius’, Husserl Studies 8, p. 33 – 56. Rollinger, R. D. (1993), Meinong and Husserl on Abstraction and Universals: From Hume Studies I to Logical Investigations II, Amsterdam, Rodopi.

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Rollinger, R. D. (1999), Husserl’s Position in the School of Brentano, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Rollinger, R. D. (2008), Austrian Phenomenology: Brentano, Husserl, Meinong, and Others on Mind and Object, Frankfurt, Ontos. Rollinger, R. D. (2010), Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty. Analysis and Translation, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Schmidt, R. (1921), Die deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, vol. II, Leipzig, Felix Meiner. Schumann, F. (1898), ‘Zur Psychologie der Zeitanschauung’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 17, p. 106 – 148. Smith, B. (ed.) (1988), The Foundations of Gestalt Theory, Munich, Philosophia Verlag. Woleński, J. (1990), ‘Marty and the Lvov-Warsaw School’, in Mulligan 1990, 216 – 223.

Archive Materials Brentano, F. (1900), Ps 19, Vom Nominalismus. Gegen Guastella. Palermo 1900, Franz Clemens Brentano Compositions (MS Ger 230), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Cornelius, H. (1900c), Letters to Anton Marty (IIb1), Masaryk Archives, Prague. Marty, A. (1867), Die Lehre des hl. Thomas über die Abstraction der übersinnlichen Ideen aus den sinnlichen Bildern, IIIa/19, Masaryk Archives, Prague. Marty, A. (1900), Letters to Hans Cornelius (Ana 352), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. Marty, A. (1901b), Widerlegung des Nominalismus, IIIa/22, Masaryk Archives, Prague. Marty, A. (c. 1901), Nominalismus, Abstraktion, Materialien, III/a27, Masaryk Archives, Prague. Stumpf, C. (1886/87), Vorlesungen über Psychologie, lecture notes, taken by E. Husserl (Q 11/1 – 2), Husserl Archives, Leuven.

II Elements of the Mind

Kevin Mulligan

The Origins of Emotivism, Expressivism and the Error Theory: Marty, Scheler, Russell, Ogden & Richards Abstract: The emotivisms, expressivisms, and non-cognitivisms which dominated twentieth century discussions of ethics and normativity are standardly traced back to the 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning by Ogden & Richards. I show how versions of these positions were formulated in 1913 by the realist phenomenologist, Max Scheler, in his account of what he calls ‘ethical nominalism’, an account which draws on Marty’s descriptions of the two linguistic functions of expressing mental states and guiding one’s interlocutor. I also examine the relation between Russell’s 1922 error theory and a view put forward earlier by Brentano, which is arguably a form of the error theory.

1 The Austro-German dimensions of early analytic philosophy¹ Histories of early analytic philosophy often locate the origin of some philosophical view which has been much discussed by analytic philosophers in the work of one or more early analytic philosophers. Thus the many philosophies of speech acts since Searle are often traced back to Austin’s How to do Things with Words. Verificationism about meaning and truth and verificationism as a demarcation criterion are often said to have their origins in the writings of Wittgenstein and members of the Vienna Circle. And the distinction between formal or topic-neutral expressions and concepts and non-formal expressions and concepts is often traced back to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In fact, Reinach’s detailed anatomy of what he, like Reid, called social acts, for example promising, declaring and ordering, was published in 1913. Verificationism about meaning and truth and verificationism as a demarcation criterion are formulated and defended in Husserl’s 1900 – 1901 Logical Investigations. ²

 Cf. Mulligan 2018.  Cf. Mulligan 2017a. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-007

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And in the same work, Husserl expounds an account of the difference between formal and material expressions and concepts.³ Emotivism is no exception. It is standardly traced back to the 1923 book by the two Cambridge thinkers, Ogden & Richards, The Meaning of Meaning. Indeed Stevenson, in his famous 1937 paper, explicitly refers to p. 125 of the book by Ogden & Richards as ‘the source of the ideas embodied in’ his paper.⁴ In 1927– 1928, the Cambridge philosopher Braithwaite points to something he thinks Moore’s discussion of goodness entirely overlooks: This is the fact that most of the sentences in which the word ‘good’ or similar ethical words occur are not the expression of propositions at all. Such sentences as the spontaneous ‘That is good’ before a picture or the irritated ‘You are a naughty child’ usually have no ‘meaning’ in the sense in which a sentence has a meaning when it expresses a proposition which the speaker wishes to convey to the hearer. A great number of the sentences in which the word ‘good’ occurs are merely noises made either to ‘purge’ an emotion in the speaker or to produce directly a definite action or emotion in the hearer. They do not represent propositions at all: their object is not symbolic, but emotive… Again, a sentence like ‘You are a naughty child’ has not the object of expressing a judgment, but has the sole object of making the child do something (or, more usually, stop doing something). Here also it may be possible to deduce from the giving of the command the fact that an ethical judgment is made, but the sentence is certainly not directly expressive of such a judgment. These uses of language Messrs. Ogden and Richards call ‘emotive’, and distinguish from the ‘symbolic’ or ‘scientific’ use in the direct expression of a judgment;… Most apparent ethical judgments, on my view, are not judgments at all, but expressions of emotions or volitions. It is only the residue that are really judgments of propositions.⁵

In 1929 Laird, referring to Ogden & Richards and Braithwaite, writes: According to the interjectional view, expressions which contain the words ‘value’, ‘good’ or the like are not at all what they seem. They appear to be referential (i. e. to indicate a property) but are in fact emotive. That is to say, they merely express our own emotions and are like interjections long drawn out—a very big Ha! or a most prolonged Ugh!⁶

In what follows, I want to show, first, how the early German realist phenomenologist, Max Scheler, formulated in 1913 the view later to be baptised as emotivism (§2). Some of the ideas at the heart of this account, I shall then argue, are just the claims at the heart of the philosophy of language of Marty, as expounded in his 1908 classic and earlier, and Martinak (§4). Marty never formulates any    

Cf. Mulligan 2013. Stevenson 1937: 23. Braithwaite 1927– 1928: 137– 138. Laird 1929: 307.

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emotivist doctrine and Scheler, although he formulates emotivism, does not endorse it but sets out various objections to it, which I shall ignore here. Both Marty and Scheler are naïve realists about value and cognitivists about normative claims. There are differences between their realisms but these will not concern us here.⁷ I also outline the relation between Russell’s 1922 version of the error theory and what has some claim to be called Brentano’s earlier error theory (§3).

2 Scheler’s 1913 formulation of emotivism In 1913 Scheler formulates a view which he typically calls ‘ethical nominalism’, although it might better be called normative nominalism or nominalism about the normative, of which what Scheler calls ‘value nominalism’⁸ is a special case, since it is a view about sentences, expressions, utterances or propositions dominated by evaluative or axiological concepts or expressions or by deontic concepts or expressions, both ethical and non-ethical. Scheler considers the following examples: This act is noble, common, base, criminal. A self, a willing is good, bad, noble, base, A law, an institution is un/just A room is dis/orderly

The view he calls ethical nominalism consists of the following six claims about these and similar examples One of their functions is to express or intimate emotions and desires Another is to steer, guide and influence an interlocutor or audience These are the only functions of the examples mentioned The examples do not represent axiological, deontic or ethical states of affairs

 Findlay refers to ‘Scheler’s…reaction to the emotive theory of value discourse which, though only launched in Anglo-Saxon countries in the thirties, is clearly set forth and pondered by Scheler in the second decade of the century, and given the name of ‘ethical nominalism’ (Findlay 1970: 60 – 61). Cf. Satris 1982: 120: “It appears that Marty’s account of a kind of linguistic sign which he calls ‘an emotive’ (ein Emotiv) is the ultimate source of Ogden and Richards’, and hence of Stevenson’s, concept of emotive meaning”. See also Satris 1987: 51– 72.  Scheler 1966: 506. Scheler argues here that both Kant and Nietzsche endorse value nominalism and subjectivism, transcendental subjectivism in Kant’s case and empirical subjectivism in Nietzsche’s case.

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The examples can neither be verified or falsified There are no axiological, deontic or ethical states of affairs, facts or properties.

According to ethical nominalism, ‘the words good, noble etc.’ are ‘only used as the expression of emotions, affects, interests, acts of desire’. They are ‘mere expressive reactions…of affective and conative processes’. At a ‘higher level’ they ‘become deliberate expressions of a certain readiness to act; …they are a means of guiding (leiten) our actions and those of our fellow-men’. Acts of praising and blaming are ‘the immediate expression of the fact that what is praised lies in the direction of what the one who praises is striving for or against’: Ethical nominalism does not say that a sentence of the type: ‘This man’s conduct is good’ is different only in words from the sentence ‘I find in myself, or there is in me, an emotion of satisfaction with regard to this deed’. It says rather that the first sentence expresses a certain emotion… If I cry out ‘Ouch,’ after experiencing pain, this ouch does not relate to this pain as does my saying ‘I feel pain’; rather, it simply gives expression to the pain… It is the immediate expressive consequence of this painful experience… Likewise, sentences such as ‘This is good,’ ‘This is bad,’…, according to this theory,… simply express certain acts of feeling and desiring. Every sentence which predicates (states, aussagt) a moral value or disvalue is always the expression of a desire or a feeling.⁹

Scheler then replaces the distinction mentioned between involuntary and voluntary expression by the distinction between uttering or expressing, which is involuntary or automatic, and manifesting, announcing or intimating, which is not: Involuntary utterances (Äußerungen) of desire and feeling, which constitute the most elementary sense of so-called value-judgments, are later replaced by voluntary ‘manifestation’ of such acts with the intention to evoke (hervorrufen) the same desire and feeling in others. This occurs in the various modes of wishing, ordering, advising, recommending, etc. ‘Manifestation’ (Kundgabe) differs from ‘communication’ (Mitteilen, informing) and from ‘mere giving expression’. In manifestation, in contrast to ‘expression’, there is a conscious willing of movement or speech and an intention directed to one’s fellow-men. But whereas communication is directed towards a definite man, ‘manifestation’ is directed towards the ‘social milieu’ and its possible objects—in general. Thus an edict or a resolution by an authority is not communicated but ‘announced’ (or ‘promulgated’).¹⁰

 Scheler 1966: 178 – 179. Scheler makes a similar point about deontic predications (Scheler 1966: 179).  Scheler 1966: 179.

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He then contrasts the functions of expressing, intimating and guiding an interlocutor with judging, according to the standard phenomenological view, which is that judgings represent states of affairs: All communication refers to contents of a judgment, i. e., to states of affairs. This is not the case when wishes and orders are announced. Nor do I here intend to make someone else understand, grasp, or comprehend a fact (Tatbestand) – for example, the fact that this or that wish and willing is in me. On the contrary, it is my intention to move his will, to determine his will and move it in a certain direction.¹¹

He also contrasts the linguistic functions of expressing, intimating and guiding with predications which mediate knowledge: The nominalistic theory… reduces the communication of value-judgments to…. the intimation of wishes and acts of the will… Furthermore, according to this theory value-predications do not mediate a type of moral cognition but only express wishes and orders in a hidden manner. According to this theory, they are not communicated cognitions of a fact, which require (fordern) recognition, but only hidden demands (Aufforderungen) to will in a certain direction. These demands differ from acts which immediately present themselves as orders only in that they are accompanied by consciousness that others or a certain will which functions with authority will approve or praise what has been required (Gebotene).¹²

The two linguistic functions which ethical nominalism attributes to uses of normative expressions, the expression or intimation of emotions and desires and the function of influencing the affective and conative states of others, together with the claim that uses of normative expressions only have these functions are also prominent in the earliest formulations in English of what was to be called emotivism and expressivism, in the passages from Braithwaite and Laird already quoted, but also in Ogden & Richards. Thus in 1923 Ogden & Richards say of the ‘peculiar ethical use of ‘good’’ that it is ‘a purely emotive use’. When so used it serves only as an emotive sign expressing our attitude to [what is referred to] and perhaps evoking similar attitudes in other persons, or inciting them to actions of one kind or another.¹³

And in 1933 – 1934 Broad attributes to Duncan Jones a theory which is ‘plausible enough to deserve very serious consideration’:

 Scheler 1966: 179.  Scheler 1966: 180.  Ogden & Richards 1972: 125, emphases mine – KM.

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a sentence, which is grammatically in the indicative mood, may really be in part interjectional or rhetorical or imperative. It may be in part the expression of an emotion which the speaker is feeling. In that case to utter the sentence: ‘That is good’ on a certain occasion might be equivalent to uttering a purely non-ethical sentence in the indicative, followed by a certain interjection. It might, e. g., be equivalent to saying: ‘That’s an act of self-sacrifice. Hurrah!’ Similarly, to utter the sentence: ‘That is bad’ on a certain occasion might be equivalent to saying: ‘That’s a deliberately misleading statement. Blast!’ Again, a sentence may be used partly to evoke a certain kind of emotion in the hearer… Here the use of the ethical words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is merely a stimulus to produce certain emotions in the hearer, as smiling at him or shouting at him might do. In this case the sentence might be called ‘rhetorical.’ Lastly, such sentences may be used to command or to forbid certain actions in the hearer. To utter the sentence: ‘That is good’ might be equivalent to uttering a purely nonethical indicative sentence followed by a sentence in the imperative.¹⁴

In 1934, Barnes singles out non-intentional expressions of emotion: Value judgments in their origin are not strictly judgments at all. They are exclamations expressive of approval. This is to be distinguished from the theory that the value judgment, ‘A is good’, states that I approve A. The theory that I am now putting forward maintains that ‘A is good,’ is a form of words expressive of my approval. To take an illustration:- When I say ‘I have a pain,’ that sentence states the occurrence of a certain feeling in me : when I shout ‘Oh !’ in a certain way that is expressive of the occurrence in me of a certain feeling. We must seek then for the origin of value judgments in the expressions of approval, delight, and affection, which children utter when confronted with certain experiences.¹⁵

In 1937 the first function of ethical language to which Stevenson refers is that of influencing others. The ‘major use’ of ‘ethical judgments’ is not to indicate facts, but to create an influence. Instead of merely describing people’s interests, they change or intensify them. They recommend an interest in an object, rather than state that the interest already exists.¹⁶

Ethical terms, he says, ‘are instruments used in the complicated interplay and readjustment of human interests’ and he describes very nicely the propagation of suggestion as follows: social influence is exerted, to an enormous extent, by means that have nothing to do with physical force or material reward. The ethical terms facilitate such influence. Being suited

 Broad 1933 – 1934: 250 – 251, emphases mine – KM.  Barnes 1934: 45, emphases mine – KM. Barnes says that his note is an extract of a paper read in 1933 about Hartmann’s Ethics (Barnes 1934: 45). Hartmann’s 1926 Ethik, which had appeared in English translation in 1932, was the first major development of Scheler’s 1913/1966 ethics.  Stevenson 1937: 18 – 19.

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for use in suggestion, they are a means by which men’s attitudes may be led this way or that. The reason, then, that we find a greater similarity in the moral attitudes of one community than in those of different communities is largely this: ethical judgments propagate themselves. One man says ‘This is good’; this may influence the approval of another person, who then makes the same ethical judgment, which in turn influences another person, and so on. In the end, by a process of mutual influence, people take up more or less the same attitudes. Between people of widely separated communities, of course, the influence is less strong; hence different communities have different attitudes.¹⁷

Stevenson does indeed mention the use of words to ‘give vent to our feelings (interjections)’ and points out that the ‘immediate expression of feelings assists in the process of suggestion’; but his fundamental distinction between descriptive and dynamic uses of words depends, he says, ‘solely upon the purpose of the speaker’.¹⁸ The relation between dynamic uses of words and meaning is given in Stevenson’s account of meaning: Instead of identifying meaning with all the psychological causes and effects that attend a word’s utterance, we must identify it with those that it has a tendency (causal property, dispositional property) to be connected with. The tendency must be of a particular kind, moreover. It must exist for all who speak the language; it must be persistent; and must be realizable more or less independently of determinate circumstances attending the word’s utterance. There will be further restrictions dealing with the interrelation of words in different contexts. Moreover, we must include, under the psychological responses which the words tend to produce, not only immediately introspectable experiences, but dispositions to react in a given way with appropriate stimuli… ‘[M]eaning’ may be thus defined in a way to include ‘propositional’ meaning as an important kind.¹⁹

Stevenson does not say here that the actualisation of the tendencies mentioned involves a speaker’s intentions or purposes but that is presumably part of the view. The ‘emotive meaning of a word’, he then argues, ‘in a sense roughly like that employed by Ogden and Richards’, is ‘a tendency of a word, arising through the history of its usage, to produce (result from) affective responses in people’.²⁰ Again, it is presumably part of the view that the relevant affective responses are intended by speakers. Ethical and normative nominalism, Scheler thinks, are committed to the claim that the functions of normative expressions are only to express and to guide interlocutors because they deny the existence of axiological and deontic

   

Stevenson Stevenson Stevenson Stevenson

1937: 1937: 1937: 1937:

23. 21, 24. 22. 23.

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facts and, in particular, of value-properties. A further consequence is that normative sentences and propositions cannot stand in the relations to facts and properties in which non-normative sentences and propositions stand. Another, that normative sentences and propositions cannot be verified or falsified. The ontological claim about value-facts and properties entails the epistemological and semantic claims. He first introduces the category of facts: Nothing looks more paradoxical at a superficial glance than the assertion that there are such things as moral ‘facts’. One is inclined to admit that there are astronomical, botanical, and chemical facts to which theories must ‘correspond’ in some way or another. But what can ‘moral facts’ be?²¹

He mentions a problem concerning the ‘essence of facts’. Is a fact a ‘mental construction’, an X which provides an answer to a previous ‘concept, question or hypothesis’ or are there ‘genuine and pure facts’? Even if we put this question on one side, he says, the puzzle about moral facts remains.²² Neither external perception nor internal perception provide any evidence of moral facts. Nor is the faculty which puts us in touch with ideal objects such as numbers of any help. ‘If I thus pass in review the entire world, it seems that I find no ‘moral facts’‘.²³ According to ethical nominalism, Scheler says, this impression is correct. There are no ethical facts because there are no ethical properties: The names employed for moral values, ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘noble’, in sentences which specify these as properties of particular acts of will, actions, persons,… [are such that] no particular fact (Tatbestand) corresponds to them.²⁴

The thesis of nominalism, he says rather obscurely, is that ‘values are mere signs which refer to a domain of value-indifferent facts’.²⁵ On one view of facts, these are just true propositions. But Scheler, like other phenomenologists, thinks that true propositions and facts are not to be identified. The former but not the latter consist of concepts or meanings. ‘There are original moral facts which are quite different from the sphere of meanings of moral concepts.’²⁶ This way of understanding propositions together with the de-

 Scheler 1966: 173, cf. Scheler 1973: 163.  Scheler 1966: 173. Elsewhere Scheler argues in favour of pure facts.  Scheler 1966: 174.  Scheler 1966: 180.  Scheler 1966: 184.  Scheler 1966: 175. Scheler argues that ethical nominalism and Plato’s account of the good share an assumption that is often overlooked; in each case, value is found only in the sphere

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nial that there are value-properties and so any value-facts provide one route to what has been called the error theory: positive normative propositions are true or false and they are all false because there are no value-properties. It is because ethical nominalism denies that there are value-properties, Scheler thinks, that it must deny the possibility of judging that values are exemplified and the existence of semantic relations between value-propositions and value. The ethical nominalist denies that ethical words are used ‘in an intentional function’ and asserts that they are ‘only used as the expression of emotions, affects, interests and desires’.²⁷ Broad crisply formulates the semantic claim (due to Jones): On this view, words like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ do not mean anything in the sense in which words like ‘white’ and ‘square’ do. There are no characteristics of which they are Names.²⁸

3 Error theories & logical form—Brentano & Russell The view that there are no moral values, Scheler asserts, was defended most radically by Hobbes. But, he adds, it also lies behind many formulations of Nietzsche, for example: ‘There are no moral phenomena, only interpretations (Ausdeutungen) thereof’.²⁹ Some of Scheler’s early readers employed the term ‘value-nihilism’ (Wertnihilismus) for such views. In the home of emotivism, the most striking and perhaps most influential early formulations of value-nihilism are due to Russell and Wittgenstein.

of meanings, although the accounts given of meaning differ (Scheler 1966: 175 – 177). On Scheler’s view that values and value-properties are qualities, a view later defended by Koffka and Köhler, cf. Mulligan 2017a.  Scheler 1966: XX.  Broad 1933 – 1934: 251. An immediate precursor of Scheler’s formulation of ethical nominalism is due to the Uppsala philosopher of law, Axel Hägerström, who, in an influential 1911 talk, ‘Om moraliska föreställningars sanning’ (On the truth of moral ideas), argued that ‘a moral idea, as such, cannot be called either true or false’ and sometimes seems to equate moral ideas with moral evaluations. Moral ideas, he also argues, cannot come about ‘without regard for our subjective attitude towards something, our feelings or interests with respect to it’. We have the mistaken impression that there is a ‘normative reality’. A reconstruction of Hägerström’s talk by Thomas Mautner is to be found in Hägerström 1987: 27– 50. My summary of it and quotations from it are taken from Lang 1981: 24– 42; cf. also Mautner’s English summary in Hägerström 1987: 227– 233.  Scheler 1966: 177, [?]. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, IV. Ogden & Richards (1972: 153) quote Nietzsche’s dictum: “Words relating to values are merely banners planted on those spots where a new blessedness was discovered – a new feeling” (The Will to Power).

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‘In [the world] there is no value’ says Wittgenstein in 1921 (TLP 6.41).³⁰ From which it presumably follows that there are no meaningful contingent predications of value. And since all being-so is contingent (TLP 6.41) there are no necessary connections amongst values and no meaningful non-contingent predications of value either. In 1916 Wittgenstein says that ‘what happens… is neither good nor bad’ (Notebooks 12.10.16).³¹ Earlier in the same year, Russell took part in a controversy about pacifism with the Cambridge poet, critic and essayist, T. E. Hulme, who had listened to some of the lectures given by Russell to be published in the same year as Principles of Social Reconstruction. Hulme thought he detected the abandonment by Russell of his earlier ethical objectivism. In a letter to The Cambridge Magazine of March 11 1916, Russell agreed: I do certainly mean to maintain that all Ethics is subjective, and that ethical agreement can only arise through similarity of desires and impulses. It is true that I did not hold this view formerly, but I have been led to it by a number of reasons, some logical, some derived from observation… Observation of ethical valuations lead me to think… that the claim of universality which men associate with their ethical judgments embodies merely the impulse to persecution or tyranny.³²

But it is in his remarkable, short 1922 talk ‘Is there an absolute good?’ that Russell moves beyond the tired platitudes of axiological objectivism vs subjectivism. Russell there argues, against Moore, that in predicative uses of ‘good’, such as ‘pleasure is good’, the word ‘good’ ‘does not stand for a predicate at all’ but does have a meaning. Moore’s position, in essence, is this: When we judge (say) ‘pleasure is good’, the word ‘good’ has a meaning, and what it means is a certain simple and unanalysable predicate.

 On Scheler’s view that in the world there are non-moral values but no moral value, cf. Mulligan 2012.  In 1914 however Wittgenstein writes to Russell that the latter’s ‘value-judgments are as well and deeply grounded’ in Russell as are his own value-judgments in himself (Wittgenstein 1980: 50).  Russell 1999b: 117. For details of the Auseinandersetzung between Hulme and Russell, cf. Csengeri 1994. Hulme, at the time of his disagreement with Russell, had become an enthusiastic fan of the value-objectivisms of Scheler and Meinong. He was appalled not only by Russell’s subjectivism but also by what he took to be Russell’s romantic Rousseauism, a strand in Russell often attributed to the influence of D. H. Lawrence. It is nevertheless the case that Russell’s Principles of Social Reconstruction defends a number of claims which Scheler had also defended, as Scheler, in spite of his own trenchant opposition to all forms of romantic Rousseauism, in particular the version of it espoused by Lawrence’s continental counterpart, Ludwig Klages, and value-subjectivism, enthusiastically notes. Russell, the value-subjectivist and then ‘error-theorist’, was to say of Hulme that, although able, he was nasty and evil (cf. Csengeri 1994).

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I wish to leave out of account the question whether the predicate ‘good’ is simple, which is of minor importance; my point is that the word ‘good’ does not stand for a predicate at all, but has a meaning only in the sense in which descriptive phrases have meaning, i. e. in use, not in isolation; further that, when we define it as nearly as possible in accordance with the usage of absolutists, all propositions in which the word ‘good’ has a primary occurrence are false.³³

Like other Cambridge philosophers such as Ramsey, Russell here seems to follow the now unfamiliar tradition of using the expression ‘predicate’ as synonymous with ‘property’. A predicate is not a linguistic predicate. In his diagnosis of Moore’s mistake, he says that Moore was wrong to think that ‘good’ has any meaning, although his view is presumably, as in the passage above, that it has no denotative meaning, does not mean, in the impersonal sense of the verb, anything: There seems to me no doubt that our ethical judgments claim objectivity; but this claim, to my mind, makes them all false. Without the theory of incomplete symbols, it seemed natural to infer, as Moore did, that, since propositions in which the word ‘good’ occurs have meaning, therefore the word ‘good’ has meaning; but this was a fallacy. And it is upon this fallacy, I think, that the most apparently cogent of Moore’s arguments rest.³⁴

Russell distinguishes sharply between the genesis of ‘the notion of ‘good’’ and its meaning. His genetic claim is that we have ‘emotions of approval and disapproval’ towards things but ‘mistake the similarity of our emotions in the presence of’ objects ‘for perception of a common predicate of’ these objects, to which we ‘give the name ‘good’’. He then makes an important claim about the limits of his genetic story: ‘the emotions of approval and disapproval do not enter into the meaning of the proposition ‘M is good’, but only into its genesis’³⁵. Russell’s error theory had been anticipated by Brentano. For one of the core claims of Brentano’s mature view of value is that good and bad are not determinations or properties of things, a view Brentano rejects long before he rejected properties. In a late formulation, he distinguishes between material (sachlich) (linguistic) predicates (intrinsic denominations) such as ‘red’, ‘warm’ and ‘thinking’ and non-material predicates such as ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘existing’ and ‘non-existing’ (non-intrinsic denominations). The former but not the latter correspond to determinations or attributes (Bestimmungen):  Russell 1999c.  Ibid.  Ibid. As we have seen, Barnes’ 1934 note on value-talk also deals with its genesis. Russell’s view that there are emotions of approval and disapproval was to be shared by many later philosophers, in particular by emotivists. It is rejected by Scheler (1966: 149).

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If we call (nennen) an object good,… we do not thereby want to add a further determination (Bestimmung) to the determinations of the thing in question… If we call certain objects good, and others bad, we say no more than that whoever loves this, hates that, is correct to do so (verhalte sich richtig).³⁶

Much earlier, in one of the notes added to his 1889 The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, which is to be found in the 1902 English translation of his masterpiece, Brentano rejects as ‘incorrect’ the view he attributes to Aristotle, that good and bad are ‘in things’.³⁷ Brentano seems, then, to be committed to the claim that there is no such thing as the property or determination of being good and that one who thinks he is ascribing such a property to something is in error and is in error because there is no such property. To this extent, he anticipates the error theory. There is, he thinks, no value in the world. On the other hand, he thinks that value-claims do have truth values provided their structure is properly understood and that some of them are true. Russell in 1922, on the other hand, thinks that positive, predicative, ethical and other axiological claims, once their logical form is properly understood, are all false. Unlike Brentano, Russell does not argue directly that there are no ethical properties. Rather, he claims that since ‘the facts’—by which I think he means facts about the use of ‘good’ and ‘bad’—‘can be accounted for without the predicates ‘good’ and ‘bad’’– by which I think he means the properties of good and bad—‘Occam’s razor demands that we should abstain from assuming them’.³⁸ Russell’s 1922 account of ethical propositions employs the categories and distinctions he had deployed in his 1905 account of definite descriptions (‘primary occurrence’, ‘meaning…in use’ vs ‘meaning…in isolation’). And Russell points out the similarity between his earlier account of ‘descriptive phrases’ as having meaning ‘in use, not in isolation’ and his 1922 account of ethical and other axiological predicative expressions:

 Brentano 1978: 144, emphasis mine – KM. It is not clear what Brentano takes to be the relation in this passage between ‘what we say’ and what we want to do in calling something something. Cf. Mulligan 2017b. But Brentano certainly thought that many of his students, for example, Marty, were in error in thinking that they could predicate value of objects.  Brentano 1902: 83, emphasis mine – KM. Cf. Brentano 1934: 78. In his review of Brentano 1902, Moore (1903) argues that goodness and correct loveability must differ, just as Scheler will in 1913.  Russell 1999c.

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all ethical propositions are false. Their falsehood is of the same kind as the falsehood of the proposition: ‘the present King of France is bald’; except that what is described in an ethical proposition is the predicate, not the subject.³⁹

The distinction between expressions which have a meaning in use and expressions which have a meaning in isolation, like the corresponding distinction between meanings (in the sense of senses), is the old distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic expressions, revived to great effect by Brentano and Marty (‘autosemantic’ vs ‘synsemantic’ expressions) and, in a different form, by Husserl. Oscar Kraus, Brentano’s faithful pupil, in a 1930 review of Russell’s 1921 The Analysis of Mind expresses great irritation that Wittgenstein and Russell do not acknowledge the earlier uses of the distinction between the two types of expression by Brentano and Marty in their contributions to Austrian Sprachkritik and, in particular, (what he takes to be) Marty’s endorsement of the context principle in 1875 and later.⁴⁰ He quotes from a passage in Russell’s 1914 Our Knowledge of the External World, in which ‘the restless English thinker’ says that if numbers are not actual entities, then propositions in which numbers verbally occur have not really any constituents corresponding to numbers, but only a certain logical form which is not a part of propositions having this form. This is in fact the case with all the apparent objects of logic and mathematics. Such words as or, not, if, there is, identity, greater, plus, nothing, everything, function, and so on, are not names of definite objects, like ‘John’ or ‘Jones,’ but are words which require a context in order to have meaning. All of them are formal, that is to say, their occurrence indicates a certain form of proposition, not a certain constituent. ‘Logical constants,’ in short, are not entities; the words expressing them are not names, and cannot significantly be made into logical subjects except when it is the words themselves, as opposed to their meanings, that are being discussed. This fact has a very important bearing on all logic and philosophy, since it shows how they differ from the special sciences.⁴¹

Kraus is particularly irritated by Russell’s footnote to this passage: ‘In the above remarks I am making use of unpublished work by my friend Ludwig Wittgenstein’.⁴² It is true that Marty often says of expressions like those mentioned by

 Ibid.  Kraus 1934: 37– 61. Cf. “Autosemantic expressions are in fact never used by themselves…. they are only theoretical not practical autosemantic expressions… When we ‘speak’ to one another we never utter mere names, but always either genuine statements (Aussagen) and emotives or – like the poet – pretend statements and emotives” (Marty 1908: 476 – 477, cf. 490).  Russell 1914: 226.  Ibid.

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Russell, such as ‘there is’ and ‘if’, that they are syncategorematic. Thus in 1894, he says: ‘There is’ does not mean anything by itself; it is merely co-meaningful (mitbedeutend) or syncategorematic. This holds… also of the particles (above, under, if, etc.)…⁴³

But Kraus fails to see that what distinguishes the Brentano-Marty account of syncategorematicity from the Russell-Wittgenstein account is the use made by the latter couple of the notion of logical form, the distinction between logical or formal expressions and non-formal expressions (and, relatedly, of the distinction between formal and non-formal concepts). Kraus, always reluctant to credit Husserl with any good ideas, also fails to note that the first of Brentano’s heirs to provide an account of logical form and of those syncategorematic expressions which are formal is Husserl, in his 1900 – 1901 Logical Investigations and earlier. Husserl’s innovations here are due to the influence on him of both Brentano and Bolzano.⁴⁴

4 Linguistic functions & emotive meaning—Marty, Ogden & Richards etc. Scheler’s 1913 distinction between the linguistic function of expressing or intimating emotions and desires and the linguistic function of steering the doxastic and affective states of an interlocutor is a reprise of the distinction drawn by two other heirs of Brentano, who were philosophers of language, Anton Marty and Eduard Martinak, a member of Meinong’s Graz school. Marty’s mature account of the two functions is to be found in his 1908 Untersuchungen but also in many earlier publications, Martinak’s in his 1901 Psychologische Untersuchungen zur Bedeutungslehre (Psychological Investigations of the Theory of Meaning). As we shall see, the description of the two functions given by Ogden & Richards, and so too, the later descriptions of Braithwaite, Laird and others already quoted, are simplified versions of Marty’s account. Although Ogden & Richards refer to both Martinak and Marty and indeed employ a piece of terminology due to Marty, the philosophies of expression and guidance of Brentano’s heirs are

 Marty 1918: 137. For Brentano’s mature (1911) account and use of the distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic expressions, cf. Brentano 1971: 214 sq., 228 sq.  On Husserl and Wittgenstein on logical form and the formal vs non-formal distinction, cf. Mulligan 2013, 2012, ch. 3. On Husserl on definite descriptions such as ‘the present Emperor of France’, cf. Mulligan 2018.

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much subtler than the later Cambridge accounts, in part because they anticipate the type of theory of meaning to be developed about 40 years after Marty’s Untersuchungen by Grice. The core claim of Marty’s philosophy of meaning is that a speaker intends to express (kundgeben) his mental states, intends to modify the mental states of his interlocutor and intends to modify the mental state of his interlocutor by expressing his own mental state. She uses three types of indicators to realise her intentions: judgement suggestives, presentation suggestives and ‘emotives’: [T]he announcement (Kundgabe) of one’s psychic life is not the only, nor the primary thing which is intended in deliberate speaking. That which is primarily intended is much rather a certain influencing or controlling of the psychic life of the interlocutor. Deliberate speaking is a special kind of acting, whose proper goal is to call forth certain psychic phenomena in other people. In relation to this intention, the announcement of processes within oneself appears merely as a means.⁴⁵ [W]ords that are intended to influence the emotions and desires of an interlocutor (and this will normally be the case where we have what is called a word of blame or of comfort) by the intimation of one’s own affective state (Gemütsleben) are not statements (Aussage) but emotives.⁴⁶

The notion of a linguistic function is introduced via the notion of a speaker’s intentions: it is more proper to speak of the ‘function’ of a sign when the sign is intentional; if we speak of the ‘function’ of a non-intentional sign, then this is a more improper way of speaking.⁴⁷

And the function of emotives is introduced as follows: A linguistic tool (Sprachmittel) has the function or meaning of an emotive if, in the circle of those who understand the relevant language, it has as a rule the role (bestimmt) and is within certain limits capable of evoking an emotion.⁴⁸

As we have seen, Scheler reserves the term ‘express’ for the non-intentional publication of one’s inner life and ‘intimate’ (kundgeben) for its intentional counterpart. Marty often simply distinguishes between intentional and non-intentional intimation, as in the case of a ‘non-intentional cry.’⁴⁹ Like Scheler and Wittgen    

Marty Marty Marty Marty Marty

1908: 284. 1908: 364. 1908: 284. 1908: 363. 1908: 284.

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stein, he knows that the relation of expression or intimation is no semantic relation: Just as the cry does not name or state the pain, so too, my utterance ‘It is raining’ does not name or state the fact that I so judge.⁵⁰

The most influential distinction in The Meaning of Meaning is perhaps that between symbolic and non-symbolic functions of words. Many words, assert Ogden & Richards, ‘have been erroneously regarded without question as symbolic in function’; their example is ‘good’, or rather one use of ‘good’, for they distinguish between what have been called attributive uses of the expression (‘a good baby’) and predicative uses. Their example of the latter is the use of ‘good’ in ethics, in particular by Moore, ‘to stand for a unique, unanalysable concept’, just the target of Russell’s 1922 talk: This peculiar ethical use of ‘good’ is, we suggest, a purely emotive use. When so used the word stands for nothing whatever, and has no symbolic function. Thus, when we so use it in the sentence, ‘This is good,’ we merely refer to this, and the addition of ‘is good’ makes no difference whatever to our reference. When on the other hand, we say ‘This is red,’ the addition of ‘is red’ to ‘this’ does symbolize an extension of our reference, namely, to some other red thing. But ‘is good’ has no comparable symbolic function…⁵¹

What, then, are the non-symbolic functions of ‘is good’ here? They are the functions distinguished by Marty and Scheler: ‘it serves only as an emotive sign expressing our attitude to this, and perhaps evoking similar attitudes in other persons, or inciting them to actions of one kind or another’⁵². Ogden & Richards also distinguish ‘the symbolic use of words and the emotive use’ of words by distinguishing, like Marty, between expressions which function as statements and those which do not: The symbolic use of words is statement; the recording, the support, the organization and the communication of references. The emotive use of words is a more simple matter, it is the use of words to express or excite feelings and attitudes. It is probably more primitive. If we say ‘The height of the Eiffel Tower is 900 feet’ we are making a statement, we are using symbols in order to record or communicate a reference, and our symbol is true or false in a strict sense and is theoretically verifiable. But if we say ‘Hurrah!’ or ‘Poetry is

 Marty 1908: 285  Ogden & Richards 1972: 125.  Ogden & Richards 1972: 125.

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a spirit’ or ‘Man is a worm,’ we may not be making statements, not even false statements; we are most probably using words merely to evoke certain attitudes.⁵³

They therefore seem to accept that the error theory does not hold of all predications of value. But they also assert that so ‘far as words are used emotively no question as to their truth in the strict sense can directly arise’⁵⁴. They also accept the claim, which Marty had made, that just as emotives have the function of bringing about affective and conative changes in an interlocutor, so too, statements in their role as indicators have the function of bringing about doxastic and intellectual changes in an interlocutor: Each of these contrasted functions has, it will be seen, two sides, that of the speaker and that of the listener. Under the symbolic function are included both the symbolization of reference and its communication to the listener, i. e., the causing in the listener of a similar reference. Under the emotive function are included both the expression of emotions, attitudes, moods, intentions, etc., in the speaker, and their communication, i. e., their evocation in the listener.⁵⁵

Ogden & Richards correctly note in 1923: This disparity of function between words as supports or vehicles of reference and words as expressions or stimulants of attitudes has, in recent years, begun to receive some attention, for the most part from a purely grammatical standpoint.⁵⁶

But the authors they credit with attention to this disparity do not include Marty and Martinak.

5 Conclusion The philosophies of language of Martinak and Marty introduce many of the distinctions, claims and arguments which were to occupy analytic philosophy of language throughout the twentieth century. This is true of Martinak’s distinction between (what is now called) natural and non-natural meaning and of their ac-

   

Ogden Ogden Ogden Ogden

& & & &

Richards Richards Richards Richards

1972: 149. 1972: 150. 1972: 149. 1972: 151.

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count of meaning in terms of speaker’s intentions.⁵⁷ It is also true of their identification of the meaning, in one sense of the word, of statements and emotives with linguistic norms and of their descriptions of the variety of ways in which words are used. The analyses at the heart of their ‘empirico-teleological’ account of language were taken up and developed by their two most important successors, Karl Bühler and Erik Ahlman. In a series of publications, beginning with his 1909 review of Marty’s Untersuchungen and culminating in his 1934 Sprachtheorie, Bühler refined in a variety of ways Marty’s account of linguistic functions, conceptually and terminologically. Bühler distinguishes the functions of expressing or intimating mental states, of guiding an interlocutor and of representing—darstellen, the term which was also to be employed by Wittgenstein— states of affairs. The types of sign peculiar to each function he calls indicators, signals and symbols—the term employed, as we have seen, by Ogden & Richards.⁵⁸ In his account of the uses of words and the contexts, linguistic and non-linguistic, to which they belong, he provides a taxonomy which distinguishes and describes all the different language-games with which Wittgenstein opens his Investigations. The accounts given by Martinak and Marty of the relation between meanings, in one sense of the word, and rules were first taken up by Erik Ahlman in his 1926 Das Normative Moment im Bedeutungsbegriff (The normative moment in the concept of meaning). His remarkable philosophy of rules sets out many of the distinctions and puzzles to which Wittgenstein was to turn his attention a few years later.⁵⁹ What is true of the philosophy of language holds also of the philosophy of value. Brentano and his heirs set out many of the options which were to dominate twentieth century philosophies of the normative. These range from the naturalistic and dispositionalist accounts of value of Ehrenfels and early Meinong to the proto-buck-passing or fitting-attitude theory and (in the sense explained) error theory of Brentano and the naïve realisms of early Brentano, Marty, Husserl and Meinong and the even more florid realisms of Scheler and Hartmann.⁶⁰ But in the Austro-German, Brentanian tradition the philosophy of language and the philosophy of value intersect in important ways only twice: in Scheler’s

 At the Marty conference in Einsiedeln I sketched some of the relations between Marty’s intentionalism, its reception by Gardiner and then by Ogden & Richards, and its relation to Grice’s intentionalism. My remarks and references have been written up, developed and carefully evaluated by Guy Longworth in his contribution to this volume.  Cf. Bühler 1918: 230.  On the philosophies of language of Marty, Bühler, Ahlman and Wittgenstein, cf. Mulligan 2012, Mulligan 1997. Landgrebe 1935 is a notable development of some of Marty’s views.  Cf. Mulligan 2017c, Cesalli and Mulligan 2017.

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1913 portrait of normative, axiological and ethical nominalism and in Brentano’s error theory.

References Ahlman, E. (1926) Das Normative Moment im Bedeutungsbegriff, Helsingfors, Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia. Barnes, W. H. F. (1934), ‘A Suggestion about Value’ Analysis 1(3), p. 45 – 46. Braithwaite, R. B. (1927 – 1928), ‘Verbal Ambiguity and Philosophical Analysis’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 28, p. 135 – 154. Brentano, F. (1902), The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong (English tr. of Brentano 1934, first published in 1889), Westminster, Constable. Brentano, F. (1934), Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, edited by O. Kraus, Leipzig, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1978), Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik, edited by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1971), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, vol. II, edited by O. Kraus, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Broad, C. D. (1933 – 1934), ‘Is “Goodness” the Name of a Simple, Non-natural Quality?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 34, p. 249 – 268. Bühler, K. (1909), ‘(Rezension von) Anton Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. Niemeyer: Halle 1908’, Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen 12, p. 947 – 979. Bühler, K. (1918), Die geistige Entwicklung des Kindes, Jena, Fischer Bühler, K. (1982) [1934], Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache, Jena, Fischer. Cesalli, L. and Mulligan, K. (2017), ‘Brentano and Marty: Correctness, Value, States of Affairs & Language’, Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, edited by U. Kriegel, London, Routledge, p. 251 – 263. Csengeri, K. (1994), The Collected Writings of T. E. Hulme, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Findlay, J. N. (1970), Axiological Ethics, London, Macmillan. Hägerström, A. (1987), Moralfilosofins grundläggning, edited by T. Mautner, Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell International. Kraus, O. (1934) [1930], ‘Bertrand Russells “Analyse des Geistes”’, in Kraus, O., Wege und Abwege der Philosophie. Vorträge und Abhandlungen, Prague, I. G. Calve, p. 37 – 61. Laird, J. (1929), The Idea of Value, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Landgrebe, L. (1935), Nennfunktion und Wortbedeutung. Eine Studie über Martys Sprachphilosophie, Halle, Akademischer Verlag. Lang, D. (1981), Wertung und Erkenntnis Untersuchungen zu Axel Hägerströms Moraltheorie, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Martinak, E. (1901), Psychologische Untersuchungen zur Bedeutungslehre, Leipzig, Barth. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, Vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1918), Schriften zur deskriptiven Psychologie und Sprachphilosophie, Gesammelte Schriften, II.I, Halle, Max Niemeyer.

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Moore, G. E. (1903), [Review of Brentano 1902], International Journal of Ethics 14, p. 115 – 123 (reprint [1976], in The Philosophy of Brentano, edited by L. L. McAlister, London, Duckworth, p. 176 – 181). Mulligan, K. (1997), ‘The Essence of Language: Wittgenstein’s Builders and Bühler’s Bricks’, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 2, p. 193 – 216. Mulligan, K. (2012), Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande, Paris, Vrin. Mulligan, K. (2013), ‘Formal Concepts’, in Studies in the History and Philosophy of Polish Logic. Essays in Honour of Jan Woleński, edited by K. Mulligan, K. Kijania-Placek and T. Placek, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 205 – 223. Mulligan, K. (2017a), ‘Brentano’s Knowledge, Austrian Verificationisms, and Epistemic Accounts of Truth and Value’, Monist 100(1), special number on Brentano, guest editor U. Kriegel, p. 88 – 105. Mulligan, K. (2017b), ‘Incorrect Emotions in Ancient, Austrian & Contemporary Philosophy’, Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, special number on Brentano, edited by G. Fréchette, forthcoming. Mulligan, K. (2018), ‘Early Analytic Philosophy’s Austrian Dimensions’, edited by A. Coliva and P. Leonardi, forthcoming. Ogden, C. K. and Richards, I. A. (1972) [1923], The Meaning of Meaning, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Russell, B. (1914), Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy, Chicago, Open Court Publishing. Russell, B. (1999a), Bertrand Russell on Ethics. Selections from the writings of Bertrand Russell, edited by Ch. R. Pigden, London, Routledge. Russell, B. (1999b), ‘North Staffs’ Praise of War’, in Russell 1999a, p. 116 – 118. Russell, B. (1999c), ‘Is There an Absolute Good?’, in Russell 1999b, p. 122 – 124. Satris, S. A. (1982), ‘The Theory of Value and the Rise of Ethical Emotivism’, Journal of the History of Ideas 43(1), p. 109 – 128. Satris, S. A. (1987), Ethical Emotivism, Dordrecht, Martinus Nijhoff. Scheler, M. (1966) [1913 – 1916], Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus, Gesammelte Werke II, Bern, Francke. Scheler, M. (1973), Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, English tr. of Scheler 1966, by M. Frings and R. L. Funk, Evanston, Northwestern University Press. Stevenson, C. (1937), ‘The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms’, Mind 46, p. 14 – 31. Wittgenstein, L. (1980), Briefe, edited by B. McGuinness and G. H. von Wright, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp.

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Marty on Abstraction Abstract: The varieties of accounts of abstraction in the school of Brentano seem to be a function of the different views adopted on ontology, by Brentano himself but also by his students. The line going from conceptualism to empiricism, realism, and later to reism in Brentano’s works is therefore a good guide to understand the evolution of the accounts of abstraction in the school of Brentano. Independently of the views adopted in ontology however, and in contrast with Husserl for instance, it seems that Brentano remained constant in his rejection of the view that abstracting and intuiting should be considered as two distinct modes of consciousness. Husserl addressed an important objection to Brentano’s empiricist account of abstraction in the second Logical Investigation. Brentano never answered to this objection directly. But Marty did. In the following paper, and in order to appreciate Marty’s reply, I offer a reconstruction of Brentano’s and Marty’s early conceptions of abstraction, which serves as the basis for an exposition of Marty’s late account of higher abstraction. I argue that this late account, partly based on Brentano but also developing ideas to which Brentano was opposed, offers a fruitful alternative to Husserl’s view on abstraction in the Logical Investigations.

1 Abstraction and the essence of thought Do we present ordinary and singular objects like chairs in the same way as we present the same shade of brown in two different chairs? Is there, between my presentation of the sound and my imagination of the sound, a simple (graduated) difference, as Hume would have it? If there is more than a graduated difference of vivacity, does the same hold for the distinction between my presentation of this triangle and of triangles in general? And, if there is more than a graduated difference of vivacity, is this distinction based on an ontological distinction between concrete (or real) and abstract (or ideal) objects, or on two modalities of presenting? Such questions were intensively debated in the School of Brentano. Besides the wholesale rejection of nominalist accounts of abstraction, which is common to all Brentanians, the scope of positions defended by them seems too large and too diversified for us to identify a clear and definite position regarding the nature of abstraction and abstract objects. Brentano himself often changed his mind concerning abstraction, alongside the evolution of his views on ontology, movhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-008

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ing from conceptualism to empiricism, realism, and later to reism. Husserl first accepted the empiricist account defended by many Brentanians in the 1880s in his conception of arithmetic, but rejected it a few years later. His Logical Investigations, especially the 2nd Investigation, give a detailed account of the motives for this rejection. In a nutshell, the core motivation is based on the idea that empiricism is ‘blind to the nature of thought’, as Smith puts it.¹ If empiricism were true, says Husserl, [w]e should […] fail to set up a single proposition: we should have only representative individual ideas, but no thinking. Does anyone think that a conglomeration of such individual items can give rise to a predication? (Husserl 1901: 185; Husserl 2001: 286)

Husserl’s point against empiricism is that predication, as a function aiming at generality, is the essence of thought. This conception of thought quite directly opposes Brentano’s conception, at least as it is formulated in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint: That predication is not the essence of every judgment emerges quite clearly from the fact that all perceptions are judgments, whether they are instances of knowledge or just mistaken affirmations. (Brentano 1874: 232; 1995: 218)

Does the rejection of predication as a fundamental feature of judgments (and by extension of thought) confine Brentano’s position to a view similar to Berkeley’s, where abstraction takes place when concrete presentations with their intuitive contents simply become general through their substitutional function, ‘standing for all other particular ideas of the same sort’?² Although he doesn’t mention Brentano at this point in his critique of empiricist accounts, Husserl seems to target Brentano—at least indirectly.³ Brentano didn’t reply to this objection directly, at least not in his published writings. Marty however discusses this objection at length in numerous publications and in his correspondence with Husserl. While he remained true to most of Brentano’s insights on the nature of abstraction, Marty developed an original reply to Husserl’s objection. In order to appreciate Marty’s reply, I will first offer a reconstruction of Brentano’s early conceptions of abstraction, insofar as they correspond to Marty’s conceptions. I will then show how Marty later supplements these conceptions and develops his own account  See Smith 2008: 101.  See Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, in Berkeley 1734/1878: 79.  For the relevant passages, see Husserl 2001: 283 sq. His letter to Husserl of the 7th June, 1901, shows that Marty recognized that he and Brentano, among others, were the target of this attack. See Husserl 1994: 71 sq.

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of abstraction, and show how this account is able to fruitfully address Husserl’s objection.

2 Brentano’s early account of abstraction (1867 – 1875) Brentano is often said to be an empiricist, at least to the extent that in his view philosophy should take experience as its starting point. As a mental operation, abstraction is considered from this perspective to be a way of perceiving objects and of operating on these perceptions. Perceiving the red table in front of me as falling under the general concept of a table in this context implies an operation realised on the presentation itself. The result of this operation, the abstract concept, is just one kind of presentation content among others; it doesn’t have any distinctive ontological status. At least in its main lines, this is the account of abstraction at play in Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874).⁴ This account, advocated by Brentano, and —for some time— by one of his students, Anton Marty, is called a ‘monist’ account.⁵ ‘Monism’ is not used here in the metaphysical sense, but in the more specific sense according to which intuition and abstraction form a single and unitary mental category. Following this view, sensations and concepts are not two distinct modalities in one’s mental life but belong to a single faculty. As is commonly known, Brentano held the view that judicative and emotional mental acts are based on more primitive (and basic) mental acts: presentations. These presentations include various acts, ranging from sensations to imagination, memory, and abstract or conceptual presentations. When I judge that the Eiffel Tower exists, my judgment is based on a presentation of the Eiffel Tower. This presentation is a complex presentation, composed of different sensory parts (e. g. partial presentations of colours) and of spatial properties that form the physical phenomenon in which the Eiffel Tower is given to me. Therefore, for an ordinary object such as the Eiffel Tower to become the proper content of an act of presentation, different acts of sensation are necessarily involved. Now, if I want to isolate the specific content of some of these acts of sensation, this is where abstraction comes into play: the full intuitive content of my presentation of the Eiffel Tower is impoverished by the abstraction, which leaves behind, to speak metaphorically, an underdetermined content with empty place holders: instead of intuitively presenting the Eiffel Tower, I focus, e. g., on its

 See for instance his discussion of the abstract concept of existence in Brentano 1874: 277 sq.  See for instance Marty 2011.

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grey-brown colour tone and shape, leaving aside all other elements. This operation of focusing (sometimes called ‘attention’ (Aufmerksamkeit) is what abstraction performs on intuitive contents. In his early years, Brentano developed a so-called ‘monistic’ account of abstraction, involving both a psychological and an ontological version of the account. According to the psychological account, abstraction is a psychological function belonging to the class of presentations; according to the ontological account, the product of abstraction is not a real category in Brentano’s ontology. On his early account, abstract objects are mere fictions. Brentano doesn’t say much about the psychological version of the monistic account, i. e. about the kind of psychological processes involved in an abstract presentation. Stumpf (1873), which was written in close collaboration with Brentano,⁶ gives a few insights into the psychological version of Brentano’s early account. Following Brentano’s nativistic conception of space perception, Stumpf defends the idea that sensory contents are generally presented ‘together’ (zusammenvorgestellt). According to this view, we cannot for instance present colour independently of some extension. We might, however, present colour ‘in abstraction’ of extension or space, but this abstract presenting is not a proper presenting. Following Stumpf and Brentano, spatial and colour elements of sensory contents are fused in presentations: ‘there is a visual space, i. e. a particular sensory content which is sensed directly, in the same way as colour qualities and as a consequence of optical nervous processing, and which possesses all the characteristics we attribute to space’ (Stumpf 1873: 272). The process of abstraction seems therefore to be a virtual one: General concepts only designate something which understanding makes with the individual presentations, or more precisely, the possibility, from the side of the latter, to sustain this operation. (Stumpf 1873: 137) The decomposition of the content itself is therefore only virtual (scheinbar), although it is not arbitrary, but necessary, since every similarity and every distinction is imposed upon us by the content itself. We operate—to quote an expression of the Scholastics—a distinctio cum fundamento in re. (Stumpf 1873: 139)⁷

Brentano had more to say about the ontological version of the account, especially in his lectures on metaphysics. The account defended in these lectures is developed as a part of his theory of parts and wholes, in which he proposes a distinction between three kinds of parts influenced by Aristotle (Met. 1034 b32).  See Stumpf 1919: 143; Stumpf 1976: 43.  Here and elsewhere, English translations are mine when the work quoted is in German.

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Brentano distinguishes there between 1) physical parts, like single corns (parts) in a heap of corn (whole); 2) logical parts of an object, which are parts of the definition of its concept (for example, colouredness is a logical part of something red, virtue is a logical part of courageousness, etc. In his 1867 lectures on metaphysics, Brentano uses the locution ‘…is a logical part of_’ interchangeably with ‘…can be predicated of_’); and finally, 3) metaphysical parts, which are nonphysical parts, and are the determinations of an object: its substance, space, time, thinking, accidents, etc. are metaphysical parts of the object.⁸ In contrast with physical parts, which themselves are physical, metaphysical parts are abstracta. ⁹ Socrates for instance is a metaphysical whole composed of different metaphysical parts that are not detachable from the whole. You cannot have Socrates without his whiteness, or without his being located in Athens at some specific time.¹⁰ Following this account from the Metaphysics lectures, Brentano says that an abstract presentation is obtained by taking a metaphysical part in isolation from the metaphysical whole, like the abstraction of (the substance of) Socrates without his being white, i. e. taken in abstraction from the metaphysical whole. Nothing much is said here on the psychological operation of abstraction: Brentano is simply saying that abstract objects, like virtue, courageousness, or Socrate’s courageousness, are abstract in virtue of being isolated and non-autonomous parts of metaphysical wholes. Brentano calls such metaphysical parts abstracta, but sometimes also essences, species, praedicamenta, or divisiva. ¹¹ These so-called essences or species are in his view simply fictiones cum fundamento in re: abstracta, the metaphysical parts, ‘are posited as different things only through a fiction of the mind’,¹² they do not really belong to the ontology. This is why this account is often labelled as a conceptualist account of abstraction.¹³

3 Early Marty on abstraction Like Brentano’s, Marty’s account of abstraction evolved significantly over the years. While he followed the evolution of Brentano’s account in many respects, it must be stressed that Marty initially developed his conception of abstraction

 See Brentano, M96: 32011 (§691).  See Brentano, M96: 31766 (§56).  On this topic, see also Baumgartner 2013: 236.  See Brentano, M96: 31969 (§464).  See Brentano, M96: 31972 (§478).  See for instance Chrudzimski and Smith 2004.

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quite independently of Brentano, as shown in his first work, Marty (1867). Marty’s first work in philosophy remained unknown until it was recently rediscovered in the Masaryk Archives.¹⁴ In this work, Marty’s starting point is the Augustinian conception of abstraction as discussed by Aquinas.¹⁵ With Augustine, Marty argues for the view that knowledge is the result of the cooperation of two factors: the cognizing subject and the object cognized.¹⁶ The visible object is said to beget vision, but for this it needs an animated subject. Augustine also calls the relation of begetting an informatio, along the lines of the metaphor of the seal’s impression in the wax used by Aristotle and the Stoics. The relation of cooperation that holds between the cognizing subject and the object cognized, and which presupposes informatio, he often calls intentio. In accounting for this relation, Augustine often appeals of the notion of a similarity between the cognizing subject and the object cognized.¹⁷ Marty summarizes and appropriates this idea in the following way: Subject and object work together thanks to the concursus of God, such that priority remains however with the subject. Apriori elements connect themselves here with aposteriori elements thanks to the link that the Creator originally initiated. Even the rights of the word, which traditionalism saw as the source of ideas, are thereby acknowledged—not as mother, but as “foster-mother” of the newborn ideas.¹⁸ (Marty 1867: 3)

With Aquinas, Marty suggests that abstraction consists in abstracting the intelligible content from sense images. In the case of abstraction by division, i. e. in isolating things that are not physically separable—similarly to Brentano’s isolation of metaphysical parts—the result of the abstraction process is an intelligible species (what Marty calls, with Aquinas, an idea). We cognize through these intelligible species, whose natures ‘have existence only in individual matter—not as they are in individual matter, but as they are abstracted from that matter through the consideration of the intellect’ (ST: 1a, 12.4c).¹⁹

 Marty 1867. The work is mentioned and shortly discussed in Kraus 1916: 3.  See Summa Theologiae, I, 85: 1– 3  Marty 1867: 3; Augustine, De Trinitate, IX, 12, 18: “ab utroque… notitia paritur a cognoscente et cognito”.  See Caston 2001: 33 sq.  German original: “Subjekt und Objekt wirken zusammen in kraft des concursus Gottes, so jedoch daß dem Subjekte der Vorrang bleibt. Apriorische Elemente verbinden sich hier mit aposteriorischen vermöge des Bandes, das der Schöpfer ursprünglich geknüpft. Ja, selbst dem Worte, das der Traditionalismus zur Quelle der Idee gemacht, wird sein Recht zugestanden – nicht als Mutter, sondern als “Amme” der neugeborenen Idee.”  Compare this with Marty’s description of Aquinas’ ‘true realism’: “his true realism affirms: the general is fully in the things (essendo, not simply praedicando), but not according to its gen-

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However, Marty’s main concern in his dissertation is the role of God in our knowledge of abstract ideas. Following Augustine and Aquinas, he accepts that ‘the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing other than a participated likeness of the uncreated light’,²⁰ but stresses that the reunion (Vereinigung) between the intellect and the object occurs independently of the act of God.²¹ Although it doesn’t belong, properly speaking, to the works of the School of Brentano—Marty wrote this dissertation before his first encounter with Brentano in Würzburg—this early work by Marty contains the seeds of three basic ideas that are central, not only to Marty’s conception of abstraction, but to many conceptions of abstraction defended in the school of Brentano. This is not altogether surprising, since in their early years, both Brentano and Marty were influenced by Aquinas. Therefore, at least two of the three basic ideas involved here have their roots in Aquinas: 1) The relation of information (Marty and Augustine) going from the object to the subject is what Brentano calls the relation, mediated by physical phenomena, between reality and psychical phenomena. Physical phenomena are ‘signs of something real, which, through its causal activity, produces presentations of them’ (Brentano 1995: 19). This relation was dealt with extensively as early as Brentano (1867): in an Aristotelian and Thomasian sense, the form of the object exists in the subject like the form of the stone in the soul (forma lapidis in anima: De Veritate: 8, 11, 3). 2) The intentional relation from the subject to the object, which operates on the basis of relation (1) and which is described in terms of similarity. Following Aquinas it is the form of the stone in the soul inasmuch as it ‘represents the form existing in the material stone’ (forma lapidis in anima inquantum repraesentat formam lapidis in materia) (De Veritate: 8, 11, 3). 3) The nativist framework in which the general account based on relations (1) and (2) is settled, i. e. the idea that perception depends upon the inherited properties of the organism. In the last quote, this nativism is expressed by the idea that God allows for the (otherwise autonomous) connection between apriori and aposteriori elements. Furthermore, it also includes the seed of an element

erality” (German original: “Sein wahrer Realismus behauptet: das Allgemeine ist in den Dingen voll (essendo, nicht bloß praedicando), aber nicht seiner Allgemeinheit nach”). (Marty 1867: 8).  See Summa Theologiae, I, 84, 5. The passage is quoted in Marty 1867: 138.  See Marty 1867: 138: “the finite knowledge [comes] from the power of the infinite mind, but not in him: rather, it occurs through him, such that mind [and] object unite not in God, but autonomously “ (German original: “die endliche Erkenntnis [erfolgt] wohl in Kraft des unendlichen Geistes, nicht aber in ihm, [sondern geschieht] unmittelbar durch ihn, sodass sich Geist [und] Objekt nicht in Gott, sondern selbstständig vereinigen”).

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which will become central to Marty’s original contribution to the psychology of the school of Brentano, namely that abstraction is not a product of linguistic devices, as nominalism would have it; rather, abstraction is realized at least in part with the help of linguistic devices, which act as mediators or as the ‘foster-mother’ (Amme) of abstract ideas. This point will be dealt with in more detail in sections 6 and 7 of this paper.

4 Ennoetism (1875 – 1886) The psychological version of Brentano’s early account of abstraction left many questions unanswered. Partly as a way of addressing these issues, in 1875/76 Brentano proposed a ‘new hypothesis’ concerning the process of abstraction:²² On this new hypothesis, abstracta can only be presented distinctly as parts in concreta, but not as such outside them. Considering the official target of Husserl’s objection to empiricism in the 2nd Logical Investigation, it is interesting to note that Brentano also refers to Berkeley in support of the view.²³ More generally, he underlines that there are no authentic (or autonomous, or proper, i. e. im eigentlichen Sinn) abstract presentings. This is the first formulation of the view that Marty later calls ‘monism’ of presentations. This view will be held, some modifications notwithstanding, between 1875 and 1886 by both Brentano and Marty; and they call this view ‘ennoetism’ (Ennoetismus).²⁴ Brentano says that ennoetism shares with nominalism the idea that there is only one kind of presenting activity for both concrete and abstract presentations, but that this one activity is guided by a more or less important degree of interest, which can allow the subject to focus on parts of the presentation and their contents.²⁵ Such an account bears similarities with Mill’s conception of abstraction, according to which

 See Baumgartner 1992: 37 and Fréchette 2015: 271 sq.  The hypothesis is presented in Brentano’s letter to Stumpf of 10th February, 1876 (Brentano 1989: 63 sq.) and connects directly to Berkeley. See Berkeley 1734/1878: §10: “Extension, Figure, and Motion, abstracted from all other Qualities, are inconceivable”. The same passage is also discussed favourably against Kant’s understanding of space in Stumpf 1873: 24.  The label is used by Brentano at many points in the Vienna Logic from 1878/79 (catalogued as EL 72).  See for instance EL 72: 12340: “[T]here is only one mode of presenting activity, [… but] through the detaching and unifying force of a particular interest, directed exclusively upon one or certain parts of the complete presentation, these parts of presentation can become mediators of nomination and the presentational basis of judgings and emotional activities” (German original: “Es gibt nur eine Weise der vorstellenden Tätigkeit…[aber] durch die lösende und eini-

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we have, properly speaking [no general concepts]; we have only complex ideas of objects in the concrete: but we are able to attend exclusively to certain parts of the concrete idea; and by that exclusive attention, we enable those parts to determine exclusively the course of our thoughts. (Mill 1979: 309)

Following Mill’s and Brentano’s theories, I can form the general concept of the colour red by focusing my attention on parts of a concrete presentation of a red object. This doesn’t mean that I have a general or abstract presentation of red stricto sensu (or that I am presenting red under a different mode) when I think about what is shared in general by red things.²⁶ In his Vienna lectures on logic from 1878/79 (EL 72), Brentano explains his theory in the following way: [I]n relation with the question of universals, it appears that when I have no presentations other than individual presentations, in a certain way, I do have them [i. e. universals]— namely as partial presentations circumscribed through a particular interest—and this is sufficient to give to the general name not simply a plurality of equivocal individual meanings, as the nominalists wanted, but rather a unitary, truly general sense.²⁷ (Brentano EL 72: 12349)

Following ennoetism, there is a sense in which we can say that you and I both form the same general concept of red, provided that we focus our attention and our interest on the same relevant partial presentations in our respective presentings, e. g. of the red table. However, since presentings as mental acts do not have proper modalities (unlike, e. g., judgments, which are either acknowledgments or rejections), we focus our interest on partial presentations by actually focusing it

gende Kraft eines ausschliesslich auf einen oder mehreren Teilen der Gesamtvorstellung gerichteten Interesses können diese Teile der Vorstellung für sich allein die Vermittler der Benennung und Grundlage von besonderen Urteilen und Gemütstätigkeiten”). I will come back to the presentations and their contents as the object of the act of interest below.  Compare Brentano (EL 72: 12005): “Ennoetism is satisfactory. Without assuming a multiple mode of presenting, ennoetism gives an account of the difference between intuition and concept and an account of conceptual abstraction and combination” (German original: “Der Ennoetismus genügt. Ohne Annahme eines mehrfachen Modus des Vorstellens giebt er von dem Unterschied von Anschauung und Begriff un von Begriffsabstraction und Combination Rechenschaft”).  German original: “[E]s zeigt sich in Bezug auf die Universalienfrage, dass, wenn ich auch und eigentlich keine anderen als individuelle Vorstellungen habe, ich in gewisser Weise [—] nämlich als durch ein besonderes Interesse abgegrenzte Teilvorstellungen [—] sie [d. h. Universalien] doch habe, und diese Weise genügt, um den allgemeinen Namen nicht bloß, wie die Nominalisten wollten, eine Vielheit äquivoker individueller Bedeutungen zu geben, sondern ihnen einen einheitlichen, wahrhaft allgemeinen Sinn zu geben”.

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on the parts of the presented content.²⁸ In this way, the abstract name ‘colour’ is not merely the name of a simple fiction, as it was in Brentano’s first account of abstraction in the Metaphysics lectures. It has instead a ‘truly general sense’, which is attributed to it on the basis of the direction of attention and interest towards the same features of presented objects. In this way, abstract objects become part of Brentano’s ontology, namely as intentional objects, on the proviso that they only are to be conceived of as objects of partial presentations, i. e. as incomplete intentional objects. Therefore, although we don’t have abstract presentations properly speaking, we still have improper abstract presentations, insofar as we have acts of interest that are directed towards some parts of the presenting (making these parts partial or abstract presentings) via the direction of our interest towards some parts of the presentation content, making these parts abstracta in the sense of intentional objects.²⁹ In this sense, redness becomes an abstract intentional object of presentation thanks to the act of interest focusing on the relevant part of the Gesamtvorstellung via its actual focusing on the partial presentation content. These partial presentation contents are concepts—and thereby act as mediators for further psychical activities—on the sole basis of the act of interest directed towards them. Therefore, no parts of presentings are intrinsically conceptual (there is no ‘abstractive faculty’ in this sense); but since we actually focus our interest on some parts of the presentation content, these parts are made conceptual (or abstract) by an act of interest: [T]here is only one mode of presenting activity, [… but] through the detaching and unifying force of a particular interest, directed exclusively upon one or certain parts of the complete

 See for instance EL 72, 12342: “The unitary complete presentation is separable in partial presentations only with regard to the parts of the presented, which we use to call (although they are by no means complete presentations in themselves) simply presentations, as we do for complete presentations” (“Die einheitliche Gesamtvorstellung lässt also nur in Rücksicht auf Theile des Vorgestellten Theilvorstellungen unterscheiden, die wir dann auch schlechtweg (obwohl sie keine ganzen Vorstellungen für sich sind) ebenso wie die ganzen Vorstellungen zu nennen pflegen”).  It might be helpful here to underline that at this point of his career, Brentano held the view that acts of presentation don’t occur in isolation, but are always accompanied by a judgement (which acknowledges or reject the existence of the presented object) and by an act of emotion (or interest, in this case), which is a loving or hating of the presented object. It is of course on this basis that abstraction can be understood as involving an act of interest that forms a unity with the presentation. See Brentano (1874: 202 sq. and 346). Along with the later abandonment of the idea that abstraction involves an act of interest, but also for further reasons, the idea that a mental act (e. g. a presentation) always occurs with its two counterparts (i. e. a judgment and an emotion) will be partly abandoned around 1907; see for instance Brentano 1911: 128.

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presentation, these parts of presentation can become the mediator of nomination and the presentational basis of judgings and emotional activities.³⁰

According to this account, when I see a red table, and when I am presenting redness, this latter presenting is a partial (improper) presentation, which in itself is not a separate moment of the Gesamtvorstellung—after all, it is only in virtue of abstracting parts of the presentational content that one can isolate parts of the presenting. When seeing a red table, what I really see is the object and its determinations, which together constitute a metaphysical whole whose parts are not detachable. The partial presentation and its content are isolated or abstracted from the Gesamtvorstellung (and its content) thanks to the noticing of and interest in the red colour of the table. The focus thus bestowed upon the partial presentation of the red of the table ‘elevates’, so to speak, the partial presentation to the level of a mediator (Vermittler) or a sign used, among other things, for naming, but also as a basis for other classes of mental acts. There is thereby no ‘infection’ (Infektion)³¹ by another mode of presenting, in the original intuitive presentation of red: parts of the presenting are so to speak highlighted by the act of interest—e. g. the parts presenting a specific intensity, a specific brightness, etc. Concepts, like the concept of red, are then composed by a combination of these abstract parts, which Brentano sometimes calls ‘atoms of concepts’ (Begriffsatome) and these concepts mediate between the intuitive presentation of red and the judgement expressed by ‘the red table exists’. This mediation can also occur through more complex combination, which Brentano calls ‘molecules of concepts’ (Begriffsmoleküle).³² Concepts are to be considered modified intuitions: they are modified thanks to the focus bestowed upon them by specific judgments or acts of interest or attention.³³ As suggested by Brentano’s ‘molecular’ theory of concepts, interest also applies to multiple partial presentations. Such an interest ‘can be directed unitarily towards multiple particular parts of a presentation’ (EL 72, 12350). I can hear and enjoy or take interest in a series of tones unitarily (einheitlich), and this enjoyment or interest is distinct from the enjoyment or interest taken in the tones in-

 See Brentano, EL 72: 12340. Interestingly, we find the exact same sentence in Marty 1894/ 2011: 125.  See Brentano, EL 72: 12375.  See Brentano, EL 72: 12352. For this reason, he sometimes speaks of ennoetism as a ‘molecular’ theory of concepts (Begriffsmolekulartheorie). See EL 72: 12375.  See also Marty 2011 (1904), where it is said that ‘we have concepts not because there is a second mode of presenting, but rather because of a certain concentration of noticing, of judging and interest’ (ibid., 426).

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dividually, although at no point does it involve something like a ‘fusion’ (Verschmelzung) of presentations: ‘that which “fuses” is the particular unitary interest’ (see EL 72: 12350). I can also have a unitary interest in the multiple tones of a chord, which would make the presentation of the chord (or the melody) an abstract presentation. Finally, and more generally, the ennoetist theory can also account for compound concepts, like disjunctive, reflexive, or contradictory concepts.³⁴ In this way, the unitary interest directed towards multiple parts of presentations serves as an explanans for the fact that abstract presentations are not obtained through the mere sum of single intuitive presentations, without introducing a second mode of presenting, and correlatively, without having to accept universals—which would be the objects of such a mode of presenting. The price we have to pay for this is the introduction of these problematic ‘abstract partial presentings’ as dependent parts of intuitive presentings, whose role is unclear since the real abstractive work depends on the act of interest.

5 1886: Rejection of ennoetism In the 1880s and the 1890s, it seems that Marty followed the main lines of Brentano’s account. Like Brentano, he endorsed ennoetism until the mid 1880s. In 1884, he still thought of abstraction as the product of a concentrated act of attention (Marty 1884: 71). However, Brentano (and later Marty) encountered problems with ennoetism. Already in early 1886, Brentano was dissatisfied with his existential theory of judgments, among other things because it implied a double standard for the interpretation of negation: negative universal judgments, like ‘there are no blue swans’, were reduced to ‘a swan being non-blue is’, with internal negation, while negative existential judgements like ‘Sherlock Holmes does not exist’ were reduced to ‘somebody being Sherlock Holmes is not’, with external negation.³⁵ This becomes clear in a letter from Brentano to Marty of the 15th February, 1886, where the abandonment of the existential theory (and the first introduction of the double judgment theory) coincides with the introduction of a new view of abstraction: If one says: “if there were a particular presenting of the general, it would be possible to present it without presenting a concretum”, we should answer: this doesn’t seem right. There are also cases of particular judgings that are inseparable from other judgings, e. g.

 See Brentano EL 72: 12357.  On Brentano’s dissatisfaction with his own existential theory of judgment, see Brentano 1966: 202.

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a man is not healthy. I think I justified this to you verbally—it is the expression of a multiple judgment: 1) a man is acknowledged and 2) health is negated of him. This negation is inseparable from the acknowledgment. If you try to separate it, you get a general judgment and not the particular negative judgement that we have here. In a similar way, I say that there are also, in presentings, cases of double presenting, where one part is possible without the other (and this also where a presenting presents explicitly what the other presents implicitly, e. g. in the case of an explicit presenting of a physical part).³⁶

This letter explicitly presents the theory of double judgments (and double presentings) as a solution to the problem of abstraction: in a nutshell, Brentano suggests that we have presentations of abstract properties, like heaviness, on the basis of a second judgment. In ‘copper is heavy’, there is first the acknowledgement of the existence of copper (the thetic judgment), and then the predicative connection of heaviness with copper. I can think or represent heaviness on the basis of a synthetic operation, which happens in the predicative judgment, which is superposed on the thetic judgement. Even if the first mention of double judgments by Brentano was made in 1889, in the first publication of Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis—actually in an addendum to the reprint of Brentano’s review of Miklosich, which was published for the first time in 1883—the idea was being discussed by Brentano and Marty already in 1886. Five months later, on the 25th July, 1886, Marty summarizes Brentano’s (and his own) change of view regarding abstraction in one of his notebooks, recalling a discussion he had with Brentano: [W]hat has been (Gewesenes) [is not obtained] through reflection on the mode of judgment —the modification comes immediately into the predicate. Reply: then a completely new kind of concept emerges Answer: No: concept is predication There is already a rupture with the ancient theory of presentation, through the fact that it

 Letter from Brentano to Marty, 15th February, 1886. German original: “Sagt man: Wenn ein besonderes Vorstellen des Allgemeinen gegeben wäre, so müsste es möglich sein, es vorzustellen ohne ein Concretum vorzustellen, so ist zu antworten: Dies scheint nicht richtig. Es gibt auch Fälle von besonderen Urtheilen, welche von anderm Urtheilen untrennbar sind, z. B. Ein Mensch ist nicht gesund. Dieser Satz ist – ich habe Ihnen dieses mündlich glaube ich begründet – der Ausdruck für ein mehrfaches Urtheilen: 1) Ein Mensch wird anerkannt und 2. Von ihm die Gesundheit geleugnet. Diese Leugnung last sich nicht von jener Anerkennung trennen. Wenn Sie es versuchen, erhalten Sie ein allgemines und nicht das hier gegebene particuläre negative Urtheil”.

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was realised that synthesis is not the task of presentation, but of judgment. And so began the absorption of presenting through judgment.³⁷

Marty’s lecture on descriptive psychology from 1894/95 also gives a clear statement of this view: The key to our as yet unsolved problem of conceptual synthesis lies in the particular phenomena of predicative judgements. [Predicative judgments] are nothing other than predicative syntheses, produced through reflection on those syntheses, which are operated in judgment by the one who predicatively judges. The so-called synthesis in understanding is first and foremost a synthesis in judgment. (Marty 2011: 140 sq.)

The introduction of double judgements by Brentano in 1886 and adopted by Marty at the same time therefore seems to play two roles: not only is it the answer to an ontological malaise concerning the acceptance of curious entities (like a ‘non-blue swan’, which has to be non-blue in some relevant sense), it also gives an account of abstraction without introducing, as in ennoetism, the problematic category of abstract partial presentings that are otherwise fused with the intuitive presenting at its base. In this new theory, predication comes back into the picture as a function of synthesis proper to judgments, but only in the context of a derivative kind of judgment, which is imposed on full-fledged existential judgements.

6 Marty’s own development after 1886 I: Superposed presentings and lower abstraction With the introduction of double judgments, and with it the introduction of predication as a phenomenon obtained through synthesis in judgment, Brentano sets the scene for Marty’s later account of abstraction, in which this synthetic function of judgment is described as a linguistic function of higher abstraction. Marty started lecturing on descriptive psychology in Prague in 1888/89, one year after Brentano’s first lectures on the topic, and spoke regularly on the topic until his retirement. In one early version of these lectures from 1894/95 (publish-

 Marty Br42. German original: “Gewesenes nicht erst durch Reflexe auf dem Urteilsmodus— gleich kommt die Modification ins Prädikat hinein. Contra: dann ganz neue Art des Begriffes entsteht Antwort: Nein: Begriff ist ja Prädikation. Alte Vorstellungslehre schon durchbrochen. Indem gesehen, dass Synthese nicht Sache der Vorstellung, sondern des Urteils. Damit fing die Absorption des Vorstellens durchs Urteil an”.

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ed as Marty 2011), Marty discusses the ennoetistic conception in detail, but finally rejects it on the grounds that it involves a hysteron proteron. The reason for this is the following: according to ennoetism, when I see a red table, the presentation of the redness is a partial presentation, which in itself is not intuitive. As we have seen, the partial presentation and its content are isolated or abstracted from the Gesamtvorstellung (and its content) thanks to the noticing of and interest in the red colour of the table. This maintains the monism of presentations, but the abstraction is then possible only with the help of attention and interest, which are distinct acts. An hysteron proteron therefore emerges because if there is no judgment that ‘x exists’ without a presentation of ‘x’, as the Brentanian conception of acts has it, then this must also be the case for the judicative act of attention (and furthermore for the act of interest) that focuses on the partial presenting. Therefore, if, following ennoetism, abstraction is a concentration or focus of one’s judging, this judgment (and the act of interest itself) is not possible without a modification of the presentation at its base. In other words, there must be some abstractive operation at the level of the presentation in order for the judgment to focus on it. Therefore, ennoetism cannot really avoid the idea that there is some kind of abstraction involved at the level of presentations.³⁸ What, then, is Marty’s solution to the hysteron proteron of ennoetism? In his 1894/95 descriptive psychology lectures, Marty bites the bullet and defends the idea that abstraction operates directly at the level of presentations. However, analogously to the distinction between existential judgments and predicative judgements, which are in a relation of one-sided detachability (one can have existential judgments without predicative judgments, but one can’t have predicative judgments without existential judgments), abstract presentations are socalled ‘superposed presentations’ (supraponierte Vorstellungen). The idea behind the superposed presenting is that we allow for a double presenting—a intuition and an abstraction—which are in a relation of one-sided detachability: the intuitive part of the double-presentation is one-sidedly detachable, which means that concepts are distinct from intuitions, but still they are as such inseparable: We assume with Aristotle a double presenting, i. e. besides the intuitive presenting, there is an abstract one; but we consider the second to be not simply in a causal relation with the first, but in such an inner connection that only one-sided detachability holds… Therefore, in our case too, we can call conceptual thinking a superposed presenting. Thanks to the assumption of such a superposed presenting, the phenomena of analysis and abstraction are explained in their peculiarity. (Marty 2011: 132)

 Compare Marty 2011: 125 sq.

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Superposed presenting describes the way in which we proceed to a specific kind of abstraction, namely the abstraction that is involved strictly at a presentational level. It does not describe the kind of abstraction involved in predicative judgments: in Marty’s view, the synthesis of elements of the presentation is possibly only realized thanks to judicative synthesis. We still have to explain the phenomena of synthesis, and this is indeed the more important complement that is required by Aristotelian conceptualism. But we can’t provide or understand such a complement before getting acquainted with the domain of judgments. (Marty 2011: 132)

For the Munich congress of psychology in 1896, Marty prepared a paper that addressed the relation between the abstraction involved in judicative synthesis, which occurs with the help of linguistic tools, and the more primitive kind of abstraction, which occurs in superposed presentings: The phenomena of so-called abstract thinking can’t be understood without something like a real abstraction, a grasping of the non-intuitive elements of an intuition, and the capacity to connect these elements autonomously and in new ways. However, experience clearly shows that this is not a proper detaching thereof (such that the intuition would become no longer necessary); and it remains an open question whether we have here a concentration of our judgment and interest or if this exclusive engagement with a trait of the concretum is at the basis of a new phenomenon in the domain of presentations, a particular modality of presentings (conceivable only in the most inner connection with the intuition, but still distinct from it). But even for processes conceived in this way, we could consider linguistic signs to be indispensable tools. (Marty 1897/1920: 104)

In other words, for Marty the question of whether the abstractive processes of conceptual thinking are correlated with the corresponding entities, i. e. judgment contents, propositions or states of affairs, seems to be secondary at this point. It is sufficient to say that they are correlated with linguistic signs: Piecewise, words can literally function as a substitute for abstract thinking and are as such for certain very complicated conceptual structures completely indispensable. But this symbolic thinking too can’t be universal… as a result: the most primitive acts of abstraction are independent of any language. (Marty 1897/1920: 104)

Lower abstraction, based on the idea of superposed presentings, is also at play in processes like comparison or recognition of similarities: Children learn with and through language to build concepts and to proceed to classifications. Abstraction of concepts and constitution of classes, under which we grasp the multi-

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plicity of objects, is not an easy thing. The task comprises comprehensive observation of the similarity and disparity of objects. (Marty 1904: 57)³⁹

As Marty puts it elsewhere (Marty 1892), comparing a and b involves the presentations of a and b and a further operation of distinguishing. This operation of distinguishing is superposed on the single acts of presenting a and b. In short, while lower abstraction simply involves superposed presentings, higher abstraction involves the active contribution (with the help of linguistic tools) of judicative and predicative synthesis. This distinction is also involved in Marty’s distinction between intuitive concepts (which rely on lower abstraction) and predicative concepts (which are construed with the help of higher abstraction): Concepts are in part abstracted from an intuition—the intuitive concepts (e. g. the concept of something red)—, but they are also composed of elements that are abstracted from many different intuitions. We will call these ‘predicatively united concepts’. In this case, traits that have been taken from different objects are united predicatively. Contradictory concepts belong to these concepts. In this predicative way, I can also unite the concepts ‘round’ and ‘square’, though this can’t be done in one intuition. Most of the concepts expressed in language are simply composed predicatively, even when the name [of the concept] is simple… “something red and something warm” is connected only in a predicative way. (Marty 1904: 78 sq.)⁴⁰

While predicative synthesis is essentially realized linguistically, and thereby does not necessitate an objectual correlate of the synthesis—I can present a round square without having any objectual correlate of that presentation— lower abstractions, being dependent upon the concrete intuitions on which they are based, do rely on the properties of the objects presented.

 German original: “Das Kind lernt mit und durch die Sprache die Begriffe bilden und die Classificationen vornehmen. Die Abstraktion der Begriffe und die Bildung der Klassen, unter welchen wir die Mannigfaltigkeit der Gegenstände auffassen, ist keine leichte Sache. Es gehört dazu eine umfassende Beobachtung über die Ähnlichkeit und Verschiedenheit der Gegenstände”.  German original: “Die Begriffe sind teils solche, welche aus einer Anschauung abstrahiert sind, die anschaulichen (zB der Begriff ‘Rothes’), theils sind sie von der Art, dass sie aus Elementen zusammengesetzt sind, welche aus mehreren verschiedenen Anschauungen abstrahiert sind. Wir wollen diese die ‘prädikativ geeinigte Begriffe’ nennen. Es sind nämlich da Merkmale, welche aus verschiedenen Gegenständen hergenommen sind, prädikativ geeinigt. Zu diesen Begriffen gehören auch die widersprechenden Begriffe. In dieser prädikativen Weise kann ich auch die Begriffe rund und eckig vereinigen, aber nicht in einer Anschauung. Die meisten durch die Sprache ausgedrückten Begriffe sind bloß prädikativ zusammengesetzt, wenn auch der Name dafür ein einfacher ist. (…) Nur in prädikativer Weise ist‚ Rothes-Warmes verbunden”.

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7 Marty’s own development after 1886 II: Higher abstraction An important aspect of the transition from ennoetism to its rejection was the introduction of a superposition of abstractive presentations over intuitive presentations. Both ennoetism and its rejection stipulate that no further activity is required to get from the intuitive presentation of a red spot to the concept of red. The motivation for this view is to support monism, that is the view that all mental activities are ultimately based on one single, unitary, and homogeneous faculty of the mind: presentations. This view is a central tenet of the kind of empiricism defended by Brentano and adopted by Marty. It has its limitations, however: if lower abstraction is superposed on (and thereby inseparable from) intuitive presentations, and if intuitive presentations are determined by their concrete contents, how can we explain the fact that the same content is shared by the speaker and the hearer in situations of communication? If speaker A wants to share a visual content (of e.g. a Bordeaux-red colour spot) in communication with hearer B, he will necessarily try to communicate the general features abstracted from the intuitive presentation content, since only these are reproducible (e. g. in imagination) as identical by hearer B.⁴¹ Intuitive presentations are not communicable linguistically, claims Marty: It is precisely because we can’t speak of linguistic communication in the strict sense, but only to the extent that, through such a communication, the same mental experience is produced at the same time in the hearer and in the speaker, that intuitions of the physical, which are infinitely variable, are excluded from the domain of linguistic communication. (Marty 1908: 433)

Relying on lower abstraction to explain how we form (for ourselves) general concepts and how we identify a shade of red seen now with another seen earlier seems to be unproblematic. It does not seem fully satisfying, however, if one wants to account for the fact that the same mental contents are shared by speaker A and hearer B. Marty became aware of this shortcoming of Brentano’s empiricism applied to acts of language very early in his career, when he was preparing his PhD dissertation. In a letter to Brentano from the 28th May, 1873, he presents the problem in the following way, which prefigures Frege’s and Wittgenstein’s context principle (Frege 1884; Wittgenstein 1921): On the question concerning the meaning of the words, I tried not to go from the names to the statements, but rather the other way around. In this, I was driven by the reflection that only statements are actually complete linguistic expressions. The function [of expressing]

 See Marty 1908: 434 sq.

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and the “act of meaning” (Bedeuten) which belongs to [the expression], is precisely the ‘act of meaning’ (Bedeuten) as we must expect it of a linguistic expression according to the essence and goal of language, i. e.: it is the indication of something (Kundgabe von etwas). By contrast, the name doesn’t communicate anything, it signifies (zu erkennen geben) nothing and the way in which it means something is conceivable only as a part of the function of assertion. However, I do not have complete trust in this. It is maybe simpler and more natural to go the other way around. Certainly, it doesn’t seem right to consider names as prior to statements in analogy with the consideration of presentations as essentially prior to judgments —since the presentation is thinkable without the judgment, while by contrast names do not seem thinkable in language without being a part of a statement. For the goal of language is communication, indication, and this is not conceivable without judging creatures and through statements. But since the judged content is the same as the presented content, it seems more natural and simpler to speak first of the presented and the named.⁴²

The same idea is developed later in Marty (1908): When a simple presentational suggestive (Vorstellungssuggestiv) [i. e. a name, GF] is expressed, the communication of the presentational activity, which is immediately given in it, is not intended as a means to awaken something analogous [in someone else’s mental life], but is rather only a parergon. Indeed, names are expressed only as components of statements and emotives (Emotiven). (Marty 1908: 490 – 91)

 Letter from Marty to Brentano, 28th May, 1873. German original: “In der Frage nach der Bedeutung der Worte habe ich versucht, nicht von den Namen zu den Aussagen, sondern den umgekehrten Weg zu gehen. Dazu bestimmte mich die Überlegung, dass nur die Aussage eigentlich ein vollendeter sprachlicher Ausdruck ist. Die Funktion und das ‘Bedeuten’ das ihm zukommt ist gerade dasjenige ‘Bedeuten’, wie man es nach dem Wesen und Zweck der Sprache von einem sprachlichen Ausdruck erwarten muss, nämlich Kundgabe von etwas. Dagegen der Name teilt nichts mit, gibt nichts zu erkennen und die Art, wie er etwas bedeutet, begreift sich nur als Teil der Funktion der Aussage. Doch traue ich der Sache nicht vollkommen. Vielleicht ist es doch einfacher und natürlicher den umgekehrten Weg zu gehen. Zwar scheint es nicht richtig, dass wie man naturgemäss die Vorstellung betrachtet vor dem Urteil, in derselben Weise die Betrachtung des Namens vor der Aussage natürlicher erscheine. Denn die Vorstellung ist denkbar ohne das Urteil; dagegen die Namen in der Sprache scheinen nicht denkbar ohne als Teil der Aussage. Denn der Zweck der Sprache ist Mitteilung, Kundgabe und dies ist nicht denkbar ausser unter urteilenden Wesen und durch Aussagen. Aber da das Beurteilte dasselbe ist wie das Vorgestellte erscheint es doch natürlicher und einfacher, zuerst vom Vorgestellten und Genannten zu sprechen”. Brentano and Marty will later reject the view that the content of judgment is identical with the content of the presentation upon which it is based. For Marty in particular, this rejection was highly beneficial for the conception of language defended throughout his career. See below. In later Austro-German philosophy, Bühler rejected the strictly linguistic version of the context principle in favor of a practical or symphysical version of the principle. See Bühler 1934 and Mulligan 2012, ch. 5 on this.

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The idea presented here is that we can’t construct a theory of linguistic meaning solely on the basis of the Brentanian tripartition of acts, since the one-sided detachability of presentations from judgements has no equivalence in the case of names and statements; rather, with regard to their function (which is the standpoint one should adopt when concerned with a theory of linguistic meaning), statements and names are in a peculiar relation of interdependence: a statement is constituted among other things by names, but names are functionally dependent upon statements. It seems therefore that in real situations of communication, speaker A doesn’t simply share the abstract content expressed by ‘red’ with hearer B by simply saying ‘red’ to B. Rather, it is in the context of an assertion that the abstract content expressed by ‘red’ is communicated from A to B, e. g. in the context of ‘human blood is red’. In order for B to understand the meaning of the assertion, lower abstraction is simply not sufficient. This is why higher abstraction, which involves predicative synthesis, plays a central role in communication for Marty. Relying on this distinction between lower and higher abstraction, he distinguishes in 1908 between four kinds of presentations: 1) intuitive or perceptive presentations, which are presentations of something real and which are not general through abstraction or individual through synthesis; 2) imperceptive presentations, which are obtained through the lower abstraction of perceptual presentations (like the presentation of ‘something that is coloured’, ‘someone who loves’, etc.); 3) comperceptive presentations, which are presentations of non real objects, like the presentation of a relation of similarity between red and orange; here also, lower abstraction is at play, but only on the imperceptive level: it is only involved in the formation of the individual imperceptive presentations of red and orange. The presentation of a given similarity somehow supervenes on the imperceptive presentations of the relata, so there is no need here for a further process of abstraction other than that involved in the imperceptive presentations. Finally, there are 4) presentations constituted by the synthesis of different elements. These might be imperceptive or comperceptive. The kind of abstraction involved in (4) is higher abstraction. If one were to recognize co-inherence with superposition (as involved in cases of lower abstraction) as the only kind of abstraction, one would have to say that a presentation of the morning star and a presentation of the evening star are presentations of different objects, since the abstracted features in each presentation do not correspond with one another. It is only thanks to the judicative synthesis of higher abstraction that one can say that the predicates ‘…is the morning star’ and ‘…is the evening star’ apply to the same object. This is, I think, the gist of the following idea formulated in Marty (1908):

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It seems to belong to the essence of presenting as the most fundamental class of mental attitudes that they exhibit an assimilation (Verähnlichung) with a quod and therefore that they only exhibit object differentiations, or in other words, that their modes are primarily and constantly founded on differences in the object. If the quod is something different, the quo of the attitude towards it is also different, but only because it conforms to another quod. A presenting can’t conform to the same quod in different ways. If the adequate presenting is different, then the presented must also be different. Synthesis results from reflection on predications… This is not a particular mode of presenting: rather, as we have stressed many times, it is a particular mode of the judgment, an attributive or predicative acceptance (Zuerkennen ⁴³), and its content becomes an object in the synthesis of presentations. (Marty 1908: 444).

In other words: on the level of presentings, and presentings alone, my presentation of the birthplace of Mozart and of the former Roman colony Juvavum are said to be presentings of something on the sole basis of their similarity with what they present. In this case, strictly speaking, we have to say that they present two different objects, since the respective object differences (Objektdifferenzen) are different (‘a presenting can’t conform to the same quod in different ways’). The work of lower abstraction is of no help in determining whether the same object is given here under different descriptions. What allows us to say that the same object is given under different descriptions is the predicative synthesis (higher abstraction), which is a particular mode of judgment, and from which the content of judgment (Urteilsinhalt) results. The judgment content is not the result of a generalization: it has its own existence, which grounds the truth of judgments (see Marty 1908: 295). My presentations of the birthplace of Mozart and of the Roman colony Juvavum are directed towards the same object only because the predicates ‘…is the former Roman colony Juvavum’ and ‘…is the birthplace of Mozart’ are applied to the same accepted object (are zuerkannt to the same object). Here, this means that although ‘the Roman colony Juvavum exists’ and ‘the birthplace of Mozart exists’ express different judgment-matters (Urteilsmaterie), the truth of these two judgments is grounded by the same judgment-content (Urteilsinhalt).

 ‘Zuerkennen’ is a technical term from Brentano’s theory of double judgments. According to this theory predicative judgments like the one expressed by ‘Socrates is wise’ are 1) the acceptance (Anerkennen) of the existence of Socrates, and 2) the attributive or predicative acceptance of wiseness to Socrates (dem Sokrates Weisheit zuerkennen).

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8 Final remarks Taken partly as an answer to Husserl’s point against empiricism, the development of Marty’s account of abstraction offers a fruitful compromise between Husserl’s strong realist account of generality and Brentano’s empiricist view of abstraction. From early on, Husserl rejected the monistic account of presentations and favoured the view that between the intuition of some sensory content and the presentation or representation (Repräsentation) of an abstract intentional content, there was an important change in the mode of consciousness.⁴⁴ Against Husserl, Marty preserves Brentano’s monistic account: intuitive and abstract presentations belong to a single, unitary, and homogeneous faculty of the mind, namely presentations. Following Brentano on this point, Marty also preserves Brentano’s thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental, since for him, and pace Husserl, sensings also belong to the realm of presentations, that is, they are intentional phenomena. Following Brentano in his rejection of ennoetism also brought Marty to the acceptance of double judgments, and with this to the acceptance of predication as playing a role in abstract thinking. While Brentano defended a view along these lines until around 1903 and later rejected it,⁴⁵ Marty developed the view further and adapted it successfully into his account of linguistic communication, which was already formulated in his main lines in 1873 and presented to Brentano (see sect. 6). Following this account, the objective and identical mental contents transmitted in linguistic communication are products of higher abstraction, understood as the result of predicative synthesis. The contents of the presentations of speaker A and hearer B are not, strictly speaking, identical; but the predications performed on these contents by A and B are synthetized in the same way, i. e. in the judgment and with the help of linguistic tools. If we want to say, in a loose way of speaking, that A and B share the same mental content expressed by ‘red’, we should understand by this that A has to utter a sentence (to B) that expresses a judgment in which a predicative acceptance (Zuerkennen) of the redness of something or someone takes place (as in ‘human blood is red’). Therefore, if we can speak in some way of the sameness of content in A and B, it is thanks to the fact that A and B perform the same predicative acceptance. Marty’s theory of communication explains how this is possible: when A utters to B ‘human blood is red’, A is not only expressing (ausdrücken) a statement, he is also manifesting or in-

 See Husserl 1893/1979: 406.  Brentano’s account of abstraction between 1886 and 1903 is exposed in detail in Brentano 2013.

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dicating (Kundgabe) a mental content he has, but he also wants to influence B’s mental life. The latter is the meaning function of A’s statement: The meaning function [in the broad sense] (Bedeutung) of the statement is to awaken in the hearer a judgment of a specific kind. Another way to put this: the statement means (bedeutet) “that the hearer should render a certain judgment”. (Marty 1908: 288)

In a successful situation of communication, A therefore awakens in B the same mental content as the content he is indicating in asserting ‘human blood is red’ to B. In successful situations of communication, the abstract contents of the speaker and the hearer are identical not on the basis of a mere generalization, like the one criticized by Husserl in the 2nd Logical Investigation, but not on the basis of subsisting identical meaning species either, as Husserl will himself suggest in the same book. Rather, according to Marty, this identity is provided by the fact that A and B perform the same predicative acceptance. Marty’s account opens up a middle way between Husserl’s and Brentano’s accounts, rejecting Husserl’s strong realist view that there are abstract objects independently of our thinking of them, and that these are directly accessible to us, without rejecting abstract objects as such. His way of doing so is by providing a concept of higher abstraction that is in line with the normative or pragmatic meaning function of assertions, opening up Brentano’s descriptive psychology to the philosophy of language without having to rely on some of the strong realist assumptions of Husserl’s ontology.⁴⁶

References Baumgartner, W. (2013), ‘Brentano’s Mereology’, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 227 – 246. Baumgartner, W. (ed.) (1992), ‘Ein Brief Franz Brentanos an Carl Stumpf vom 10. 02. 1876. Eingeleitet und herausgegeben aus dem handschriftlichen Nachlaß Brentano’, Acta Analytica 8, p. 33 – 42.

 A first version of some parts of this paper was presented at the Brentano–Marty conference in Prague in 2014. This version of the paper has been written both as part of the project ‘Franz Brentano’s Descriptive Psychology’, funded by the Austrian Science Fund, project number P27215, and as part of the project ‘Signification et intentionnalité chez Anton Marty’, directed by Kevin Mulligan and Laurent Cesalli and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), project number 152921. Many thanks to the audience in Prague for their comments, to Kevin Mulligan for his written comments on multiple versions of the text and also to Laurent Cesalli and Hamid Taieb for many helpful remarks on the penultimate version.

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Berkeley, G. (1878), The Works of George Berkeley, vol. I, edited by G. N. Wright, London, Cheapside. Brentano, F. (1867), Die Psychologie des Aristoteles, insbesondere seine Lehre vom ΝΟΥΣ ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΟΣ, Mainz, Kirchheim. Brentano, F. (1874), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot. Brentano, F. (1966), Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, edited by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. Brentano, F. (1989), Briefe an Carl Stumpf 1867 – 1917, with the collaboration of Peter Goller, edited and introduced by Gerhard Oberkofler, Graz, Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt. Brentano, F. (1995), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, translated. by L. L. McAlister, New York, Routledge. Brentano, F. (2013), ‘Abstraction and Relation’, edited by G. Fréchette, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 431 – 447. Bühler, K. (1934), Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache, Jena, Fischer. Caston, V. (2001), ‘Connecting Traditions: Augustine and the Greeks on Intentionality’, in Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality, edited by D. Perler, Brill, Leiden, p. 23 – 48. Chrudzimski, A. and Smith, B. (2004), ‘Brentano’s Ontology: from Conceptualism to Reism’ in The Cambridge Companion to Brentano, edited by D. Jacquette, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 197 – 218. Fréchette, G. (2015), ‘Stumpf on Abstraction’, in Philosophy from an Empirical Standpoint. Essays on Carl Stumpf, edited by D. Fisette and R. Martinelli, Leiden, Brill-Rodopi, p. 263 – 292. Frege, G. (1884), Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, Breslau, Koebner. Husserl, E. (2001), Logical Investigations, Volume 1, London, Routledge. Husserl, E. (1901), Logische Untersuchungen, Band 1, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Husserl, E. (1893/1979), ‘Beilage IV zu “Psychologische Studien zur elementaren Logik”’, Husserliana XXII: Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890 – 1910), ed. B. Rang, The Hague, Nijhoff, p. 406 – 411. Husserl, E. (1994), Briefwechsel, Band 1: Die Brentanoschule, edited by K. and E. Schuhmann, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Marty, A. (1892), ‘[Review of] William James: The Principles of Psychology. London, Macmillan & Co., New York, Holt & Co. Vol. I, Vol. II’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 3, p. 297 – 333. Marty, A. (1897), ‘Sprache und Abstraktion’ in 3. Internationaler Kongreß für Psychologie in München, p. 281 – 284. Reprinted in Marty, A. (1920), Gesammelte Schriften. II. Teil 2. Abteilung Schriften zur deskriptiven Psychologie und Sprachphilosophie, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil, and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer, p. 101 – 106. Marty, A. (1908) Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I., Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (2011) Descriptive Psychologie, edited by M. Antonelli & J. C. Marek, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann. Mill, J.S. (1865/1979), An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy and of the Principal Philosophical Questions Discussed in his Writings, Toronto, Toronto University Press (vol. IX of the Collected Works of John Stuart Mill).

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Mulligan, K. (2012), Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande, Paris, Vrin. Smith, A. D. (2008), ‘The Critique of Empiricist Accounts of Abstraction (II. Logische Untersuchung, §§13 – 42)’, in Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen, edited by V. Mayer, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, p. 93 – 103. Stumpf, C. (1873), Über den psychologischen Ursprung der Raumvorstellung, Leipzig, Hirzel. Stumpf, C. (1919), ‘Erinnerungen an Franz Brentano’, in Franz Brentano, zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Lehre. Mit Beiträgen von Carl Stumpf und Edmund Husserl, edited by O. Kraus, München, Beck, p. 85 – 149. Stumpf, C. (1976), ‘Reminiscences of Franz Brentano’, in The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, edited by L. L. McAlister, London, Duckworth, p. 10 – 46. English translation of Stumpf 1919. Wittgenstein, L. (1921), Tractatus logico-philosophicus, London, Routledge.

Archive materials Brentano, F. (EL 72) Logik. Wiener Vorlesung 1878/79. Manuscript conserved at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Brentano, F. (M 96) Metaphysik. Vorlesung 1867. Transcription of Brentano’s lecture manuscripts, Franz-Brentano Archiv (Graz). Brentano, F. Letter from Brentano to Marty from February 15th, 1886, manuscript conserved at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Marty, A. 1867: Die Lehre des hl. Thomas über die Abstraction der übersinnlichen Ideen aus den sinnlichen Bildern, unpublished manuscript, IIIa19, Prague, Masaryk Archives. Marty, A. (1904), Deductive und inductive Logik. Nach den Vorträgen des Prof. Dr. Marty in Prag, typescript, Franz-Brentano Archiv (Graz). Marty, A. (Br 42), Psychologie. Notizen nach Gesprächen mit F. Brentano 1901 – 1906, Franz-Brentano Archiv (Graz). Marty, A. Letter from Marty to Brentano, May 28th, 1873, Manuscript conserved at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Giuliano Bacigalupo

Marty and Meinong on What Judgements Are About Abstract: In this paper, I analyse and compare Anton Marty’s and Alexius Meinong’s theories of judgement. There are at least two reasons speaking in favour of such a comparison. First, both philosophers were influenced by Franz Brentano’s approach to consciousness, in general, and by his theory of judgement, in particular: in differing degrees, Marty and Meinong may be considered pupils of Brentano. Second, the two philosophers introduced similar amendments to Brentano’s approach. According to Brentanian orthodoxy, we do not have access to any entity that objectively grounds the truth of our judgements, whilst Marty and Meinong both commit themselves to the view that we do. This paper reconstructs the specific ontological characteristics of these entities and the kind of epistemological access we have to them. Finally, a crucial but problematic component of Marty’s and Meinong’s theories is addressed, i. e., the introduction of negative entities to ground the truth of negative judgements.

1 Introduction Brentano’s project of grounding the classical philosophical disciplines of epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics in psychology was one of the most successful yet. He was able to train and inspire a new generation of philosophers, who—even while abandoning some key assumptions—still upheld the spirit and key tenets of his philosophical project. In this paper, I focus on two of Brentano’s pupils, Anton Marty and Alexius Meinong, and their contribution to a central element of Brentanian psychology, i. e. the theory of judgement. The core of Brentanian psychology consists in a tri-partition of mental phenomena: mental phenomena are presentations, judgements, or phenomena of love and hate—a third class that includes both feelings and will. The most fundamental and elementary are the phenomena of presentation: presentations—at least theoretically—may occur without any judgement or phenomena of love and hate attached to them, although de facto the three classes are always given together (Brentano 1874: 346 – 350 [265 – 268]). Conversely, every judging or phenomenon of love and hate—even theoretically—may only occur in connection with a presentation. The reason for this is that ‘the only way in which the primary object is necessarily and universally present in consciousness is with the https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-009

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kind of intentional inherence peculiar to presentations’ (Brentano 1874: 348 [266 – 267]). In other words, presentations provide the most basic kind of directedness towards an object, i. e., intentional inherence or—simply—intentionality. Thus judgements and phenomena of love and hate might only occur as complications of this basic form of directedness: they owe their object to presentations. But what do judgements and feelings add with respect to presentations, upon whose intentionality they are dependent? Brentano has a clear and parallel answer to this question: judgements are mental phenomena which accept or reject —with different degrees of conviction—the object of a presentation; phenomena of love and hate are mental phenomena which—as the name itself says—take a stance of either loving or hating the object of a presentation. Now, if simplicity speaks in favour of the truth of a theory, then Brentano’s theory has the mark of truth. However, Marty and Meinong thought themselves obliged to add complexity to this picture. More precisely, I am going to focus in the present context on Marty’s and Meinong’s modifications of the Brentanian theory of judgement. The reader may be surprised by the fact that in what follows I will not touch upon the main object of dispute between Marty and Meinong, namely, the alleged mental phenomenon of assuming. It is well known that Meinong abandoned the Brentanian tri-partition of mental phenomena. To him, assumptions should be considered a fourth, essential kind of mental phenomena, reducible neither to presentations nor to judgements (nor, obviously, to phenomena of love and hate) (this is the main topic of Meinong 1901, republished in a strongly revised version as Meinong 1910). Marty argued strenuously against Meinong’s innovation and played the role of the defender of Brentanian orthodoxy on this particular point (see Marty 1908: 242– 270). The topic of the present paper, however, is orthogonal to this dispute. Rather surprisingly, we will see that— once we zoom in on judgements—Marty and Meinong were (almost) on the same page, while Brentano was on a different one. To wit, according to both Marty and Meinong we have access to entities that ground the truth of our judgements, while according to Brentano this is not the case. These entities, moreover, present striking similarities. The paper is structured as follows. Parts two and three respectively address Marty’s and Meinong’s theories. The fourth and final part highlights the main problem of both theories and suggests some possible amendments. I will argue that a crucial aspect of both Marty’s and Meinong’s theories is the introduction of negative entities to ground the truth of negative judgements. These negative entities, however, lead to a conceptual impasse. I thus conclude by addressing two possible strategies to avoid this impasse: first, by reducing exis-

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tence to a property of objects, and second, by recursively defining the truth of negative judgements via the falsity of the corresponding affirmative judgements.

2 Marty on judgements 2.1 Kinds of judgements Since Marty agrees to a large extent with his teacher, it is helpful to start by providing some more details about Brentano’s account. Brentano’s theory of judgement is inseparable from his analysis of existential statements, i. e., statements of the form ‘A exists’ and ‘A does not exist’, where ‘A’ stands for any definite or indefinite description. According to Brentano, what is linguistically expressed by the assertion (for example) ‘a lion exists’ is the acceptance of a given object of presentation, namely, a lion: I accept a lion that I am presenting. Thus, language is quite misleading in expressing this judgement, since, prima facie, it seems as if we are attributing a property to the object of the presentation, namely the property of existence. However, as Brentano argues, what we really have on the mental side is nothing more than an acceptance of a lion. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to judgements of rejections, as they may for instance be expressed by the assertion ‘a ghost does not exist’ (Brentano 1874: 276 – 277 [208 – 209]). It is important to stress that this analysis of existential statements does not degrade the term ‘exist’ to a mere expletive or a flatus voci, as if we did not actually have a notion of existence. On the contrary, we derive the notion of existence and non-existence by reflecting, respectively, upon the mental phenomena of accepting and rejecting. By reflecting on the acceptance of A, I derive the notion of the existence or being of A (Brentano does not draw any distinction between being and existence); by reflecting on the rejection of A, I derive the notion of the non-existence or non-being of A (see Brentano 1874: 279 [210]). As pointed out by Chisholm 1972: 20 and Simons (in Brentano 1997: xviii), the notion of existence is thus explained via the notion of judgement.¹ Let us now turn to statements that are not existential, i. e., statements with a grammatical predicate other than ‘exist’, such as, for instance, ‘a lion is sitting’  In the course of the years, both Brentano and Marty refined this account somewhat: according to Brentano 1930: 79 [47] and Marty 1884: 33 and 39, the existence of A and the non-existence of A should be defined, respectively, via the notions of a correct acceptance of A and of a correct rejection of A. Hence, it is the normative notion of a correct judgement which now explains the notion of existence.

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or ‘a lion is not sitting’. Originally, Brentano thought that (if asserted), these statements simply expressed, respectively, the mental phenomenon of accepting a sitting lion and accepting a non-seated lion (see Brentano 1874: 283 [213 – 214]). The introduction of negative objects of presentations, however, was problematic: Can I really entertain a presentation of a non-seated lion, i. e., a negative presentation? This does not seem to be the case. At a later date, this account was thus revised by means of the introduction of double judgements: on the one hand, ‘a lion is sitting’ expresses the acceptance of a lion and the acceptance of the same lion as identical with something sitting; on the other, ‘a lion is not sitting’ expresses the acceptance of a lion and the rejection of the same lion as identical with something sitting (Brentano 1911: 145 – 158 [291– 300]). Hence, negative presentations are no longer required. According to this picture, the acceptance of a given object as identical with something else is what we usually refer to as the attribution of a property; similarly, the rejection of a given object as identical with something else is what we usually refer to as the negation of a property (hereafter, I will rely on these more common expressions and leave their analysis implicit). As was the case with existential statements, predicative statements, too, are misleading with respect to the actual psychological phenomena they express. Marty fully endorsed Brentano’s account of existential statements and defended it from its detractors in a series of articles on impersonal sentences (Marty 1884; 1895). Moreover, in 1895, he also adopted Brentano’s interpretation of predicative statements as the expression of double judgements. Only later did Marty (1908) introduce a minor but significant modification. With respect to affirmative predicative statements, Marty (1908) still agrees with Brentano’s analysis. If, however, we are dealing with negative predicative statements, as, for instance, in ‘a lion is not sitting’, the story becomes more complex. To Marty, what this statement expresses is an acceptance of a lion together with a reflexive judgement about the falsity of the attribution of a property. Thus, affirmative and negative predicative statements are interpreted in a radically different way: the latter express a second-order judgement about the falsity of a judgement, while the former do not (see Marty 1908: 293).² This gives us a comprehensive list of two kinds of simple judgements, i. e., acceptances and rejections of objects, and one kind of complex judgement, i. e., judgements of accepting an object and of attributing a property to it. Finally, we have complex judgements that involve a judgement of second-order, i. e.

 This element of Marty’s analysis was stressed by Morscher 1990: 185 – 186.

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judgements that accept an object and negate the truth of a judgement attributing a property to it.

2.2 Truth of judgements 2.2.1 Assertoric judgements Every theory of judgement has to include an account of the most fundamental property thereof, namely truth or falsity. It is at this stage of the analysis that we witness a radical disagreement between Brentano’s and Marty’s accounts. While Brentano always endorsed a thoroughly epistemic approach to the truth of judgements as evident judgements, Marty (1908) deems it necessary to complement the epistemic approach with a non-epistemic one: judgements are true or correct because something appropriate corresponds to them.³ Marty is still in agreement with Brentano to the extent that, epistemically speaking, we only have access to the correctness of our judgements through a self-evident experience. However, this does not hinder him from defining the correctness of a judgement by means of a kind of correspondence. The most straightforward answer—one may argue—would be to say that the objects of presentations are what correspond to our judgements and thus make them true. It is, however, easy to see that such an approach is not available to Marty: Which object corresponds to a true negative judgement such as, for instance, the rejection of a ghost? If it is a ghost ‘out there’ that corresponds to the judgement and makes it true, then this object should be considered as existing or as a part of reality. This, however, would make the rejection of a ghost false. ⁴ We would thus be confronted with a version of the philosophical paradox often referred to as Plato’s beard. The answer, thus, has to be more sophisticated. Let us return to the notion of existence. As seen above, Brentano and Marty agree that, by reflecting on the mental phenomenon of accepting A, we derive the notion of the being of A. Conversely, by reflecting on the mental phenomenon of rejecting A, we derive the notion of the non-being of A. The same may be said of double judgements: through reflection on the acceptance of A and the at-

 In his 1889 lecture ‘On the Concept of Truth’, it seems that Brentano, too, experimented with non epistemic, correspondence-theoretic approaches to truth (see Chrudzimski 2001: 58 – 61). Chrudzimski 2014: 218 thus speaks of Brentano’s unofficial doctrine. We should, however, underline that in his lecture Brentano’s conclusion was that the correspondence-theoretical approach simply leads to tautologies (see below, footnote 6).  This is one of the main arguments that Brentano 1930: 22 [13] raises against the correspondence-theoretic approach to truth (see Marty 1908: 426).

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tribution of B to A, we derive the notion of the being-B of A; through reflection on the acceptance of A and the falsity of the attribution of being-B to A, we derive the notion of the non-being-B of A (see Marty 1908: 293). Marty labels these notions judgement-contents (Urteilsinhalte), since they are derived by means of a reflection on judgements. Up to this point, we may say that Marty is still an orthodox Brentanian. As it happens, this use of the expression ‘judgement-content’ seems to be traceable back to Brentano himself (Marty 1908: 292; Brentano 1952: 201). The heresy, however, materializes with the next step. Marty writes: [T]he natural understanding of the notion of judgment-content seems to me to be that what objectively grounds the correctness of judgments, or, more precisely: that without which this attitude (Verhalten) cannot be correct or adequate. (Marty 1908: 29)

Marty confronts us with a philosophical somersault here. The notion of the being of A and the non-being of A are derived by reflecting on our acceptance of A and on our rejection of A respectively, as Brentano claims. However, to rely on Cesalli and Taieb’s (2014: 225) expression, these notions are then ‘externalized’ by Marty: they provide access to something independent of our acceptances and rejections, and, more precisely, to what ‘objectively grounds’ (objektiv begründet) the truth of our acceptances and rejections.⁵ In their correspondence, Brentano argued at length against Marty’s approach to truth (see especially Brentano 1952: 172– 177).⁶ Nevertheless, Marty did not concede any ground on this particular issue. Abstracting from the dispute with Brentano, Marty’s account has at least the following advantage: it allows us to uphold a correspondence theory of truth without falling prey to Plato’s beard. Indeed, the rejection of a ghost may now be considered true because it is grounded in the obtaining judgement-content of the non-being of a ghost (see Marty 1908: 294, footnote).

 That Marty intends to advance a correspondence-theoretic approach to truth while talking of what ‘objectively grounds’ the truth of a judgement is evident from the quote provided below (footnote 11) as well as from his discussion of the adequatio rei et intellectus in § 102 (Marty 1908: 423 – 431).  In his lecture ‘On the Concept of Truth’, Brentano 1952: 27 [15 – 16] himself moved towards defining the truth of an affirmative judgement by means of the existence of the object of the judgement, and the truth of a negative judgement by means of the non-existence of the object of the judgement. But at the same time, Brentano stressed that these are mere tautologies (see also Brentano 1889: 76 – 77). In this sense, I agree with Fréchette 2014: 383 – 4 that Brentano’s concern with notions of the form ‘the existence of A’ and ‘the non-existence of A’ is best understood as ‘largely deflationary’. By contrast, Marty endorses these definitions as substantial.

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At this stage of the analysis, we may formulate Marty’s truth-definitions for simple and complex judgements. I rely on the standard bi-conditional formulation of truth-definitions, whereby we should bear in mind that the explanation goes from right to left (notice, again, that the capital letters A and B are variables for definite or indefinite descriptions—no direct reference by means of proper names is allowed by Marty):

Definitions 1 (True Acceptance) The acceptance of A is correct iff the judgement-content [the being of A] obtains. (True Rejection) The rejection of A is correct iff the judgement-content [the nonbeing of A] obtains. (True Acceptance + Attribution) The acceptance of A and the attribution of property B to A is true iff the judgement-content [the being of A] obtains and the judgement-content [the being-B of A] obtains as well. (True Acceptance + Negation) The acceptance of A and the negation of the truth of the judgement that attributes the property B to A is true iff the judgement-content [the being of A] obtains and the judgement-content [the non-being-B of A] obtains

2.2.2 Apodictic judgements and modalities The previous definitions of truth are definitions of the truth of assertoric judgements (assertorische Urteile), i. e. judgements of facts. Once apodictic (apodiktische) or a priori judgements are taken into account, Marty introduces analogous entities to those which (objectively) ground the truth of assertoric acceptances and rejections. We not only have the judgement-contents of the being of A and the non-being of A, but also the judgement-contents of the necessity of A and the impossibility of A (see Marty 1908: 296 – 303).⁷ The truth-definitions of apodictic judgements, thus, run as follows:

 Marty also offers an account of tensed judgement parallel to that of apodictic judgements, which involves judgement-contents of the form [the past being of A] as well as of the form [the present being of A] (Marty 1908: 303 – 304).

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Definitions 2 (True apodictic acceptance) The apodictic acceptance of A is true iff the judgement-content [the necessity of A] obtains. (True apodictic rejection) The apodictic rejection of A is true iff the judgementcontent [the impossibility of A] obtains. It is important to notice, however, that according to Marty true apodictic acceptances are not available to us finite human beings. In other words, we cannot have any a priori knowledge of the existence of something. This is a privilege of possible superior beings. What is within our capabilities, instead, is true apodictic rejection, such as, for instance, the rejection expressed by the statement ‘a round square does not exist’. From this perspective, we, as limited human beings, cannot ‘reach’ necessities (Marty 1908: 301 footnote).⁸ By contrast, the reason why we can ‘reach’ impossibilities—and thus, possibilities as well—is that true apodictic rejections are rejections in virtue of the simple contemplation of presentations (‘auf Grund bloßer Betrachtung der Vorstellungen’) (Marty 1908: 300 – 301). To return to the previous example, the apodictic rejection of a round square is (epistemically) motivated by the presentation of roundness and squareness. This epistemic motivation, however, should not be confused with the entity that grounds the truths of such a judgement, namely the obtaining impossibility of a round square.

2.2 Intentionality We may now turn to the following question: To what extent does Marty uphold the Brentanian intuition that every mental phenomenon is intentional? More precisely, following Marty’s own terminology, we may ask: To what extent does every mental phenomenon involve a subject–object relation, a relation of ideal adequation (ideelle Adäquation), or a relation of ideal similarity (ideelle Ähnlichkeit) (different formulations used synonymously by Marty)?⁹

 As Marty stresses, however, we may reach necessities indirectly, i. e., via impossibilities: the impossibility of a coloured sound leads us to the necessity of the non-being of a coloured sound.  By ideal similarity or adequation, Marty refers to the sui generis kind of relation that holds between a subject and the object of her thinking—provided there is such an object. This relation, Marty stresses, may be labelled ‘similarity’ only in a metaphoric sense, for between what is a mental phenomenon and what is extra-mental there can be no true similarity (see Marty 1908: 407– 408) (for further discussion, see Cesalli and Taieb 2012: 204– 207). Thus, since the

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First, let us remember that all mental phenomena are intentional in virtue of being either a presentation or a mental phenomenon strictly linked to a presentation. Let us therefore first focus upon presentations. In which sense can Marty say that every presentation involves a subject–object relation? Clearly, this cannot mean that every presentation is in relation with something actual or existing: presentations which are (or at least may be) embedded in false judgements of acceptance do not involve a subject–object relation, for there is no such object; the same of course applies to presentations that are embedded in true judgements of rejections. A first option would be to say that such presentations are in relation with non-existent objects. But, as we have seen, Marty, like Brentano, opposes the reduction of existence to a discriminating property of objects. So, do we have to conclude that some presentations are objectless and thus non-intentional? In a sense, yes. However, Marty notes that we may still uphold the view according to which even the problematic presentations in question involve at least a counterfactual relation with an object: if the object existed, the presentation would be in relation with this object (Marty 1908: 406). Thus, if not actually, every presentation is at least possibly in relation with an object.¹⁰ Should we say the same about judgements as about presentations? To wit, should we say that true judgements are actually in a subject–object relation with judgement-contents, while false judgements are merely possibly in such a relation? Marty seems to think that this is the case.¹¹ At the same time, we should remember that judgements are not really intentionally directed towards judgement-contents but only towards the object of the relevant presentations. Accordingly, there appears to be some unresolved tension in Marty’s stance. Since the truth of judgements is grounded in the relevant judgement-contents, there is a sense in which me we may say that judgements are about judgement-contents. Strictly speaking, however, this ‘aboutness’ is not the ‘aboutness’ of intentionality. Instead, the mental phenomena that are intentionally about judgement-contents are not judgements themselves but presentations derived by reflecting upon judgements.

notion of ideal similarity or adequation has no real explanatory power, in what follows I rely on the expression ‘subject–object relation’ or ‘intentionality’.  For further discussion, see Cesalli and Taieb 2012 and Chrudzimski 2014.  As Marty 1908: 418 writes, the attitude of judging is ‘according to its essence either an actually or an ideally possibly adequation with the being or non-being of an object (seinem Wesen nach eine wirkliche oder ideelle mögliche Adäquation mit dem Sein resp. Nichsein eines Gegenstandes)’.

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2.3 The ontological status and structure of judgement-contents Let us now turn to the ontological status and the structure of judgement-contents. Their role as an objective ground for truth presupposes their subject-independence: the judgement-content of the being of a lion obtains even if there is no one there to judge about lions (see Marty 1908: 295). From this perspective, we may even avoid talk of judgement-contents and simply refer to them as a specific kind of complex object, e. g., facts or states of affairs. However, Marty refers to them throughout his text as judgement-contents to underline how—epistemologically—we have access to this notion (Marty 1908: 293).¹² Hence, the question we should ask ourselves is the following: What is the difference between garden-variety objects (e. g., lions) and more exotic judgement-contents (e. g., the being of a lion)? According to Marty, judgement-contents should be considered ontologically on a par with relations of resemblance and collections (Marty 1908: 321) (see also Rollinger 2014: 194). If we have, for instance, two objects A and B, we also have a relation of resemblance or non-resemblance between them. Analogously, if we have two objects A and B, we also have the collection of A and B. Neither the relation or the collection, however, should be understood as something concrete, i. e., something with causal powers, existing alongside the objects A and B (the property of being real is co-extensive with, and indeed may be defined as the property of having causal powers). Instead, we should consider relations and collections as non-real objects. That such objects are non-real, however, does not mean that they are not temporal, for their share their temporality with those objects upon which they are dependent (Mulligan 1990: 18 and Chrudzimski 2006/ 09 talk of ‘supervenience’). Now, judgement-contents are, as relations and collections, non-real, temporal, and dependent upon real objects (Marty 1908: 321). Even judgement-contents of necessity and impossibility share all these characteristics. The only difference is that they always exist. For instance, the impossibility of a round square must exist now exactly as the being of a lion exists now. But the impossibility of a round square was and always will be existent, whilst the being of a lion may very well come in and go out of existence (Marty 1908: 325 – 329). There is, however, an ill-concealed problem in Marty’s approach to the ontology of judgement-contents: judgement-contents of non-being, such as for instance the non-being of a ghost, clearly cannot be understood as being depend-

 See the quote below (footnote 20), which targets Meinong’s alternative terminological choice.

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ent upon given objects. Indeed, the crux of the issue is that in such cases there is no object at all. Thus, how can we speak intelligibly of the notion of judgementcontent? In a crucial footnote, Marty (1908: 294) seems to find a way out of this impasse: in the expression ‘the non-being of A’, the term ‘non-being’ should be interpreted as modifying the meaning of the term ‘A’ and not as expressing a property of A. But what does it mean for a predicate to modify? In a later paragraph, Marty provides some clarification. Here Marty says that the notion of modification is the same as the one at stake in the term ‘dead’: in the expression ‘a dead king’, the term ‘dead’, rather than expressing a property of the king, modifies the meaning of the term ‘king’ (see Marty 1908: 353). However, this seems a rather mysterious and ad-hoc solution to the problem. A dead king is something that was a king (or—at least—his body). No mystery is involved here—to the extent that we may all agree on a more accurate linguistic expression. But what is the non-being of A really? If the expression is misleading, by which other expression should it be replaced? And why does Marty rely on a misleading expression to develop his account of truth? Marty does not provide a real answer to these questions and I do not see how we could possibly fill this gap.¹³ Indeed, it seems that the most natural path to follow would be to abandon Marty’s claim that the expression ‘the non-being of A’ is not about A. Instead, as already suggested by Chrudzimski (2014), we may simply revise Marty’s approach to the effect that being is reduced to a property that may or may not be instantiated by objects. I will return to this option in the final section of the paper. An analogous worry may be raised in relation to Marty’s theory of modalities. For example, the judgement-content of the impossibility of a round square seems to presuppose a round square. But, according to Marty, there is no such object as a round square. Once again, he points to the fact that we should not consider the term ‘impossibility’ as expressing a discriminating property of objects but rather as a modifying notion (Marty 1908: 353). But, then again, this seems to be more confusing than clarifying, since Marty provides nothing more accurate, in terms of a linguistic expression, than ‘the impossibility of A’.¹⁴ Hence, it seems that negative judgement-contents—as they are conceived by Marty—do not yield a satisfactory explanation of the truth of negative judgements, no matter whether they are assertoric or apodictic.

 The notion of modifying predicates may be traced back to Brentano 1874: 288 [219].  The same worry may be formulated with respect to tensed judgements: the expression ‘the past being of A’ would require a modified object A (see above, footnote 7).

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3 Meinong on judgements 3.1 Kinds of judgements The distorting character of language came to the fore in both Brentano’s and Marty’s pictures of existential and predicative statements. In Über Annahme, Meinong takes a radically different path. On the one hand, a statement such as ‘a lion exists’ is interpreted by Meinong as expressing the mental phenomenon of believing or judging that a lion exists, and not merely the acceptance of a lion. On the other hand, a statement such as ‘a ghost does not exist’ expresses the belief or judgement that a ghost does not exist, and not merely the rejection of a ghost. We are thus confronted with a one-to-one parallelism between thinking and speaking. Or, in other words, there is no better way to express our judgements than that provided to us by natural language. The same approach is also followed with respect to predicative statements, such as ‘a lion is sitting’ or ‘a lion is not sitting’: they express, respectively, the judgement that a lion is sitting and the judgement that a lion is not sitting. No interpretation of the statement is required in order to obtain a double judgement, as was the case with Brentano and Marty. Instead, natural language is perfectly fine as it stands. The price Meinong has to pay for his adherence to natural language is that we no longer have an explanation of (the derivation of) the concept of existence: to him, this notion remains a primitive one. The same applies to the notion of predication, which is not interpreted away by means of double judgements. On Meinong’s account, we can really speak of existential and predicative judgements as what is expressed, respectively, by existential and predicative statements.

3.2 Truth of judgements 3.2.1 Assertoric judgements Once we shift our focus from kinds of judgements to the property of being true or false, we see how Meinong’s and Marty’s approaches converge. As was the case with Marty, Meinong, too, favours a non-epistemic approach to the truth of judgements: judgements are correct if and only if something ‘out there’ makes them true. Thus both Meinong and Marty turned their back to Brentano’s thoroughly epistemic approach to the correctness of judgements and ventured into the field of correspondence theories of truth. Once again, the first obstacle that presents itself after abandoning the epistemic approach lies in the interpretation of negative existential statements. As

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Meinong notes, every true affirmative existential judgement—i. e., what is expressed by an affirmative existential statement—is true because something ‘out there’ makes it true.¹⁵ In Marty′s terminology, something has to objectively ground the truth of the judgement. But, then, how are we supposed to understand the truth of a negative existential judgement, such as that expressed by the statement ‘a ghost does not exist’? The judgement in question cannot be true because a ghost is ‘out there’. This would clearly lead to the contradictory view according to which a ghost does not exist if and only if a ghost exists, i. e., we would fall prey to Plato’s beard. Meinong’s solution to the problem raised by negative existentials is—once again—in the vicinity of Marty: it has to be something other than the object of the presentation involved in the judgement (e. g., a ghost) that grounds its truth. Meinong thus introduces a distinction between two kinds of objects. On the one hand we have the objects of presentations;¹⁶ on the other, we have objectives (Objektive)—a technical term for the proper objects of judgements— which are best expressed as that-clauses. For instance, the judgement expressed by the statement ‘a ghost does not exist’ is true not because a ghost exists, since this would be contradictory, but rather because the objective that a ghost does not exist itself exists.¹⁷ This is what grounds the truth of negative existential judgements (see Meinong 1910: 42– 44 [37– 39]).¹⁸ For the sake of symmetry, this account has to be applied to affirmative existential judgements as well. It is not a lion that makes the judgement expressed by the statement ‘a lion exists’ true. Strictly speaking, it is also not a lion’s existence that fulfils this function. Instead, the judgement expressed by the state-

 In the passage in question, Meinong does not literally say that a judgement is true because something ‘out there’ makes it true. He also does not speak, as Marty did, of what ‘objectively grounds’ the truth of a judgement. Instead, he says that judgements are true because they ‘discern’ or ‘grasp’ (erkennen) a ‘piece of reality’ (Stück Wirklichkeit) (Meinong 1910: 42 [37]). Hence, we find an epistemological perspective in Meinong′s discussion that is, for instance, missing in Marty’s notion of what objectively grounds the truth of a judgement. Nonetheless, I take it to be sufficiently clear that Meinong is developing a correspondence-theoretic approach to truth, and, more precisely, that in the passage at stake he is discussing a version of the semantic paradox of Plato’s beard.  To terminologically distinguish between the object of presentations and the more general notion of object, Meinong refers to the former as ‘Objekt’ (‘objectum’ in the English translation) and to the latter as ‘Gegenstand’ (Meinong 1910: 44 [39]).  Meinong would rather speak of the subsistence of the objective. I address the ontological distinction between existence and subsistence further below.  Meinong, in contrast to Marty, explicitly addresses the paradox of Plato’s beard, both in Meinong 1910: 42– 43 [37– 38] and in Meinong 1904: 9 [83].

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ment ‘a lion exists’ is true because the objective that a lion exists itself exists. This is—once again in Marty’s terminology—what objectively grounds the truth of this kind of judgement (see Meinong 1910: 45 [39]). Finally, the same account has to be extended so as to apply to predicative judgements. On the one hand, the truth of the judgement expressed by the statement ‘a lion is sitting’ is grounded in the existence of the objective that a lion is sitting. On the other hand, the existence of the objective that a lion is not sitting is what grounds the truth of the judgement expressed by the statement ‘a lion is not sitting’ (see Meinong 1910: 72 [57]). We obtain thus the following truth-definitions (I formulate them relying on the more general notion of being instead of existence, see below 2.4):¹⁹

Definitions 3 (True Affirmative Existential Judgements) The judgement that A has being is true iff the objective [that A has being] has being. (True Negative Existential Judgement) The judgement that A has no being is true iff the objective [that A has no being] has being. (True Affirmative Predicative Judgements) The judgement that A is B is true iff the objective [that A is B] has being. (True Negative Predicative Judgements) The judgement that A is not B is true iff the objective [that A is not B] has being. The similarity between Meinong’s objectives and Marty’s judgement-contents is striking: both Meinong and Marty attribute the function of objectively grounding the truth of judgements to these entities. One may be tempted to argue that the difference between the two approaches is—to a large extent—a mere linguistic one: while Meinong mainly relies on that-clauses such as ‘that A exists’ or ‘that A does not exist’, Marty usually prefers to talk of ‘the being of A’ and ‘the non-being of A’. There are differences as well, though. First and foremost, Meinong does not bring reflection into play in order to explain how we can grasp objects such as—  Meinong himself defines the truth of a judgement as a correspondence between the pseudoobjective of the judgement and an existing objective (Meinong 1910: 93 – 94 [71– 72]). In the present context, I abstract from this further complication. The crucial element is that existing objectives ground the truth of judgements.

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in Marty’s terminology—the existence of a lion and the non-existence of a ghost. To Meinong, these are themselves the objects we are directed towards while judging: judgements are about objectives, whereby the ‘aboutness’ in question is the ‘aboutness’ of intentionality. True, Meinong concedes that usually our attention is focused on the objects of the presentation involved in any given judgement, such as a ghost or a lion. Yet this does not imply that the being of a lion and the non-being of a ghost are not objects of our judgements (see Meinong 1910: 46 [40]). Instead, both being and negation are somehow objects of thought that do not require any kind of reflection in order to be grasped.²⁰ This is the case even though we do not have a presentation of them. Judgements, as it were, see things that presentations cannot see.²¹ We are thus moving away from the orthodoxy of empiricism, which still had a very strong hold on Brentano and Marty, namely the view according to which we should be able to trace all our concepts back to presentations or reflection.²² This is the deep epistemological difference that motivates their different terminological choices. A final difference concerns the relation of objectives of being and objectives of being-so. As we have seen, according to Marty, judgement-contents of being-so are dependent upon judgement-contents of being. In Meinong, we find no such connection. I will come back to this crucial point in my discussion of Meinong’s approach to intentionality.

3.2.2 Apodictic judgements and modalities Turning to Meinong’s account of modalities, we again find interesting similarities and differences with respect to Marty. According to Meinong, necessities are not what Marty labelled moments (of judgement-contents) but rather properties (of

 In an explicit criticism of Marty (and Brentano), Meinong (1910: 62 [50], footnote) remarks that it does not seem to be the case that, when we think of existence, we think of a judgement. For his part, Marty 1908: 293 explicitly addresses Meinong’s view in the following terms: “the name ‘judgement-content’ is particularly appropriate and striking compared to an ‘apsychologism’, which attempts to misunderstand that thinking about ‘objectives’ is not possible without thinking about judging”.  Adolf Reinach, who in many respects follows Meinong’s approach, addresses this very point by introducing a distinction between sehen and erschauen (Reinach 1911: 226). A state of affairs (his term for ‘objective’) cannot be seen but only be discerned or espied. For a comparative reading of Meinong and Reinach, see Salice 2009.  We have already seen, however, how Marty stretches the notion of reflection so as to allow for the externalization of judgement-contents. The resulting notion of reflection, thus, is radically different from the empiricist one: through it we have access to something other than our own mental doings.

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objectives): objectives may be necessary, not objects.²³ This leads to the following truth-definitions for apodictic judgements:

Definitions 4 (True Apodictic Existential Judgements) The apodictic judgement that A is / is not is true iff the objective [that A is / is not] has necessary being. (True Apodictic Predicative Judgements) The apodictic judgement that A is B / is not B is true iff the objective [that A is B / is not B] has necessary being. Once again, it is important to stress that no reflection upon the mental phenomenon of judging is required in order to reach the notion of necessity. It is simply and directly through an apodictic judgement that we are directed towards an objective of a special kind, namely a necessary one. This is something that may be ‘seen’ by our judgements, but not by our presentations. The notion of impossibility is then defined by means of the necessary nonbeing of a given objective. To give an example, ‘a round square is impossible’ is to a certain extent a misleading statement according to this picture. What we should rather say is ‘that a round square exists is impossible’ or, equivalently but more appropriately, ‘that a round square exists is necessarily non-existent’. Hence, objects are called impossible only in an indirect way: via a given objective and via the necessary non-existence of this objective (see Meinong 1910: 92 – 93 [70 – 71]). This is again a remarkable difference with respect to Marty, who did not rule out judgement-contents of necessity, but simply defended the view that, epistemically, we may have a direct access only to judgement-contents of impossibility.

3.3 Intentionality To what extent does Meinong’s theory of judgement allow him to uphold the Brentanian intuition that every mental phenomenon is intentional? We have seen how Marty had to introduce a qualification to this thesis. Meinong, conversely, upholds Brentano’s intuition in its full splendour. In order to do so,  It would be tempting to add that Meinong, unlike Marty, acknowledges only de dicto modalities. This, however, would be misleading: de dicto modalities are usually understood as modalities that have propositions in their scope. Yet objectives are not truth-bearers, i. e., propositions, but rather truth-makers.

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he introduces his well-known stance on objects as something beyond being and non-being (see Meinong 1904: 12 [86]). This stance applies in the first place to everyday objects such as lions and ghosts, i. e. objects of our presentations: when we think of a ghost, we are directed towards an object, just as when we think of a lion. The only difference is that a lion is an existing object, while a ghost is a non-existing one. This is tantamount to endorsing the view that even non-existing things may instantiate properties (i. e., in Meinong’s terminology, the independence of being from being-so) (Meinong 1904: 8 [82]): something may be a ghost while being non-existent. It is thus not by chance that, as noted above, the truth-definitions of predicative judgements are independent of the truth-definitions of existential judgements. This is the most controversial part of Meinong’s theory, which was notoriously attacked by Russell (1905).²⁴ What holds for everyday object also has to hold for objectives: these, too, are beyond being and non-being. Thus, false judgements as well as true ones are directed towards objectives. The difference merely consists in the fact that true judgements are directed to factual or subsisting objectives while false one are directed to non-factual or non subsisting ones (see Meinong 1910: 45 – 6 [39 – 40]).

3.4 The ontological status and structure of objectives Let us now turn to the ontological status and structure of objectives. Like Marty’s judgement-contents, objectives have to be subject-independent, for otherwise they could not fulfil their function of objectively grounding truth. More interestingly, objectives are also to a certain extent abstract, in the sense that they are not spatial and do not enter into any causal relation. Terminologically, this difference is expressed by Meinong via a distinction between two kinds of being: being that may enter into causal relations is existent being, whilst being that does not is subsistent (subsistierend) being. Given these remarks, it may seem that the distinction between real and nonreal existence drawn by Marty may be mapped to the Meinongian distinction between existence and subsistence. However, according to Meinong, subsistent being is not only a-causal and a-spatial, but also a-temporal. Objectives, for instance, do not come and go out of being, as was the case with Marty’s judgement-contents (see Rollinger 2010: 95). Strictly speaking, we should even refrain from saying that objectives always were and always will be, for they are timeless.

 For an overview of the debate, see Simons 1992.

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But how can we think of the being of lions and the non-being of ghosts as something which may not have come into being and go out of being, one might wonder? Indeed, if lions became extinct, we would want to say that the being of a lion had gone out of existence as well. Or, at least, this is how Marty would approach such an example. To Meinong, however, time-coordinates should be attached to the temporal, spatial, and causally interactive object and not to the objective. The objective of the being of a lion in December 2014 is not itself in December 2014; only a lion is in December 2014. It is thus not difficult to see how—once the time-coordinates are placed on the object’s side—we are led to consider objectives as timeless (Meinong 1910: 63 – 69 [51– 55]).²⁵ The difference between Meinong’s and Marty’s views of abstractness does not hinder Meinong from interpreting objectives as dependent upon objects, too: objectives, like Marty’s judgement-contents, should be put on a par with relations and collections. Meinong even has a name for objectives that places them in the same class as relations and complexions, i. e., ‘ideal objects of higher order’ (Gegenstände höherer Ordnung), where ‘ideal’ means that the object of higher order is necessitated by the object or objects of inferior order. For example, if we have a green object and a red object, these objects necessitate the object of higher order of the difference between them (with respect to colour). In the light of these latter remarks, Meinong’s notion of the objective seems to lead to the same impasse as the notion of judgement-content: how could we consider the non-existence of a ghost as an objective that is dependent, or more precisely necessitated by a ghost? As we have already seen, according to Meinong, we should not think of the reference of the word ‘ghost’ in ‘the nonbeing of a ghost’ as being mysteriously modified, like Marty. Rather, Meinong adamantly defends the view according to which even a non-existent ghost is a full-blown ghost. This, however, is not sufficient to dispel all the doubts we might have. A first problem with this account is that a non-existent object may be contained in a subsisting objective, as for instance in the case of the objective that a ghost does not exist. Yet the notion of an existing whole with a non-existent part is very puzzling, to say the least. This possible objection leads Meinong to interpret the relation between objectives and objects as a sui generis relation, which should not be considered on a par with mereological relations of parts and wholes (Meinong 1904: 10 – 11 [84– 85]).

 Unlike Marty, Meinong does not distinguish between these two kinds of entities: [the past being of A] and [the present being of A] (see above, footnote 7). Instead, we only have entities of the form [the being of A at time t]—of course provided A is a time-bound object.

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The second and—in my view—main problem also arises with respect to the relation between the objective and the relevant object of inferior order. Why does a given object, such as, for instance, a ghost, necessitate an objective of nonbeing and not one of being? A straightforward explanation would be to reduce existence to a property of objects. We may thus say that the objective that A does not exist is necessitated by an object A that does not instantiate the property of existence. This is the path that was followed by the so-called neo-Meinongian philosophers Routley (1980) and Parsons (1980). Meinong, however, seemed rather impressed by the Kantian slogan or, more specifically, by a possible interpretation thereof: existence should not be deemed a property of objects (see Meinong 1907: 224). Kant notoriously said something slightly different, namely that existence should not be deemed a real predicate. See Kant 1998: 567 [B 624=A 596]. Thus, Meinong attempted to follow a different path and suggested that the existence or non-existence of the object is not a matter of the object, and thus a property of the object, but rather something that pertains to the objective. As Meinong wrote, ‘the opposition between being and non-being is primarily a matter of the objective and not of the object’ (Meinong 1904: 12 [86]).²⁶ This does not seem to be a tenable position, however. To explain the existence or non-existence of an object by recourse to the being of an objective of existence or the being of an objective of non-existence, besides being plainly circular, inverts the natural order of explanation. Hence, the neo-Meinongian path is the more promising one. In the next section, I will return to this crucial issue.

4 Comparison and dilemma Table 1 provides an overview of the differences and similarities between Marty’s judgement-contents and Meinong’s objectives.

 Findlay 1963: 75; 102– 103, Rapaport 1978: 157, and Poli 2001: 351 stress that Meinong avoids any reduction of existence to a property of objects and rather attempts to explain the notion of existence via the notion of an objective. This notwithstanding, many scholars tend to attribute the property-view of existence to Meinong (see for instance Chisholm 1972 and Grossman 1974).

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Table 1. Comparison of judgement-contents and objectives Function

Ontological status

Inner structure

Relation to modalities

Way of grasping

Judgement- Objective contents ground for truth

Being, non-real and Supervene time-bound upon objects (?)

Moment within the judgementcontent

Reflection on judgements

Objectives

Beyond being, nei- Supervene ther in space nor in upon obtime jects (?)

Property of the objective

Proper objects of judgements

Objective ground for truth

The main problem raised by both accounts, as already noted, is at the level of the inner structure of judgement-contents and objectives (see the question marks in Table 1), i. e., how they are related to the objects that are, as it were, contained within them. We cannot really say that they supervene upon them, since in many cases there simply is no such object. Both Meinong and Marty thus have to introduce ad-hoc claims to the effect that, in the expression ‘nonbeing of A’, ‘A’ refers to a modified object (Marty), or that ‘non-being’ is a matter of the objective and not of the object (Meinong). If we briefly return to Brentano, it is noteworthy that he did not target the above-mentioned weakness to try to win back his students. Instead, he focused on the infinite number of entities implied by the theories advanced by Marty and Meinong. For instance, the being of a lion implies the being of the being of a lion, and so on ad infinitum (see Brentano 1911: 147 [228]; 1952: 176). And, since, according to Brentano, infinities cannot actually exist, we have to discard the notions of objectives or judgement-contents as fictions of language. However, the premise that infinities do not exist is far from being self-evident, so this criticism does not seem to be decisive.²⁷ Furthermore, Brentano relied on the empiricist intuition that we cannot think of non-real or abstract objects such as Marty’s judgement-contents and Meinong’s objectives (Brentano 1952: 173). Once again, this should lead us to consider such entities as mere fictions of language. But, then again, one may simply renounce Brentano’s empiricist intuition.²⁸ Since they do not seem to be decisive, let us put Brentano’s objections aside and return to the issue of the inner-structure. Above, we had the chance to ad Notice, moreover, that we may say that such infinities come at a low ontological cost. For instance, every second-order objective may be considered as supervening upon the lowerorder objective, of course provided the latter subsists (see Meinong 1910: 71 [56]).  Brentano 1952: 203 raises a further objection in his correspondence with Oskar Kraus, which addresses the implicit containment of the non-being of A and B in the non-being of A.

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dress a possible way out: pace Meinong and Marty (and Kant, Brentano, etc.), existence should indeed be considered an (almost) ordinary property of objects. This, moreover, seems to be the most natural path to follow if we wish to uphold a key Brentanian principle: every mental phenomenon is directed towards an object. From this perspective, Table 1 may be amended by saying that objectives and judgement-contents supervene upon their objects, no matter whether they exist or not. As is well-known, Russell (1905) fiercely argued against this approach to existence or being. However, both Routley (1980) and Parsons (1980) have shown how, at a given theoretical cost, the Russellian objections may be countered. There is, however, a further possible way out of the impasse we are interested in here. As we have seen, both Marty and Meinong provide distinct truth-conditions for affirmative and negative judgements. The non-being of A is what grounds the truth of the judgement of the rejection of A (Marty), or that A does not exist (Meinong). The non-being B of A is what grounds the truth of the affirmation of A and the falsity of the judgement that A is B (Marty) or of the judgement that A is not B (Meinong). Yet this does not imply that the grounds for the truth of negative judgements are ontologically unconnected to the grounds for the truth of affirmative judgements. On the contrary, if the nonbeing of A exists, then the being of A does not exist; if the non-being-B of A exists, then the being-B of A does not exist.²⁹ It is this last consideration that opens a different path out of the impasse. Both Marty and Meinong may avoid these problems by simply abandoning the intuition that negative judgements should have specific entities to ground their truths. Indeed, the truth of negative judgements may simply be explained recursively via the falsity of the corresponding affirmative judgement. This is the very plain insight that we all learn while studying, for instance, Tarskian truth-definitions. What we should say is not that the judgement of the rejection of A or the judgement that A does not exist is true if and only if the non-being of A exists. Rather, we simply should say that the judgement of the rejection of A or the judgement that A does not exist is true if and only if, respectively, the acceptance of A or the judgement that A exists is false. Clearly, the same approach should be extended so as to cover predicative judgements. To borrow Simons’

 This is an ontological formulation of the law of non-contradiction. As noted by Smith 1989: 60, Meinong explicitly spelled out the project of grounding logical truths (such as, for instance, the law of non-contradiction) in necessary ontological relations between objectives.

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(2005) expression, whose insight about negation I am following here, negative truths should always be considered truths by default. We may conclude by highlighting a dilemma. In order to solve the difficulties inherent to Marty’s and Meinong’s theories of judgement, we may either go neoMeinongian or we may abandon the intuition that positive and negative judgements should be considered on a par—two different kinds of judgements with their own respective entities that ground their truth. Now, no matter which side of the dilemma we choose, we lose the main motivation for the very introduction of judgement-contents or objectives. As should be clear, we can do without these new entities in our ontology no matter whether we deem existence a property or define the truth of negative judgements recursively. True, this would leave us with the problem of having to provide a different account of apodictic judgements. Yet I would argue that we have not gained much insight into the truth of apodictic judgements if we say that they are true because the relevant object is impossible (Marty) or because the relevant objective is necessary (Meinong). A different story has to be told here. Brentano is thus in a sense vindicated: objectives and judgement-contents seem to be degraded to the status of mere fictions of language.³⁰

References Brentano, F. (1874), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot. English translation in Brentano 1994 (references to the English translation in square brackets). Brentano, F. (1888), Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot. Brentano, F. (1911), Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, vol. II), Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot. English translation in Brentano 1994 (references to the English translation in square brackets). Brentano, F. (1930), Wahrheit und Evidenz, edited by O. Kraus, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. English translation in Brentano 1966 (references to the English translation in square brackets). Brentano, F. (1952), Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, edited by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Bern, Francke. Brentano, F. (1997), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, edited by L. L. McAlister, London, Routledge. Cesalli, L. and Friedrich, J. (eds.) (2014), Anton Marty and Karl Bühler. Between Mind and Language, Basel, Schwabe.

 I would like to thank the audience of the conference Meaning and Intentionality in Anton Marty (Einsiedeln, 11th–13th December, 2014) for their questions and remarks. I am also very grateful to Guillaume Fréchette, Hamid Taieb, and an anonymous reviewer for their careful reading and helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.

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Cesalli, L. and Taieb, H. (2012), ‘The Road to ideelle Verähnlichung. Anton Marty’s Conception of Intentionality in the Light of its Brentanian Background’, Quaestio 12, p. 171 – 232. Chisholm, R. M. (1972), ‘Beyond Being and Nonbeing’, in Jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein, edited by R. Haller, Graz, Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, p. 245 – 255. Chrudzimski, A. (2001), Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Chrudzimski, A. (2006 – 2009), ‘Sachverhalte, Objekte und Supervenienz. Brentano, Marty und Meinong’, Brentano-Studien 12, p. 99 – 119. Chrudzimski, A. (2014), ‘Marty on Truth-Making’, in Cesalli and Friedrich 2014, p. 201 – 234. Findlay, J. (1963), Meinong’s Theory of Objects and Values, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Fréchette, G. (2014), ‘Austrian Logical Realism? Brentano on States of Affairs’, in Defending Realism. Epistemological and Ontological Investigations, edited by G. Bonino, J. Cumpa and G. Jesson, Berlin, De Gruyter, p. 379 – 400. Grossmann, R. (1974), ‘Meinong’s Doctrine of the Aussersein of the Pure Object’, Noûs 8(1), p. 67 – 82. Kant, I. (1998), Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Marty, A. (1884), ‘Über subjectlose Sätze und das Verhältnis der Grammatik zu Logik und Psychologie I–III’, Vierteljahresschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 8, p. 56 – 94, 161 – 192, 292 – 340. Reprinted in Marty 1918, p. 1 – 35, 36 – 62, 62 – 101. Marty, A. (1895), ‘Über subjectlose Sätze und das Verhältnis der Grammatik zu Logik und Psychologie VI–VII’, Vierteljahresschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 19, p. 19 – 87, 263 – 334. Reprinted in Marty 1918, p. 189 – 247, 247 – 307. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1918), Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II/1, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil, and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Meinong, A. (1969 – 1978), Gesamtausgabe, edited by R. Haller and R. M. Chisholm, Graz, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt. Meinong, A. (1901), Über Annahmen, Leipzig, Barth. Meinong, A. (1904), ‘Über Gegenstandstheorie’, in A. Meinong, Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, Leipzig, Barth, p. 1 – 50. Reprinted in Gesamtausgabe, vol. II, p. 481 – 535. English translation in Chisholm 1960, p. 76 – 117 (references to page numbers of the English translation in square brackets). Meinong, A. (1907), Über die Stellung der Gegenstandstheorie im System der Wissenschaften, Leipzig, Voigtländer. Reprinted in Gesamtausgabe, vol. V, p. 197 – 359. Meinong, A. (1910), Über Annahmen (Zweite Auflage), Leipzig, Barth. Reprinted in Gesamtausgabe, vol. IV. English translation by J. Heanue, On Assumptions, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983 (references to page numbers of the English translation in square brackets). Morscher, E. (1990), ‘Judgment-Contents’, in Mulligan 1990, p. 181 – 196. Mulligan, K. (ed.) (1990), Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Parsons, T. (1980), Nonexistent Objects, New Haven, Yale University Press. Poli, R. (2001), ‘General Thesis of the Theory of Objects’, in The School of Alexius Meinong, edited by L. Albertazzi, D. Jacquette and R. Poli, Aldershot, Ashgate, p. 341 – 367.

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Rapaport, W. J. (1978), ‘Meinongian Theories and a Russellian Paradox’, Noûs 12, p. 153 – 180. Reinach, A. (1911), ‘Zur Theorie des negativen Urteils’, in Münchener Philosophische Abhandlungen. Festschrift für Theodor Lipps, edited by A. Pfänder, Leipzig, Barth, p. 196 – 254. Reprinted in Reinach, A. (1989), Sämtliche Werke, edited by K. Schuhmann and B. Smith, München, Philosophia, p. 95 – 140. Rollinger, R. D. (2010), Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty. Analysis and Translations, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Rollinger, R. D. (2014), ‘Brentano and Marty on Logical Names and Linguistic Fictions: Parting Ways in the Philosophy of Language’, in Cesalli and Friedrich 2014, p. 167 – 200. Routley, R. D. (1980), Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond, Canberra, Research School of the Social Sciences. Russell, B. (1905), ‘On Denoting’, Mind 14, p. 479 – 493. Salice, A. (2009), Urteile und Sachverhalte: Ein Vergleich zwischen Alexius Meinong und Adolf Reinach, Münich, Philosophia. Simons, P. (1992), ‘On What There Isn’t’, in P. Simons, Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to Tarski, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 159 – 191. Simons, P. (2005), ‘Negatives, Numbers, and Necessity: Some Worries about Armstrong’s Version of Truthmaking’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83(2), p. 253 – 261. Smith, B. (1989), ‘Logic and Sachverhalt’, The Monist 72(1), p. 52 – 69.

Sébastien Richard

Marty against Meinong on Assumptions Abstract: In this paper I explain Meinong’s introduction of assumptions into the Brentanian classification of mental phenomena. These are understood as mental acts that consist in the simple positing of a complex content, where belief about what is posited is abstracted. Marty was not convinced by Meinong’s arguments in favour of this new class of mental phenomena and maintained that this role could be played by presentations alone. He even tried to show that the notion of assumption is contradictory. I here analyse these Martian critiques and Meinong’s complex answer to them.

1 Introduction As is well known, in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1924/1995), Brentano distinguishes three fundamental kinds of mental phenomena according to the way they are directed toward an object (1924, II: 33/1995: 152): 1) presentations (Vorstellungen); 2) judgements (Urteile); 3) emotions (Gemütsbewegungen). Presentations are the most basic kind of mental phenomena; while judgements and emotions are based on presentations. For example, in a judgement a presented object is accepted or rejected, and in an emotion a presented object is loved or hated. This classification plays a central role in the Brentanian tradition. Its inheritance is the main topic of this paper. More specifically, this paper is devoted to the introduction—by one of Brentano’s students, Alexius Meinong—of a new mental phenomenon between presentations and judgements: ‘assumptions’ (Annahmen). This modification of Brentano’s classification of mental acts was never accepted by Meinong’s former master,¹ but it was Anton Marty—another student of Brentano—who criticised the Meinongian innovation most vehemently. He did so mainly in a text entitled ‘On Assumptions’ (1906/2010) and in his most imporI would like to thank Hamid Taieb, Guillaume Fréchette, and an anonymous reviewer for several comments that allowed me to improve the content of this paper.  See for example, Brentano 1924, II: 149 – 150/1995: 222. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-010

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tant work: Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie (1908).

2 Judgements and assumptions according to Meinong Perhaps the most striking feature of Brentano’s theory of judgement is his reduction of all judgements to existential ones. Every judgement is the ‘acceptance’ (Anerkennung) or ‘rejection’ (Verwerfung) of a presented object as existent. For example, a judgement of the form ‘an A is B’ must be reduced to the acceptance of an object A that is B, which we could symbolise as AB+. Meinong did not accept this reduction. He criticised it most notably in his 1892 review of Franz Hillebrand’s book: Die neuen Theorien der kategorischen Schlüsse (The New Theories of Categorical Inference), which contained a systematic exposition of the Brentanian theory of judgement. One of Meinong’s criticisms of the Brentanian existential reduction is that this reduction does not take relations seriously. Indeed the relation that subsists between A and B in the judgement ‘an A is B’ simply disappears in the reduction AB+. What we have instead is the composed object AB, that is, an A that is B. This composed object is what Meinong calls also a ‘complexion’. The problem is that a complexion is never a relation (Meinong 1892: 210).² Consequently, a categorical judgement and its reduced form have different contents and cannot be identical, even from a psychological point of view. In the first edition of Über Annahmen (1902), Meinong formulated a new theory of judgement in which he retained the fundamental difference between existential judgements and categorical ones.³ Thus, against Brentano, he maintained the irreducibility of the ‘so-being’ (Sosein) to the ‘being’ (Sein). For Meinong the fundamental characteristic of judgements is that they contain a moment of ‘convincedness’ (Überzeugtheit).⁴ When I judge that something is such and such, I am convinced (überzeugt) that it is such and such. For example, when I judge that Socrates is a great philosopher, I am convinced that Socrates is a great philosopher. In Brentano’s theory the object of this judgement is Soc-

 Even if relations and complexions are closely related—Meinong in (1899, §5: 389 – 394/1978: 146 – 149) says that we can never have a relation without a complexion, and conversely—, they are not one and the same: a complexion is a plurality of objects considered as a whole and this unity is not identical to the relation between the elements of the plurality.  Here we leave aside the theory of judgement developed by Meinong in his (1892), according to which what is accepted in judgements of the form ‘an A is B’ is the relation between an A and B.  Meinong sometimes uses the term ‘Überzeugung’. Twardowski also considered ‘conviction’ (przekonanie) to be the distinctive mark of judgements (1999: 67– 68).

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rates. However, what I am convinced of is not Socrates’ existence, but that Socrates is a great philosopher or of the being a great philosopher of Socrates. The object introduced here by the that-clause and of which I have a conviction is what Meinong calls an ‘objective’ (Objektive). Objectives are the objectual correlates of judgements. Meinong distinguishes two kinds of objectives: ‘objectives of so-being’ and ‘objectives of being’. For example, the objective that Charles Michel is the current prime minister of Belgium is the objectual correlate of the judgement ‘Charles Michel is the current prime minister of Belgium’. This is an objective of so-being. The objective that Charles Michel exists is the objectual correlate of the judgement ‘Charles Michel is’. This is an objective of being. For Meinong the irreducibility of categorical judgements to existential judgements just lies in the irreducibility of objectives of so-being to objectives of being (1910, §12: 72/1983: 57). Although the objectives of so-being cannot be reduced to objectives of being, these two kinds of objectives nevertheless have something in common: they can be affirmative or negative. I can judge that Charles Michel is the current prime minister of Belgium, but I can also judge that Charles Michel is not the current prime minister of Belgium. In the first case the objectual correlate of my judgement will be affirmative and in the second case it will be negative. What this shows is that the judgements occupy ‘a definite position within the antithesis of yes and no (Gegensatz von Ja und Nein)’ (1910, §1: 2/1983:10). In summary, Meinong replaced the Brentanian acceptance/rejection, typical of judgements, with the following: a) a position within the antithesis of yes and no; b) a moment of conviction. Graphically speaking:

For Meinong we have what is judged by the judgement (p), which can be positive (p+) or negative (p–), and in addition a conviction on what is so judged (⊢). The two kinds of judgements—affirmative and negative—can then be symbolised:

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⊢ p+ ; ⊢ p–.

For example, if I judge that A exists, I am convinced of something positive, i. e. that A exists, and if I judge that A does not exist, I am convinced of something negative, i. e. that A does not exist. Likewise, if I judge that A is B, I am convinced of something positive, i. e. that A is B, and if I judge that A is not B, I am convinced of something negative, i. e. that it is not the case that A is B. All things considered, the difference from Brentano may seems rather superficial, and it is indeed so, but it is this separation of the moment of conviction from the Brentanian acceptance/rejection that will create the necessary conceptual space for the introduction of a new kind of mental phenomena. Let me emphasise here that the Meinongian conception of judgements is somewhat reminiscent of the Fregean distinction between the ‘judging act’ (Urteilen) and the ‘content of the judgement’ (Urteilsinhalt), as Meinong himself acknowledged (1910, §1: 6 n. 1/1983: 284 n. 6).⁵ In fact, Frege not only distinguished the judging act from the content of the judgement, but also considered the possibility of a simple position, the ‘putting of a case’: This separation of the judging act from the subject-matter of judgement seems to be indispensable; for otherwise we could not express a mere assumption (bloße Annahme)—the putting of a case (Setzen eines Falles)—without at the same time judging that it arises. (1891: 32/1960: 34; translation modified)

Meinong thinks that we have to introduce this ‘mere assumption’ as a new mental phenomenon between presentations and judgements. Assumptions must be situated between these two classes of mental phenomena because, on the one hand, they are like judgements and unlike presentations insofar as they contain what we could call, following Lask, an ‘oppositionality’ (Gegensätzlichkeit)—this is the reason why judgements and assumptions have the same objectual correlates, i. e. the objectives—and, on the other hand, they are unlike judgements insofar as they lack any moment of conviction. Meinong illustrates the phenomenon of assumption with the following example: I ask the reader to imagine, say, that the Boers were not obliged to yield to the superior force of the British, or that they experienced not just admiration and sympathy from the

 In his review of the first edition of Über Annahmen, Russell indicated to Meinong the proximity between his theory and Frege’s. See Russell 1904: 341.

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peoples of the European continent, but also politically effective support. (1910, §1: 4/ 1983: 11)

Here Meinong proposes that we should ‘assume’ (annehmen) that the Boers were not defeated by the British during the 1899 war. It is an assumption, and not a judgement, because I know perfectly well that the Boers were defeated by the British, so that there can be no moment of conviction in this act. Meinong claims that, in some way, an assumption can be viewed as a ‘judgement without conviction’ (1910, §64/1983: 267),⁶ but it would probably have been more fortunate to say that an assumption is a position neutral with respect to conviction—in an assumption something is posited without our taking a stand on it. However, making an assumption does not mean having no conviction regarding what is assumed. For instance, when I assume that 2 + 2 = 5, I am convinced that this assumption is false. The fact that I only assume it simply implies that I do not take my conviction into consideration. An assumption is consequently a mental act that consists in the simple putting of a case, be it positive or negative, with an abstraction being made of my belief about what is posited. Another less confusing solution would have been to speak, as Pfänder did (2000 [1921]: 41/2009: 41), of a moment of ‘assertion’ rather than conviction. In this case assumptions are the mental phenomena expressed by sentences without assertive force, without any claim to truth. Meinong thinks that the phenomenon of assumption can be found in a lot of different situations. For example he maintains that we perform this kind of mental act when we posit axioms in mathematics. In the modern sense of the term, an axiom is indeed a proposition that is only posited, irrespective of our belief in its truth or its falsehood. The development of this conception of axioms is due in particular to the emergence of non-Euclidian geometries in the 19th century. For example, in the geometry of Bolyai and Lobachevsky, the Euclidian axiom of parallels is replaced by an axiom according to which, given a line and a point which is not on this line, it is possible to draw more than one line through the given point parallel to the line. This axiom is only assumed and it seems difficult to believe its content, because it goes against our (Euclidian) intuition of space. However this procedure is very fruitful, since it allows us to create a new geometry—the hyperbolic geometry.⁷

 Meinong also says that an assumption is a judgement ‘without belief’ (ohne Glauben) (1910, §59: 340/1983: 242).  See for instance Torretti 1984 [1978], Chapter 2.

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According to Meinong, an assumption is also the sort of mental act that an actor performs when she is on stage or that children perform when they play pretend. The actor acts as if she was such-and-such a character and the children act as if they were a shopkeeper and a customer, for example, knowing perfectly well (in the normal case) that they are not. In fact Meinong was probably wrong when he classified these plays of make-believe as assumptions. There seems to be something more here than a mere assumption: a quasi-conviction, that is, a pretended conviction. Yet pretending to be convinced by something is not exactly the same as remaining neutral with respect to a conviction. It is certainly this aspect of plays of make-believe that explains why we can be moved by somebody who pretends to be somebody else. For example, we can cry when Hamlet dies, even if we know that he is not a real human being but a fictional character. By contrast, how can we be moved by the assumption that 2 + 2 = 5? And Meinong indeed says that the audience of a play ‘does not fear at all’ (gar nicht fürchte) (1902: 234). But this cannot be true and this is why it would be better to say that the acts performed in plays of make-believe are not assumptions, but what Ingarden calls ‘quasi-judgements’ (quasi-Urteile/quasi-sądzenia)—acts in which we do not claim that something is true but only pretend to claim that it is true.⁸ It must be stressed that Meinong was not the first of Brentano’s students to introduce assumptions into the Brentanian classification. Husserl had already used this notion in 1894,⁹ but it is essentially in his Logical Investigations that the founder of the phenomenological movement seems to have anticipated some of Meinong’s discoveries.¹⁰ This explains why in a letter dated 5th April 1902 he was surprised not to find any mention of his own work in Meinong’s book:

 See Ingarden 1966: 463/1973: 203. Meinong’s late distinction between a ‘judgement-like assumption’ (urteilsartige Annahme) and a ‘shadowy assumption’ (schattenhafte Annahme) seems to be similar to Ingarden’s distinction between an assumption and a quasi-judgement. In a judgement-like assumption there is a moment ‘which is sufficiently belief-like to make the assumption appear judgement-like’ (1916: 333/1972: 44), whereas there is no such moment in a shadowy assumption. In my opinion Meinong’s distinction is far from being perfectly clear. See, however, the explanations given in Findlay 1963: 229 – 230.  See Husserl 1894/1994b. It must be said that in this text Husserl is essentially interested in what can be said about certain objects, such as ficta or mathematical objects, ‘under an assumption’, and not so much in the assumptions themselves as mental acts. In particular he does not claim that they have to be included in a new class of mental phenomena between presentations and judgements. On the 1894 Husserlian theory of assumptions see Brisart 2009.  A comparison between Meinong’s theory of assumptions and Husserl’s own theory can be found in Rollinger 1996 and also in Rollinger 1999.

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I must here inform you of the strange impression that I felt when, after having taken note of the content [of Über Annahmen], I read in the Preface, but also in other places in your book, that it was under the impulse of Miss Radakovic and only because of your work that “this big and important domain of research has been discovered”; that it is a domain of research entirely new which would not have been “until now the object of theoretical attention”, would not have until now “an actual literature”, would absolutely not have been “worked ex professor”, etc. […] In this volume [i. e. the second volume of the Logical Investigations], the facts and the fundamental problems of this “new” and “largely neglected” domain of research have not only been touched upon, but indeed treated with all the precision, the clarity, and the required exactness. (Husserl 1994a: 139; translation modified)

Even if Husserl acknowledges that there could be other reasons for Meinong’s not studying his work closely enough, he seems to suspect him of plagiarism, and it must be said that a lot of parallels can be drawn between the works of the two philosophers. But we will not go into these questions here. As we have seen, for Meinong the assumptions belong to an ‘intermediary domain’ (Zwischengebit) between the presentations and the judgements. This has so far only been presupposed. In the next two sections we will consider two arguments: one showing that assumptions cannot be judgements and another showing that they cannot be presentations.

3 The meaning of sentences In §4 of Über Annahmen, Meinong sets out his theory of the meaning of words. He separates two functions of words: the function of ‘expression’ (Ausdruck) and the function of ‘meaning’ (Bedeutung). When we utter a word, this word expresses a presentation but means the objectual correlate of the presentation (1910, §4: 24– 25/1983: 24). For instance, an utterance of the word ‘sun’ expresses the fact that the speaker has a presentation of the sun, this object being the meaning of the word ‘sun’. Meinong finds an argument in favour of the distinction between assumption and judgement in the analysis of what is expressed by sentences (Sätze). The natural answer to the question ‘What is expressed by a sentence?’ would seem to be: a judgement (1910, §5: 32/1983: 29). For instance, when we utter the sentence ‘the sky is blue’, we express a certain opinion: our judgement that the sky is blue. Nevertheless, for Meinong, there are also sentences that can express other kinds of mental acts. Among the sentences that do not express judgements we first have ‘independent sentences’ (unabhängige Sätze), in particular interrogative sentences

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(1910, §6: 33/1983: 30). Let us consider the sentence ‘Can one rely on that statement?’ According to Meinong, what this sentence expresses is not a judgement but a ‘desire’ (Begehren). More precisely, the speaker uttering this sentence has the desire to know if she can rely on the judgement expressed by the statement. She has no conviction regarding the object denoted by the word ‘statement’ in the interrogative sentence, but she wants to achieve one: to acquire a judgement regarding this statement (1910, §6: 33/1983: 30). If interrogative sentences do not express judgements but desires, where do assumptions come into play? For Reinhardt Grossmann, what we have to understand is that in the kind of example given by Meinong, a desire is expressed and an assumption is carried out (Grossmann 1974: 84). When the speaker asks if one can rely on that statement, she is carrying out the assumption that the statement is reliable, without being convinced that it is or it is not so. This is a plausible interpretation, even if it is not explicitly stated in Über Annahmen. Second, we have dependent sentences. For example, if, when someone is on a narrow path on the side of a mountain, he utters the sentence ‘Anyone who loses his balance here is a dead man’, what he expresses is not a judgement made by someone who has actually lost his balance there and who is dead (1910, §6: 34/1983: 31). Instead, he expresses an assumption: the counterfactual assertion that if someone were to lose his balance there, he would fall and die. Third, we have hypothetical judgements. Let us consider the following judgement: ‘If a is b and b is c, then a is c’. In this reasoning I do not judge that the antecedent is the case and that the consequence is also the case. In fact they can both be false and the judgement will still be true. What I judge is that if the antecedent is true, then the consequent must also be true. This judgement is independent from my possible judgements about the antecedent and the consequent. These are only supposed in the reasoning, even if Meinong does not claim it explicitly. These examples suffice to show that although sentences express judgements in a lot of cases, they do not always do so. There are sentences that cannot express judgements but which nevertheless express assumptions or which at least imply assumptions. Therefore the assumptions cannot be identified with judgements.

4 Negative presentations If assumptions are not judgements—because they lack the moment of conviction —can we nevertheless consider them as ‘simple presentations’ (bloße Vorstellungen)? Because assumptions contain a position within the antithesis of yes and

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no, and because presentations are acts ‘in which the subject is conscious of an object without taking up a position with regard to it’ (Smith 1996: 327), it would be quite natural to exclude assumptions from the domain of presentations. As natural as it may seem, Meinong does not take this for granted and tries to prove it by showing that ‘negation is never a matter of presentation’ (1910, §2: 9/1983: 14; translation modified). If negation indeed lies beyond mere presentations, how could these contain a negative position with respect to an object? Let us consider the following argument in favour of the exclusion of negation from the sphere of presentations. Meinong begins by supposing that there are ‘negative presentations’, that is, ‘negative concepts’ (1910, §2: 15 – 16/1983: 18) such as ‘non-red’. If this is the case, the negation itself must then be in what is apprehended in the presentation, i. e. in the objectual correlate which ‘stands opposite’ (gegenübersteht) the intellectual experience. Consequently, in a negative presentation, there is an ‘objectual moment’ (gegenständliches Moment), a ‘non’ that is added to the object of which I can have a positive presentation. In other words, to suppose a negative presentation is to suppose a negative object non-A, i. e. a positive object A to which an objectual moment of negation is added. According to Meinong, there are two classes of presentations: ‘perceptual presentations’ (Wahrnehmungsvorstellungen) and ‘production-presentations’ (Produktionsvorstellungen) (1910, §2: 10 – 21/1983: 15). Therefore we must separate the possibility of a negative presentation for these two cases. Meinong begins with negative perceptual presentations. It is a rather simple case. If we had this kind of negative presentation, we would attribute the apprehension of the objectual moment of negation—the negativum N, as Meinong calls it—to a perceptual presentation. This amounts to saying that in the perceptual presentation of a negative object non-A we would be able to perceive the objectual moment of negation which is added to the object A. But this is impossible. How could we perceive something negative? We tend to believe that we can, because there are expressions whose primary meaning is negative, such as ‘deaf’ or ‘blind’. These expressions seem to refer to negative objects, but for Meinong they do not: they only refer to positive objects. For instance, the presentation ‘knife without a blade’ refers to a knife-handle, but certainly not to an object that would be the lack of a blade. If negative objects cannot be apprehended through perceptual presentations, can they be apprehended through production-presentation? In this case, the negative object non-A must be ‘built’ (gebaut) on the positive object A. The latter is the inferior upon which the ‘higher-order object’ (Gegenstand höherer Ordnung) non-A is ‘founded’ (fundiert) (1910, §2: 12/1983: 16).

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Usually, founded objects demand a plurality of inferiora (1910, §2: 12/1983: ¹¹ 16). For example, I cannot form the idea ‘similar to A’ with the help of the object A alone. I need another object, say B, which is similar to A. It is from the given objective that B is similar to A that I obtain, by abstraction, the idea ‘similar to A’. According to Meinong, this need for a plurality of inferiora is also a requirement for the negativum. I cannot form the concept ‘non-A’ with A alone; I also need the concept of something that is not A, say X. It is from the objective that X is not A that I can form by abstraction the presentation ‘something which is not A’, or ‘non-A’ in short. The problem with this solution is that for Meinong one of the essential features of founded objects is that they ‘are connected with their fundamenta by necessity (durch Notwendigkeit)’ (1910, §2: 16/1983: 18).¹² For instance, the difference between the colour red and the colour green is a higher-order object founded on red and green, because these two colours must be different, and they are necessarily different because their difference is not simply factual, but grounded, one the one hand, in their nature and, on the other hand, in the essence of dissimilarity. It is clear that there are links between some objects A and their negativum N that are not necessary. Consequently non-A cannot be a higher-order object, and consequently cannot be an object corresponding to a production-presentation. The Meinongian arguments presented in this section and in the preceding one purported to show that there are cases that cannot be explained by using judgements or presentations alone, but that require the introduction of a new intermediary class of mental phenomena: assumptions. It must be said, however, that the cases studied can be explained in a Brentanian framework without resorting to assumptions, by taking into account the distinction between presentations in modo recto and presentations in modo obliquo. The fact that Meinong never mentioned this distinction is rather strange, because even if it only appeared in print in 1911, Brentano had used it in his lectures and in his private correspondence with his pupils long before. It is thus very unlikely that Meinong had not heard about it. Marty, who knew this distinction very well, implicitly used it to explain most of the phenomena that, according to Meinong, could only be explained with the help of the notion of assumption.

 The objective that A exists and the objective that A subsists are examples of higher-order objects founded on only one inferior (1916: 107/1972: 95).  See also Meinong 1899: 398 – 399/1978: 152.

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5 Modo recto and modo obliquo Brentano did not introduce assumptions between presentations and judgements, but does that mean that he accepted that we can have presentations of negativa? Like Meinong, he rejected the idea that negativa are genuine objects of which we can have direct presentations.¹³ For Brentano they are fictions, and we only act as if they were genuine objects. To understand this we must recall a distinction between two modes of presentation: the modus rectus (direct presentation) and the modus obliquus (indirect presentation).¹⁴ When I have a presentation of someone who believes in the devil, I have a direct presentation of this person. In fact I have then a presentation in modo recto of a person who himself has a direct presentation of the devil. My own presentation of the devil is in this case indirect or in modo obliquo, since I have a presentation of the devil only as the object of belief of somebody else (Brentano 1968 [1928]: 41). This distinction is particularly important in the Brentanian reduction of categorical judgements¹⁵ and also in the explanation of negative existential judgements. I will just illustrate the second case. When I judge that there are no centaurs, I do not need to have a genuine presentation of a centaur. All that is required is an indirect presentation. This can be done with the presentation of somebody who rejects the existence of centaurs. My own negative existential judgement then amounts to the acceptance of the object of this presentation. The distinction between presentations in modo recto and presentations in modo obliquo is a philosophical tool that can be applied in several domains. Even if he did not explicitly name this distinction, I maintain that Marty used it quite systematically against Meinong’s notion of assumption in his (1906/ 2010). This tool allowed him in particular to show that most of the phenomena explained by Meinong with the help of assumptions could be explained using only presentations and judgements—that is, in a strict Brentanian framework. Let us consider, for instance, the question of negativa. Meinong maintained that they are beyond presentations. Marty, on the contrary, claimed that we can have presentations of negative concepts, it is just that their presentations are always in modo obliquo, and never in modo recto. When I have a presentation of a non-A, i. e. something that is not A, my presentation is indirect because I in fact have a presentation in modo recto of somebody—no matter who—who is judging that this something is not A. ¹⁶    

See See See See

Brentano 1924: 169/1995: 232– 233. Brentano 1924: 145 – 147/1995: 219 – 220 and Dewalque 2014. Brentano 1924: 168 – 169/1995: 232. Marty 1906, II, §10: 29/2010: 327.

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To take another example, we saw that according to Meinong the explanation of hypothetical judgements also requires us to take assumptions into account. For his part, Marty thinks that they can be explained by using presentations alone. In order to carry out a hypothetical judgement, all that is needed, according to him, is presentations of the premises and the conclusion. To obtain these we only need to have a direct presentation of somebody carrying out the judgements corresponding to the premises and the conclusion. So we have indirect presentations of these judgements, and through reflection a presentation of their content, which can in turn serve as the premises and the conclusion of the hypothetical judgement. In my opinion, Marty’s explanation based on the modus rectus/modus obliquus distinction is no worse than Meinong’s own explanation, but it is much more artificial. For instance when I make a mathematical hypothesis it is quite strange to say that I have an indirect presentation of somebody judging the content of my hypothesis. It is much more plausible to say that I directly assume what is posited in my hypothesis. More importantly, the modus rectus/modus obliquus distinction does not seem to be able to explain in a satisfactory way those games of make-believe that I mentioned above and which appear to imply a quasi-assertion. For instance, what is the mental act aroused by the actors of a play in the mind of the audience? It cannot be a judgement, since the members of the audience do not really judge that what they see is really happening. In the Brentanian framework, it seems that it must be an indirect presentation, but such a mental act is deprived of any assertive function that would explain the emotions that members of the audience eventually feel. In the following few sections I leave these considerations aside and examine Marty’s direct criticism of the Meinongian theory of assumptions.

6 Genus, species, and definitions Marty first criticised the notion of assumption with respect to definition and the concept of judgement. In order to do so he used an Aristotelian framework according to which concepts must be defined in terms of genus and specific difference. There are two possibilities here: either judgements and assumptions are completely different in nature and are thus two separate genera, or they are two different species belonging to the same genus. The first possibility is absurd, because judgements and assumptions exhibit the same putative principle of division into species: the yes/no polarity. In other words, if we divide the genus judgement into two different classes—the affirmative and the negative—then

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we will not be able to divide the genus assumption in the same way if they are completely different genera. This argument is, to say the least, not particularly clear. Marty seems to think that the positive assumption of something or the negative assumption of it must be understood ‘in the very same sense’ (1906, §1: 8/2010: 307) as the judicative acceptance or rejection of the same thing. But Meinong’s distinction between judgements and assumptions is precisely based on the claim that there is something more in accepting/rejecting than there is in positing/non-positing, i. e. the moment of conviction. More fundamentally, it is obvious that Meinong did not conceive judging and assuming as two completely different genera.¹⁷ The fact that he used to call both of them ‘thinking’ (Denken)¹⁸ suggests that it would probably be more interesting to consider them as two species belonging to the same genus. As we have seen, Meinong sometimes says that assumptions are judgements without the moment of conviction, and conversely that judgements are assumptions with the addition of the moment of conviction. Does this mean that the moment of conviction is the specific difference that allows Meinong to separate the class of assumptions from the class of judgements in the genus ‘thinking’?¹⁹ Marty raised a criticism of this solution similar to that raised by Reinach (1982: 318 – 319) against Brentano himself: there are degrees of conviction— we can be more or less convinced by something—but judgements do not have degrees. It must be acknowledged that Marty’s criticism points to a real defect in Meinong’s theory of assumptions. But we can also say that this is only a terminological problem and we could use the phrase ‘assertive force’²⁰ instead of conviction, on the understanding that the assertive force has no degree. In fact, Meinong explicitly says that the characterization of assumptions as judgements without conviction is strictly speaking not a definition of assumptions. It is only an indication of the similarities between judgements and assumptions. From this point of view the Aristotelian framework used by Marty against assumptions is simply irrelevant. The question of whether there are assumptions is primarily an empirical one (Meinong 1910, §64: 375/1983: 267). We must first get a better grasp of the relation between assumptions and judgements from an empirical point of view. Only then will we be able to formulate a strict definition of the notion of assumption and to seriously evaluate the pertinence of

 As in fact Marty ends up admitting (1906, §1: 8/2010: 307– 308).  See Meinong 1910, §63: 369/1983: 263.  See Marty 1906, §1: 8/2010: 307– 308.  For example Smith (1990: 144) uses it interchangeably with conviction to describe the Meinongian assumption.

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the Aristotelian framework with respect to this notion. Meinong did not think that his research on the notion of assumption had reached this level.

7 Opposite qualities Brentano drew a distinction between the ‘matter’ and the ‘quality’ of a judgement.²¹ The matter is the whole presentation on which the judgement is founded, and the quality is its affirmative or negative character, that is, the acceptance or the rejection of the matter of the judgement. Marty accepted this distinction and used it against the Meinongian theory of assumption. According to him, this theory must admit that psychical states with opposite qualities but identical matters can be given to us at the same time (1906, §7: 22/2010: 320). If this were true, Meinong’s theory of assumptions would simply be contradictory. As proof, Marty mentions the fact that we can assume things that we do not believe to be true. For example, I can assume in a thought experiment that Barack Obama did not win the presidential election in 2012, although I know that this is false. I am thus able to assume something and at the same time judge the opposite. The problem is that according to Marty’s interpretation, an assumption, like a judgement, has a quality and is thus the expression of an acceptance or a rejection. ²² In the Barack Obama example the assumption and the opposite judgement have the same matter but opposite qualities. We have the rejection of this common matter in the assumption and the acceptance of it in the judgement. Marty claims that Meinong’s theory of assumption must acknowledge this consequence, but it is clearly impossible to accept and reject the same matter at the same time and in the same respect. In Marty’s own theory we do not encounter such a problem, since when we assume that Barack Obama did not win the presidential election in 2012, the that-clause does not express an assumption, but the presentation of what he calls a ‘content of judgement’ (Urteilsinhalt)²³ (1906, §7: 21/2010: 319). This presentation is in modo obliquo: to have it we must perform a presentation in modo recto of somebody who judges that Barack Obama did not win the presidential election in 2012. Since a presentation is neither the acceptance nor the

 This distinction can be found for instance in his logic lectures given in Würzburg (manuscript EL 80: 13.192[5]). It was later popularised by Husserl in §20 of his fifth Logical Investigation.  See Marty 1906, §7: 320 – 321/2010: 22. Marty strangely claims that an assumption is an instance of acceptance or rejection without conviction.  On this notion see Morscher 1990.

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rejection of anything, there are no opposite attitudes here toward the same matter at the same time and in the same respect. Regarding the so-called contradictory character of Meinong’s theory, it should above all be noted that when Meinong speaks about the characteristic factor of assumptions, he does not say that this factor is the opposition of acceptance and rejection, but the antithesis of yes and no, of affirmation and denial.²⁴ As we have seen, Meinong substituted a new definition in terms of positing and non-positing + conviction for the Brentanian definition of judgements in terms of acceptance or rejection. Marty simply neglected to acknowledge this difference. It is indeed impossible to accept and reject the same matter at the same time and in the same respect, but assumption is not so much about acceptance and rejection than position—the putting of a case. Yet there is no problem in positing something and positing its contradictory opposite at the same time—this just amounts to positing two contradictory objectives. We would have a contradiction if the person who posited these two objectives also added a moment of conviction to his position. But then he would not perform an assumption while being convinced otherwise. He would simply judge, contrary to his conviction, what is impossible.

8 Negativa again We have seen that Marty was able to treat the problem of negativa at the level of presentations. Their apprehension demands the presentation of someone who rejects something that is not A (Marty 1906, §10: 28/2010: 326 – 327). Then, through a ‘reflection’ on this presented judgement, we can form the concept ‘non-A’ (1906, §10: 33/2010: 331). As for Meinong, he thought that any attempt to fasten upon negativa with a presentation was just a ‘hopeless beginning’ (1910, §45: 275/1983: 198). To apprehend them one needs assumptions. For Marty this claim must be wrong, because it entails a contradiction in the case of negative existential judgements about negativa. The idea is that a negative existential judgement about a negativum amounts to the rejection of this negativum, but presupposes at the same time its apprehension through an assumption, which itself requires the acceptance of this negativum. To understand this argument let us consider the negative existential judgement ‘There is not a

 We have been unable to find the terms ‘Anerkennen’ and ‘Verwerfen’ in the first edition of Über Annahmen. In his answer to Marty’s criticism (1906: 3), Meinong says that instead of acceptance and rejection he prefers to speak of ‘affirmation’ (Bejahen) and ‘denial’ (Verneinen).

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non-A’. In order to be able to carry out this judgement, I need to apprehend the negativum non-A—for how can I accept or reject something that I have not first apprehended? This apprehension needs an assumption, and more precisely a predicative assumption. Therefore this assumption has a subject. Now, says Marty, it is ‘impossible to predicate something of a subject or to deny something of it without accepting it’ (1906, §10: 32/2010: 330). What is the subject that is accepted in the predicative assumption needed to apprehend non-A? It seems to be the following: that which is not A. Let us now come back to the negative existential judgement ‘There is not a non-A’. This mental conduct amounts to the rejection of that which is not A. The preceding assumption required in order to apprehend what is rejected in this judgement implies the acceptance of that which is not A. Now Marty says that this acceptance must be contained in the judgement ‘as a constitutive element’. This judgement, by definition, also contains the rejection of that which is not A. Consequently there are two elements that stand in contradiction with each other in the judgement ‘There is not a non-A’ (1906, §10: 33/2010: 330): the acceptance of something that is not A and the rejection of the same thing. Of course in Marty’s theory we do not face such a contradiction, since the matter of the negative existential judgement ‘There is not a non-A’ is only indirectly presented, and thus neither accepted nor rejected. This argument is in fact only a particular case of a more general argument raised by Marty. According to this more general argument Meinong’s theory of assumption faces a contradiction each time we have a negative judgement concerning the existence of something and an assumption about the same thing. There is a contradiction here because the existence of the same object must be rejected according to the judgement and accepted according to the assumption. Can such a contradiction really be found in Meinong’s theory of assumption? In (1906/2010) Marty’s critique concerned the first edition of Über Annahmen (1902) and at that time, Meinong (metaphorically) conceived assumptions as the ‘having’ (Haben) of an object that has being. He also claimed that it is in the nature of judgements that if we want to negate the existence of an object, we must first carry out an affirmative assumption about this object (1902, §24: 107). Assumptions are an essential prerequisite for negative judgements. Consequently, in order to judge that an object has no being, we have to assume something about it, and thus to consider it as having some being, which seems clearly contradictory. As far as we know, Meinong did not really explain the reasons for this situation.²⁵

 See also Findlay 1963: 48.

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Marty’s criticism was thus largely justified with respect to the first edition of Über Annahmen. However, in 1904 Meinong modified his view and came to think that the being of an objective of so-being had no effect on the being of the object about which we judge that it has no being. In general, the being or the non-being of an objective has no influence on the being or non-being of the objects on which this objective is founded (1904, §4: 493/1960: 85). Meinong went even further, claiming that ‘both being and non-being are equally external to an object’ (1904, §4: 494/1960: 86), ‘the opposition of being and non-being [being] primarily a matter of the objective’. This is what Meinong calls the ‘principle of the outside-being of the pure object’ (Satz vom Außersein des reinen Gegenstandes), the pure object being the object as such, irrespective of whether it exists, subsists, or has no mode of being at all. The pure object is the object given ‘prior’ to my judgement about its being or non-being, an object apprehended ‘in a way that does not carry any prejudice to its non-being’ (1904, §4: 491/1960: 84). It is an extra-ontological object, an object ‘outside-being’ (außerseind), in other words an object ‘beyond being and non-being’ (jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein) (1904, §4: 494/1960: 86). With these explanations, in the second edition of Über Annahmen (1910/ 1983) Meinong was able to specify how we can fasten upon negativa with the help of assumptions, that is, without having to accept these objects as existing.²⁶ First of all it must be stressed that every experience is either ‘passive’ (passiv) or ‘active’ (aktiv). As Findlay puts it (1963: 219), ‘[i]n some experiences we do something, in others something merely happens to us’. Assumptions (and judgements) are active experiences, whereas presentations are passive ones (1910, §38: 235/1983: 171). Presentations are passive, because if they present objects before the mind, they do not ‘apprehend’ (erfassen) them; they do not ‘fasten upon them’ (1910, §38: 235/1983: 171). Something more than mere presentations is thus needed in order to apprehend objects. This additional factor is what Meinong calls an ‘intending’ (Meinen). It is this activity that gives us ‘directedness’ (Gerichtetsein) towards the objects. For Meinong an object can only be intended (gemeint) by conceiving some circumstances about it (Findlay 1963: 238). There are two ways of doing so, and thus two kinds of intending: ‘intending by way of being’ (Seinsmeinen) and ‘intending by way of so-being’ (Soseinsmeinen). Intending is a ‘mediate’ apprehension of objects (1910, §38: 244/1983: 177). It is a mediate apprehension because it demands the immediate apprehension of something else: an objective. If we intend an object via an objective of being, i. e. with such-

 On the apprehension of objects with the help of assumptions see the work of Langlet (2014b), on which I rely heavily in this section.

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and-such a mode of being, we have an intending by way of being, and if we intend an object via an objective of so-being, i. e. with such-and-such determination, we have an intending by way of so-being. Let us consider a situation in which I have a quadrangular desk in front of me. I judge that this desk is quadrangular. To intend this desk in order to carry out my judgement about it, I must apprehend the fact that it exists, i. e. I must apprehend the objective of being associated with this quadrangular desk (1910, §45: 269/1983: 194). I can also intend the desk by means of an objective of so-being. This is the case when I use the expression ‘the desk that is quadrangular’, for example when I judge that the desk that is quadrangular is rather old and should be replaced. In this situation the determination of so-being in the subordinate clause plays an essential role in my fastening upon the desk. The intending by way of so-being is thus particularly clear in locutions such as ‘the M that is N’. What happens if I remove all the determinations from M, for example when I say ‘something that is N’ or ‘that which is N’? Then ‘all determining is provided simply and solely by means of N’ (1910, §45: 269/1983: 194) and I intend the subject only by means of its so-being. I can also reverse this procedure to intend the predicate N itself. This is the case for example when I use expressions such as ‘something about M’ (etwas, das am M ist), i. e. something that M exemplifies or ‘something that serves as the genus for M’ (etwas, das das Genus zu M abgibt). From what I have just said it is clear that negative concepts have to be intended by way of objectives of so-being (1910, §45: 275/1983: 198). These objectives of so-being must even be negative ones. They are the objectual correlate of some mental act, but which one—a judgement or an assumption? Of course an assumption. In this way we can apprehend negative objects such as ‘that which is not A’ by way of so-being, without having to be convinced that something is not A. This explanation is then free from Marty’s critique, since as we have seen, even if the negative objective with which we apprehend a negative concept subsists, its being has no influence on the being of the objective. We no longer need to accept this object as having a certain mode of being to apprehend it categorically. The non-A will just be selected among the infinite domain of outside-beings on the basis of its given determinations (1910, §45: 275/ 1983: 198).

9 Conclusion In my opinion, Marty’s critique of the Meinongian notion of assumption was partly ideological. He tried against all opposition to preserve Brentano’s classi-

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fication of mental phenomena. This is particularly clear in his criticism based on the opposite qualities contained in the assumptions carried out in a direction opposed to our conviction. Here Marty completely neglects the fact that the polarity characteristic of judgements and assumptions in Meinong’s theory is not the same as that which we find in judgements according to Brentano. Nevertheless, not all of Marty’s criticism is unjustified. In particular he rightly points out that the predicative assumptions initially imply the acceptance of their subject. This remark may have led Meinong to modify his theory and formulate one of his most important theses: the principle of independence of so-being from being. This principle allowed him to explain how, with the help of assumptions whose objectual correlates are objectives of so-being, we are able to apprehend some objects in an ontologically neutral way in order to eventually judge that they do not actually exist. There is a final Martian criticism of Meinong’s theory of assumptions that I have not mentioned, which is also partly correct. For Meinong, when people attend a play at the theatre the mental acts evoked in them by the actors are assumptions. I claimed that this could not be true, because otherwise the emotions felt by the audience of a play would remain something mysterious: if I have absolutely no conviction regarding the performance of the play that I am attending I cannot be moved by the (pretend) death of one of its characters. Here, Marty says, something more than an assumption seems to be at work (1906, II, §15: 52/2010: 348). According to him, this ‘more’ is ‘a belief in what is depicted’ (1906, II, §15: 50/2010: 347). In other words, the mental acts that occur in the minds of the audience have to be judgements. I do agree with Marty that something more than a mere assumption is needed here, but this cannot be a real judgement. It must be what Ingarden called a quasi-judgement, a mental act in which I do not claim that something is true but in which I only act as if I were claiming it to be true: a mental act between judgements and assumptions.

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Twardowski, K. (1999), ‘On the Classification of Mental Phenomena’, in Twardowski, K. (1999), On Actions, Products and other Topics in Philosophy, edited by J. Brandl and J. Woleński, translated by A. Szylewicz, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 65 – 72.

Hynek Janoušek

Consciousness of Judging: Katkov’s Critique of Marty’s State of Affairs and Brentano’s Description of Judgement Abstract: This study presents Katkov’s critique of Marty’s theory of meaning and Brentano’s description of judgemental consciousness. Katkov, a student of Oskar Kraus in Prague, developed an interesting account of a reistic reduction of states of affairs. This reduction is based on Katkov’s transformation of Marty’s theory of the secondary intention of statements (linguistically expressed judgements) and on a further development of Brentano’s theory of judgements. According to Katkov’s theory, all linguistically expressed judgements have to manifest two independent judgements if they are to fulfil the communicative goal of a speaker. The first judgement is a basic acceptance or negation of an object. The second is a higher-order belief in the correctness of the acceptance or negation. Katkov then reduces states of affairs to the consciousness of objective validity, which consists in such a belief in correctness. In this article I first present some features of Katkov’s critique of Marty’s theory of linguistic communication of statements. I then offer my own short reply to Katkov’s questions. The study concludes by presenting Katkov’s reduction of states of affairs to a complex of beliefs and by questioning Katkov’s description concerning the difference between sensory perception and rational judgement. This difference motivates Katkov’s separation of a basic acceptance or negation on the one side and a separate belief in the correctness of the acceptance or negation on the other.

1 Introduction If there was a future for the Prague School of Brentano in the second half of the twentieth century it was closely tied to the work of its talented young member Georg Katkov.¹ Katkov came from a Russian immigrant family that had settled in Prague. He was a student and eventually the closest associate of Prof. Oskar Kraus in Prague, which makes him Brentano’s Enkelschüler. One of Katkov’s first works—a longer Brentanian study entitled Bewußtsein, Gegenstand,

 For this evaluation see also Chisholm 1985/1986. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-011

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Sachverhalt, published in 1930²—defends Brentano’s reistic interpretation of intentionality. Naturally, Katkov also discusses theories that accept specific objects of judgements (Sachverhatle, Objektive, Urteilsinhalte, etc.) and presents the motives that, according to him, mislead philosophers into accepting such entities. While Katkov’s well-presented arguments usually concern actual or possible opponents of Brentano’s reistic theory of judgement (e. g. Husserl, Losskij,³ Marty, Meinong) and are closely tied to the interpretation of reism given by Oskar Kraus,⁴ his answer to the problem of judgement contents forced him to work out a revised version of Brentano’s position. Katkov maintains that if one is to address the fact that all judgements are truth claims constituting an objective consciousness of validity, one cannot say that ‘the judger’ simply accepts or negates an object but that she also and in addition believes that her judgement is right and its negation is not. In communicating judgements this correctness-belief—as we will also call it—has to be manifested by a speaker as well as accepted by an addressee if the communicative intention of a speaker is to be successfully fulfilled. Katkov’s opinion is that Brentano’s description of our consciousness of judging is a good starting point for such a theory. Much to his surprise, however, Brentano does not offer a clear description of how the belief in the correctness of judging, of which Brentano speaks regularly in his theory of evidence, is part of the intentional consciousness of accepting and negating. Is this belief an inseparable moment of our consciousness of judging or is it, for example, a separate judgement? Or is it perhaps a necessary implication deduced from certain premises? Or should we describe it in completely different terms? According to Katkov, one needs to answer these questions before a proper reistic reduction of propo In 1938 Katkov (together with Kraus) managed to flee to Oxford to save himself from the Nazis. He later switched his research area to Russian history in order to get an academic position in England and, with one exception, never published anything on philosophy again. Katkov is the author of the following philosophical studies: ‘Zur Apriorischen Grundlegung der Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie’, Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Philosophy, Nendeln, Kraus Reprint Limited, 1968, p. 248 – 253; ‘Zur Widerlegung des Pessimismus auf metaphysischen Gebiete’, Zur Philosophie der Gegenwart (Veröffentlichungen der Brentano-Gesellschaft 1), 1934, p. 35 – 43; Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie und Theodizee, Brünn; Wien; Leipzig, Rohrer, 1937; ‘Descartes und Brentano. Eine erkenntnistheoretische Gegenüberstellung’, Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 30, 1936 – 1937, p. 116 – 151; ‘The Pleasant and the Beautiful’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 40, 1940, p. 177– 206; ‘The World in Which Brentano Believed He Lived’, Grazer philosophische Studien 5, 1978, p. 11– 27.  Russian philosopher Nikolaj Losskij (1870 – 1965) refused all immanent objects and defended a direct intuitive realism. According to him, intentional acts directly grasp real objects as they really exist independently of our consciousness. For further details see Losskij 1927.  See, for example, Kraus’s ‘Introduction’ to Brentano’s The True and the Evident (Brentano 1966).

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sitional entities and a proper reistic description of the linguistic communication of judgements can be given.

2 Consciousness, objects, states of affairs The starting point of Katkov’s reistic re-interpretation of states of affairs is his critique of Marty’s theory of meaning of statements. By ‘statement’ we mean a linguistic utterance of judgement. According to Marty 1908: 288 sq., if we linguistically express a judgement in communication, the meaning of the statement is the speaker’s intention to evoke a like judgement on the side of the hearer. Within this broader meaning-function of a statement, Marty 1908: 291– 292 differentiates meaning in the narrow sense. This narrow sense is the judgement content of a linguistically expressed judgement. It can be called ‘narrow’ because, as a content, it is a content or part of a broader communicative intention on the part of the speaker. The judgement-content is an entity that we might roughly link to Husserl’s state of affairs or Meinong’s objective, except that Marty, following his own development of Brentano’s teaching, understood states of affairs in an existential way, i. e. as ‘facts’ of existence or non-existence of things and, furthermore, took them as entities supervening on things⁵—i.e. even though they are not reducible to things they have a beginning and an end in time. For example, the judgement content of the statement ‘A exists’ is the-being-of-A—a speaker ’treats’ (behandelt) A as existing. ‘A does not exist’ has the non-being-of-A as its content.⁶ It is important to note that, according to Marty, the primary intention has to be grounded in the secondary communicative intention of the speaker’s statement in order to fulfil the communicative function and to evoke a judgement with the same judgement-content in the hearer. This secondary or ancillary intention of a statement is the so-called manifestation or intimation (Kundgabe) of an act of judging. Thus, by using the statement ‘A exists’ we manifest (or as Marty usually says, we ‘express’) to the hearer our acceptance of A. Marty further claims that this manifestation of ‘a piece of our psychical life’ is a means or a secondary tool (πάρεργον) for attaining the primary goal, i. e. a means for evoking the same judgement in the hearer (Marty 1908: 284 sq.). Katkov rightly claims  See e. g. Simons 2006: 166 – 168 or the detailed study in Chrudzimski 1999.  In the following, I will use these two examples of simple existential judgements and states of affairs as well as the statements ‘A exists’ and ‘A does not exist’ to illustrate my points. It should be stressed that arguments presented here do not depend on one’s conception of proper forms of existential judgements.

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that this cannot be a full-fledged theory of communication for at least two different reasons (Katkov 1930: 526 – 528)—the most obvious one being the non-equivalence of the statements ‘I accept A’ and ‘A exists’. According to Katkov (1930: 526 – 527), Marty was clearly aware of this non-equivalence—otherwise he would not have separated the communicative meaning in the narrow sense from the secondary manifestation of judging. But since ‘I accept A’ can be true while ‘A exists’ is false, our understanding of the manifestation of the first is not a means to accepting the second. In other words, in manifesting that I accept A I am manifesting the being of my acceptance of A, not that A is to be accepted.⁷ Therefore, something else has to be manifested if the hearer is to be motivated to accept the speaker’s judgement. Katkov holds that this missing moment consist in the manifestation of the speaker’s belief that her judging is correct. Only this second manifestation has a chance of fulfilling the primary intention of the speaker and evoking the acceptance of A in the hearer. The second reason for refusing Marty’s account of communication is rather simple: Katkov believes that there are no judgement-contents in Marty’s sense. But if the narrow meaning of the judgement ‘A exists’ can be neither the being-of-A (because there is no such thing) nor my acceptance of A (because this meaning is not equivalent to the meaning of ‘A exists’) then there has to be something else that replaces the need for stipulating specific judgement contents. Inspired by Brentano’s late reism, Katkov uses the correctness of a judgement (or rather the correct judger) as a suitable reistic replacement for judgement content. In accepting A, I am not accepting the being-of-A, but rather a correct judger of A (i. e. that whoever is a judger of A is a correct judger).

3 Consciousness of correctness as an unseparable part of judging In trying to describe the correctness-belief we are led back to the problematic issue of Brentano’s theory of our consciousness of judging. Before presenting Katkov’s description and refinement of Brentano’s theory, I’d like to present another solution to Katkov’s questions, since I think the topic is of great interest

 If followed by the hearer, such a manifestation would result in the mere comprehension of the statement by the hearer. If one understands that someone accepts or rejects A, one presents A as well. But mere understanding on the side of the hearer is not a fulfilment of the primary intention of the speaker. The speaker’s intention is to evoke the same judgement in the hearer, i. e. to establish the hearer’s conviction concerning the communicated judgement. Marty discusses the distinction between conviction and comprehension in Marty 1908: 362.

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when it comes to any descriptive theory of judgement as such. While I believe that the following short analysis is closer to what might have been Brentano’s own position, I would not dare to ascribe it to Brentano himself. Those interested in Katkov’s theory alone can proceed directly to the next chapter. Brentano, as we will see, claims that consciousness of making a truth claim (in cases of so-called blind judgements) or having truth (in cases of experiencing evident judgements) is an inherent feature of our consciousness of judging and therefore that it must be present in any communication of judgements as well.⁸ Now, according to Brentano, consciousness of this inherent feature results from the inner perception of a psychical act.⁹ Brentano’s opinion is that in intending its primary object every psychical phenomenon also intends itself. Therefore, in making a judgement we are, according to the Brentanian theory, secondarily conscious of its quality, its epistemic status (blindness or evidence), and its modality (assertoric or apodictic).¹⁰ I would like to claim that precisely this inner perception of the epistemic status of judgement is the moment that manifests itself as the speaker’s correctness-belief.¹¹ How should we describe the content of such a manifestation? I think that this ‘epistemic’ manifestation is properly described as ‘I am correctly judging A’ and not only as ‘I am accepting A’ or ‘I am accepting A as correct’. In the case of the statement ‘A does not exist’, the manifestation should be described as ‘I am correctly rejecting A’ and not as ‘I am rejecting A’. I take this adverbial description to be a more simplified and elegant account of a phenomenon Brentano himself partially described in the following way:  See also the manuscript of Brentano’s logic lectures (EL80: 13.126 – 13.127). When we make a statement we are expressing what is ‘happening in our soul’ (was in unserer Seele stattfindet), i.e. we express our judgements, of which we are aware through our inner consciousness. However, we should remember that for both Brentano and Marty this expression is not the meaning of the statement.  We should not confuse this secondary intentionality of inner perception with the secondary communicative intention of statements. According to Brentano and Marty, the former is a moment of every psychical act while the latter is a moment belonging to the pragmatic aspects of our linguistic communication.  For details of this theory see e. g. Kastil 1951: 84– 92. Once again, the general points in question are not dependent on one’s catalogue of moments that constitute any judgement as such.  Since, as Marty 1908: 290 did not fail to point out, we cannot convey evidence just by making statements, all statements manifest truth claims regardless of whether the speaker experiences the evidence of judging or not. See also Rollinger 2010: 88. This is sometimes called ‘an evidential gap’. See e. g. McGinn’s interpretation of the famous article ‘Meaning’ by Paul Grice in McGinn 2015: 200 – 201. The analogies and differences between Marty’s and Grices’s theories of communicative intentions have been described by Liedtke 1990: 29 – 49. Marty’s relation to Bühler’s theory of language is discussed in Cesalli and Friedrich 2014.

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If we say that every accepting judgement is an act of taking something to be true, and every negative judgement an act of taking something to be false, this does not mean that the former consists in predicating truth of what is taken to be true and the latter in predicating falsity of what is taken to be false. […] The only correct interpretation is that anyone who takes something to be true will not only accept the object, but, when asked whether the object is to be accepted, will also accept the object’s to-be-acceptedness, i. e. its truth (which is all that is meant by this barbarous expression). (Brentano 1995: 186 – 187)¹²

Surely this readiness to accept the ‘to-be-acceptedness’ or ‘to-be-rejectedness’ must somehow manifest itself in the communication of statements and be present already in the original consciousness of judging. Now, the acceptance which is to be accepted is not to be accepted because we are aware of ourselves as simply accepting or rejecting, but because of our conviction that we are accepting or rejecting correctly. ¹³ Because of this conviction the hearer should accept what we accept or reject what we reject if she is to accept truth—if she is to be a correct judger. The adverb ‘correctly’ here refers to an inseparable epistemic moment of our original consciousness of judging that is easy to overlook. Several important things need to be said about this position. The first relates to a difference between inner perception and inner observation. While according to Brentano 1995: 22– 26, inner perception is a perception without observation, and is a part of any psychical act, the observation is not a moment of the observed act. On the contrary, the observed psychical phenomenon is its object. Otherwise the observation would repeat the observed act. Brentano is quite clear about this difference: In such cases [of observation of psychical acts] there is always an inner perception, to be sure, but it is not a perception of those of our mental acts just named; it is a perception of another act which is now actually occurring and which is directed toward the others as its primary object. […] This gives me the means to defend myself against a charge which has been made against me. Exception has been taken to my saying that inner perception cannot become inner observation but that we do often observe later on in memory what was earlier perceived in inner perception. Against this it has been alleged that memory is only a weaker repetition of the mental act we remember. But it can easily be seen that this is not the case; otherwise by remembering an earlier mistake one would be making the mistake again, and someone who is ashamed of an earlier sinful act of will would sin again. (Brentano 1995: 215 – 216)

 The ‘affirm’ used in the original translation of the German word ‘anerkennen’ has been replaced by ‘accept’ in order to avoid confusion with the modern use of ‘affirmation’ in the sense of a propositional attitude.  In some cases this claim of judging correctly coincides with a consciousness of judging evidently. For further elucidation of this coincidence, see footnote 18 below.

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Therefore, in observing a judgement we are not repeating the observed judgement. Instead, we present it as the primary object of our attention. It follows that the correctness-belief is not observed when we are judging. However, this does not prevent us from being aware of it when we are judging and from manifesting it when we are making a statement. Certainly, the correctness-belief as a part of our judging can become an object of observation. This is nevertheless a modification of the original consciousness of judging consisting in a new judgement with its own correctness-belief. A very similar observational modification takes place when the hearer makes a manifested psychical act of the speaker into an observed object on account of hearing a statement.¹⁴ If speaker X accepts ‘A exists’, the hearer, in case she does not think that X is a liar, trusts or follows that ‘X correctly accepts A’, but she is not making a separate judgement about the manifestation. If the manifesting function of the speaker’s statement becomes, in the former sense, merely observed by the hearer, the primary intention of the speaker—to evoke the same judgement with the same content in the hearer—remains unfulfilled. This should bring to mind that, in hearing a statement, the hearer who is moved to make the same judgement on account of a manifestation of the statement does not make the manifested psychical life into the object of an observation. It also seems evident that when I make a judgement ‘A exists’ I can observe that I have accepted A or that I have taken A as correct—but this is a mere observation of my state of mind, not a description of what my statement ‘shows’ or manifests to the hearer. Why is the speaker’s manifestation not observed by the hearer? Because the hearer does not take the statement as a mere indicator of speaker’s psychical life, as Marty (and, apparently, also Husserl 2001: 189) thought; rather, under usual circumstances, the manifestation of the speaker’s judgement is understood as a testimony ¹⁵ of certain kind for the correctness of the judgement in relation to

 Instead of saying that the hearer perceives a judgement of the speaker, which would not make sense since she can only perceive her own judgements, we will say that the hearer (non-observationally) follows a manifestation of the speaker’s judgements. It should also be noted that when we say that the hearer ‘observes’ the judgement of the speaker we are using ‘observe’ in a figurative way. By ‘observing’ we want to point to the fact that the hearer, instead of simply following the primary intention of the speaker, takes the utterance of a statement to be a mere indicator of the being of the expressed judgement and turns the expressed judgement into an object of attention.  I use the term ‘testimony’ for lack of a better word. ‘Testimony’ here means that the manifestation of the psychical life functions as a motive for fulfilling the primary intention of the speaker. If the manifestation is observed instead of followed, then it functions as a mere index of the psychical life of the speaker. ’Testimony’ should also indicate that—to be exact—

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its content. Trusting the testimony is equivalent to making the same judgement that the speaker has stated, since trusting that someone judges correctly is equivalent to having the same belief.¹⁶ Through this trust the hearer evokes the same judgement as the speaker and the speaker motivates the hearer to evoke it. Obviously, the conditions for simply following or trusting the manifestation of correctness are much more complex than conditions for accepting the statement as a mere indicator of the psychical acts of the speaker. The hearer cannot take the speaker to be a liar or to be someone who has not mastered the spoken language, or does not perceive clearly, etc. She also has to believe that the speaker has enough expertise, is not mentally ill, sick, or easily fooled by other people, etc. I have briefly presented my reconstruction and, perhaps, a certain correction of the Martian account of the communicative situation concerning statements. I did so by distinguishing observational and non-observational modes of manifesting and apprehending the manifestation of a judgement. We said that what is manifested by the speaker is her inner perception of judging. In relation to the epistemic mode of judging, this inner perception could be described as ‘I correctly accept/deny’. If this manifestation is followed or trusted by the hearer (i. e. trusted as a ‘testimony’ for an objective validity) the communicative goal of the speaker succeeds.

4 Katkov’s analysis of secondary intentionality Katkov, as pointed out, takes the nonequivalence of ‘I accept/deny A’ and ‘A exists/does not exist’ as a starting point for his analysis. His point is not that Marty and Brentano did not notice this non-equivalence, but that Marty did not fully address this non-equivalence in his theory of the manifestation (Kundgebung) of judgements and that Brentano left open in what sense correctness-belief is a part of our consciousness of judging. Rather surprisingly, Katkov (1930: 541) defends the view that the secondary intention of the speaker in making a statement ‘A exists’ consists in a manifestation of two separate judgements—that I accept A and that I accept the correctness of my acceptance of A. ‘In the statement, one

the hearer can never experience the evidence of the speaker’s judgement, and therefore trust in the speaker’s truthfulness, capabilities, etc. is required if the manifestation is to function in the above-described way. The term “testimony” has been recently used in a similar way to describe theory of communication offered by Paul Grice, see McGinn 2015: 200 – 201. For a contemporary discussion of the evolution of the phenomenon of communicative trust see Koreň 2016: 245 – 264.  However, we should mention again that, according to Marty, the hearer can understand the statement without accepting it. See also footnote 10.

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has to express not only his belief concerning the thing A but also his belief in the correctness of this belief’ (Katkov 1930: 544). Nevertheless, this answer appears to be wrong since the successful manifestation of, for example, ‘I accept the correctness of my acceptance’ leads to the question: How is the implicit understanding of this fact supposed to move the hearer to accepting the statement? Katkov, it seems, suspects certain problems. ‘Sure, the manifestation of the conviction concerning the correctness of the judgement is not by itself sufficient enough to attain the goal [of the primary intention of the speaker]. We have to presuppose that the hearer trusts the speaker concerning this judgement as well’ (Katkov 1930: 541). But the trust of the hearer is certainly not trust in ‘X believes that she judges correctly’, but rather in ‘X judges correctly’. Fortunately, elsewhere Katkov gives a better account of his view without, it seems, being aware that this account differs from the previous one. The addressee, when she hears “A exists”, not only presents A but also generally a believer in A (ein an A Glaubender im allgemeinen), about whom it is judged that he cannot judge wrongly. (Katkov 1930: 544)

This means that the addressee, if she does judge that the speaker cannot judge wrongly, doesn’t accept the speaker as someone who accepts his judgement as correct—clearly, such a speaker can judge wrongly—but as someone who correctly accepts his judgement, for if the speaker cannot judge wrongly he is a correct speaker. It is obvious that if someone just believes that her judgement is correct and we accept that she truly believes so, we have not accepted anything about the truth or falsity of her judgement. Before proceeding further, we should expand on what late Brentano and Katkov mean by correctness and by our consciousness of correctness. While according to late Brentano, the experience of evidence of a judgement is tantamount to knowing that the judgement is true, correctness of a judgement consists in its adequacy to the evident judgement. This means that the correct judgement has the same quality of accepting or negating and the same content as the evident judgement. Consciousness of correctness is a conviction regarding the judgement’s adequacy to the evident judgement.¹⁷ What else does this conviction imply? In his Appendix to the Classification of Mental Phenomena which, since its publication in 1911, has become a standard part of all subsequent editions of the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano writes that we have evidence ‘that two judgements, one of which accepts in a certain way what the other denies in the same way, are no more both correct [evident] if two different persons  See e. g. Brentano 1966: 82.

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make the two judgements than if one and the same person makes them’ (Brentano 1995: 238 – 239). This evidence is itself grounded in the experience of evident judging. Whenever we experience an evident judgement we also have evidence that, necessarily, the contradictory judgement (from the Brentanian perspective: the judgement with the same content but opposite quality) cannot be evident. For Brentano, the law of non-contradiction is an a priori truth that presupposes the concept of evidence itself, which in turn presupposes our experience of evident judging from which the concept is abstracted.¹⁸ Now, Brentano interprets a universal judgement as a negative judgement and its necessary truth as the evidence of the impossibility of the opposite.¹⁹ This evidence leads to a mode of rejection that Brentano calls an apodictic rejection. Therefore, whoever holds some truth apodictically rejects the evidence of the contradictory judgement. Katkov applies this view to his analysis of the secondary intention of the speaker’s statements. He maintains that in making the statement ‘A exists’, the speaker manifests that she accepts A and that she apodictically rejects the evidence for the contrary judgement. Since both Brentano and Katkov accept the law of the excluded middle as evident,²⁰ they identified this apodictic rejection with the consciousness (conviction) of the correctness of the judgement that contradicts the rejected one.²¹

 For the late Brentano, ‘there is no (A and non-A)’ means that I apodictically reject someone who denies A with evidence if someone accepts A with evidence and vice versa. It is immediately obvious that the concept of someone accepting or rejecting something with evidence is a part of the content of the law of non-contradiction. Now, I cannot have this concept unless I have experienced an evident judgement from which I abstracted my concept of evidence. Furthermore, I cannot have a concept of the correctness of a judgement if I haven’t experienced an evident judgement. By saying that the law of non-contradiction is grounded in the experience of evidence, I mean that for Brentano it is a law gained through abstraction from evident judging. In this I follow Brentano’s letter to Kraus from 1916 : “The concept of correctness is made manifest to us in precisely the same way in which other concepts are made manifest to us. We consider a multiplicity of things each of which exemplifies the concept and we direct our attention upon what these things have in common. Whenever I perceive that I judge with evidence I am aware of myself as someone who is judging correctly. The evidence of my own judgement also enables me to speak of the correctness of the judgements of other people: if anyone, however arbitrarily, arrives at an opinion which coincides with that of my own evident judgement then his opinion is correct, and if his opinion arrives at an opinion that contradicts it then his opinion is incorrect” (Brentano 1966b: 293 – 294; English transl. Chisholm 1982: 72).  See e. g. Brentano EL 80: 13.175.  See e. g. a passage in Brentano (Brentano 1956: 175) which is taken from Brentano’s manuscript ‘Über unsere Axiome’ written on 16th February, 1916.  For further details on the reistic formulation of the law of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle, see Chisholm 1982: 75 – 77. In the following I will continue to use affirma-

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So far we have been talking about Katkov’s claim that more than a simple acceptance or negation has to be manifested in making a statement. However, the reistic strategy of reducing states of affairs (Marty’s judgement contents) which function as meanings in the narrow sense in the communication of statements can now be put to work as well. According to Katkov, the theory of states of affairs was developed in order to explain the objective validity of our judgements. The object of presentation on which every judgement is based cannot guarantee the truth of our judgements. But there must be something, some object that provides this guarantee. This something has been called an objective, a state of affairs, a judgement content, etc. The truth was therefore seen in the correspondence of judgements with states of affairs. And our experience of truth was therefore explained as experience of this correspondence. However, the late Brentano rejected the correspondence theory of truth as absurd and preferred to define truth as founded on the evidence of judgement (Brentano 1966: 83 – 91). If, for example, I judge that it is raining, there need not be a special object, called the being-of-raining or named by the expression ‘that it is raining’. This affects Marty’s theory of the meaning of statements too. According to Katkov, if I make a statement ‘It is raining’, there is no special narrow meaning of the statement, no special state of affairs or judgement-content. There is only the primary communicative intention of evoking the presentation and acceptance of the presented raining by the hearer and a secondary communicative intention to do so by manifesting (1) my acceptance of the raining and (2) my acceptance of the correctness of this acceptance. If one misinterprets the presence of the second acceptance, one is easily misled into accepting fictional entities, for exactly this second judgement is that which—in the form of consciousness of truth, of consciousness of objective validity—is considered by many people to be a special characteristics of every act of judgment. On account of an erroneous analysis, its object was fictitiously turned into a chimerical entity. […] Among all these contradictory determinations, which we can, to some extent, recognize in Marty’s “contents”, the specific moments of judgments are mixed together into one whole with specific moments of things about which we judge. (Katkov 1930: 536)

This theory allows Katkov to claim that when we think that we are presenting a state of affairs ‘A exists’, we are in fact only presenting a correct ‘acceptor’ of A in tive expressions, e. g. ‘a judger accepts the correctness of her judgements’, to avoid unnatural language, but in the end such expressions should be understood as expressing rejections and not acceptations. A judger actually never accepts her judgement as correct but denies the correctness of the contradictory judgement.

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general (einen A richtig Bejahenden im allgemeinen). Obviously, ‘A does not exist’ points to a general idea of a correct ‘rejector’ of A in general. This attempt to explain away states of affairs as redundant entities—supposedly concocted by those who were not able to see through the linguistic and psychological fictions—is in complete accord with the reistic version of Brentano’s teachings as defended by Brentano’s students in Prague and is part of the overall reductive strategy of reism.²²

5 Perceptive and rational belief We have seen that Katkov interprets the secondary communicative intention as consisting in a manifestation of two judgements. This complexity is in some aspects in line with Brentano’s teaching. Compare the following quote from Brentano’s Appendix to the Classification of Mental Phenomena: The fact that the mentally active subject has himself as object of a secondary reference, regardless of what else he refers to as his primary object, is of great importance. As a result of this fact, there are no statements about primary objects which do not include several assertions (Behauptungen). If I say, for example, “God exists,” I am at the same time attesting to the fact that I judge [I accept] that God exists. Or if I say, “There is no God” this includes the fact that I deny that there is one. It is very good to notice this when one is making a psychological analysis of judgments, for as a result of this, it will often emerge, if one proceeds with the proper care, that the objects of judgment and of the presentations on which they

 An approach in a similar spirit was later suggested by Chisholm in Mulligan 1990: 1–10. Earlier in his text Katkov 1930: 501– 508 used Brentano’s strategy of reducing non-existing objects of presentation, such as the proverbial golden mountain or squared circle. Thus, there is no ideal or ‘ausserseiende’ golden mountain as an object of presentation. There is only the act of presenting the golden mountain, or rather ‘the presenter of the golden mountain’. This makes clear that presentations are something ‘relation-like’ (relativliches), but not really relational. While a relation presupposes the existence of both of its terms—Peter kicks Tom—, what is relation-like doesn’t— Peter thinks about Tom (but Tom might be dead). As every psychical phenomenon is secondarily directed to itself, the presenter of the golden mountain perceives herself (in recto) as presenting (in obliquo) the mountain. This allows Katkov to reduce the supposed differences of intentionality as regards its objects to the differences of intentionality as regards secondary consciousness. Therefore the difference between presenting a golden mountain and not a flying horse is not based on presentations of different unreal intentional objects (which do not exist), but rather on the consciousness of ourselves as presenters of golden mountains or presenters of flying horses. This, from Katkov’s perspective, amounts to an a priori proof of the self-related structure of all intentional consciousness, because I can be conscious of X only if I am conscious of myself as being conscious of X.

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are based are quite different from what people commonly imagine them to be. (Brentano 1995: 215 – 216)

However, the complexity behind ‘God exists’ of which Brentano speaks here seems to be a result of the complexity of one self-related intentional psychical phenomenon. If we presuppose the unprovability of God’s existence, the fact that X states that ‘God exists’ also manifests—as aspects of one unitary phenomenon—that ‘X accepts God’, ‘X accepts God assertorically’, ‘X accepts God blindly’, and X’s conviction that she accepts God correctly. Katkov disrupts this unity, since my statement ‘God exists’ shows (1) my belief in God (Glaube an A) and (2) my higher-order belief concerning the correctness of my belief in God (Glaube an die Richtigkeit des Glaubens an A).²³ At first sight, one of the results of this theory, namely that the first belief can exist without the other seems very odd. Isn’t belief a cognitive state that as such necessarily includes a truth-claiming moment? It seems obvious that if I believe (affirm) something I necessarily believe in (affirm) the truth of the judgement. ‘Believing without believing in truth’ appears to be a contradictory determination. What are the reasons for Katkov’s approach? First of all, we have to explain the specific Brentanian use of terms like ‘belief’, ‘judgement’, and ‘acceptance’. Already in 1919 Stumpf warned readers about the unusually broad meaning of ‘judgement’ in Brentano’s work. Every outer and inner perception, no matter how simple, is already a judgement. On this view, even a new-born baby makes plenty of judgements, since it perceives its surroundings. ‘Naturally, all of this vastly differs from the position which knows only linguistically formulated judgements (statements)’ (Stumpf 1919: 133). Katkov’s first move is to point to the huge difference between perceptive and rational belief. While the latter is dependent on what we think, the former is completely indifferent to rational insight. Our rational decisions concerning its truth do not change or suspend perceptual belief in any way. Katkov himself mentions Zöllner’s lines as an example:²⁴

 Katkov, like Brentano, takes ‘acceptation’ and ‘belief’ to be synonymous expressions, which can lead to some confusion because, as we often say, belief usually refers to a disposition to make a judgement and not to actual judging.  Katkov must have been aware of Brentano’s discussion of this and similar paradoxes in his 1892 article Über ein optisches Paradoxon, in which Brentano interpreted this perceptual illusion as a result of our instinctive overestimation of small angles and underestimation of big ones; see Brentano 2009: 1– 12.

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Katkov maintains that we see converging lines (we cannot, after all, say we merely imagine the converging lines), and yet we know they are parallel. But if we know they are parallel we cannot rationally judge that they are convergent. Therefore we perceptively affirm convergent lines but rationally reject them. The perceptive judgement contradicts the rational judgement. Since, according to Brentano and his disciples, science teaches us that phenomenal qualities— sounds, colours, taste, etc. do not exist²⁵ and since, at the same time, we cannot suppress our perceptive belief concerning the qualities, the same thing that was said of Zöllner’s lines can be applied to all perceptive qualities (physical phenomena). These qualities are nevertheless still perceived as independent, real qualities of objects despite our rational conviction to the contrary. Katkov draws the following conclusion: ‘This situation points to the fact that, in opposition to the view defended by Brentano, we cannot express every positioning judgement in the form of the existential sentence’ (Katkov 1930: 531). Even though we perceptively posit or affirm convergent lines we cannot make the linguistic (= rational) statement ‘There are convergent external lines on the picture’. Katkov therefore asserts: [I]n all the cases in which we know that our belief—upheld by an inborn or habitually acquired or pathological instinct—contradicts correct belief, i.e. that it is a false belief, we cannot express our false belief in the form of an existential statement even though it is preserved in us in opposition to our “better knowledge”. (Katkov 1930: 531)

 See e. g. Brentano 1995: 70 or Katkov 1978: 16 – 17.

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What is missing in these cases that is present in others? Katkov claims that the missing part is our higher-order belief (acceptance) that the perceptive belief (perceptive acceptance) is correct. We instinctively believe that we see convergent lines, and yet we do not rationally believe that this belief is correct. Because statements are always expressions of rational judgements, they presuppose our belief in the correctness of our acceptance.²⁶ Therefore, if I say ‘There are convergent lines on the paper’ I am manifesting my acceptance of these lines and my belief that this acceptance is correct. However, when I know that the convergent lines are actually parallel I cannot say, ‘There are convergent lines on the paper’, even though I am still perceptually affirming these lines (I see their convergence), precisely because I don’t believe that this perceptual acceptance is correct. Whenever we take an acceptance of X to be false we cannot express the acceptance in the existential statement ‘There is X’. Katkov draws some interesting conclusions from the independence of the founding judgement from the founded one as well as from their differing characters (Katkov 1930: 539 – 540). It is, for example, not true that all judgements can be described as truth-intentions (Wahrheitsintentionen). Moreover, since the higher-order correctness-judgement involves apodictic consciousness of the impossibility of the truth of the opposite, it is plausible that there could be beings, e. g. some animals, which could judge A with evidence without being aware that the opposite is necessarily false. Traditionally speaking, such beings would not be conscious of the law of non-contradiction, and yet they would, for example, have evident inner perception of their psychical acts. Of course, it is completely impossible for these beings to linguistically express their belief, for this already presupposes secondary communicative intentionality, which does involve the implicit use of the law of non-contradiction.²⁷ They could not say ‘I am psychologically active in this or that way’, even though they could be conscious of being so (Katkov 1930: 540).

 As we have seen, this belief in correctness is described by Katkov as a negative consciousness that the contradictory evident judgement is impossible (or, in other words, as an apodictic rejection of the evidence of the opposite).  As we have seen, this results from the fact that belief in the correctness of one’s acceptance is a belief in its universal validity—whoever judges so judges correctly, and this is a rejection of the correctness of the contradictory judgement because for Brentano and Katkov all universal judgements have a negative form.

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6 Problems with Katkov’s position One problem with Katkov’s theory is the following. It does not make much sense to talk of two separate manifested judgements in statements expressing judgements if their correctness does not involve any perceptive judgements concerning outer perception. Simple examples would be apodictically evident judgements. According to Katkov, if I say ‘A is bigger than B and B is bigger than C, therefore A is bigger than C’ then I manifest (1) my acceptance and (2) my belief in the correctness of the acceptance. However, such first-order acceptance seems incomprehensible as it makes no sense to say that, for example, the evidence of a judgement ‘colour always covers extension’ does not by itself constitute a truth claim. It is impossible to accept that colour always covers extension and yet accept that this judgement is not correct. In this case, there is no thirdorder belief built upon a second-order rational belief. This, by the way, also concerns the evident consciousness of the law of non-contradiction. This leads to the conclusion that Katkov’s approach might, perhaps, only be applicable to some cases involving perceptual belief and its relation to ‘reasoning’. But here we enter a very difficult area and Katkov does not provide us with a deeper explication of his approach. Is it not possible for certain animals to be aware of perceptive illusions without being able to make second-order judgements of disbelief? Aren’t hunting animals able to correct changes in perspective as well as certain illusions that come about through different media, such as air and water? In other words, could the difference between ‘appearing to be convergent’ and ‘being convergent’ not be postulated in a different way? Is it really accurate to say that in seeing Zöllner’s lines we perceptively accept them while rationally rejecting their existence? Could we, for example, not claim that rational knowledge turns our simple seeing into an observation of appearing and therefore suspends it at the perceptive level? Should we not distinguish between the externality of outer perception—the externality of appearance—and belief in the existence of externally appearing objects as Hume 2007: 125 – 144 and Husserl 2001b: 99 did?²⁸ It is certainly to Katkov’s credit that he, in a spirited way, addresses issues concerning the communicative intention of the speaker as well as issues concerning the relation between perceptive and noetic (rational) belief.

 It would be interesting to consult Husserl′s early manuscripts concerning the problem of conscious perceptive illusion and perceptive belief. Husserl played with the idea that there is a negative perception, a Falschnehmung, as something opposite to positive perception (Wahrnehmung), and tried to portray its negative character as a character of conflict (Widerstreitscharacter). See Husserl 2009: 127– 129.

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Nonetheless, his theory requires further defence against many possible objections.

7 Conclusion Katkov was certainly right in following Marty’s suggestion—in making statements, there has to be something analogous to the evocation of fear in making a command or compassion in making a plea, something moving the hearer to make the same judgement (Katkov 1930: 542). The utterance of a judgement can never communicate evidence of the speaker’s acceptance of the stated judgement. However, as if by magic the belief of the speaker is usually taken up by the hearer. Katkov was also right to refuse Marty’s description of secondary communicative intention. But Katkov failed to notice the difference between observing the manifestation and following or trusting the manifestation. These modes can be taken toward the same statement, but while the former consists in accepting ‘X believes she judges … correctly’ the latter consists in accepting ‘X correctly judges that …’. Similar modes can be distinguished on the side of the speaker. To account for this phenomenon we employed Brentano’s distinction between self-observation (I judge that A is correct) and inner perception (I correctly judge that A). When Katkov recognized that a new element of manifestation needed to be accepted in the communication of statements he turned to Brentano’s analysis of judgement for help. In consciousness of judging I do not simply judge, I also accept the correctness of my judging, which amounts to an apodictic rejection of the correctness of the opposite judgement. However, Brentano’s views on how exactly this apodictic rejection is a part of our judging are not very clear. Katkov took this rejection to be a separate judgement that then constitutes the new element for which he was searching. He also used this separate judgement in his reistic reduction of Marty’s theory of judgement content. According to Katkov, the manifestation of correctness which is presupposed by all linguistic expressions of judgements has been misunderstood by many (Marty included) in an objective way, such that the objectivity of statements is then seen in the correspondence of expressed judgement to a state of affairs, a judgement content, a fact, etc. However, we do not have to accept such objective corresponding entities. In fact, when the hearer makes a judgement about the speaker she doesn’t accept such correspondence. She simply accepts the speaker as a correct judger and nothing else. The examples backing Katkov’s separation of judging and accepting the correctness of judging are based on a possible conflict between perception and ra-

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tional conviction. Perceptual judgements remain affirmative, even though we don’t believe in the correctness of perceptual affirmations. Therefore there is an exception to the rule that all judgements include an apodictic rejection of the correctness of the opposite. While it is dubious that such judging without truth-claiming can be defended for all cases of judging, the general strategy of reducing states of affairs, objectives, or judgement-contents to complex acts at work in the communication of statements seems worthy of further investigation.²⁹

References Brentano, F. (1956), Die Lehre vom richtigen Urteil, Bern, Francke. Brentano, F. (1966), The True and the Evident, translated by R. M. Chisholm, I. Politzer, and K. R. Fischer, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul. Brentano, F. (1995), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, translated by L. L. McAlister, New York, Routledge. Brentano, F. (2009), Schriften zur Sinnespsychologie, Franz Brentano Sämtliche Veröffentlichte Schriften, vol. II, edited by T. Binder and A. Chrudzimski, Frankfurt, Ontos. Brentano, F. (2011), EL 80, Logik, edited by R. D. Rollinger, Franz Brentano Archiv, Graz. Cesalli, L. Friedrich J. (eds.) (2014), Anton Marty & Karl Bühler, Between Mind and Language, Basel, Schwabe. Chisholm, R. M. (1982), Brentano and Meinong Studies, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Chisholm, R. M. (1985 – 1986), ‘Georg Katkov as a Philosopher’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 25/26, p. 601 – 602. Chrudzimski, A. (1999), ‘Die Intentionalitätstheorie Anton Martys’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 57, p. 175 – 214. Hume, D. (2007), A Treatise of Human Nature, vol. I, edited by D. F. Norton and M. J. Norton, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Husserl, E. (2001a), Logical Investigations, vol I, translated by J. N. Findlay, New York, Routledge. Husserl, E. (2001b), Logical Investigations, vol II, translated by J. N. Findlay, New York, Routledge. Husserl, E. (2009), Untersuchungen zur Urteilstheorie: Texte aus dem Nachlass (1893 – 1918), edited by R. D. Rollinger, Hua XL, Dordrecht, Springer. Kastil, A. (1951), Die Philosophie Franz Brentanos, Salzburg, Bergland. Katkov, G. (1930), ‘Bewußtsein, Gegenstand, Sachverhalt. Eine Brentanostudie’, Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie 75(3/4), p. 459 – 544. Katkov, G. (1978), ‘The World in which Franz Brentano Believed He Lived’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 5, p. 11 – 27.

 This publication is an outcome of a project of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic P401/ 15 – 18149S entitled From Logical Objectivism to Reism: Bolzano and the School of Brentano, and realized at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

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Koreň, L. (2016), ‘Trust, Norms and Reason’, in Normativity and Naturalism in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, edited by M. Risjord, New York, Routledge, p. 245 – 264. Liedtke, F. (1990), ‘Meaning and Expression: Marty and Grice on Intentional Semantics’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 29 – 66. Losskij, N. O. (1927), Handbuch der Logik, Teubern, Leipzig—Berlin. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. McGinn, C. (2015), Philosophy of Language: The Classics Explained, Cambridge MA, MIT Press. Rollinger, R. D., (2010), Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty. Analysis and Translation, Amsterdam, Rodopi. Simons, P. (2006), ‘Austrian Philosophers on Truth’, in The Austrian Contribution to Analytic Philosophy, edited by M. Textor, New York, Routledge. Stumpf, C. (1919), ‘Erinnerungen an Franz Brentano’, in Kraus, O., Franz Brentano, zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Lehre, München, C. H. Beck.

III Marty’s Semasiology, its Origins and its Posterity

Guy Longworth

Grice and Marty on Expression Abstract: I discuss a purported connection between Grice’s essay ‘Meaning’ and earlier work by Anton Marty. It has been argued that in 1908, Marty presented an account of meaning that is similar to, if not identical with, Grice’s. My aim is to pursue two questions that arise from this priority dispute. To what extent is Grice, as opposed to Marty, responsible for the account presented in Grice’s essay? And what is to be learned from pursuit of this particular dispute over priority? My answer to the first question is that Grice is largely responsible for the account, although it is reasonable to think that Marty’s account figures as a sort of precursor. My answer to the second question is that what there is to be learned from pursuit of the priority question has at least as much to do with differences between Marty’s and Grice’s respective account as it has to do with their similarities. More substantively, I discuss a particular difference in emphasis between Grice’s account and Marty’s, concerning the nature of expression, and the way in which it highlights the problematic status of expression in Grice’s account of meaning.

1 Introduction Paul Grice’s essay ‘Meaning’ was published in 1957, almost ten years after its initial presentation to a 1948 meeting of the Oxford Philosophical Society. The essay contains an account of what Grice calls ‘non-natural meaning’—roughly, what speakers mean by, or in, performing certain actions. According to that account, the non-natural meaning of a speaker’s utterance—what the speaker meant by, or in, producing the utterance—is determined by a distinctive range of the audience-directed intentions with which the speaker produced the utterance. Grice supported his account by appeal to fruitful, counterexample-based arguments against competitor accounts. Grice’s account, and the accompanying defence, has generated a great deal of critical discussion, and now figures in the assumed background to most engagements with its topic.

I’m grateful for discussions with Laurent Cesalli, Tom Crowther, Naomi Eilan, Hemdat Lerman, Kevin Mulligan, Anne Reboul, Matthew Soteriou, Hamid Taieb, and Mark Textor, and to audiences in Einsiedeln and London. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-012

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Important philosophical work rarely forms in a vacuum. Grice cites only one other text in the essay, C. L. Stevenson’s (1944) Ethics and Language. But that citation connects his essay with a rich body of prior work. Furthermore, Grice’s account furnishes a distinction, within the totality of the intentions with which speakers act, between those intentions that constitute acts in which something is meant, or expressed, and those that constitute acts that only serve, or are served by, acts in which something is meant. It thus aims to develop his teacher J. L. Austin’s earlier distinction between speakers’ illocutionary acts and the other acts that serve, or are served by, those illocutionary acts—specifically, the locutionary acts on which the performance of the illocutionary acts depends, and the perlocutionary acts that depend on the performance of the illocutionary acts. (See Austin 1962, a record of lectures given in 1955. Austin claimed to have formed the views underlying his 1955 in 1939. Related views figured in the background to his 1946.) In what follows, I discuss a further purported connection between Grice’s essay and earlier work. It has been suggested that credit for originating the account offered in Grice’s essay is due, not to Grice, but to the Swiss philosopher Anton Marty. For Marty, it has been argued, presented an account of meaning in his 1908 that is similar to, if not identical with, Grice’s. (See e. g. Liedtke 1990 and, more tentatively, Cesalli 2013 and Rollinger 2014.) My aim here is to pursue two questions that arise from this priority dispute. To what extent is Grice, as opposed to Marty, responsible for the account presented in Grice’s essay? And what is to be learned from pursuit of this particular dispute over priority? My answer to the first question will be that Grice is largely responsible for the account, although it is reasonable to think that Marty’s account figures as a sort of precursor. My answer to the second question is that what there is to be learned from pursuit of the priority question has at least as much to do with differences between Marty’s and Grice’s respective account as it has to do with their similarities. More substantively, I’ll discuss a particular difference in emphasis between Grice’s account and Marty’s, and the way in which it highlights the problematic status of one central component of Grice’s discussion. I’ll proceed as follows. §2 (‘Precedents and precursors’) contains some general reflections on what we might hope to achieve by pursuing historical questions of priority, and some ways in which pursuing answers to such historical questions can interact with the pursuit of questions of a more systematic nature. §3 (‘History’) considers the question whether the production of Grice’s essay could have been influenced by Marty’s work. §4 (‘Commonalities’) explores some similarities and differences between Marty’s work and Grice’s that are visible at different levels of resolution, and suggests that the central insights present in Grice’s essay are absent from Marty’s work. §5 (‘Expression’) considers an ap-

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parent problem that Grice presented for the natural idea that intentional behaviour can manifest or express bits of psychology other than the intention with which the behaviour was produced. The apparent problem is that the intention with which the behavior is undertaken serves to screen off those bits of psychology that behavior of that type might otherwise have manifested or expressed. Marty and Grice offer different responses to this apparent problem: Grice treats it as a genuine problem; Marty treats it as merely apparent. I sketch two views of the role of intention in shaping activity which would favour Marty’s response over Grice’s. I suggest that one thing that we can learn from Marty—and from historical reflection more generally—arises from such differences rather than from commonalities. In short, we can learn that claims which might otherwise have struck us as uncontestable might be contestable, since reasonably contested.

2 Precedents and precursors Before embarking on a more detailed comparison of Grice’s account with Marty’s, it will be worth pausing to reflect more generally on what we might hope to gain from such an historical investigation. At the most general level—and without wishing to suggest that these categories are either exclusive or exhaustive—our interests might be more purely systematic or more purely historical. Pursuing the former interest, we might hope that our inquiry will serve more systematic ends, for example by helping us to develop or assess contemporary accounts of meaning. Here, it might be that historical reflection reveals ways in which some aspects of contemporary theories were originally due to pressures of authority, or more generally that they are contingent accretions or accidents of development, rather than secure bases for further theorizing. In that case, the result of historical reflection might be the weakening, or problematizing, of assumptions that had figured as more or less fixed points in contemporary theorizing. Alternatively, it might be that historical investigation reveals a fund of arguments, or nuances, on which more recent work built without replicating, so that uncovering those arguments and subtleties can figure in strengthening contemporary positions. Pursuing the latter interest, we might hope that our inquiry will serve more historical ends, for example by deepening our understanding of the crisscrossing paths along which contemporary accounts have developed. Insofar as we adopt a more purely historical view, we are liable to do so because we are concerned with the path along which what we take to be insights have developed. Thus, we are liable to be interested in the historical development of what we take to be contemporary successes. Here it’s worthwhile to dis-

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tinguish two ways in which earlier work might be related to later work. The first way is for the earlier work to be a precedent for later work: minimally, for it to involve an earlier appearance, in whole or part, of later insights. Here, what matters are commonalities or similarities between the earlier and later view, whatever the historical connections between those views. The second way is for the earlier work to be a precursor for the later work: minimally, for the earlier work to have figured causally in the generation of the later work, either as a prompt to, or stage in, the development of the insights contained in the later work. In principle, one might find perfect similarities between earlier and later views without the former serving as precursor for the latter: that is, one might find mere precedence. Similarly, one might in principle find precursors for later views with little similarity to those later views, for example if the earlier views had served merely as prompts, or argumentative foils, in the development of the later views. The assessment of claims about precedence, and so of claims about commonality or similarity, is liable to be sensitive to the values of two interrelated parameters. First, it is liable to be sensitive to the level of resolution at which commonality, or similarity, is sought. Second, it is liable to be sensitive to what we take to be the central insights of later work. Thus, views that appear very similar at a low level of resolution may be strikingly dissimilar at higher levels of resolution, and the key insights of later views might be discernible only at those higher levels of resolution. For example, we might take the insights of some later views to be found not so much in the accounts that they offer, but rather in the specific arguments that they present in defense of those accounts. The interplay between questions about precedence and questions about the level of resolution at which a view’s central insights are best discerned provides another point at which systematic and historical interests intersect. For example, at one level of resolution, we might consider Aristarchus of Samos’s early heliocentric model of the Universe to be a precedent for Copernicus’s model of the solar system, since the accounts have in common that the Earth is taken to orbit the Sun. However, at a higher level of resolution—a level that makes more clearly visible what we take to be Copernicus’s central insights— we would attend to the very different ways in which the two thinkers sought to defend their models: the former, through crude calculations of the relative sizes of the Earth and the Sun conjoined with an appeal to the implausibility of the larger orbiting the smaller; the latter, through the relative simplicity of his more detailed heliocentric model of the solar system. Focusing on the specifics of the two views—in this case, on specific arguments, rather than the broad central claim of heliocentrism—we would be less inclined to treat the earlier model as a precedent for the latter. (We might nonetheless treat Aristarchus’s account as a precedent of sorts for the basic heliocentrist claim. And Copernicus

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himself may have treated Aristarchus’s claim as a partial precursor for his own.) (See e. g. Gingerich 1985.) With these general reflections in hand, let’s consider how they apply to our specific target, the priority dispute between Marty and Grice. We’ll begin with the more historical question, whether, or to what extent, Marty’s account is causally connected with Grice’s (§3), before turning to the question of the extent to which there are important commonalities between Marty’s account and Grice’s (§4).

3 History What are the grounds for thinking that Grice’s discussion in ‘Meaning’ could have drawn content, or inspiration, from Marty’s earlier work? Had Grice read Marty’s work? If not, had he read those who had read, and perhaps cited, Marty’s work? As far as I’m aware, there are no clear grounds for thinking that Grice had read Marty’s work before composing ‘Meaning’. However, there may yet be reason to suppose that Grice had indirect access to some of the content of that work. At the conference on Marty’s work during which an earlier version of this paper was presented, Kevin Mulligan briefly sketched a positive case for thinking that Grice had such access. I want here briefly to record the basis of Mulligan’s case, as it struck me. Mulligan should be held responsible for whatever truth there is in the account offered here; for the rest, responsibility is mine. Mulligan’s proposal takes off from the central role played in early 20th Century thinking about language by The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (1923) by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. Ogden and Richards’ book had an enormous impact on philosophy and linguistics from its publication until at least the mid-50s. Although Grice doesn’t cite the book, it is very likely that he had read it. (Grice tends against full citation, though does a reasonable job of mentioning individual influences. However, more evidence would be needed before we could be certain that Grice read, or read carefully, this text.) We might add here that Grice had certainly read Stevenson 1944, since that work is cited in ‘Meaning’. And Stevenson both cited, and actively engaged with, Ogden and Richards’ text in the chapter that Grice cited. Let’s assume that Grice had read their book, and that it had exerted some form of influence on his discussion in ‘Meaning’. The question now is whether Ogden and Richards’ book could have served as a conduit for Marty’s work. Initial inspection is disappointing. Ogden and Richards include no reference to Marty in their index. However, as Mulligan noted, they did discuss other po-

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tentially relevant work. In particular, they discussed work by the archaeologist Alan Gardiner, quoting sympathetically the following passage: Is the meaning of a sentence that which is in the mind of the speaker at the moment of utterance or that which is in the mind of the listener at the moment of audition? Neither, I think. Certainly not that which is in the mind of the listener, for he may utterly misconstrue the speaker’s purpose. But also not that which is in the mind of the speaker, for he may intentionally veil in his utterance the thoughts which are in his brain, and this, of course, he could not do if the meaning of the utterance were precisely that which he held in his brain. I think the following formulation will meet the case: The meaning of any sentence is what the speaker intends to be understood from it by the listener. (Gardiner 1922: 361)

As we’ll see in the next section, Gardiner’s proposal is strikingly similar to— though not identical with—Grice’s account, and is taken very seriously by Ogden and Richards. That is of some independent interest. But does it aid our search for a connection back to Marty? Specifically, can we trace a line of influence from Marty to Gardiner? We can. Gardiner cites Marty (1908) in a very positive way: Most writers on Language have, of course, been more or less alive to this standpoint [—the standpoint of attending to speakers’ purposes in theorizing about language, GL], but Marty alone, so far as my reading goes, is entirely impregnated with it. His statement of the purpose of Language agrees closely with my own definition, which runs: Language is the name given to any system of articulate symbols having reference to the facts of experience, whereby speakers seek to influence the minds of listeners in given directions. (Gardiner 1922: 354)

So, Gardiner provides us with the remaining portion of our path back to Marty. Disappointingly, as the quote indicates, Gardiner finds in Marty a more or less generic appeal to speakers’ intentions and, more specifically, their intentions to influence listeners’ minds. As we’ll see in more detail in the following section, that means that Gardiner’s own proposal is closer to Grice’s than is the less specific view that Gardiner admits to finding in Marty. Insofar, then, as the path of possible influence that we have traced from Marty to Grice—via Gardiner, Ogden and Richards, and Stevenson—is the only, or main, line of influence, the most that we can say is this. Marty’s work, as so transmitted, may have suggested to Grice, or supported his standing interest in, the idea that speakers’ intentions to influence the minds of listeners are important determinants of what speakers mean. However, as we will see in the following section, the specificity of Grice’s positive account, together with his objections to other views that also attend in this general way to speakers’ intentions, means that the connection sketched here is less decisive than some enthusiasts might have hoped. Nonetheless, it

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seems reasonable, in light of Mulligan’s proposal, to hold that Marty’s work exerted at least an indirect influence on Grice’s. In the following section, I turn to considering the more delicate question of the precise shape that that influence took, or could have taken.

4 Commonalities In ‘Meaning’, Grice presents his account in the following way: “A meantNN something by x” is (roughly) equivalent to “A intended the utterance of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the recognition of this intention”; and we may add that to ask what A meant is to ask for a specification of the intended effect. (Grice 1957: 220)

Grice presents this as an account of what he calls non-natural meaning, meaningNN. (The contrast, to which we’ll return, is with cases of natural meaning, including the connection between smoke and fire when the smoke means fire.) As noted, the question of precedence depends on the prior, systematic question of what we take to be Grice’s central insight or insights. As Grice presents his account, we might focus on any of the following candidate insights (presented at increasingly high levels of resolution): 1. The claim that what a speaker means by an utterance is determined by their intentions. 2. The claim that what a speaker means by an utterance is determined by their intentions to have a specific range of effects on an audience’s psychology. 3. The claim that what a speaker means by an utterance is determined by their intentions to have a specific range of effects on an audience’s psychology by means of the audience’s recognizing certain features of the speaker’s psychology. 4. The claim that what a speaker means by an utterance is determined by their intentions to have a specific range of effects on an audience’s psychology by means of the audience’s recognizing the speaker’s intention to have certain effects on the speaker’s psychology. 5. The claim that what a speaker means by an utterance is determined by their intentions to have a specific range of effects on an audience’s psychology by means of the audience’s recognizing those very intentions—that is, the claim that what a speaker means is determined by some of their specifically reflexive intentions.

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The question of influence depends, then, on three questions. First, at which level of resolution should we locate Marty’s central insight(s)? Second, at which level of resolution should we locate Grice’s central insight(s)? Third, do the insights visible at those levels of resolution match: is Grice’s central insight reasonably viewed as a version of Marty’s, or do their respective insights occur at different levels of resolution? To forestall suspense, I’ll be suggesting that Marty’s central insight is visible at around level three, whilst Grice’s insight is most clearly seen at levels four or five. So, although there are clear similarities between Marty’s position and Grice’s at lower levels of resolution, Grice’s central insight isn’t yet visible at those levels of resolution. Put another way, although some of Marty’s insights are reflected in Grice’s work, Grice’s central insights are not to be found in Marty’s. I’ll begin to develop a case for that verdict by considering the first question: what was Marty’s insight? Let’s consider some passages in Marty’s work to which appeal has been made in attributing an intention-based account of meaning to Marty. Marty provides an initial summary of his position in the following passage: We said that language…is primarily understood as the intentional indication of inner life. However, what is primarily intended in this indication is a corresponding influence of foreign inner life. As a rule, one indicates one’s own presentations, judgments, emotions etc., in order to trigger presentations, judgments and emotions in another psychical being, and indeed, ones which are analogous to one’s own. (Marty 1908: 22, cited by Cesalli 2013: 144)

Here, Marty’s proposal seems to be the following. Language use is a form of intentional activity: one speaks in order to attain certain ends. More specifically, Marty suggests two intentions that might figure in shaping one’s linguistic activity. First, in speaking one intends to ‘indicate’ specific aspects of one’s own inner life. Thus, for example, in speaking to an audience, one might aim to indicate, or to make recognisable, that one harbours, say, a specific belief or feeling. However, Marty suggests that that would be a secondary aim, a means to one’s primary end. Second, then, one’s primary aim in indicating to one’s audience this aspect of one’s inner life would be to exert a ‘corresponding influence’ on their inner life. That generic characterisation leaves open whether the primary intention would be served merely by the audience’s recognition that one harbours the indicated belief, feeling, or other aspect of inner life. That would be one way in which one’s indication might figure in exerting a corresponding influence on one’s audience’s inner life. However, Marty appears to have something more specific in mind—namely, that one’s primary intention would be that one’s audience not only come to recognise that one harbours the indicated aspect of inner life, but that they should thereby come to harbour an ‘analogous’ aspect of inner life. In cases in which the indicated aspect of inner life is a belief, it would be natural

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to view the aim as being that the audience should come to have the same, or approximately the same, kind of belief. In cases in which the indicated aspect of inner life is a feeling, that would be less natural. Perhaps the proposal in those cases would be that the audience needn’t come to share the same kind of feeling, but that they would nonetheless need to go beyond mere recognition of the feeling, perhaps by engaging in some form of empathy. Marty doesn’t here quite commit to the claim that either or both of the intentions that he mentions figures in determining what the speaker means by their utterance. But that would be a natural extrapolation, and is something to which Marty appears elsewhere to commit. When so construed, we can certainly find in Marty the level one insight: the claim that what a speaker means by an utterance is determined by their intentions. Furthermore, we can also find the level two insight: the intentions to which Marty appeals are intentions to have a specific range of effects on an audience’s psychology, specifically that they come to recognise and thereby to share (or e. g. appropriately to empathize with) a target aspect of the audience’s inner life. Finally, we can reach the level three insight: focusing on the primary intention as the central determinant of what the speaker means, we can see that that overarching end is to be attained via the audience’s recognition of the aspect of inner life that the speaker indicates. What we don’t find is the more specific level four insight, according to which the primary intention is to be achieved via the audience’s recognition specifically of one or other of the speaker’s intentions, as opposed to other aspects of their inner life. Although that insight is consistent with what Marty says, it nonetheless goes beyond anything that he makes explicit. (See Cesalli 2013: 143 fn. 18 and Liedtke 1990: 43 – 44, both of whom seem to recognise analogues of this point.) Compare, now, a later passage in which Marty’s intention-based account of meaning appears: The name signifies the idea, the statement signifies a judgment, and what we call the meaning of an expression is in each case that very content of the soul to evoke which in the hearer is its essential reference and its ultimate aim (be it by nature or by habit), provided that at the same time it has the ability to reach this aim as a rule. Nevertheless, it never reaches this aim immediately, but only by being at the same time a sign of the psychological phenomena in the speaker. (Marty 1918: 68 sq., cited by Liedtke 1990: 30)

Here, Marty makes explicit that the meaning of an expression (as opposed, perhaps, to what a speaker means by an utterance of that expression) is determined by ‘ultimate aim’—so, plausibly, by intention. Specifically, meaning is identified with the aspect of inner life that the speaker intends the audience to come (approximately) to share. As before, that ultimate end is to be achieved by means of

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the audience’s recognition of corresponding, or analogous, psychological phenomena in the speaker. But, again, there is no explicit commitment to the level four insight that the operative psychological phenomena are the speaker’s intentions. As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, Marty doesn’t anywhere make claims about meaning that would compel us to locate his position at level four or above. If that is right, then the question whether Marty has priority turns on the question whether Grice’s central insight is visible only at levels four or five. Before turning to the question where Grice should be located on our list of insights, it will be worth considering briefly where Gardiner should be placed. Recall his formulation of his position—and, by extension, the position that he attributed to Marty’s: ‘The meaning of any sentence is what the speaker intends to be understood from it by the listener.’ (Gardiner 1922: 361) Gardiner, it seems, doesn’t go further that level two. That is, he claims only that what a speaker means by an utterance is determined by their intentions to have a specific range of effects on an audience’s psychology—in particular, their intention that the audience should come to understand an uttered sentence or utterance. Gardiner says nothing here about the role of the audience’s recognition of aspects of the speaker’s psychology in facilitating their understanding. If Gardiner served as Grice’s only conduit, it is therefore plausible that his access to Marty’s work would have been confined to Marty’s level two insights. Let’s turn, then, to the question of where Grice’s position should be located on our list of insights. We’ll focus here more or less on Grice’s own view about that. Grice certainly sought to go beyond level two, since he argued explicitly against a position that rested at that point: A first shot would be to suggest that “x meantNN something” would be true if x was intended by its utterer to induce a belief in some “audience” and that to say what the belief was would be to say what x meantNN. This will clearly not do. I might leave B’s handkerchief near the scene of a murder in order to induce the detective to believe that B was the murderer; but we should not want to say that the handkerchief (or my leaving it there) meantNN anything or that I had meantNN by leaving it that B was the murderer. (Grice 1957: 217)

(This is a point at which Marty may have exerted an indirect influence on Grice, via Gardiner, by providing the target for this objection and, thus, helping to direct Grice towards his more settled position.) Although Grice argued for the need to go beyond level two, he leaped immediately to endorsement of a level four insight, without pausing to consider the standing of the less specific insight available at level three:

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Clearly we must add at least that, for x to have meantNN anything, not merely must it have been “uttered” with the intention of inducing a certain belief but also the utterer must have intended an “audience” to recognize the intention behind the utterance. (Grice 1957: 217)

However, it is plausible that Grice would have taken an argument to be available against remaining at level three that is analogous to the argument that he brings against remaining at level two. Thus, for example, I might try to arrange things so that an audience could come to see, on the basis of observing some behaviour of mine, that I believe that B is the murderer, with the intention of inducing the audience to come also to believe that B is the murderer. As in Grice’s handkerchief case, it seems implausible to suppose that this would suffice for my meaningNN anything by my belief-revealing behaviour. Again, a minimal fix would be to add a requirement that there be an intention on my part that, on the basis of observing my performance, my audience is, in addition, to recognize my intention that they come to believe that B is the murderer. Grice focuses here on the insufficiency for meaningNN of a speaker’s intending to influence the audience’s psychology by means of the audience’s recognition of a piece of the speaker’s psychology other than the speaker’s intentions. However, it’s worth noticing that an analogous point could be made with respect to the claim that this is a necessary condition. For although it is plausibly a necessary condition on meaningNN that, as Grice claims, the speaker should intend the audience to recognize their intention, it is not plausibly a necessary condition that the speaker should intend the audience to recognize anything else about their psychology. For instance, it seems obvious that a speaker might mean by an utterance that B is the murderer without the speaker in fact believing that B is the murderer. Now that seems to be so even if the speaker should know that they do not believe that B is the murderer. And it seems to be so even if, in addition, the speaker knows that one cannot recognize what isn’t so. Since one cannot reasonably intend what one knows to be impossible, a speaker in that position cannot reasonably intend their audience to recognize that they believe that B is the murderer, and so cannot reasonably intend to influence the audience’s psychology by means of the audience’s recognizing that. However, none of that would seem to stand in the way either of the speaker meaning something by what they say or—connectedly, according to Grice’s level four insight— of their intending the audience to recognize their intention to influence the audience to believe that B is the murderer. If that line of thought is correct, then there is reason to hold, not only that Grice thought that there were good reasons to go beyond level three, but also that Grice was correct to think that. In that case, it seems reasonable to identify Grice’s central insight as occurring either at level four or at level five. Thus, it

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seems reasonable to view Grice’s insight as going beyond anything to be found in Marty’s work. There are commonalities between Grice’s work and Marty’s. However, significant differences emerge at higher levels of resolution. Grice’s contribution to our understanding of speaker meaning plausibly goes beyond the commonalities. It would therefore be misleading to treat Marty as having priority except with respect to the lesser insights that the two thinkers share. Although the commonalities between Grice’s work and Marty’s are comparatively uninteresting, there may yet be something to learn from some of their differences. One such difference is the one recently isolated. Marty thinks that an audience’s recognition of elements of a speaker’s psychology other than their intentions can play a central role in communicative transactions, whilst Grice thinks that only recognition of speaker’s intentions figures in determining meaning. When presented in that way, it is possible to endorse both viewpoints, since it would be consistent with denying that elements of a speaker’s psychology figure in determining what the speaker means to accept that the elements play other important roles in communication. However, in the following section we’ll consider a way in which Grice’s emphasis on intention over other elements of psychology induces an apparent problem. And we’ll see that Marty’s counteremphasis might provide the resources for a satisfying dissolution.

5 Expression Grice reflected further on the topic of non-natural or speaker meaning in ‘Meaning Revisited,’ written around twenty years after ‘Meaning’ was published. (1982, composed around 1976.) In the later essay, Grice attempted to provide a more synoptic perspective on the relation between natural and non-natural meaning, and on his account of non-natural meaning. Grice’s discussion begins by emphasising a way in which natural meaning can figure in revealing aspects of psychology: In the case of natural meaning, among the things which have natural meaning, besides black clouds, spots on the face, and symptoms of this or that disease, are certainly forms of behavior: things like groans, screeches, and so on, which mean, or normally mean, that someone or something is in pain or some other state. (1982: 292)

Grice’s aim is to try to explain ways in which such natural expressions of human psychology as groans and screeches might conceivably have come to be replaced by non-natural expressions as characterised in his account of non-natural meaning. To a good first approximation, the aim is to account for a conceivable tran-

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sition from behaviour that expresses bits of psychology to subjects who express bits of their psychologies—for example, the transition from the expression of suffering in a groan to the (intentional) expression of suffering by its subject. Although Grice doesn’t highlight this, it is important to notice that the account of non-natural meaning arguably retains an essential role for behaviour that naturally means bits of its producer’s psychology. For the account of nonnatural meaning relies upon the possibility that a producer’s behaviour can reveal those of their intentions that figure in determining what they non-naturally mean by their utterances. And the connection between behaviour and intention on which the possibility of such revelation of intention in behaviour depends must be a form of the relation of natural meaning. Grice’s account begins, then, with the idea of pieces of behaviour as naturally meaning bits of psychology, and so as potentially revealing to the appropriately sensitive those bits of psychology. On that basis, Grice seeks to develop, in a series of stages, a conceivable developmental trajectory leading to the birth of non-natural meaning. Stage one…involves the supposition that the creature actually voluntarily produces a certain sort of behavior which is such that its nonvoluntary production would be evidence that the creature is, let us say, in pain. The kinds of cases of this which come most obviously to mind will be cases of faking or deception. (1982: 292)

Thus, we have the idea of a sort of behaviour that—at stage zero—naturally meant, and so potentially provided evidence for, a creature’s being in pain. However, at stage one, the creature has acquired the capacity to produce behaviour of that sort voluntarily—that is, as constituting a piece of intentional action. A sort of behaviour that had naturally meant pain now fails to naturally mean pain, at least on those occasions on which the behaviour is the immediate upshot of intention rather than felt pain. At stage one, it is allowed that other creatures do not, and perhaps cannot, keep track of the shift in sources of the target sort of behaviour. Thus, at stage one, it is plausible that those other creatures that were appropriately sensitive to the target sort of behaviour at stage zero will continue to treat voluntary productions of that behaviour as naturally meaning, and so as revelatory of, pain. The other creatures become cognizant of the voluntariness of some instances of the sort of behaviour at stage two: In stage two not only does creature X produce this behavior voluntarily instead of nonvoluntarily, as in the primitive state [stage one], but we also assume that it is recognized by another creature Y, involved with X in some transaction, as being the voluntary production of a certain form of behavior the nonvoluntary production of which evidences, say, pain….

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The import of the recognition by Y that the production is voluntary undermines, of course, any tendency on the part of Y to come to the conclusion that creature X is in pain. (1982: 293)

Other creatures will no longer treat as revelatory of pain those instances of the target sort of behaviour that they recognize to be the immediate upshot of intention, rather than of felt pain. Plausibly, that is because they will treat those instances of behaviour as revelatory of the intention with which the behaviour was undertaken and take that to be incompatible with the behaviour also being the immediate upshot of pain. It’s worth noticing that Grice doesn’t suggest grounds here for thinking that coming to recognize that some instances of the target sort of pain behaviour have an intentional source would throw into doubt the standing of those instances of such behaviour that do have an immediate source in felt pain. That is, he doesn’t seek to present a broader sceptical worry about creatures’ capacities ever to recognize that a piece of behaviour naturally means pain that might be thought to arise from the fact that a single sort of behaviour is now recruited as an expression of either pain or intention. And raising that concern would be problematic in this context, since it would seem equally to threaten creatures’ capacities to recognize that some instances of the target behaviour naturally mean intention. The specific concern is just that recognizing a piece of behaviour as having its immediate source in intention would render unreasonable treating that instance of behaviour as also having its immediate source in felt pain. At least by stage two, then, we are presented with an apparent problem. Suppose that one hopes to reveal to another creature that one is in pain, or has a specific opinion, or the like. One might think that a natural way to proceed would be by undertaking behaviour that one takes to be a recognizable expression of pain, opinion, or the like. The problem one now faces is that if one’s audience recognizes one’s performance as the immediate expression of one’s intention so to behave, then it will be unreasonable for them also to treat one’s performance as expressing anything other than the intention with which one so behaved. In recent work, Richard Moran has pressed a version of this concern: [I]f we are considering speech as evidence, we will have eventually to face the question of how recognition of its intentional character could ever enhance rather than detract from its epistemic value for an audience. Ordinarily, if I confront something as evidence…and then learn that it was left there deliberately…this will only discredit it as evidence in my eyes. It won’t seem better evidence, or even just as good, but instead like something fraudulent, or tainted evidence. (Moran 2005: 6)

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As presented by Grice and Moran, the problem emerges only at stage two, the stage at which other creatures come to recognize that a sort of behaviour that had once naturally meant (only) pain has been recruited so as to naturally mean (also) an intention with which the behaviour was undertaken. However, it is arguable that the basic problem emerges earlier, at stage one. For at stage one, we have that a sort of behaviour each instance of which once naturally meant (say) pain now has instances that naturally mean intention. As we noted, the problem presented by Grice and Moran is not the generic sceptical problem that particular instances of that sort of behaviour now mean either pain or intention, and so fail either to mean pain or to mean intention. Rather, it is a more specific problem. We are to suppose that some instances of the sort of behaviour naturally mean intention. The problem is that that intention itself might have been the upshot either of pain or of some other bits of psychology. Thus, the behaviour, in naturally meaning, and so potentially revealing, the intention with which it was undertaken at the same time screens off from immediate revelation in behaviour the pain that one might have hoped to reveal. At best, the pain is the immediate source of one’s intention, rather than one’s behaviour, and so is not immediately revealed in one’s behaviour. The problem, then, does not distinctively affect only those creatures that recognize that a piece of behaviour has its immediate source in intention rather than pain. Creatures that haven’t yet recognized this are no better placed to exploit the natural meaning of intentional behaviour in order to detect pain than those who have not yet recognized this, since such behaviour does not in fact naturally mean pain, but (at least in the first instance) only intention. We might allow that those who treat the behaviour as revealing pain whilst failing to recognize the behaviour’s intentional source are in some sense more reasonable than those who seek to reconcile treating the behaviour as revealing pain with at the same time recognizing that it reveals only intention. But if what Grice and Moran present is a genuine problem, then even at stage one, neither party is in a position to recognize the behaviour as having its immediate source in pain, since one can recognize only that which is so, and the behaviour originates not in pain, but rather in intention. In the face of the apparent problem, Grice asks, [W]hat would be required to restore the situation: what could be added which would be an antidote, so to speak, to the dissolution on the part of [the audience] of the idea that [the producer of the behaviour] is in pain? (Grice 1982: 293)

In setting up the problem, Grice in effect assumes that where a piece of behaviour is produced voluntarily—as expressive of an intention so to behave—the

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piece of behaviour naturally means the intention. In the first instance, then, the behaviour fails to be revelatory of any aspect of the producer’s psychology distinct from the intention that is immediately responsible for the behaviour. Thus, any intention to behave in a way designed to reveal more than the intention immediately responsible for the behaviour seems bound to be unsatisfied. And cognizance of that fact would make it impossible for a rational subject to form an intention to reveal anything beyond the intention with which the behaviour was undertaken. Grice’s response to the problem has two components. The first component exploits the fact that a piece of behaviour can naturally mean, and so reveal, the intention with which it was undertaken. If that intention is to be satisfiable, it cannot be an intention to reveal in behaviour anything other than itself, for only the intention itself is immediately reflected in the behaviour that it shapes. Thus, Grice ensures that the intention is satisfiable by making it the reflexive intention that it—the intention with which the behaviour was undertaken—be recognisable. (That is, Grice’s response to the present difficulty converges with the level five insight characterised above.) In place of the sort of intention involved at stage one, merely to present a sort of behaviour that other creatures would be unable to distinguish from that revelatory of pain, the reflexive intention is to present behaviour that reveals itself as an open revelation of some of one’s motives in so behaving. The second component of Grice’s response then seeks to restore a route from such behaviour, via the reflexive intention with which it was produced, to the psychological facts that the performance was designed to make available: Whether or not in these circumstances [the audience] will not merely recognise that [the producer] intends, in a certain queer way, to get [the audience] to believe that [the producer] is in pain, whether [the audience] not only recognizes this but actually goes on to believe that [the producer] is in pain, would presumably depend on a further set of conditions which can be summed up under the general heading that [the audience] should regard [the producer] as trustworthy in one or another of perhaps a variety of ways. (Grice 1982: 294)

In short, what is required would be akin to an inferential transition, via premises to the effect that the producer would not intend openly to communicate that they were in pain (or in some other psychological condition) unless they were in fact in pain (or in the other psychological condition). One natural worry at this point concerns the audience’s entitlement to regard the producer as, in the required ways, trustworthy. The audience’s merely assuming this might serve to underwrite their forming the requisite belief that the producer is in pain, and to that extent serve some of the producer’s purposes.

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But it is implausible that a mere assumption of trustworthiness could in general figure in the audience’s acquiring knowledge that the producer is in pain. Thus, insofar as the audience or producer cares about whether the audience comes to know that the producer is in pain—as opposed, say, to merely assuming or surmising it—it seems that a further story must be told about their entitlement to regard the producer as trustworthy. And insofar as the specific intention with which the producer acts is taken to screen off any of their further motives from the audience, it is not straightforward to see what account is to be given of the audience’s warrant for regarding them as trustworthy. Alternatively, it would need to be explained how merely regarding the producer as appropriately trustworthy—that is, without possessing any warrant for so regarding them— could sponsor a route to knowledge, as opposed to mere opinion, about their psychological condition. Whatever the fate of such approaches to restoring a route from intentional behaviour to underlying psychology, one might reasonably wonder whether those approaches are needed. For one might reasonably wonder whether the apparent problem that Grice and Moran present is genuine. It is here that an apparent difference between Marty and Grice assumes importance. Marty, unlike Grice, can be read as holding that a piece of behaviour might be both intentional and nonetheless capable of revealing to an audience bits of the producer’s psychology other than the intention with which the behaviour was produced. Marty discusses the way in which behaviour can mean, and so reveal, aspects of the producer’s psychology in the following passage: Where we have to do with an unintentional indication of our inner life, for example, with an unintentional shout, … [in] such a case, to mean and to be a sign means only to indicate something and to make it known, just as one says of thunder that it is a sign of electric discharge, and of dark clouds that they are a sign of rain…. Just like an involuntary shout, the voluntary uttering of a name or of a statement indicates a piece of the speaker’s psychical life. (Marty 1908: 280 – 284)

Marty’s discussion prefigures one theme in Grice: the idea that a piece of unintentional behaviour can naturally mean, and so reveal, aspects of the producer’s inner life. However, Marty seems to diverge from Grice in his conception of the revelatory power of intentional behaviour. For he seems to suggest that the voluntary uttering of a name or a statement, just like an involuntary shout, can naturally mean, and so reveal, aspects of the producer’s inner life. Strictly, of course, that would be consistent with Grice’s view, according to which such behaviour can naturally mean, and so reveal, only one sort of aspect of the producer’s inner life: the intentions with which the behaviour was produced. However, we’ve already seen that Marty’s account incorporates a broader

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conception than Grice’s of the revelatory power of human behaviour. In effect, it was this broader conception that figured in Marty’s failure to attain Grice’s specific insights into the nature of non-natural meaning—that is, to attain insights at level four and five. Laurent Cesalli affirms the proposed reading of Marty in the following passage: The fact that [the utterance “Socrates exists” when uttered] efficiently indicates [the [utterer’s] judgement: Socrates exists] is independent of [the utterer’s secondary intention, their intention to indicate the/their judgment: Socrates exists], just as thunder indicates lightning independently of anybody’s will or intention. (Cesalli 2013: 147, with interpolations from 145 – 147)

On this reading, Marty’s proposal is that the relation between a piece of behaviour—in this case, an utterance—and a judgement—so an aspect of psychology distinct from the intention implemented in the behaviour—can be akin to the connection between thunder and lightning. That is, the relation can be one of natural meaning. Crucially, Cesalli reads Marty as endorsing that view of the relation between behaviour and judgement even in cases in which the producer intends to indicate, and so to reveal, their judgement to an audience. Even if we assume that Marty diverges from Grice on this point, the best explanation for that divergence may be simply that Marty has failed to reflect on the potential effects of intention in screening off behaviour from other aspects of inner life. That is, it may be that Marty failed adequately to consider the impact on his favoured model of the relation between behaviour and its psychological sources of allowing that some of its immediate sources are intentions. However, a more tantalising possibility is that Marty’s disagreement with Grice on this point is principled, and due to Marty’s perception, or seeming perception, of a way in which behaviour can be both intentional and at the same time revelatory of aspects of psychology other than intention. As far as I’m aware, Marty didn’t offer an explicit account of how behaviour that was intentional might nonetheless naturally mean aspects of psychology other than intention. His main contribution at this point arises from his willingness to allow for that possibility. For that willingness reveals to us that there is a question here, one that might have been concealed by Grice and Moran’s presentation of their purported problem. In revealing the existence of a question at this point, Marty compels us to address it, rather than simply assuming the correctness of the answer offered by Grice and Moran. The question whether the purported problem is genuine is large and delicate, and not one that I can address in detail here. I want to conclude this section

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by suggesting two ways in which an attempt might be made to defend the type of position suggested in the passage from Marty. The first way in which an attempt might be made to defend Marty’s suggestion in effect exploits a way in which he needn’t be regarded as in direct conflict with Grice. Grice is committed to the view that his problem arises in cases in which behaviour is intentional in the strong sense of being the immediate upshot of, and so shaped by, an intention so to behave. By contrast, it might be possible to read Marty as contemplating a more generous conception of voluntary behaviour, on which the behaviour is not itself the immediate upshot of an intention, but rather is merely condoned, as in accord with the producer’s intentions. The model here would be one on which the behaviour is the immediate upshot of, and so naturally means, a judgement, rather than an intention. It is voluntary, and so intentional, only in the sense that the producer could have intervened by preventing the behaviour and yet didn’t, and in that sense condoned the behavioural expression of the judgement. The fact that a piece of behaviour is in that thin sense voluntary or intentional need be in no conflict with its being an immediate expression of aspects of psychology other than intention. Thus, if Marty wished only to endorse that possibility, it would be possible for he and Grice to both be right about the different cases that they treat. The first way in which an attempt might be made to defend Marty’s proposal is, for at least two reasons, meagre. The first reason is that it leaves open that Grice’s problem is genuine with respect to all cases of fully intentional behaviour. The second, related reason is that it would be natural to think that the most interesting class of cases, including most or all cases of voluntary utterance, will be intentional in the more demanding way exploited in generating Grice’s problem. That is, it would be natural to think that the activity involved in voluntary speech is the immediate upshot of intention, rather than being an immediate upshot of some other aspect of psychology that could have been, and wasn’t, intentionally prevented. Even accepting the possibility of cases of the sort to which appeal was made in the first attempt at defence, one might reasonably hope for a more direct response. The second way in which an attempt might be made to defend Marty’s proposal builds on materials in the first, but constitutes a more direct response. It retains from the first attempt the idea that bits of behaviour can naturally mean, and so reveal, bits of psychology. In order for the behaviour to have that natural connection with the psychology, the idea was, the behaviour must be an immediate upshot of the revealed aspects of psychology. Grice’s purported problem is then the following. Where an activity is intentional, it must be the immediate upshot of the intention with which it was undertaken, rather than being the immediate upshot of any piece of psychology distinct from that intention. In

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that case, it is difficult to see how an intentional activity can naturally mean any piece of psychology distinct from the operative intention. However, in setting up Grice’s problem, we followed Grice in assuming that the intention and the competing aspect of psychology have a single sort of upshot, the occurrence of instances of a single sort of behaviour. Given that assumption, we would have a single type of activity—the target sort of behaviour—over the dominion of which intention and other aspects of psychology are forced to compete. The second attempt concedes that if we were compelled to accept that assumption, then Grice’s problem would be genuine, but proposes that we need not accept the assumption. The proposal, then, is that we should reject the assumption that exactly the same upshot must be involved in the target cases of intentional and unintentional behaviour. Rather, we should allow that, in at least some cases, the activity that is the immediate upshot of intention isn’t simply the behavioural surface of the unintentional behaviour, but is rather an activity involving the manifestation of psychology in behaviour. In such cases, what the producer intends, and is sometimes capable of achieving, is not simply the replication of a piece of behaviour, but is instead an action that involves the revelation of psychology in behaviour. The behavioural surface is the immediate upshot of aspects of psychology other than intention, and so there is no competition for dominion there. The expressive episode as a whole is the immediate upshot of intention rather than other aspects of psychology, and so there is no competition there either. The other aspects of psychology figure as partly constituting, rather than as causing, the expressive episode by virtue of their role in causing the behavioural surface of that episode. Their figuring in that way is therefore perfectly compatible with the intention playing the complementary role of causing the expressive episode as a whole, rather than its behavioural surface. More work would be required in articulating the line of defence all too briefly sketched here before we would be in a position properly to assess it. However, I hope to have said enough to indicate that the question that Marty forces on us has no simple resolution. (Further pursuit of these issues would need to engage with an array of recent, and not so recent, literature on action and expression, including Alston 1965; Bar-On 2005, 2013; Green 2011; O’Shaughnessy 1980; Roessler 2015; Wollheim 1968.)

6 Conclusion Let me recap. §2 (‘Precedents and precursors’) contained some general reflections on what we might hope to achieve by pursuing historical questions of pri-

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ority, and some ways in which the answers to such historical questions can interact with the pursuit of questions of a more systematic nature. §3 (‘History’) considered the question whether the production of Grice’s essay could have been influenced by Marty’s work, and drew on a suggestion of Kevin Mulligan’s in support of the answer that Marty’s work may well have exerted an indirect influence on Grice. §4 (‘Commonalities’) explored some similarities and differences between Marty’s work and Grice’s that are differentially visible at different levels of resolution, and suggested that the central insights that are present in Grice’s essay are absent from Marty’s work. Full assessment of that claim will be dependent on further reflection on the extent to which the purported insights in Grice’s essay are genuine. §5 (‘Expression’) considered an apparent problem that Grice presented for the natural idea that intentional behaviour can manifest or express bits of psychology other than their productive intention. We saw there that one important difference between Marty and Grice centres on their different reactions to this issue. While Grice treated it as a genuine problem for the natural idea of intentional expression, we saw that Marty treated the apparent problem as merely apparent. My aim has been to suggest that one thing we can learn from Marty—and from historical reflection more generally—is that claims that might otherwise have struck us as uncontestable are contestable, since reasonably contested. We may have as much to learn from reflecting on differences amongst thinkers in our subject’s history as we do from reflecting on their commonalities.

References Alston, W. (1965), ‘Expressing’, in Philosophy in America, edited by M. Black, London, George Allen & Unwin, p. 15 – 34. Austin, J. L. (1946), ‘Other Minds’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 20, p. 148 – 187. Reprinted in Austin 1979, p. 76 – 116. Austin, J. L. (1962/1975), How to Do Things with Words, 2nd ed., edited by M. Sbisà and J. O. Urmson, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Austin, J. L. (1979), Collected Papers, 3rd ed., edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Bar-On, D. (2004), Speaking My Mind, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Bar-On, D. (2013), ‘Origins of Meaning: Must We ‘Go Gricean’?’, Mind & Language 28(3), p. 342 – 375. Cesalli, L. (2013), ‘Anton Marty’s Intentionalist Theory of Meaning’, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 139 – 163. Gardiner, A. (1922), ‘The Definition of the Word and the Sentence’, British Journal of Psychology XII(4), p. 352 – 361.

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Gingerich, O. (1985), ‘Did Copernicus Owe a Debt to Aristarchus?’, Journal for the History of Astronomy 16(1), p. 39 – 42. Green, M. (2007), Self-Expression, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Grice, P. (1957), ‘Meaning’, The Philosophical Review 66, p. 377 – 88. Reprinted in Grice 1989, p. 213 – 223. All references are to the reprint. Grice, P. (1982), ‘Meaning Revisited’, in Mutual Knowledge, edited by N. V. Smith, New York, Academic Press. Reprinted in Grice 1989, p. 283 – 303. All references are to the reprint. Grice, P. (1989), Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Liedtke, F. (1990), ‘Meaning and Expression: Marty and Grice on Intentional Semantics’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 29 – 49. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1918), ‘Über subjektlose Sätze und das Verhältnis der Grammatik zu Logik und Psychologie’, 3rd art., in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II.1, edited by J. Eisenmeier and A. Kastil, Halle, Max Niemeyer, p. 62 – 101. Moran, R. (2005), ‘Getting Told and Being Believed’, Philosophers’ Imprint 5(5), p. 1 – 29. Ogden, C. K. and Richards, I. A. (1923), The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, New York, Harcourt, Brace & World. O’Shaughnessy, B. (1980/2008), The Will: A Dual Aspect Theory, 2 vols, 2nd ed., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Roessler, J. (2015), ‘Self-Knowledge and Communication’, Philosophical Explorations 18(2), p. 153 – 168. Rollinger, R. D. (2014), ‘Anton Marty’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), edited by E. N. Zalta. Online: . Stevenson, C. L. (1944), Ethics and Language, New Haven, Yale University Press. Wollheim, R. (1968), ‘Expression’, in Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 1966 – 67. Vol. I: The Human Agent, edited by G. Vesey, London, Macmillan.

Anne Reboul

Marty’s ‘Psychological’ Semantics and Its Posterity: Internalism and Externalism Abstract: In this paper, I will be concerned with what might be called ‘psychological’ semantics: the notion that, in linguistic communication, the interpretation of an utterance crucially involves an appeal to the speaker’s intentions. This position was advocated by Marty, and later on, by Grice. It has come under attack in recent years, under the influence of the Externalist trend in semantics, which seems to refute any ‘psychologism’ in semantics. If, as Putnam’s Twin Earth experiment seems to show, meaning is dependent on the environment the speakers find themselves in, regardless of their mental states, any appeal to the speaker’s intentions seems superfluous. The crucial point here is what happens to a speaker who, unbeknownst to herself, finds herself in an environment which seems similar to her previous one, but which in fact differs. Do her words refer to features in her previous environment or to features in her new environment? Putnam clearly chose the second possibility. However, as I shall show, more recent Externalist theories, notably Millikan’s teleosemantics, do not force such a stark conclusion. Indeed, on the face of it, teleosemantics should be compatible with ‘psychological’ semantics. However, Millikan has rejected Grice’s approach, advocating a purely conventionalist approach to linguistic communication, based on a widespread ambiguity. In slogan form, while Grice goes for psychological inflation and semantic parsimony, it seems that Millikan goes for psychological parsimony and semantic inflation. The problem is that Millikan’s combination leaves a whole host of questions open, notably on the roots of ambiguity and on the resolution of ambiguity, none of which seem to be answerable without an appeal to the speaker’s intentions. So, basically, it seems that whether one chooses semantic parsimony or semantic inflation, psychological inflation is unavoidable. In other words, accounting for linguistic communication necessitates one form of ‘psychological’ semantics or another, as advocated by Marty or Grice.

1 Introduction In this paper, I will be mainly concerned with what I take to be major objections to the position advocated (albeit differently) by Grice (see Grice 1989) and Marty 1908. In a nutshell, both Marty and Grice see utterances and meaning as assohttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-013

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ciated with complex intentions in the speaker. Both postulate a primary and a secondary intention. Their notions of a primary intention are fairly similar. Marty proposes that the speaker’s primary intention is to bring about a mental act in her audience, e. g., an act of judgment. Grice proposes that the speaker’s primary intention is ‘to produce some effect in the audience’ (Grice 1989: 219). The main difference between the two accounts lies in the definition of the secondary intention. While Marty proposes that the speaker’s secondary intention is to express her own state of mind, Grice proposes that the speaker’s secondary intention is that the effect she primarily intended should be brought about by means of the audience’s recognition of this primary intention. Thus, in Grice, there is no mention of the speaker’s will to express her own state of mind (one might argue that this is presupposed by the Gricean definition of non-natural meaning, but it is not an explicit part of either the primary or the secondary intention). Equally the reflexivity inherent in the Gricean definition of non-natural meaning is not found in Marty’s view. Yet, these differences may be less substantial than they prima facie appear. Before offering his definition of non-natural meaning, Grice notes that the main differences between natural meaning and non-natural meaning (hereafter meaningNN) lay in the fact that the first is factive and not under voluntary control, while the second is non-factive and under voluntary control. Being under voluntary control may be taken to imply something very close to the speaker’s will to express her own state of mind. The second and more serious difference lies in the secondary intention, because the reflexivity of the dual intentionality is central to Grice’s definition of non-natural meaning. Indeed, Grice is at pains to emphasize that the secondary intention is crucial to the definition of non-natural meaning: according to him, cases where the audience recognizes the meaning without recognizing the primary intention are not cases of non-natural meaning. However, Mulligan 1990: 13 has argued that, for Marty, ‘understanding comes about when the signs used are heard and the complex intention [i. e., both the primary and the secondary intentions] is grasped’. This, it should be clear, goes a long way towards reconciling the two accounts. So both Grice and Marty saw linguistic communication and meaning as linked to the speaker’s intentions. Notoriously, this led Grice to the distinction between what the speaker said and what she communicated. What the speaker said is linguistically determined and basically depends on semantic compositionality,¹ and, hence, corresponds to what Grice calls sentence meaning. By contrast, what is communicated, though constrained by what is said (what is com-

 To which one should add disambiguation and indexicals resolution (see below, section 6).

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municated has to be related to what is said; not anything goes), depends on the speaker’s primary intention and on the audience’s inference regarding what that intention was (thus fulfilling the secondary intention), and hence corresponds to what Grice calls speaker meaning. Marty seems, strictly speaking, to have only recognized speaker meaning, taking words to be tools that can be used with different intentions. Let us call both Marty’s and Grice’s accounts ‘psychological’ semantics. Alternative accounts of meaning have been given in recent philosophy of language, notably those offered by semantic Externalism. The goal of the present paper is to examine the challenge that such theories offer to the ‘psychological’ semantics proposed by both Grice and Marty. There are three possibilities here: the first is to reject such alternative accounts; the second is to show that in fact ‘psychological’ accounts are compatible with (some forms of) Externalism; the third is to discard ‘psychological’ semantics and adopt Externalism. I will follow the second possibility, showing that ‘psychological’ semantics is compatible with a limited type of Externalism. This is a desirable result because, on a truth-conditional view of semantics, it seems important to ground (lexical) meaning in reality. The compatibility between Millikan-style Externalism for sentence meaning and ‘psychological’ semantics allows us to do this without sacrificing speaker meaning. As the goal is to defend ‘psychological’ semantics (in general) against a charge of incompatibility with Externalism, in what follows I will stay with the Gricean account, which seems close enough to Marty’s account to cover both positions.

2 Putnam’s Twin Earth thought experiment and the roots of Externalism One can trace the roots of Externalism to a famous paper by Putnam, ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”’ (reproduced in the second volume of his Philosophical Papers, see Putnam 1975), where he proposed a no less famous thought experiment, which I will now present in a fairly condensed way. Putnam asks us to imagine a Twin Earth, which is exactly like Earth, apart from a mere detail: what passes for water on Twin Earth does not have the chemical composition H2O, but the chemical composition XYZ (let’s call this XYZ substance twater). When Earthling Hannah, pointing to a glass of water, exclaims ‘Water is good to drink’, what she refers to is H2O. When Twin Earthling TWHannah, pointing to a glass of twater, exclaims ‘Water is good to drink’, what she refers to is XYZ. Yet, given that water and twater are only discernible through chemical analysis, the mental representations Hannah and TWHannah (not having any idea of the chemical composi-

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tion of the liquids they respectively call ‘water’) have, respectively, of water and twater are entirely similar, indeed prima facie indiscernible: (t)water is a clear, odorless and tasteless liquid, that quenches thirst. Yet, according to Putnam, they refer to entirely different, though outwardly similar, things: Hannah refers to water (H2O), while TWHannah refers to twater (XYZ). This suggests that mental representations are not infallible guides to reference. Additionally (and this is where matters get difficult for psychological accounts of semantics), if someone were to abduct Hannah while she was asleep and transport her to Twin Earth, while another gang were to abduct TWHannah simultaneously and transport her to Earth, Putnam claims that Hannah would intend to refer to water by saying ‘water’ (but would actually refer to twater), while TWHannah would intend to refer to twater by saying ‘water’ (but would actually refer to water). This, according to Putnam (1975: 227), is enough to show that ‘Meaning ain’t in the head’. Instead, it is outside in the world; hence, as Putnam’s position and its posterity came to be called, Externalism. There are a few not unimportant additions to Putnam’s theory, for instance the notion of division of linguistic labour, according to which speakers will use words based on stereotypical mental representations (e. g., (T)Water is a clear, odorless and tasteless liquid that quenches thirst), while relying on experts who can reliably determine whether what they are referring to at any specific moment and/or location is water (H2O) or twater (XYZ). Now the problem with the view that meaning is not intrinsically mental for a ‘psychological’ account of meaning should be clear. Nuccetelli 2003 points out that it is difficult to reconcile Externalism and self-knowledge. The link with the problem Externalism raises for ‘psychological’ semantics should be obvious. Let us go back to the point at which, unbeknownst to themselves, Hannah and TWHannah exchange planets. Each of them firmly believes that she has woken up in the same spot in which she went to sleep the previous night. Thus, when Hannah, pointing to twater, says ‘Water is good to drink’, she intends to refer to water, not twater. Similarly, when TWHannah, pointing to water, says ‘Water is good to drink’, she intends to refer to twater, not water. Yet, their respective referential intentions are at odds with what they actually refer to: for, on Twin Earth, Hannah is referring to twater, while, on Earth, TWHannah is referring to water. Indeed, one can go a step further and claim that Hannah has absolutely no belief whatsoever regarding twater, while TWHannah has absolutely no belief whatsoever regarding water. So, while they certainly respectively intend to express their own states of mind (i. e., respectively, their beliefs regarding water and twater), these are in fact not what they do express: rather, Hannah expresses a belief entirely alien to her, i. e., that water is good to drink, and TWHannah expresses a belief entirely alien to her, i. e., that water is good to drink. Or, to put it another way, we don’t necessarily mean what we say. And this, of course, seems

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to contradict ‘psychological’ semantics. What a speaker intends is not a good guide to what she means, because, given belief-intention psychology, if she has an erroneous belief, this mistaken belief will prevent her from having reliable intentions. In turn, this means that her audience should be wary of relying on her intention to recover her meaning. In other words, given Externalism, ‘psychological’ semantics is a plausible theory if, and only if, speakers are maximally competent (i. e., iff speakers are infallible in their beliefs), which is a highly improbable condition. Thus, it would seem that Externalism is incompatible with ‘psychological’ semantics. We will come back to this point later (in section 7), but I would first like to introduce an account which, while squarely Externalist, is nevertheless slightly different from Putnam’s, namely Millikan’s teleosemantics.

3 Millikan’s teleosemantics One can trace the roots of Externalism to a famous paper by Putnam, ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”’. Externalism, as it has been described above, seems to have one major flaw: it makes it impossible to use a word erroneously, because no matter what the speaker believes, her words will always correctly refer to what they should, as her beliefs and intentions are entirely irrelevant to the meaning of her words. This is why, no matter how misguided Hannah and TWHannah are relative to what they are referring to, on Putnam’s account they still refer to the ‘right’ stuff. Let us call this the Error Problem. ² Millikan’s answer to this worry goes through the notion of proper function (see Millikan 1984, 2004, 2005). The proper function of an entity, be it a biological or an artifactual entity, is not what it does now, but why it has been preserved through history (possibly with modifications), since it first appeared. Thus, even if your heart does a poor job of pumping blood through your body, it is nevertheless the proper function of your heart to pump blood through your body, because this is why hearts have been preserved throughout time. The evolutionary, not to say adaptationist, flavour of the notion of proper function is clear. However, it is not restricted to biological entities, but is also appropriate for artifacts. That is, it concerns the products of cultural evolution as well

 Fodor 1990 calls it the Disjunction Problem. This is because Twin Earth-type scenarios (as well as commonplace errors) seem to cause concepts (or words) to apply disjunctively, e. g., ‘water’ applies either to water or twater.

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as the products of biological evolution, and Millikan sees language as the product of a process of cultural evolution. Before I turn to language, I would like to make it clear that Millikan’s primary goal is not to solve the Error Problem. Rather, it is to naturalize intentionality. ³ And, for Millikan, naturalizing intentionality basically entails giving a radically different account of the distinction between natural and non-natural meaning. As we saw above, Grice based his distinction between natural and non-natural meaning on two main features: factivity and volition. Natural meaning is factive and not under voluntary control, while non-natural meaning is non factive, under voluntary control, and, in addition, involves a complex reflexive intention (see Section 1). This has quite a few non-trivial consequences, in addition to those we saw above, the most notable of which is that only human communication (and not nonhuman animal communication) can fall under non-natural meaning. Millikan’s account, aiming at naturalizing intentionality, is quite different. Her first step is to reduce the differences between natural and non-natural meaning as much as possible.⁴ This, given her aim, means not only discarding the Gricean reflexive dual intention for non-natural meaning, it also means abandoning one of the two features on which the Gricean distinction is based, i. e., volition. This, it should be clear, makes no difference for the definition of natural meaning, natural meaning not being under voluntary control. But it does make an important difference for the definition of non-natural meaning. Non-natural meaning is only different from natural meaning in that it is non-factive, according to Millikan, and this is the basis of her notion of intentionality: intentional signs are non-factive. However, their intentionality has nothing to do with the speaker’s intentions. It has to do with where the correlations beween the intentional signs and their targets (what they are about) come from. And, in Millikan’s view, this is purely non-psychological. The obvious consequence (and a further difference from Grice’s view) is that animal communication falls under non-natural meaning, on a par with human linguistic communication. So how are the necessary pairings established for non-natural meanings? Natural meaning (or rather access to natural meaning) is also based on pairings,

 The philosophical program aimed at naturalizing the mental was initiated by Dretske 1981, who, like Millikan, relied on Externalism. There are, however, deep differences between Milikan’s and Dretske’s views—although I will not detail them here, as they are irrelevant to the main issue, which is the viability of ‘psychological’ semantics and its compatibility with Externalism in one form or another.  Henceforth, I will use non-natural meaning to refer to Millikan’s notion and meaningNN to refer to Grice’s.

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which themselves are learnt through the observation of correlations, usually obtaining between an effect and its cause, e. g., smoke and fire, rash and illness, etc. (This is why natural meaning is factive). By contrast, in non-natural meaning (in language at least), the pairings are also learnt on the basis of observed correlations, but these obtain because it is the proper function of the sign to convey its specific content: thus it is the proper function of the word ‘cat’ to denote cats, and it is the proper function of the vervet monkey alarm call for leopards to signal the presence of a leopard in the local environment and to enjoin the other monkeys to climb to the top of the canopy. From this point of view, there is no difference between linguistic signals (i. e., sentences) and animal signals. What distinguishes them are the respective origins of their proper functions. In an overwhelming majority of cases, animal signals are the result of biological evolution, while all linguistic signals are the result of cultural evolution⁵. Nonnatural meaning is non-factive because something can have a proper function and fail to fulfill it correctly (see above). Thus, the fact that it is the proper function of the word ‘cat’ to refer to cats and not to dogs does not mean that the word cannot be misused (by, e. g., a child in the lexical acquisition phase) to refer to a dog. Before I turn to a comparison of Grice’s and Millikan’s approaches to linguistic meaning, I would like to say a few words on why Millikan’s definition of nonnatural meaning makes sense in a philosophical program for naturalizing the mental. Basically, no mental states are involved in determining meaning either in natural or in non-natural cases. In non-natural meaning as manifested in human language, the pairings that obtain between signs and their meanings are a pure result of learning through the repeated observation of the relevant correlations. In this sense, the learning process seems highly similar to the type of learning that gives access to natural meaning: pairings between, e. g., fire and smoke, illnesses and rashes, trails and the animals that produce them are also learned on the basis of the repeated observation of the relevant correlations.⁶ Now, Millikan’s view seems clearly appropriate to animal communication systems, where signals are holistic, limited in number, and convey fairly simple messages. However, language is fairly different from any other animal communi-

 In other words, animal signals are phylogenetically determined and need no or very little learning, while languages are ontogenetically determined and need learning.  Though Millikan does not explicitly say it, in neurobiological terms, this kind of learning can be modelled using connexionist networks, through the reinforcement of associative links in assemblies of ‘neurones’ (nodes) (Rumelhart et al. 1986).

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cation system.⁷ Notably, it has a core combination of structural features that is found nowhere else in nature: discrete infinity, semanticity, and decoupling. Basically, discrete infinity (the possibility of combining meaningless sounds into meaningful words and meaningful words into meaningful sentences), semanticity, and decoupling (linguistic utterances are not tied to the specific circumstances in which they are produced for their contents) offer humans the ability to communicate a potential infinity of different contents. Whether Millikan’s view can accomodate this complexity which, while inherent to language, is absent from all other communication systems is a moot point, which I have discussed elsewhere (see Reboul 2015, 2017). There is an additional feature of language, as used in communication, which seems to be generally absent from other communication systems, and which is clearly central to any comparison between Millikan’s and Grice’s views: the widespread use of implicit communication (notably implicatures and presuppositions) in linguistic communication. I will turn to this now.

4 Parsimony One can couch the whole debate between Millikan and Grice⁸ as a debate on which account is the more parsimonious. On the face of it, if it turns out that Millikan’s account works as well as the ‘psychological’ accounts proposed by Grice and Marty, it would seem to be more parsimonious as it makes recourse to complex inferences based on mental-states attribution unnecessary. This, however, supposes that everything is equal otherwise, which, as we will now see, is not the case. We will now turn to the second main contribution Grice made to the philosophy of language, i. e., his logic of conversation. Grice’s starting point was a disagreement he had with ordinary language philosophers as to the meaning of logical words (such as and, or, if … then). Ordinary language philosophers had observed that in natural language, logical words do not seem to have the same meaning as in logic. This can be seen from a few examples: (1) If you mow the lawn, I will give you £10. (2) Mary had a baby and she married Paul.  To the point, indeed, where one can doubt that it evolved primarily for communication (for a discussion, see Reboul 2015).  And there is no doubt that there is a debate (though it is one-sided, as Grice died in 1988, just a few years after Millikan published her first book, Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories in 1984), as, since that first book, Grice’s notion of meaningNN has been her main target.

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(3) You can have a cake or an ice cream. The logical interpretation of (1) (based on the material implication truth table) tells us that (1) will be false only if the antecedent is true and the consequent false. This would (incorrectly) suggest that what the speaker is saying is that she will give her addressee £10 regardless of whether the addressee does or does not mow the lawn. Clearly, however, what she means is that she will give him £10 if and only if he mows the lawn. Again, the logical interpretation of (2) suggests that it will be true regardless of the order in which the two events occur (i. e., the logical interpretation of and does not include any temporal order). But, more often than not, (2) will be interpreted in natural language as communicating that, first, Mary had a baby, and then she got married. Finally, while the logical interpretation of (3) leaves it open whether the addressee can have both a cake and an ice cream, (3) will usually be interpreted in natural language as communicating that the addressee can have either a cake or an ice cream, but not both. The same goes for other logical words, for instance, quantifiers, e. g., some will be usually interpreted as some but not all, while its logical meaning makes it compatible with all. This apparent discrepancy between the logical meaning of these words and their meaning when they occur in utterances led natural language philosophers to hypothesize that they had wholly different meanings in logic and in natural language. Grice objected to that account and proposed that logical words have exactly the same meaning in logic and in natural language. In natural language, they often give rise to an implicit content, called an implicature. This implicit content does not constitute an additional lexical meaning, however. Rather, it corresponds to speaker meaning, but the contribution the logical word makes to sentence meaning is its logical signification. Thus, it is not necessary to postulate any ambiguity in logical words. Rather they have a unique meaning, common to their logical use and to their use in natural language, though they often give rise to a speaker meaning, an implicature, which is different from the sentence meaning. Implicatures arising from the use of logical words are the result of a fairly complex computation, based on a general principle that constrains rational conversation, namely the principle of cooperation: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose and direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

This principle is declined into a number of maxims :

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Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. Quality: 1. Do not say what you believe to be false. 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Relation: Be relevant. Manner: Be perspicuous. Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). Be orderly. The basic idea is that interpretation can only succeed if the audience’s reasoning is based on the notion that the speaker obeys the maxims. In cases where she does not seem to do so, it is up to the audience to construct a meaning which is compatible with the idea that she did. Usually the audience will reason not only relative to what the speaker actually said, but relative to what she might have said but did not say. To see how this works, let us go back to example (3) (reproduced below as (4)): (4) You can have a cake or an ice cream.

– –

The reasoning will go as follows: If the speaker intended to allow the addressee to have both cake and ice cream, she could have used and instead of or; Given that she did not, and on the assumption that she complies with the maxim of Quantity, the conclusion is that she intended to let her addressee know that he could have either a cake or an ice cream, but not both.

Thus, the complex inference that the addressee goes through in recovering implicatures crucially involves the speaker’s intentions, not only at the end point (the conclusion) but also as a premise in the deductive inference. It is this relatively complex account that allowed Grice to maintain that logical words have exactly the same meaning in natural language as they do in

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logic. The additional ‘meaning’ that natural language philosophers were worried about has nothing to do with the lexical meaning of those words; rather, it is an implicature, recovered, as we saw, by an inferential process based on the cooperative principle. Grice thus choose semantic parsimony over semantic inflation. He stated this explicitly through what he called modified Ockham’s razor, a principle that enjoins semanticists not to multiply senses beyond what is necessary.⁹ He could only do this, however, because he allowed himself psychological inflation. Thus, Grice’s position combines semantic parsimony with psychological inflation. As we shall now see, Millikan chose the opposite view. Millikan offers two main examples in her discussion of language (see, e. g., Millikan 1984, 2005): the pairings between sentence mood and illocutionary force on the one hand, and the pairings between linguistic form and implicature on the other. Regarding the first, Millikan proposes that sentence moods (roughly corresponding to the distinction between affirmative, interrogative, and exclamative sentences) are directly linked to illocutionary forces. On the face of it, this is commonsensical, as shown by the following examples: (5) Neko is a black cat. (6) Is Neko a black cat? (7) What a black cat Neko is! Things are slightly more complicated than this, however, as Strawson (1964) already noted, and as Millikan herself acknowledges. An utterance like (8) can be understood as a promise, a menace, a warning, or a prediction and nothing in its form is, in and of itself, enough to allow an audience to choose between these possible interpretations: (8) John will come tomorrow. This led Millikan to propose that one and the same sentence (and one and the same linguistic construction) can have several proper functions. Thus the combination of an affirmative mood and a future tense (as in (8)) can have the different proper functions of signalling a promise, a menace, a warning, or a prediction. In the same way, a sentence like (9) can notoriously be interpreted semantically (as in (10)), or pragmatically (as in (11)): (9) The pianist played some Mozart sonatas yesterday.

 In Grice’s own words: ‘Senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity’ (1989: 47. Emphasis in original).

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(10) The pianist played at least some (= some and maybe all) Mozart sonatas yesterday. [semantic interpretation] (11) The pianist played only some (= some but not all) Mozart sonatas yesterday. [pragmatic interpretation] Again Millikan proposes that a sentence with some has two proper functions pairing it respectively, depending on the occasion of its utterance, with its semantic and pragmatic interpretations. Thus Millikan’s proposal is based on widespread ambiguity and can be characterized as a semantically inflational account. This brings us back to parsimony. Millikan’s account is based on the combination of semantic inflation and psychological parsimony. This is obviously the reverse of the Gricean combination of semantic parsimony and psychological inflation. Thus, if one is trying to adjudicate between ‘psychological’ semantics and Millikan’s teleosemantics, there is no way to do so on the basis of parsimony alone, as both approaches combine parsimony and inflation. One might want to use a preference for either parsimony in semantics or parsimony in psychology as a criterion for choice. But, as we shall now see, it is not obvious that one can, as Millikan tries to do, go for semantic inflation and preserve psychological parsimony.

5 Can Millikan combine semantic inflation with psychological parsimony? As stated above, Millikan’s proposal is a widespread ambiguity (semantic inflation), which is the result of the fact that there is no one-to-one correspondence between linguistic forms (words or constructions) and meanings, because any linguistic form may have (or acquire) several proper functions. Here, it is interesting to look at how she accounts for the acquisition of new proper functions. Millikan’s example, regarding the acquisition of new proper functions, is precisely the example, discussed above, of implicatures. Her view is that a sentence like (9) had the initial proper function of indicating the semantic interpretation in (10). However, it was occasionally used to transmit (11) (the pragmatic interpretation), so with time, it acquired an additional proper function, that of transmitting (11). So far so good. Thus, we find ourselves in a situation where (9) (or indeed any sentence in which some occurs) has two proper functions (and hence two ‘conventional’ meanings) pairing it respectively with its semantic and its pragmatic meanings. In other words, any sentence in which some occurs will be ambiguous between these two meanings. So, on any occasion of its utterance, the audience has to decide whether it is to be interpreted semantically or

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pragmatically. An obvious question is how the audience makes its decision, a question on which Millikan is not exactly forthcoming. There is a further obvious question: when a linguistic form that already has a proper function comes to be used for the first time to communicate a new meaning, how does the audience grasp the new meaning? Or, in other words, in an account in which the meaning of a linguistic form is the result of its proper function, through what interpretive mechanisms can that linguistic form acquire a new proper function, i. e., a new meaning? It is important to note here that Millikan can allow for a modicum of contextdependency, at least for disambiguation, provided that the context in question includes no mental state attribution whatsoever and that the end result of context-based processes does not either. An interesting question is what kind of context this would be. Now, as we saw above, Millikan sees non-natural signs and natural signs as on a par, as far as learning them is concerned; in both cases, it is a matter of tracking the relevant correlations. Interestingly, Millikan 2004 insists that natural signs are context-dependent¹⁰ because an organism can only track the relevant correlations locally, in the (space-time) domains it inhabits. This is a direction that could be followed in order to account for disambiguation. Let us look at an example of an ambiguous natural sign that could be contextually disambiguated. Suppose that in wood A, some creatures, e. g., rodents, leave ∑-tracks. In wood B, other creatures, e. g., birds, also leave ∑-tracks (prima facie indiscernible from the ∑-tracks left by rodents in wood A). Suppose also that no birds live in wood A and no rodents live in wood B. Thus, though the ∑-tracks are ambiguous taken in abstraction from the context in which they occur, they are not ambiguous within the context in which they occur: in wood A, ∑-tracks are natural signs of rodents and in wood B, they are natural signs of birds. On the face of it, very much the same strategy could apply to the disambiguation between the semantic and the pragmatic interpretations of sentences with scalar terms (such as some, or, etc.): depending on the context in which they occur, they will have the proper function of meaning the semantic or the pragmatic interpretations, and will thus be interpreted as such. The only thing that remains to be done is characterizing the context-types that, coupled with the sentence, will lead to the appropriate interpretation. Note that, crucially, these contexts cannot incorporate the speaker’s intentions. Characterizing the relevant types of contexts, while obeying this (strong) constraint, however, turns out to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, as we shall now see.

 Occasionally, though rarely, the context will be the whole universe.

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The difficulty is related to how we should go about it. To characterize the type of context that gives rise, e. g., to pragmatic interpretations, one needs some criterion for deciding when the pragmatic interpretation is appropriate and when it is not. But it seems that any such criterion will have to incorporate some reference to the speaker’s intentions. And that does not seem compatible with Millikan’s strongly anti-psychological stance. In other words, it is not only that, by going for widespread ambiguity (semantic inflation), her account meets the problem of disambiguation. It is also that, by going for psychological parsimony, she does not even have a criterion for what the correct interpretation would be in any case of utterance. Note that the problem is identical for illocutionary force. Sentence (8), as we have seen, can signal different illocutionary forces: prediction, promise, menace, or warning. On any given utterance of (8), the audience has to determine which illocutionary force it carries. But Millikan gives no precise indication as to how this is accomplished. Additionally, in cases of illocutionary forces such as promise, warning, or menace, the speaker’s intention as to the illocutionary force of her utterance will depend on the speaker’s beliefs regarding the feelings her audience harbours for John. The recovery of the ‘correct’ illocutionary force will have to go through the attribution (by the audience) to the speaker of beliefs concerning the audience’s feelings toward John. Here, it is extremely difficult to see how any context not involving mental state attribution could ever solve the problem. And, of course, the problem of determining what the ‘correct’ interpretation is in a psychologically parsimonious account such as Millikan’s remains. It seems, if anything, worse than it was for scalar implicatures, since if the speaker is in error with respect to to the audience’s feelings for John (e. g., if she believes her audience enjoys John’s company, when in fact the reverse is true), the illocutionary force of her utterance (in this case a promise) depends on her (false) belief (and the resulting intention), not on her audience’s (true) feelings: her audience may be dismayed at what the speaker saw as a promise, but the utterance will still be a promise. Let us now go back to the other problem, namely the problem of how sentences can acquire a new meaning in a system in which meaning is the result of a (different) proper function. Here, it has to be said that Millikan does not even seem to be aware of the problem. She offers no solution to it (indeed she does not discuss it), and it is hard to see what solution she might propose. So to sum up, we seem to be left with a rather unattractive situation in which, by going for semantic inflation and psychological parsimony, Millikan puts herself in a very difficult position, where she can account neither for how ambiguity arises in the first place, nor for how disambiguation works. So it seems that exchanging semantic parsimony + psychological inflation (the Gri-

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cean account) for semantic inflation + psychological parsimony is not going to work in the end. This is because whether one goes for semantic parsimony or for semantic inflation, it seems that one needs psychological inflation.

6 Taking stock So psychological parsimony is not viable, at least not at the level of speaker meaning. One interesting question is whether it is viable at the level of sentence meaning. Both examples chosen by Millikan, i. e., illocutionary force and scalar implicatures, seem to concern speaker meaning.¹¹ But it may well be that psychological parsimony will work for sentence meaning. This raises two questions: first, why did Millikan try to account for speaker meaning (rather than sentence meaning)? And second, does sentence meaning need psychological inflation? These two questions address two apparently disconnected, but in fact related problems. The first concerns the reach of context-dependence. The second concerns the nature of the context: does it welcome mental state attributions or does it prohibit them? So, let me begin with the first question: why indeed does Millikan try to account for speaker meaning, rather than being content with (presumably more tractable) sentence meaning? The answer is directly linked to the subject of Millikan’s theory. As stated above, the main goal of Millikan’s theory is to naturalize intentionality, as it is manifested in thought and communication. Regarding language, this led Millikan to consider language as a tool for communication, on a par with other animal communication systems. It also means that her theory is a variation on what has come to be known as the code model of communication. The code model of communication proposes that communication begins when a speaker encodes her thought (the message) as a signal, which is sent along a canal; the signal is then perceived by the hearer, who decodes it and recovers the speaker’s message. Relative to Millikan’s theory, the consequence is that the signal and the message are paired. As this is a theory of communication, the message has to be what (in Grice’s terms) is communicated, i. e., speaker meaning. This is why Millikan has to tackle speaker meaning and cannot limit herself to sentence meaning.¹² However, on such a model, meanings have to be encoded,  Arguably, this is not necessarily the case for illocutionary force. But even for illocutionary force, as example (8) shows, it may happen (see Strawson 1964).  Indeed, on such a model, it is not clear that the distinction between sentence meaning and speaker meaning even makes sense (hence Millikan’s semantic inflation). On the other hand, Grice’s theory of human communication is inferential and the distinction is central to it.

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and in Millikan’s terms, this means speaker meanings, hence the semantic inflation in her theory. So this answers the first question: Millikan tries to account for speaker meaning, because in a theory such as hers this is mandatory. The second question is at the heart of a lively debate in present-day pragmatics, semantics, and philosophy of language, namely the Contextualism debate. Let me begin with the things on which everyone agrees. Everyone agrees that sentence meaning involves processes of disambiguation and referent attribution (notably for indexicals). In other words, in cases like (12) and (13), mere semantic compositionality has to be supplemented by partly context-dependent processes: (12) The chicken is ready to eat. (13) I am here today. Where will I be tomorrow to say that it was yesterday? The debate, thus, concerns whether context-dependence extends beyond these consensual complements to linguistic interpretation. Or, to put it in Gricean terms, can the hearer recover what the speaker said through linguistic interpretation augmented by lexico-syntactic disambiguation and indexical resolution, or do context-dependent inferential processes extend further into sentence meaning? And an additional question is whether the contexts on which the additional processes in question rest incorporate mental states attribution. So-called Contextualists (see, e. g., Sperber and Wilson 1995, Carston 2002, Recanati 2004) would answer both questions in the affirmative. On the other hand, Grice thought that what the speaker said could be determined through linguistic interpretation augmented by the limited context-based processes of lexico-syntactic disambiguation and indexical resolution. And the contexts necessary for these specific processes do not have to include mental state attributions.¹³ However, the end product does: e. g., the speaker meant that p. But, though the Contextualist debate is central in contemporary pragmatics, semantics, and philosophy of language, it should not be confused with the problem of the potential discrepancy between the speaker’s beliefs and what she actually refers to (see section 2), which is our main concern. So let us now turn to that specific problem.

7 Non-coincidence between beliefs and referents As seen above, the problem arises when a speaker is transported out of her usual environment, does not know that her environment has changed, and believes

 In other words, Grice was emphatically not a Contextualist.

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she is referring to a familiar element of her usual environment, when, in fact (according to Putnam), she is referring to an element entirely alien to her in another environment. A first thing to remark is that, on the face of it, all this concerns sentence meaning (and even word meaning), not speaker meaning. In other words, it concerns the level that, according to Grice, does not need mental state attribution for its interpretation. However, if the speaker does not know what she is saying, this seems to entail that she cannot know what she is communicating. Hence her intentions cannot guide interpretation at the level of speaker meaning. This, in a nutshell, is the problem: even if, at the level of sentence meaning, mental state attribution is not necessary, and thus the audience can recover the ‘right’ meaning, nevertheless the discrepancy between the speaker’s belief and what she is actually saying will infect speaker meaning (it cannot be confined to sentence meaning). However, there is more than one sort of Externalism, and despite Putnam’s intuitions, one may argue, based on Millikan’s account, that sentence meaning does not change, or at least does not change instantaneously with the change in the speaker’s environment. In other words, when on Twin Earth Hannah utters ‘Water is good to drink’, pointing to twater, she nevertheless refers to water, not twater (and the reverse goes for TWHannah, of course). This should be Millikan’s view on the matter, because, on her view, non-natural meaning is not only local,¹⁴ it is also historical. Here, one might object that Millikan does not discuss locality in relation to non-natural meaning. This is true. But while Millikan only discusses the locality of meaning relative to natural meaning, given the strong similarities in her account between natural and non-natural meaning, locality of meaning surely applies to both (otherwise her account of non-natural meaning would not be Externalist, leaving her little chance of naturalizing it). Additionally, non-natural meaning, given that it rests on the notion of proper function, is historical. Given the locality and the historicity of non-natural meaning, the proper function of a word is acquired at a given time and at a given locality (Earth in the case of Hannah, Twin Earth in the case of TWHannah), namely that in which it emerged and was preserved. If Millikan is right about this, then Hannah’s and TWHannah’s respective utterances keep their original meanings (those they had in Hannah’s and TWHannah’s usual environments).¹⁵ Note that on this view (which is based on Millikan’s), it is not Hannah’s  Meaning is local, because it is dependent on the environment.  It is important here to note that locality by itself would not solve the problem. If non-natural meaning was only local (but not historical), then the word ‘water’ would mean different things in different environments (regardless of its history), namely water on Earth and twater on Twin Earth (as on Putnam’s account).

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or TWHannah’s respective beliefs and intentions that determine their sentence meanings; rather, it is the fact that they do not speak the same language: in English, Hannah’s language, ‘water’ means water; in TWEnglish, TWHannah’s language, ‘water’ means twater. Despite the change in environment, given the historicity of non-natural meaning, the words do not instantaneously change their meanings. Note that this does not mean that there is no error: Hannah’s and TWHannah’s respective pointings are erroneous (i. e., they are not pointing at what they believe they are pointing at). But their intentions and the sentence meanings of their respective utterances are not at odds. And this means that their respective intentions are still good guides to their respective speaker meanings. So it seems that, while Putnam’s type of Externalism is not compatible with ‘psychological’ semantics, Millikan’s type of Externalism is. And Millikan’s type of Externalism has an additional virtue: it is faithful to the (strong) intuition that non-natural meaning can be erroneous (while this is impossible on Putnam’s view). A potential objection comes to mind. If sentence meaning is such that it depends on lexical meaning and semantic compositionality, how can utterances ever be erroneous? And what does error mean? Very simply, error occurs when the speaker’s intentions regarding her sentence meaning are at odds with what the sentence meaning of her utterance actually is. For instance, if the speaker is Caroline, aged two and a half, and if Caroline, who is acquiring English and believes that the word ‘cat’ denotes dogs, says ‘Rover is a cat’, where ‘Rover’ is the name of her neighbour’s dog, she is in error. She intended to say that Rover is a dog, but the sentence meaning of her utterance is that Rover is a cat. Again, this is because of the historicity of non-natural meaning (Burge’s ‘arthritis’ example goes along fairly similar lines, though Burge does not invoke historicity of meaning. See Burge 1979, 2006, reproduced in Burge 2007). Here, there is an interesting comparison to be made with Donnellan’s (1966) distinction between the attributive and the referential uses of definite descriptions. One and the same definitive description, occurring in one and the same sentence, e. g. Smith’s murderer is insane, can be used either attributively or descriptively depending on the occasion of its utterance. For instance, if Peter, reading in the newspaper a description of the gory murder of Smith by an as yet unidentified murderer, exclaims ‘Smith’s murderer is insane’, he presumably intends to refer to whoever satisfies the description Smith’s murderer, that is, to the murderer of Smith, whoever he is. Peter has no one specific individual in mind. By contrast, if Jones is in the dock, accused of Smith’s murder and behaving hysterically, Alan can say ′Smith’s murderer is insane’, intending to refer to

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Jones. And he will actually refer to Jones, regardless of whether Jones actually is Smith’s murderer or not (e. g., if Jones is the victim of a miscarriage of justice). In the Twin Earth scenario, Hannah and TWHannah do not speak the same language: in Hannah’s language, water means H2O, while in TWHannah’s language, water means XYZ. By contrast, Peter and Alan speak the same language, but the description Smith’s murderer can be used referentially, and when so used, can be used erroneously: in that case, it will refer to whatever the speaker intended it to refer to, but whatever it refers to will not satisfy the description.¹⁶ To sum up, Hannah and TWHannah actually respectively refer to what they believe they refer to, i. e., water and twater, despite the change in their environment, and there is no discrepancy between their beliefs and their referents, and hence no error. On the other hand, Caroline is mistaken in her choice of predicate, and Alan is mistaken in his choice of definite description (though he still succeeds in referring to Jones at the level of speaker meaning). What happens, however, when Hannah and TWHannah have been in their new locations for a long time, say a decade? Presumably, they still are unaware of having changed locations. Would we still say that, in such a case, their respective words ‘water’ have kept their original meanings? And if they have not, would that mean that their meanings and their intentions are no longer aligned? Here, we seem to have two options: the first is to insist that even after a long stay on Twin Earth, Hannah’s word ‘water’ still means water (and not twater) and that even after a long stay on Earth, TWHannah’s word water still means twater (and not water). The second option is to say that with the passing of time, Hannah’s word ‘water’ has come to mean twater and TWHannah’s word ‘water’ has come to mean water. This is the usual solution adopted by Externalists and it raises two questions: how does the new meaning arise and does it entail that there is a misalignment between Hannah’s and TWHannah’s respective intentions and their respective sentence meanings, when each in her present location utters ‘Water is good to drink’? With respect to the first question, this amounts to asking whether each could come to speak another language without being aware of it (Hannah would come to speak TWEnglish and TWHannah would come to speak English). How likely is this? On Millikan’s account, as noted above, non-natural meaning is both local and historical. Note that, as an Externalist account, Millikan’s view has to be ref-

 This is hardly central to the present topic, but it seems noteworthy that, while Donnellan was rather cagey about whether the distinction between attributive and descriptive uses of definite descriptions was pragmatic, it would seem clear that referential uses fall under speaker meaning and not sentence meaning.

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erential.¹⁷ Additionally, as we have seen, a signal (here the word ‘water’) may come to acquire a new proper function, if it is correlated often enough with a new meaning (here, a new referent, e. g., twater). Thus, even though just after her arrival on Twin Earth, Hannah’s word ‘water’ kept its original meaning, i. e., water (because it did not have the necessary history on Twin Earth to have acquired the new meaning, i. e., twater), after a while, it will have gained the necessary history, i. e., it will have been correlated to twater often enough to have acquired the new proper function of referring, not to water, but to twater. Thus, after a while, Hannah’s word ‘water’ comes to mean twater. Yet she still does not know that she is on Twin Earth (and not on Earth). A parallel story goes for TWHannah on Earth. So doesn’t this entail that their respective intentions and referents are misaligned? Remember that it is crucial to Putnam’s story¹⁸ that the two characters are not aware of the chemical composition of water; this is why, despite the fact that their mental representations coincide, given that their referents do not, the story supports Externalism. In the same way, Hannah’s and TWHannah’s mental representations coincide, even if their referents do not.¹⁹ Each intends to refer to what the word ‘water’ means at any stage in the story. This is no less true at this later stage than it was at previous stages (in keeping with Grice’s remark, quoted above). In other words, there is no reason to conclude that their intentions diverge from their referents because their words have changed meaning, while they are unaware of the fact.²⁰ What all of this suggests is that ‘psychological’ semantics is compatible with a Millikan-style Externalism, in which meaning is not only local, but historical. This, however, does not mean that we should buy Millikan’s account lock, stock,

 This is the basis of all Externalist accounts. The very fact that, here, the change of meaning is a change of referent entails that the problem of determining the new meaning does not arise in the same way as in the case of scalar implicatures and illocutionary acts.  He explicitly places it in 1750, before the discovery of the chemical composition of water.  Indeed, their referents diverge at every stage in the story: when they were in their original environments, when they first exchanged locations, and after they have been in their new locations for a long time.  Up to a point, one might argue that this account is highly compatible with the notion of a division of linguistic labour proposed by Putnam (see above, Section 2): according to this notion, lay people may use a word based on a stereotypical representation (e. g., Water is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and quenches thirst) and leave it to experts to determine the nature of what is being referred to (e. g., H2O or XYZ). One may argue that lay people want to refer to water, whatever that is. If this is the case, their intentions are aligned with their referents. Here, there is a link with the view that linguistic conventions are primitive certitudes (for a discussion of this doctrine, see Mulligan 2012: 213 – 222 and references therein).

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and barrel. Rather, it means that her Externalism has to be confined to sentence meaning, leaving speaker meaning to ‘psychological’ semantics (which presumably defeats her purpose of naturalizing intentionality, but that is not our concern here). This is all well and good, but it seems to lead to a rather unwelcome conclusion, to wit, that sentence meaning is not meaningNN, according to Grice’s definition.

7 Conclusion: Is sentence meaning meaningNN? As we have just seen, Grice’s account is compatible with Millikan-style Externalism, as long as Externalism is limited to sentence meaning (as we saw, it cannot account for speaker meaning anyway). This is because the Gricean distinction between sentence meaning and speaker meaning (or between what is said and what is communicated) rests on the notion that what is said can be recovered through lexical meaning and semantic compositionality alone, without appeal to the speaker’s intentions. However, the definition of non-natural meaning (or meaningNN) given by Grice (1989: 219) suggests that recognition of intention, and hence attribution of intentions to the speaker, is central to it: “A meantNN something by x” is roughly equivalent to “A intended the utterance of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the recognition of that intention”. It is also compatible because Millikan’s (quite different) notion of non-natural meaning is both local and historical. Hence, despite their changes of location, Hannah’s and TWHannah’s respective words ‘water’ will keep their original meanings (at least initially), and hence their respective referents, because these are grounded in their original locations. Thus their intentions and their referents stay aligned. So, is sentence meaning Gricean meaningNN or is it non-natural meaning in Millikan’s sense? Given that there is no discrepancy between Hannah’s and TWHannah’s referents and their intentions, one might agree that sentence meaning is indeed meaningNN. After all, what better guide could there be to a speaker’s intention than the (linguistic) meaning of the sentence she uttered? This seems indeed to go well with Grice’s view as expressed in the following quotation: ‘An utterer is held to intend to convey what is normally conveyed (or normally intended to be conveyed), and we require a good reason for accepting that a particular use diverges from the general usage (e. g. he never knew or had forgotten the general usage)’ (Grice 1989: 222). This would presumably allow for errors

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such as Caroline’s use of the word ′cat’ to describe a dog and Alan’s use of ‘Smith’s murderer’ to refer to mad, but innocent Jones. One might go a step further and indeed claim that the very fact that we can detect a sentence meaning that is erroneous shows precisely that sentence meaning is not intention-dependent—though the speaker’s intentions are nevertheless recovered at the same time as the linguistic interpretation of the utterance, because it is precisely because we perceive a misalignment between sentence meaning and speaker’s intentions that we detect the error. So we may conclude that sentence meaning is indeed an instance of meaningNN. Thus, ‘psychological’ semantics is indeed compatible with a (limited) form of Externalism. If this is the case, Externalism is not an objection to it.

References Burge, T. (2007), ‘Individualism and the Mental’ (1979)—Postscript to ‘Individualism and the Mental’ (2006), in Foundations of Mind: Philosophical Papers, vol. II, Oxford, Clarendon Press, p. 100 – 181. Carston, R. (2002), Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication, Oxford, Blackwell. Donnellan, K. S. (1966), ‘Reference and Definite Descriptions’, The Philosophical Review 75 (3), p. 281 – 304. Dretske, F. (1981), Knowledge and the Flow of Information, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Fodor, J. A. (1990), A Theory of Content and Other Essays, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Grice, H. P. (1989), Studies in the Way of Words, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Millikan, R. G. (1984), Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA, Bradford Books. Millikan, R. G. (2004), Varieties of Meaning: The 2002 Jean Nicod Lectures, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Millikan, R. G. (2005), Language: A Biological Model, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Mulligan, K. (1990), ‘Marty’s Philosophical Grammar’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 11 – 27. Mulligan, K. (2012), Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande, Paris, Vrin. Nuccetelli, S. (2003), ‘Introduction’, in Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowkedge, edited by S. Nuccetelli, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, p. 1 – 21. Putnam, H. (1975), ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”’, in Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. II, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 215 – 271. Reboul, A. (2015), ‘Why Language Really is not a Communication System: A Cognitive View of Language Evolution’, Frontiers in Psychology 24. Reboul, A. (2017), Cognition and Communication in the Evolution of Language, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

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Recanati, F. (2004), Literal Meaning, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Rumelhart, D. E., McClelland, J. L., and PDP Research Group (1986), Parallel Distributed Processing, vols. 1 and 2, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1995), Relevance: Communication and Cognition, Oxford, Blackwell. Strawson, P. F. (1964), ‘Intention and Convention in Speech Acts’, The Philosophical Review 73(4), p. 439 – 460.

Denis Seron

Husserl, Marty, and the (Psycho)logical A Priori Abstract: This paper aims to discuss some aspects of the Marty–Husserl debate about grammar. My suggestion is that the debate is first of all an epistemological debate, that is, a debate about what a priori knowledge is and how it is acquired. The key opposition is between Marty’s Brentanian notion of ‘analytic intuition’ and Husserl’s Bolzanian notion of ideation. As I will argue, the underlying issue is the possibility of a psychological a priori. For Marty, analytic intuition provides the psychologist with a priori knowledge about empirical facts. For Husserl, ideation provides the logician with entities that are disconnected from empirical facts—entities which are ‘purely logical’. I conclude with some brief remarks on the Brentanian background of both conceptions.

1 Introduction Kant bequeathed to his successors the bizarre idea that there are two different kinds of a priori knowledge, corresponding to the two higher faculties of the mind, sensibility and reason.¹ Some a priori rules are regarded as being of a ‘logical’ nature, while others are not. The first category includes the rules ‘a proposition composed of connectives alone is impossible’ and ‘necessarily all propositions of the form “p and non-p” are false’. The second category includes phenomenological or psychological rules such as ‘green is between blue and yellow’ and ‘a belief with no content is impossible’. But why should there be different kinds of a priori rules? It seems odd to place such a peculiar thing as a priori knowledge into completely different categories. It would be more satisfying if both kinds of a priori rules could somehow be described either as logical rules, as in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, or as phenomenological or psychological rules. This problem is at the centre of the dispute between Marty and Husserl on the nature of general grammar. The present paper offers a discussion of some aspects of this dispute. The focus will be on the 4th Logical Investigation, on Marty’s response in his Inves-

 I am grateful to Arkadiusz Chrudzimski, Denis Fisette, Guillaume Fréchette, Hynek Janousek, Kevin Mulligan, and Hamid Taieb for their valuable comments and criticisms of an earlier version of this paper. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-014

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tigations on the Foundations of General Grammar and Philosophy of Language of 1908, and on Husserl’s counter-response in the second edition of the Logical Investigations. First, I will suggest that the debate is above all an epistemological debate, namely a debate about what a priori knowledge is and how it is acquired. The key opposition is between Husserl’s Bolzano-inspired notion of ideation and the Brentanian notion of ‘analytic intuition’ taken up by Marty. As I will argue, the underlying issue is about the possibility of a psychological a priori. I will conclude with some brief remarks on the Brentanian background of both conceptions.

2 Preliminary questions The primary target of Husserl’s critique in the 4th Investigation is Marty’s view that general grammar should be part of, or borrow its method from, descriptive psychology (Marty 1950: 30). Husserl, by contrast, characterises his grammar as purely logical. This already raises some questions. Consider what Husserl tells us about logic. Logic, he says, is a theory of meaning, that is, a theory which has as its objects propositions, systems of propositions or theories, and parts of propositions such as concepts and dependent and proper meanings. Now, what kind of object is a meaning? The essence of meaning, Husserl claims in the 4th Investigation, ‘consists in a certain intention’ (Intention) (Husserl, LU2, 4: A304; Engl. transl.: 60).² Likewise, according to the 5th Investigation, meaning or ‘sense’ is the ‘intentional matter’ of a mental act—its property of being about this or that (Husserl, LU2, 5: A390; Engl. transl.: 121– 122). So what is the disagreement about? Isn’t intentionality a psychological matter? Supposing that intentionality is the essence of meaning, why should the morphology of meaning be distinct from psychology? One might be tempted to say that Husserl rejects Marty’s claim that meanings are accessible only through psychological reflection. But this reading would be wrong. In the 1st Logical Investigation, §34, Husserl explicitly holds that the logician’s objectification of meanings is a ‘reflective act of thought’ (reflektiver Denkakt), that is, a mental act whose object is another mental act (Husserl, LU2, 1: A103; Engl. transl.: 232). The difference between normal and ‘logical  Husserl’s Logical Investigations are referenced as LU followed by volume number, Investigation number, page number in the first (A) or second (B) edition, and page number in the English translation. References to other texts by Husserl are to the Husserliana edition (abridged as Hua).

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thinking’, for Husserl, lies not in the fact that the latter has as its objects Platonic entities called ‘meanings’, but in the fact that it requires a process of ‘logical reflection’ by which not external objects, but judgements are objectified and subjected to formalizing ideation. Thus, there seems to be a sense in which Husserl’s logic, like Marty’s semasiology, has to do with psychology. But what about logical psychologism (in Husserl’s sense)? For Husserl, Marty’s views on grammar reflect a ‘psychologistic misinterpretation of the core concept of the theory of meaning’ (Husserl, Hua 22: 263). By contrast, Marty himself explicitly saw his position as fundamentally opposed to logical psychologism, and since Herman Parret (1976) practically all commentators have agreed with his assessment. An argument often put forward is that Marty’s judgement-contents, although accessible only through reflection, are not subjective or mind-dependent entities (Smith and Rojszczak 2003: 246). Another argument is that for Husserl logical psychologism entails relativism, and that relativism is strongly rejected and warned against by Marty as well as Brentano (Rollinger 2014: 5). I will mention a third argument below. There are some similarities between Martian judgement-contents and Bolzanian truths in themselves. Nonetheless, as commentators have rightly emphasised, the two notions are different in crucial respects. First, Bolzano’s propositions—like Meinong’s objectives—are truth-bearers, while Marty’s judgementcontents are better seen as truth-makers (Smith 1994: 106; Smith and Rojszczak 2003; Simons 2006: 167). Second, Martian judgement-contents, unlike Bolzanian propositions, ‘are not ideal or extra-temporal’; ‘they exist in time’, that is, ‘now, or not at all’ (Smith 1994: 106; cf. Rollinger 2010: 95; Rojszczak 2005: 52; Antonelli 2011: LXII). Finally, according to Marty’s interpretation in the Investigations on Grammar, Bolzano as well as Husserl defended the view that propositions in themselves have some ‘being’ of their own that is neither reality nor existence (Marty 1908: 321; cf. Rollinger 2010: 95 – 96). In Marty’s view, by contrast, the distinction between being and existence, or between several modes of being, is incorrect and misleading. Meanings are not real objects (Platonic or otherwise) to which expressions relate. Talk of an expression’s ‘having a meaning’ is a way of talking about the fact that it has a ‘meaning function’ (Mulligan 1990: 14 sq.). It is unclear to what extent these differences are relevant to our problem. Husserl’s Logical Investigations also contain a theory of states of affairs— which are truth-makers. Husserl and Marty explicitly identify the latter’s judgement-contents with Sachverhalte (Morscher 1990: 187; Simons 2006: 166; Husserl, Hua 26: 200). Moreover, Barry Smith (1989) defended the view that, in contrast to his pupil Adolf Reinach, Husserl was a Platonist only about propositions, not about states of affairs, which he conceived of as individual entities as Marty did with judgement-contents.

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However, none of these differences is central in the 4th Logical Investigation, which suggests that the heart of the controversy may be somewhere else. Thus far, the issue is ontological. The question is, for example, whether judgementcontents are individual psychological entities or ideal entities to be studied independently of their mental realizations. Now, it is clear that Husserl’s objections in the 4th Investigation are mainly of an epistemological order. In the first edition of the Logical Investigations, logic is defined as an ‘ideal science’; as opposed to psychology, which deals only with real mental acts. Logical laws such as the principle of non-contradiction are ideal, a priori laws, while psychological laws are just inductive or ‘real’ laws—not laws in the strict sense of the term.³ This idea is at the basis of Husserl’s critique of logical psychologism: since it is impossible to infer ideal from inductive laws, logic can in no way be derived from psychology. This may suggest that Husserl’s critique of Marty is just a special case of his critique of logical psychologism: just as logical psychologists in general wrongly think it possible to derive logical laws from the inductive laws of empirical psychology, so Marty wrongly thinks it possible to build up his general grammar on the basis of linguistic psychology. One common objection to this reading of Husserl, or to Husserl’s reading of Marty, is that neither Marty nor Brentano deny the empirical psychologist as such the ability to formulate apodictic laws of the kind required in logic (Parret 1976; Taieb 2014; Antonelli 2011: XXI–XXII). According to the first edition of the Logical Investigations, empirical psychology as such cannot ground logic because it is unable to formulate a priori laws. Of course, this is not the view endorsed by Marty. Given this, there are at least three ways to defend Marty against Husserl. The first is to say that Husserl’s intention in the 4th Investigation is to apply his antipsychologist objection to Marty’s general grammar, thus rejecting Marty’s claim that general grammar should be both a priori and psychology-based. In this case, a defender of Marty would have to advocate the Brentanian view that

 This is literally how Husserl puts the point in the first edition of the Logical Investigations, where no mention is made of a priori or “ideal” laws of a psychological nature. It is true that, for Husserl, logical psychologism is false because it aims to causally explain logical laws, while psychology can only “clarify” them by disclosing their intuitive sources. It is also true that this antagonism echoes Brentano’s distinction between genetic and descriptive psychology. However, it would be wrong to conclude that, since Brentano views descriptive psychology as an a priori science, Husserl’s descriptive psychology in the first edition of the Investigations must be an a priori science. Instead, my hypothesis is that Husserl, in the first edition, acknowledges only one type of a priori, namely the logical or formal–ontological a priori. This hypothesis will be detailed below.

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the empirical psychologist is entitled to formulate a priori laws. She could, for example, follow Moritz Schlick’s suggestion that the converse argument is equally plausible: logic deals with apodictic laws and it has something to do with psychology, therefore the psychologist must be able to formulate apodictic laws (Schlick 1910: 409 sq.). Another line of defense would be the following: Husserl wants to apply his anti-psychologist objection to Marty’s general grammar but his reading is unfair, so his criticism is, at least in part, unjustified. On a third and final interpretation, Husserl’s actual intention is not to apply his anti-psychologist objection to Marty’s general grammar, and the reasons for his rejection of it must be found elsewhere. In my view, the first two interpretations contain a kernel of truth. My reason for thinking so is that, in the first edition of the Logical Investigations, Husserl oddly ignores the Brentanian view of a priori knowledge—a view that is strongly endorsed by Marty in his project of a linguistic psychology. The result is that his critique of Marty’s psychological approach to logical issues is both unfair and susceptible to counter-arguments. I will give some hints about this further below.

3 Analytic intuition Suppose a universal grammatical law to the effect that by combining only syncategoremata, for example connectives, you never obtain an expression with a unitary meaning, or to the effect that a unitary meaning is never composed of dependent meanings alone. The question is: Is this law logical or psychological, or both logical and psychological? To this question, Husserl answers that the law is logical and hence not psychological. Marty’s answer, by contrast, is that it is logical and hence psychological. Let us now look at the reasons advanced in support of each of these two answers. To begin with, both philosophers are centrally concerned with how logical truths are experienced. Logical truths are somehow given and the whole debate revolves around the nature of that logical experiencing, which Husserl calls ‘ideation’ and Marty ‘analytic intuition’ (analytische Einsicht). Additionally, both authors’ arguments are distinctively Brentanian. In Marty’s Investigations of 1908, logical truths are assumed to be given in ‘analytic intuitions’. For example, you may have an intuition of the impossibility of a given judgement’s being neither positive nor negative. This intuition will give you evidence that making a judgement about a content S–P necessarily involves accepting or rejecting that content, with the consequence that all judgements about S–P must necessarily be of the form ‘S is P’ or ‘S is not P’—which is

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one possible version of the logical law of the excluded middle (cf. Marty 1908: 66). Now, the object of your analytic intuition is a mental act. Therefore, the intuition must belong to psychology, or more precisely to that branch of psychology which deals with expressive acts, namely linguistic psychology. To illustrate this latter point, Marty draws an analogy with sensory qualities—for you can presumably have a priori intuitions about colours and sounds as well. For example, hearing a C chord played on a piano, you may have the analytic intuition that the chord has such-and-such sounds as its parts. This intuition will provide you with a priori knowledge such as can be found in the theory of harmony. And arguably the same applies in the case of colours. In some sense, it is an a priori law that green is between blue and yellow. The analogy runs as follows: just as colours and sounds supply us with analytic intuitions that ground the a priori laws of the theory of colours and the theory of harmony, so the act of judging supplies us with analytic intuitions which ground the a priori laws of logic. One may ask why this should constitute an argument at all. After all, what do sounds and colours have to do with psychology? Should the theory of colours and the theory of harmony be taught in psychology departments? Why should it be otherwise with logic? In fact, Marty does accept the idea that the theory of colours and the theory of harmony are branches of psychology. Unlike others, for example Stumpf, he follows Brentano on this point. On Brentano’s view, colours and sounds are physical phenomena, which as such appear only in other phenomena, namely in mental phenomena. What you actually experience and have analytic intuitions about when you see a coloured thing is yourself as a colour-presenter, namely a mental act along with a physical phenomenon contained in it. If you are concerned with phenomenal properties, as you certainly are when talking of tonal consonance or relations among colours, you study sounds and colours as a psychologist. In this connection, Marty writes a little further on: ‘It is not colours and sounds that are empirically given to us, but only something that represents colours or sounds (ein Farben- resp. Töne-vorstellendes)’ (Marty 1908: 66). For example, having the intuition of the C chord’s being composed of such-and-such sounds means having ‘the experience that the subject that hears the chord hears the partial sounds’ (Marty 1908: 66). The analogy above is much clearer with this in mind. Colours and sounds are contents of perceptual acts and thus objects of psychological reflection. Consequently, our analytic intuitions about colours and sounds are psychological, as are the theory of colours and the theory of harmony. Likewise, meanings of the form S–P are contents of acts of judging; meanings in general are contents of expressive acts. As such, meanings are objects of psychological reflection. Conse-

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quently, our analytic intuitions about meanings and hence the a priori theory of meaning must be psychological.⁴

4 Ideation According to the Brentanian model endorsed by Marty, the whole state expressed by intentional sentences of the form ‘X judges that S is P’ is an object of psychological reflection, thus including both the judging and its content S–P. Grammar is likely to be about the content, but as we have seen in the case of the law of the excluded middle, logic may be about the act, or about both the act and its content. Husserl’s position is very different. In the Logical Investigations, he maintains, like Bolzano and Frege, that logic and hence pure grammar are limited to the logical content—a thesis he will later supplement with the further claim that psychology deals only with the act, as opposed to its ‘noema’. It is important to keep in mind here that this further claim is not endorsed in the first edition. In 1901, the fact that logic deals only with judgement-contents does not entail that psychology does not deal with judgement-contents. In this respect, there is some agreement between Husserl and the other Brentanians, including Marty. For Husserl as well as Marty, judgement-contents should, in some sense, be studied in both logic and psychology.⁵ What is important here is that the difference between logic and psychology as conceived in the first edition of the Logical Investigations is not, at least primarily, an ontological difference. In my view, the Marty–Husserl debate is basically epistemological. It would be a mistake to think that Husserl, against Marty, separates logical from psychological entities. What he actually aims to do is to separate logic from psychology—which is quite a different thing. The aim is to create a new division of labour using the Bolzano-inspired notion of ideation.⁶  Whether this leads to a form of logical psychologism in Husserl’s sense is a different question altogether.  Another interesting consequence of this conception is that there seems to be no place for modal logic in the Logical Investigations. The same is true of Husserl’s later works. It is true that in the Ideas I modalities are integrated into the noema, but Husserl explicitly affirms that pure logic is concerned only with the sense (Sinn), that is, with the non-modal part of the noema.  The issue is not whether judgement-contents should be considered as having a distinct kind of being, but rather whether logical truths require a distinct mode of access. Marty rejects the idea that the difference between logical and psychological truths calls for a distinction between modes of access (and with it between disciplines), while Husserl accepts it.

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Husserl’s pure grammar, as a morphology of meanings, deals only with intentional contents. In his view, the predicative structure belongs to the intentional matter or content of the mental act. Some acts, which he calls ‘propositional acts’, are such that their intentional content is of the form ‘S is P’. But on the other hand, intentional matter is a psychological feature of individual mental acts. By means of direct or indirect introspection, the psychologist observes that such-and-such act of remembering has the property of being about the Jewish Ghetto of Rome, that such-and-such belief has the property of being a belief that the Jewish Ghetto is located north of the Trastevere quarter. What allows one to ascend from the content as a psychological property of the act to the content as an object of logical knowledge is ideation. While the psychologist is concerned with the content as mentally realised, the logician studies the content ‘in itself’, that is, in abstraction from its mental realization. And both must somehow refer to one and the same content—otherwise Husserl’s project of a ‘phenomenological grounding of logic’ would make no sense. It is precisely this new division of labour that Husserl raises in opposition to Marty in the Logical Investigations. In the second edition, he advances an interesting argument about formal mathematics—mathematics in exclusion of material disciplines like Euclidian geometry. Husserl holds that the epistemology of formal mathematics is very similar to that of pure logic. Furthermore, according to the Prolegomena, there is a relation of equivalence between formal-ontological and purely logical laws and categories. This suggests that, if mathematics must be epistemologically independent of psychology, then logic must be epistemologically independent of it as well. The argument runs as follows: if logic were to be part of psychology, as Marty thinks it should be, then formal mathematics, too, should be part of psychology; but the consequent is obviously false; therefore, logic cannot be part of psychology. The mathematician, unlike the philosopher, need not be concerned with the intuitive sources of her axioms and theorems. And what is more, the progress of her science requires her to confine herself to purely symbolic thinking and to bracket the question of how her axioms and theorems may be fulfilled by experience. Here is the text: To me Marty’s conception is basically mistaken. On it, we should ultimately have to class arithmetic, as well as all formal disciplines in mathematics in—psychology, if not in linguistic psychology. For pure logic in the narrower sense, i. e. the doctrine of the validity of meanings, and the connected pure theory of meaning-forms, is, I hold, essentially one with these disciplines (cf. the final chapter of the Prolegomena). In the essential unity of a mathesis universalis all these sciences must be treated, and certainly be kept quite apart from all empirical sciences, whether styled “physics” or “psychology”. Mathematicians in fact do this, even if in naïvely dogmatic fashion, turning their back on specifically

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philosophical problems, and not worrying about philosophical objections—to the great profit, in my view, of their science. (Husserl, LU2, 4: B340 – 341; Engl. transl.: 75)

Marty is right in saying that Husserl’s strategy has the effect of ‘discrediting the important discipline of descriptive psychology in large domains’ (Marty 1908: 66). In effect, it boils down to denying the psychologist and perhaps even the philosopher the right to build up logical theories. The philosopher’s job consists in philosophy of logic rather than philosophical logic, in philosophical ‘clarification’ rather than the ‘explanation’ of logical laws. In other words, Husserl seems to assume that logic, just like mathematics, is a purely ‘symbolic’ discipline, while the philosopher’s task instead lies in intuitive fulfilment.

5 A priori categories—or judgements? All of the above suggests that there is an enormous difference between Husserl’s ideation and Marty’s ‘analytic intuition’. The former corresponds, for example, to the Bolzanian logician’s objectification of the proposition ‘the Roman Ghetto is located north of Trastevere’. The latter corresponds to the psychologist’s observation that it is impossible to judge that the Roman Ghetto is located here or there without having a presentation of the Roman Ghetto. In the Investigations on Grammar, Marty gives some examples of what he has in mind when he speaks of a priori knowledge in linguistic psychology. He mentions the following four laws (Marty 1908: 57): (1)‘There is no linguistic device (Sprachmittel) that reveals an act of judging without implicitly expressing something judged which is presented at the same time.’ (2)‘There is no linguistic device for a phenomenon of interest that does not implicitly express something that is the object of interest.’ (3)‘There can be no name that names one term of a correlation without arousing the presentation of one or more other terms of the correlation, at least generally conceived.’ (4)‘All expression of a simple judgement contains a sign of either acceptance or rejection.’ Of course, most of us would be reluctant to count any one of these propositions as a logical truth. Marty upholds the Brentanian view, also criticised in the 4th Logical Investigation, that logic is first of all about acts of judging. ‘All great philosophers from Aristotle through Mill’, he argues, ‘have conceived “logic” as a method for correct judging’ (Marty 1908: 63 – 64). However, the disagreement

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may be more fundamental, and this leads us to one of the most interesting objections to Husserl in Marty’s Investigations on Grammar. As we saw above, Husserl’s ideation is for example that process by which the logician objectifies the proposition ‘the Ghetto is located north of Trastevere’ in itself, that is, regardless of its realization in experience. By contrast, Marty’s analytic intuition allows one to know that it is impossible for that judgement to occur in the absence of any presentation of the Roman Ghetto. Ideation presents the ideal objects to which purely logical categories correspond, for example concepts or propositions; analytic intuition justifies a priori judgements about empirical facts. In short: ideal objects, categories, and judgements on the one side, and a priori judgements alone on the other side. Interestingly, Marty states against Husserl that the two aspects are not logically dependent on one another. Following Hume and Kant, he claims that a priori judgements need not be about a priori objects, and that the existence of a priori judgements does not entail that of a priori objects or concepts (Marty 1908: 57). Rather, the idea is that the psychologist has empirical concepts which lend themselves to a priori judgements, in the same way that the empirical concept of colour lends itself to the a priori judgement that it is impossible for a colour to be unextended. This view involves two distinct claims. First, the psychologist’s analytic judgements are about concepts. As Marty puts it, they are analytic in the sense that they are obtained through reflective analysis of representations. Second, the concepts that the judgements are about need not be a priori themselves. The fact that there are a priori logical laws does not imply that logic must be a ‘pure’, non-empirical science. Thus, the fact that there are a priori grammatical laws does not imply that general grammar must be a ‘pure’ grammar in Husserl’s sense of the term. From the fact that general grammar contains a priori judgements, it does not follow that, as Husserl claims, it should be ‘pure’, that is, free from empirical contamination and referring only to ideal objects. But Marty goes further still. It is not only that he rejects the view equating a priori judgements with ‘pure’ knowledge. He also holds that general grammar actually requires empirical observations even where it generates a priori judgements (Marty 1908: 58). We are taught, for example, that there are phenomena of interest in addition to presentations and judgements; that we have correlative concepts; that judgements are different not only in quality—depending on whether they are positive or negative —, but also in degree of blindness and self-evidence, or depending on whether they are assertoric or apodictic, etc. All this, Marty argues, is empirical knowledge, namely empirical facts discovered through observation.

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As mentioned above, Husserl’s counter-argument in the second edition of the Investigations is that the epistemology of logic is not fundamentally different from that of formal mathematics. This, however, is just one half of his response. The other half is a concession to Marty. Husserl concedes that there may exist a grammatical a priori that is not properly logical. Consequently, he proposes to replace the term ‘pure grammar’ with ‘logical pure grammar’, thus opening the possibility of a priori grammatical laws which are not about meanings in themselves, as are logical laws, but about, for example, ‘relations of mutual understanding among minded persons’ (Husserl, LU2, 4: B340; Engl. transl.: 75). This concession is far from a minor detail. It is crucial in order to understand the development of Husserl’s philosophy after the Logical Investigations. For the idea of a psychological a priori was clearly rejected in the first edition of the Investigations. In 1901, the key argument against logical psychologism was that the laws of descriptive psychology are inductive or ‘real’ laws. In other words, they are not laws in the same strict sense in which the ‘ideal’ laws of logic and mathematics are called ‘laws’. The fallacy of logical psychologism consists in the false belief that ideal laws can be derived from real laws. As I suggested earlier, referring to Schlick, the whole argument collapses if you accept the possibility of a psychological a priori, as Husserl does in 1913 in accordance with Marty’s account. Along with others like Adolf Reinach and of course Brentano, Marty’s objections may thus have played a role in the move towards the eidetic phenomenology of the Ideas I—which is like a kind of a priori psychology.

6 Concluding remarks The question now before us is: Why couldn’t Marty accept Husserl’s idea of an epistemological autonomy of the a priori theory of meaning? This question is less obvious than it may seem. For both authors agree that meanings are subject to apodictic truths, and that they are entities dependent on mental acts. One might be tempted to explain the disagreement through the underlying Brentanian framework of Marty’s psychology.⁷ In Brentano’s view, the intentional content, too, insofar as it always appears in a mental phenomenon, is an object of psychology. This idea is most clearly expressed in the Psychology of 1874:

 The question of Marty’s relationship to logical psychologism is arguably equivalent to that of Brentano’s relationship to logical psychologism. Unfortunately, the second question is obscure and rarely addressed in the literature. A notable exception is Moran 2000.

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With respect to the definition of psychology, it might first seem as if the concept of mental phenomena would have to be broadened rather than narrowed (erweitern eher als verengern), both because the physical phenomena of imagination fall within its scope at least as much as mental phenomena as previously defined, and because the phenomena which occur in sensation cannot be disregarded in the theory of sensation. It is obvious, however, that they are taken into account only as the content of mental phenomena when we describe the specific characteristics of the latter. (Brentano 1973: 140; Engl. transl.: 100)

Yet this conclusion would be misleading. My suggestion is that, despite appearances, the two philosophers are equally Brentanian, although in different ways. Let us go back to the analogy with colours. Both colours and meanings are amenable to a priori knowledge. The colour theorist states that green is between blue and yellow; the logician states that by combining only connectives you never obtain an expression with a unitary meaning. Marty maintains that both statements are psychological. Would Brentano agree with Marty? Brentano’s conception of logic is not very different from Marty’s. Both authors conceive of logic not as a theory of meaning, but as a practical method for correct judging (Marty 1918: 301 sq.). However, this fact is of secondary interest. The real question is whether (logic defined as) an a priori theory of meaning should be separated from psychology. Now, on this latter question, there is a sense in which Brentano’s approach to the question at stake may seem closer to Husserl than to Marty. Brentano does not claim, as does Marty, that colours are merely properties to be studied in psychology. What he actually says in the text just quoted is that the psychologist is concerned with physical phenomena insofar as they are taken as contents of mental acts. Where this is not the case, colours are objects of physics. Now, Brentano does not say that physics is part of psychology or that talk of physical properties is misleading or illusory. Rather, the Psychology of 1874 defines physics as the ‘science of physical phenomena’. Brentano’s claim is that the physicist is right in speaking of objective properties, although physical phenomena do not really exist and she thereby refers only to mental phenomena. As he puts it in his later work, the physicist talks of objective properties in a non-referential, ‘oblique’ mode. What physical theories are about, what they are intentionally directed towards, is not what they actually refer to. What physical theories actually refer to, what make them true, are parts of mental phenomena. In other words: in the referential use of language, in modo recto, physical entities must actually be included in the intentional context; they are

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mere appearances, thus something that, like all appearances according to Brentano, occur in the mind.⁸ It is possible that Marty did agree with this. In any case, the view that colours are objects of psychology is something he explicitly advocates in his critique of Husserl in the Investigations on Grammar. ‘In my view’, he declares, ‘psychology is the only right place where to treat what is a priori self-evident about sensory qualities’ (Marty 1908: 66). There is, so to speak, a structural resemblance between Brentano’s conception of physics and the division of labour presented in the first edition of the Logical Investigations. Like physics for Brentano, logic for Husserl is about non-mental entities. Just as Brentano claims that the objects studied in physics are actually no more than contents of mental acts, so Husserl claims that the objects studied in Bolzanian logic are no more than contents of judgement. In consequence, it is the phenomenologist or descriptive psychologist’s task to reveal the intuitive sources at the basis of logical knowledge.⁹ To sum up: If one accepts Brentano’s conception of logic as a theory of correct judging, as opposed to Bolzano’s conception of logic as an objective science, then logic can plausibly be viewed as a (practical) branch of psychology—and Marty is right. But on the other hand, if one accepts both Brentano’s epistemology of objective sciences and the view that pure logic is an objective science, like physics, then one obtains the epistemology of logic promoted in the first edition of the Logical Investigations. Both Marty and Husserl are Brentanian in their conception of logic, although in opposing ways.

References Antonelli, M. (2011), ‘Die Deskriptive Psychologie von Anton Marty: Wege und Abwege eines Brentano-Schülers’, in A. Marty, Deskriptive Psychologie, edited by M. Antonelli and J. C. Marek, Würzburg, Königshausen and Neumann, p. XI–LXXVIII. Bell, D. (1990), Husserl: The Arguments of the Philosophers, London, Routledge. Brentano, F. (1973), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, Hamburg, Felix Meiner. English translation by A. C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell, and L. L. McAlister (1995), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, London, Routledge.

 For more detail on Brentano’s phenomenalism, see Seron 2014 and 2017. This reading is, in some ways, close to those of Bell (2008: 3 – 28), Chisholm (1981; 1990), Potrč (2013), and Siewert (2015). The distinction between intentionality and reference plays an essential role in some recent interpretations of Brentano’s theory of intentionality (Sauer 2006; Fréchette 2012).  For reasons of space, it is impossible to go into further details here. This interpretation of Husserl’s Logical Investigations is developed in detail in Seron 2012 and 2015.

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Chisholm, R. M. (1981), The First Person. An Essay on Reference and Intentionality, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. Chisholm, R. M. (1990), ‘Brentano and Marty on Content: A Synthesis Suggested by Brentano’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Press, p. 1 – 9. Fréchette, G. (2012), ‘Deux aspects de l’intentionnalité dans la Psychologie de Brentano’, in Franz Brentano’s Metaphysics and Psychology, edited by I. Tanasescu, Bucharest, Zeta Books, p. 310 – 343. Husserl, E. (1979), ‘ A. Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, I. Band, Halle a.S. 1908’, in Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890 – 1910). Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Gesammelte Werke, vol. XXII, edited by B. Rang, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, p. 261 – 265. Husserl, E. (1984), Logische Untersuchungen, vol. II, Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Gesammelte Werke, vol. XIX, edited by U. Panzer, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (2001), Logical Investigations, 2 vols., english translation by J. N. Findlay (D. Moran, ed.), New York, Routledge. Husserl, E. (1987), Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre. Sommersemester 1908. Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Gesammelte Werke, vol. XXVI , edited by U. Panzer, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, vol. I., Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1918), ‘Über subjektlose Sätze und das Verhältnis der Grammatik zu Logik und Psychologie’, in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. II, part 1, Schriften zur deskriptiven Psychologie und Sprachphilosophie, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1950), Über Wert und Methode einer allgemeinen beschreibenden Bedeutungslehre, edited by O. Funke, Bern, Francke. Moran, D. (2000), ‘Husserl’s Critique of Brentano in the Logical Investigations’, Manuscrito 23(2), p. 163 – 205. Morscher, E. (1990), ‘Judgement-Contents’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 181 – 196. Mulligan, K. (1990), ‘Marty’s Philosophical Grammar’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 11 – 28. Parret, H. (1976), ‘Le débat de la psychologie et de la logique concernant le langage: Marty et Husserl’, in History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics, edited by H. Parret, Berlin, De Gruyter, p. 732 – 771. Potrč, M. (2013), ‘Phenomenology of Intentionality’, in Themes from Brentano, edited by D. Fisette and G. Fréchette, Amsterdam, Rodopi, p. 165 – 187. Rojszczak, A. (2005), From the Act of Judging to the Sentence. The Problem of Truth Bearers from Bolzano to Tarski, edited by J. Woleński, Dordrecht, Springer. Rollinger, R. D. (1999), Husserl’s Position in the School of Brentano, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Rollinger, R. D. (2010), Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty. Analysis and Translation, Amsterdam, Rodopi.

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Rollinger, R. D. (2014), ‘Anton Marty’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), edited by E. N. Zalta. Online://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/marty/ Sauer, W. (2006), ‘Die Einheit der Intentionalitätskonzeption bei Brentano’, Grazer philosophische Studien 73(1), p. 1 – 26. Schlick, M. (1910), ‘Das Wesen der Wahrheit nach der modernen Logik’, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie und Soziologie 34, p. 386 – 477. Seron, D. (2012), ‘Phénoménologie et objectivisme sémantique dans les Recherches logiques de Husserl’, in L’idée de l’idée: Éléments de l’histoire d’un concept, edited by B. Leclercq and B. Collette‐Ducic, Louvain, Peeters, p. 245 – 267. Seron, D. (2014), ‘Brentano’s “Descriptive” Realism’, Bulletin d’Analyse Phénoménologique 10 (4), p. 1 – 14. Seron, D. (2015), ‘Objectivité et subjectivité dans la critique husserlienne du relativisme’, in Psychologie et psychologisme, edited by M. Gyemant, Paris, Vrin. Seron, D. (2017), ‘Brentano on Appearance and Reality’, in The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, edited by U. Kriegel, New York, Routledge. Siewert, C. (2015), ‘Phenomenological Approaches’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception, edited by M. Matthen, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 136 – 150. Simons, P. (2006), ‘Austrian Philosophers on Truth’, in The Austrian Contribution to Analytic Philosophy, edited by M. Textor, New York, Routledge, p. 159 – 183. Smith, B. (1989), ‘Logic and the Sachverhalt’, The Monist 72, p. 52 – 69. Smith, B. (1994), Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano, LaSalle, Open Court (electronic version). Smith, B. and Rojszczak A. (2003), ‘Truthmakers, Truthbearers and the Objectivity of Truth’, in Philosophy and Logic. In Search of the Polish Tradition, edited by J. Hintikka, T. Czarnecki, K. Kijana-Placek and A. Rojszczak, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 229 – 268. Taieb, H. (2014), ‘La description chez Anton Marty: Psychologie et philosophie du langage’, Bulletin d’Analyse Phénoménologique 10(9), p. 1 – 19.

Hélène Leblanc

Grammaire générale and Grammatica speculativa: The Historical Roots of the Marty–Husserl Debate on General Grammar Abstract: The debate between Husserl and Marty focuses on the notion of general grammar. Nevertheless, there doesn’t seem to have been a clear outcome, and the terms of the debate remain quite unclear. Moreover, while both authors make striking use of historical references, their entanglement seems to call for some clarification. This paper aims to shed light on this debate, by considering it from an historical perspective. In doing so, two putative candidates will be introduced as (conceptual) precursors of the ‘allgemeine Grammatik’: the Grammaire générale et raisonnée of Port-Royal (1660), and the medieval grammatica speculativa, which included a group of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century philosophers of language known as the Modistae. I will first identify Husserl’s and Marty’s respective critiques, distinguishing, between Husserl’s critique of the conflation of the a priori and empirical, and Marty’s of the conflation of meaning and forms of expression. Second, I will place these critiques in an arrangement involving two types of cross-reference: on the one hand, Marty and Husserl can be seen as standing in opposition to their historical predecessors; on the other hand (and more significantly), Marty and Port-Royal can be seen as standing in opposition to Husserl and the speculative grammarians.

1 Introduction One of the central debates between Husserl and Marty focused on ‘pure’ or ‘general’ grammar, as they respectively called it. Both authors explicitly rely on the old idea of a universal grammar, namely that there are universal syntactical laws beyond the diversity of particular languages. But from this similar starting point, they diverge on how we should understand this universal grammar. On one hand, for Husserl, such a universality is a priori. Universal grammar is qualified as ‘rein’ or ‘pure’, and, later, more precisely as ‘pure logical grammar’

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(Husserl 1913: 340; transl. Findlay: 74),¹ which is independent of any empirical contamination. Additionally, as a morphology of meanings, universal grammar has to be distinguished from communicational relations. Thus Husserl, without excluding communication from his thinking, isolates a pure grammar with a limited sphere of application, cleared of any communicational element. For Marty, on the other hand, the general grammar, or ‘descriptive semasiology’, has to be reached empirically, and its universality depends on the universality of the functions of linguistic means. In this way, Martian grammar is universal without being ‘pure’, and the communicational side is always taken into account. As we can see, the contrasts between the two views, such as purity and nonpurity, or universality and generality, are not straightforward, and the terms of the debate remain somewhat unclear. Furthermore, it is questionable whether Marty and Husserl are not simply arguing about terms. In order to shed some light on this debate, I propose, as a first step, to consider the vocabulary from a historical perspective, by introducing two putative precursors of the allgemeine Grammatik: the Grammaire générale et raisonnée of Port-Royal (1660), and the medieval grammatica speculativa, posited by a group of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century philosophers of language known as the Modistae.

2 Marty vs. Husserl on general grammar: The terms of the debate The starting point of the debate between Marty and Husserl is Husserl’s 4th Logical Investigation, first published in 1901. This text finishes with the introduction of the notion of ‘pure grammar’ (Husserl 1913, §§13 – 14: 328 – 342; transl. Findlay: 68 – 76). Husserl claims that all combinations of meanings are governed by laws. And these laws separate sense (Sinn) and senselessness (Unsinn), namely syntactical absence of sense, which differs from non-sense (Widersinn), i. e. an objective impossibility (Husserl 1913: 294– 295, and especially 326 – 328 and 333 – 336; transl. Findlay: 49 – 50, 67– 68 and 71– 72). The distinction between Sinn and Unsinn is relative to the distinction between Sinn and Widersinn. The group of laws that constitute this basic distinction makes up what Husserl calls a pure grammar as a pure morphology of significations.

 The Logical Investigations will be quoted according to the second edition of the text (1913), except to highlight variations.

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A few years after the publication of the 4th Logical Investigation, Marty criticized Husserl’s position in the Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie (Marty 1908: 56 – 70). More precisely, in Chapter 4 of the first part of this work, he attacks the a priori character of such a pure grammar and argues against its being part of logic. Textually speaking, the disagreement between Marty and Husserl rests on the meaning of ‘Allgemeinheit’. Both agree on the fact that the allgemeine Grammatik is opposed to particular grammars (i. e. vernacular grammars such as those of Latin, English, or French) and comparative grammars (which strive to extract common features from some particular languages). But for Husserl, grammar can be called general insofar as it embodies the universal laws of meaning per se—in fact, he only uses this adjective in the second edition of the Logical Investigations (1913), when referring to Marty’s objection.² The rest of the time he uses the term ‘rein’, which he will replace with the less ambiguous ‘reinlogisch’ in the second edition.³ It is striking to note that Marty seems to appreciate the adjective ‘allgemeine’, while Husserl prefers to refer to a ‘universelle Grammatik’. When looking for the reasons for this preference, we can immediately exclude the idea that Marty’s allgemeine Grammatik would admit some exceptions while Husserl’s pure grammar wouldn’t (according to the common meanings of ‘general’ and ‘universal’)—even if it is tempting to see the terms as indicating conceptual delimitations. For Marty, the allgemeine Grammatik refers to the general laws of meaning in a pragmatic sense, including communication: it concerns not meaning per se, as ideal unities of sense, but as the means for communicational acts or actions. General grammar cannot be pure, since we have to take into account its constitutive communicational element (i. e. it is common to all communicational endeavours). For Husserl, the universal grammar is ‘pure’, as part of the grammatical a priori, and ‘logical’ as distinct from any communicational element. Moreover, there is a foundational opposition between the two: for Marty, grammatical laws can only be known on an empirical basis.⁴ So the ground of

 Husserl 1913: 340; transl. Findlay: 75: “no one will imagine that there could be a universal (‘allgemeine’) grammar in the sense of a universal science (allgemeinen Wissenschaft) comprehending all particular grammars as contingent specifications”.  For other references to Husserl’s reactions to Marty’s publications, see Parret 1976: 746, note 36.  Marty 1908: 58 says that the formal laws of grammar are: “knowable only empirically and not a priori. And that is why the name ‘general grammar’ seems to me more appropriate compared to ‘pure’ or a priori grammar”. All translations of Marty are mine.

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general grammar is not pure logic and formal ontology (as Husserl would have it, as a mathesis), but psychology. If we start with Husserl’s and Marty’s nominal definitions of ‘general’ and ‘universal’, we get the following distinctions: Husserl

Marty

Idea of allgemeine Grammatik, understood as

Universal grammar

General grammar

How do we know the laws of allgemeine Grammatik?

A priori

Empirical

Ground of this knowledge

Mathesis (pure logic + formal ontology)

Psychology (understood in the sense of Brentanian descriptive psychology)

Aim of the allgemeine Grammatik

To determine the universal laws of meaning in order to discriminate between sense and non-sense

To determine general laws of meaning, understood in a pragmatic sense which includes communication per se

Pure, logical Non-pure, non-logical (as a pure morphology of meanings, (general grammar includes empiriuniversal grammar is free from any cal and communicational elements) empirical and communicational elements)

This table shows the configuration of oppositions. In particular, it highlights the fact that the tension between ‘pure’ and ‘general’ is more complex in nature than it seems. ‘Pure’ is the contrary of ‘non-pure’, ‘composite’, or ‘spoilt’; whereas ‘general’ is lexically opposed to ‘singular’ or ‘particular’, but also to ‘universal’. Thus, although it seems that both Husserl and Marty continue to hold different views, leading to the conclusion that the dispute represents a fundamental misunderstanding, the term-by-term reconstruction above shows us where very specific historical references are in fact invoked.

3 La Grammaire générale et raisonnée: A common explicit reference; different critiques Both Marty and Husserl explicitly quote the Grammaire générale et raisonnée or Grammar of Port Royal of Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot (1660). In 1901, in §14 of the 4th Logical Investigation, Husserl alludes to the text in this way: ‘we recognize the undoubted soundness of the idea of a universal grammar (univer-

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selle Grammatik) conceived by the rationalists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century’ (Husserl 1913: 336; transl. Findlay: 72). He spells out his thoughts more clearly in talking about the first edition of the Logical Investigations, saying that: ‘[t]hose “purely grammatical laws” confer on the old idea of a general and a priori grammar (einer allgemeinen und zwar apriorischen Grammatik) a solid though clearly very limited sphere of legitimacy’ (Husserl 1901: 261; my translation). The modern general grammar unveiled the a priori laws of the grammatical sphere. But above all, this comment allows us to more precisely characterise the Husserlian allgemeine Grammatik: allgemein, as we have seen, for Husserl should be understood as ‘universal’; but it is limited, and not general. Laws of meaning are universally valid but the linguistic phenomena relevant to this universal grammar are limited. Only some phenomena of particular grammars can be linked to the laws of pure grammar; the rest are subject to variations and useless, in this case, for Husserl’s scheme. The laws of meaning are universal and limited. The mistake of modern general grammars was to ignore or conflate the universal laws of meaning, separating sense and non-sense, and the particular human laws abstracted from historical-natural languages. There may be an empirical generality of languages and invariants of communication (as Marty wants), but this must not be confused with the universality of laws of meaning. Further on, in §14 of the 4th Logical Investigation, Husserl writes: I therefore fairly take up the cudgels for the old doctrine of a grammaire générale et raisonnée, a philosophical grammar, for its obscure, undeveloped intention aiming at the “rational” in speech, in the true sense of the word, and in particular at the “logic” of speech or its semantic a priori. (Husserl 1913: 338; transl. Findlay: 73)

The reference here is quite explicit: Husserl doesn’t refer to a vague idea of general grammar, but quotes the title, in French, of the text by Arnauld and Lancelot. Additionally, we find the term ‘philosophische’ Grammatik, commonly used to refer to the grammars of the 18th century. Here we can see the first problem with the Husserlian reference: Husserl lays the Port-Royal project, characterized as rationalist, over the philosophical grammars of the 18th century, which are instead linked to an empirical tradition. While the rationalist-deductive process of Port-Royal and the empirical-inductive process of the philosophical grammars are thought to be different today, Husserl, following the mainstream thought of his day, places the two traditions under the same a posteriori label of ‘rationalism’, in particular as ‘logicism’.⁵ On one  See Rosiello 1967: 105 – 132 on the reasons for this long-standing conflation of Port-Royal’s

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side, in a frame that can be labelled Cartesian, is the French tradition of general grammar emerging characteristically with Port-Royal and continuing with Du Marsais and Nicolas Beauzée.⁶ Such a project aims at giving reasons for the commonalities and differences between all languages.⁷ On the other side, in line with Baconian empiricism, and blooming in the 17th and 18th centuries England, are various projects aiming philosophical languages, also known as universal languages.⁸ This stands in connection to the young Leibniz of the Dissertatio de arte combinatoria (1666) and his later thoughts about the characteristica universalis. This project involves research into scientific communication, focusing on finding a remedy for the imperfections of natural languages, and aiming at a progressive formalization. We therefore see Husserl forcing a shift that brings together the ‘grammaire générale et raisonnée’ and the ‘philosophical grammar’ as a homogeneous entity (generally named the ‘old theory’), in order to find the logic of language. Referring to it in French, Husserl makes Port-Royal the only explicit reference of this trend, Arnauld and Lancelot being for him the notable but erroneous historical predecessors, whose ideas require correction against their confusion of the a priori and the empirical.⁹ As we will see below, Marty objects to the nature of Husserl’s critique of the Port-Royal. And as we have anticipated, in the second edition of Logical Investigations, Husserl, in a note to §14, concedes that he was too categorical in the first edition:

grammar and the projects that followed, the latter of which can be traced in a continuous thread from the empiricism of Francis Bacon to the philosophical grammars and the emerging comparative linguistics. See also Porset 1977, who highlights the disregard the 19th century showed to the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the conflation of the rationalist grammar of Port-Royal and the empirical philosophical grammars.  Du Marsais 1797, vol. V: 301– 386; Beauzée 1767. As Pariente (1985: 44– 51), demonstrates, the descent from Descartes to the grammar of Port-Royal remains a well-established fact, despite the objections raised particularly by Lakoff (1969) against Chomsky (1966).  As we read in the subtitle of the Grammaire générale et raisonnée (Arnauld and Lancelot 1754, title page, transl. Rieux and Rollin: 35): “The reasons for what is common to all languages, and for the principal differences among them”. See Formigari 2001: 148.  Lodwick 1972 (1647 for the first edition); Dalgarno 1661; Kircher 1663; Wilkins 1668. On these texts, see Eco 1995: 209 – 292 and Formigari 2001: 135– 137.  See also Husserl 1913: 337; transl. Findlay: 73: “But here, as elsewhere where philosophical interests are concerned, it is important to separate the a priori sharply from the empirical, and to recognize that, within this widely conceived discipline, the findings of formal semantics relevant for grammarians have a peculiar character: they belong to an a priori discipline that should be kept apart in its purity”.

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I gladly accept A. Marty’s objections (which I do not think otherwise fit the main features of the present Investigation or the other Investigations of this work) that it was going too far, in the First Edition, to say that “all criticism of the old doctrine of grammaire générale et raisonnée only affects the obscurity of its historical forms and the confusion between the a priori and the empirical”. Nonetheless, the sharpest words of criticism were directed against it for trying to make a rational, logical element count in speech. (Husserl 1913: 338 n. 1; transl. Findlay: 352 n. 16, slightly modified)

The principal concern about the Grammaire générale et raisonnée is and remains the confusion between the a priori and the empirical.¹⁰ So Husserl is finally able to conclude §14, and thereby the 4th Logical Investigation, as follows: there is, within pure logic, a fundamental sphere relating to the pure morphology of meanings, that is to say, an ‘ideal structure’ (ideales Gerüst), absolutely fixed, filled up in different ways by empirical material from particular languages.¹¹ It must be added that, contrary to the ‘reine Grammatik’, which becomes a ‘reinlogische Grammatik’, Husserl maintains the expression ‘ideales Gerüst’ in spite of Marty’s critique. This ideal structure, as pure grammar, is what connects the ideal meanings. But what about Marty? At first sight, he seems to make (at least) two kinds of references to Port-Royal. One is found in his criticism of Husserl; the other is independent from this. The first is found in note 1 to §29: What I must take for the essential mistake of the old grammaire universelle is not, as Husserl means (op. cit. p. 319), the “mixing of the a priori and the empirical” (Vermengung von Apriorischem und Empirischem) in the theory of meaning, but, as noted above, the confusion of meaning and of form of expression (die Konfusion der Bedeutung und der Ausdrucksform), or further of the duties which lie before any attempt to solve this set of duties. (Marty 1908: 91)

Here Marty quotes the ‘grammaire universelle’ (this denomination will be discussed below), in relation to Husserl’s text; and to some extent he seems to share Husserl’s concerns about Port-Royal’s confusion. But Marty takes the historical misunderstanding to be something different. According to Husserl, the historical misunderstanding is the confusion between the a priori and the empir-

 On the different treatment of the reference between the two editions, see Kuroda 1973. According to Kuroda, Marty’s critique (of both Husserl himself and the Port-Royal’s Grammar, which he wants to replace with the innere Sprachform model) motivates Husserl to move from a mere reference in the first edition to a strong defence in the second.  On the fixity of this structure, see Husserl 1913: 339; transl. Findlay: 74: “They hold prime place over against their empirical-grammatical expressions, and resemble an absolutely fixed ideal framework (idealen Gerüst), more or less perfectly revealed in empirical disguises”.

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ical. But according to Marty, the historical misunderstanding is the confusion between the ends and the means of language, more precisely between signification (Bedeutung) and form of expression (Ausdrucksform), or, in other words, the tasks incumbent upon each language and the means adopted in order to fulfil the whole set of these tasks. Yet the aim of Port-Royal is to highlight the principles of grammar on the basis of the operations of the mind. The title of the second part is particularly clear in this regard: ‘The principles and reasons on which the various forms of the signification of words are founded’—just like its first chapter, entitled ‘That the knowledge of what occurs in our minds is necessary for understanding the foundations of grammar; and that on this depends the diversity of words which compose discourse’ (Arnauld and Lancelot 1754: 55; transl. Rieux and Rollin: 63 – 65). But here a sliding movement and a confused borderline can be observed: from the foundations of grammar, in general, to the diversity of particular languages we deal with in experience. This justifies Husserl’s critique to some degree, when he accuses Port-Royal of conflating the a priori and the empirical. Moreover, the division of the Grammaire générale et raisonnée into two parts (‘sons et caractères’ on the one side, ‘signification’ on the other), is extended to the ‘grammaire générale et raisonnée’ (which is not an art, in contrast to the mere grammaire), and ‘l’art de penser’ (‘la logique de Port-Royal’). For Port-Royal, against Husserl, logic is an art. In this regard too, Port-Royal appears to support Marty, for whom logic is the art of correct judgement. And what about Marty’s critique? It can be reconstructed as moving from the recognition of a high degree of similarity to the emergence of a relative difference. Here let us quote Chapter 1 of the second part of the Grammaire générale: And thus the greatest distinction to be made about what occurs in our minds is to say that one can consider the object of our thought on the one hand, and the form or manner of our thought, the main form being judgment, on the other hand. But one must still relate to what occurs in our mind the conjunctions, disjunctions, and other similar operations of our minds, and all the other movements of our souls, such as desires, commands, questions, etc. It follows from this that men, having had need of signs in order to mark everything that occurs in their minds, also found it necessary to draw a most general distinction among words into those that signify the objects of thoughts and those that signify the form and the manner or mode of our thoughts, although the latter often do not signify the manner alone, but only the manner in conjunction with the object, as we will show. (Arnauld and Lancelot 1754: 58 – 59; transl. Rieux and Rollin: 67– 68)

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In Port-Royal, the meanings of words can be understood as the description of the forms of our thought.¹² Here Arnauld and Marty’s positions converge because the psychological description is the basis for understanding meaning, while for Husserl reine Grammatik is the grounds of pure logic. However, Marty disagrees with Arnauld because this common feature leads the authors of Port-Royal to analyse propositions as the linguistic expression of a judgement, understood as the link between two terms: All philosophers teach that there are three operations of our minds: conceiving, judging, and reasoning. Conceiving is only the simple attention of the mind to things […]. Judging is the affirmation that a thing of which we conceive is such or is not such, as when, having conceived of what the earth is and what roundness is, I affirm of the earth that it is round. (Arnauld and Lancelot 1754: 56 – 57; transl. Rieux and Rollin: 66 – 67)¹³

According to Port-Royal, there is an isomorphism, or, to put it in Marty’s terms, a ‘parallelism’ between the operations of the mind (conceiving, judging, reasoning) and the structure of discourse (word, proposition, syllogism). However, given Marty’s (and Brentano’s) conception of existential judgements (judgements rule on the existence or non-existence of the object presented in a representation), Marty’s point should amount to saying that the Port-Royalist conception of judgement indicates that internal form and meaning have been conflated: forms of language as its means, and meaning as its end.¹⁴ The mind is not made up of concepts and (predicative) judgements, because the predicative form belongs to what Marty famously called the ‘internal linguistic form’. Opposed to the end of language, the ‘Bedeutung’, the ‘internal linguistic form’, is on the side of the means, next to the ‘external linguistic form’. The two categories build what Marty refers to as ‘Ausdrucksform’ or ‘form of the expression’. Thus, this classification reflects the drastic heterogeneity, passing through the negation of any parallelism, between the psychic level as lived (where we find judgement, as existential), and the level of the expression of the former psychic life. A similar mechanism of meeting and differentiation can be observed in communication. The authors of Port-Royal share with Marty the idea that communi-

 See also Arnauld and Lancelot 1754: 56; transl. Rieux and Rollin: 66: “This is why the different sorts of signification which are embodied in words cannot be clearly understood if what has gone on in our minds previously has not been clearly understood, since words were invented only in order to make these thoughts known”.  On this point see Pariente 1985: 29.  Cf. Majolino 2003, who argues that the core of Husserl and Marty’s debate on grammar relies on Marty’s changes of mind with regard to the conception of judgement.

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cation is crucial. For them, as well as for early modern philosophers in general, thought and language are on separate, parallel levels—to the point where it is assumed that we can think without language.¹⁵ This separation leads the authors of Port-Royal to limit language to its communicative function, thereby defining it as teleological.¹⁶ It was already a distinctive aspect of their reflection on language—in contrast to Hobbes, for example, for whom the mnemonic function is more important. From our perspective, it is also another common aspect uniting Port-Royal and Marty against Husserl, for whom the universal grammar is a pure logical grammar. Once again, this is not to say that Husserl doesn’t take communication into consideration, but the morphology of ideal meanings that he wants to offer is strictly separate from the communicational relations between psychic subjects. But again, in Port-Royal, to communicate one’s thoughts means, at least in part, restituting their form. As we have seen, the importance of the communication in Port-Royal derives from the isomorphism between language and thought —the very isomorphism, or parallelism, that is rejected by Marty. This same critique is also addressed against Husserl. In fact, Marty offers three kinds of critique of Husserl: (a) A historiographical critique (as we have seen): the main conflation made by the old universal grammars is not that of the a priori and the empirical, but of meaning and form of expression. In other words, the most problematic conflation does not concern modes of acquisition or the value of grammatical truths (a priori or empirical), but the ends and means of language; (b) Husserl is guilty of this conflation: the reine Grammatik is a pure morphology of significations, whereas the Martyan allgemeine Grammatik separates a morphology of psychic experiences and the linguistic means used to signify them, although meaning as ideal entities are not states of mind; (c) Husserl is also guilty of thinking of meanings as ideal entities. In other words, he reifies and Platonises meanings. Throughout grammatical a priori, we find relations of communication, and, on the other hand, the pure morphology of meanings, which consists of reified entities. Marty argues against that in the allgemeine Grammatik, which is not pure, as opposed to the ‘a priori’ of grammar and the ‘ideal’ of the ‘Gerüst’. The most important part of the general grammar is that it is known empirically and not a priori, so

 Arnauld and Nicole 2012: 38; transl. Buroker: 23: “If reflections on our thoughts never concerned anyone but ourselves, it would be enough to examine them in themselves, unclothed in words or other signs”.  Brekle 1964: 104. See also Swiggers 1981: 268.

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the name ‘general grammar’ is more appropriate than the name ‘pure (or a priori) grammar’ (Marty 1908, 58). These remarks throw some light on the debate. But let us come back to Marty’s text and to the note to §29. We should observe the shift from the ‘grammaire générale et raisonnée’ mentioned by Husserl to the ‘grammaire universelle’ mentioned by Marty (note that Husserl had talked about universelle Grammatik in German). This suggests that Marty’s critique is pointedly against universal grammar and not against the Port-Royalist project in particular. So, in spite of the obvious francophone accents of the references, both in Husserl and Marty, with special mention of the Port-Royal context, are they both talking about the same old idea of general grammar? Do they really share the same reference? As we have seen, Marty’s critique seems to be justified when applied to Port-Royal, but there is perhaps a better target, closer to Husserl’s view.

4 An alternative target: Grammatica speculativa The idea of a general grammar does not originate in Port-Royal. Indeed, in addition to the Grammaire générale et raisonnée by Arnauld and Lancelot, Marty himself, in anticipation of the general descriptive semasiology (which he refers to in this context as a ‘philosophical grammar’), quotes not only Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias and the analysis of equivocity due to the Stagirite, but also the Stoics, the Scholastics in general, the third book of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and the corresponding parts of Leibniz’s Nouveaux Essais (Marty 1908: 67– 69). Examining each of these references would undoubtedly be useful. Leibniz in particular would be interesting, given the predominance of French-language references, and the significance of the mathesis for Husserl.¹⁷ But here we will go further back, to a reference that matches both Marty’s scholastic background and Husserl’s reification of meanings. Could Marty, in the debate with Husserl, and by referring in general to the Scholastics, have been referring to the grammatica speculativa? And what type of link exists between this medieval movement and Husserl’s view on pure grammar? There are several things to consider here.

 For other references concerning the notion of a ‘general grammar’, see Breva-Claramonte 1978: 362– 366.

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First of all, Port-Royal’s idea of general grammar is anticipated by this grammatica speculativa, namely a Parisian movement alive from the 13th to the beginning of the 14th century. Such a movement includes the group of philosophers known as the Modistae. ¹⁸ The most famous authors belonging to this movement are Boethius of Dacia (De Modis significandi) and Thomas of Erfurt (Grammatica Speculativa).¹⁹ The speculative grammar is the fruit of an infiltration of dialectic into grammar after the end of the 12th century. It has its precursors in Roger Bacon and pseudo-Kilwardby, who anticipated grammar as a full-fledged science and not a simple art.²⁰ They also put forward the idea that grammar is unique, while all particular languages are accidental variations thereof. But most of all, they supported the idea of an isomorphism between spheres of language, thought, and things. On the one side there is generally a continuous thread, as highlighted by Marty himself, that can be traced from the Aristotelian idea that mental concepts, like things, are the same for everyone, while words are different (Peri Hermeneias 16a), to the medieval and modern ideas of universal grammar (Marty 1908: 67). On the other side, there is a—narrower—strong connection between the Modist idea of a grammatica speculativa and Port-Royal’s idea of a grammaire générale et raisonnée. This link is stressed in reaction to the idea of a generative grammar formulated by Chomsky in reference to Port-Royal, and is developed in terms of revival and diversity. Against the thesis that there is one idea of general grammar, from Port-Royal to Humboldt, it has been argued that there are contrasting ideas of universal grammars, from Antiquity to today.²¹ But getting back to Marty and Husserl, reference must be made to Martin Grabmann, who in 1926 established a parallel between these authors and the speculative grammar.²² Grabmann’s main claim is that the interdisciplinarity of medieval logic (which brings together semantics, ontology, and philosophy of mind) is better understood if considered as a Sprachphilosophie, whose

 See Pinborg 1967; Bursill-Hall 1971: 37– 42; Salus 1976; Rosier 1983: 13 – 70; Rosier-Catach 1999, 2010; and Marmo 1994: 137– 159.  We can also refer to Martin of Dacia, John of Dacia, Simon of Dacia, Siger de Courtrai, and all the authors of De Modis significandi. Before the Modist period, we can refer to the twelfth-century Parisian grammatical masters: William of Conches, Peter Helias, and Ralph of Beauvais, who systematically revised the ancient grammars of Donatus and Priscian.  On the difference between Bacon and the Modists, see also Rosier 1984: 31: “Si l’universalité posée par les Modistes est nécessaire à leur conception de la science et se trouve donc posée a priori, celle que défendait Bacon était au contraire a posteriori et dépendait d’une analyse philologique”.  This is the claim of Joly and Stefanini 1977. Cf. Chomsky 1966.  Grabmann 1926.

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model is provided in the Austro-German philosophical context of the beginning of the 20th century.²³ More specifically, in my view, among the many authors Grabmann quotes (Humboldt, Becker, Lazarus, Geiger, Steinthal, Delbrück, Paul, Vossler, Zoppi, etc.), he turns most often to Marty and Husserl. From the various authors mentioned above, Grabmann cites Marty first.²⁴ The links between his work and Port-Royal are stressed, before Grabmann points to his proximity to the speculative grammarians. So in Grabmann’s account of Marty, a contrast emerges between linking grammar and logic (Port-Royal) and conceiving logic as a Sprachphilosophie (medieval logic). Grabmann develops Husserl’s case even further. Here he is clearly influenced by the recent publication of Heidegger’s Habilitationsschrift, which, as is well known, in the second part develops pseudo-Scotus’ treatise De modi significandi along phenomenological, Husserlian lines. It was Grabmann in fact who corrected the Heideggerian attribution to Scotus, pointing instead to Thomas of Erfurt.²⁵ But the idea that the speculative grammar is relevant for the Husserlian notion of an a priori grammar nevertheless gains ground. More specifically, I think that the speculative grammar, defined by the idea of an isomorphism between spheres of language, thought, and things, seems to highlight once again Marty’s point in the debate with Husserl. Indeed, in many Modist texts, one finds claims of a parallelism between the linguistic sphere (‘modes of signifying’, modi significandi), intellectual sphere (‘modes of understanding’, modi intelligendi) and ontological sphere (‘modes of being’, modi essendi). Now, what Marty rejects is precisely this isomorphic reflection, according to which historical-natural languages vary accidentally but all present the same structure in the parts of discourse. According to the Modist view, we all share the same innate, logical grammatical structure. Let us quote Boethius of Dacia: [A]ll languages are a single grammar. The reason for this is that the whole grammar is derived from things […] and because the natures of things are similar for all, so the modes of being and the modes of understanding are similar for all those who speak these different languages, and consequently the modes of signifying are similar, and therefore the modes of constructing or of speaking are similar. And so the whole grammar, which is in one lan-

 Grabmann 1926: 104– 106 (mostly). This idea is reiterated in de Libera 1986. See also Holenstein 1990: 89 and Cesalli 2010, 2015: 249.  Grabmann 1926: 104, quotes Marty 1893 and 1918.  Heidegger 1916. Cf. Grabmann 1926: 120 – 121. See also Roesner 2013: 226 – 229 and Zupko 2015.

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guage, is similar to that which is in another language. (Boethius of Dacia 1969: 12; my translation)²⁶

Both Marty and Husserl would agree with Boethius and with his claim that grammar is identical in everyone, beyond the diversity of particular languages. The sticking point lies in the next sentence, which grounds the first claim in an ontological motivation. Such a universality does not primarily belong to our mental life, but to being: to things, which are the same for all of us. According to Marty, however, it is not up to ontology to decide on modes of meaning, but to psychology, or more precisely, to an ontology of the psyche. From the Modist point of view, the universality of grammar is based on the structure of reality. In such a scheme, each grammatical category must correspond to a real property. And so grammar can be said to be a science of the a priori, deducted from properties of things. Since ontology plays a role in determining grammatical invariances, a strong link between the Modists and Husserl is visible here. Indeed, Husserlian pure grammar has an ontological status in the sense that it gives access to categories. If logical categories can be obtained from grammar understood as articulation, i. e. composition, governed by certain laws of correct formation, this means that grammar is ontological. Of course, the categories that emerge from grammar are precisely logical categories. For Husserl, the ontology at stake is formal, as the ontology of ideal meanings, and not real, as it is for the Modists. The universal grammar of Husserl is based on the laws of meaning, and that of the Modists on the laws of being; even if inside the Husserlian mathesis, the two terms will merge. The fact remains that Husserl, like the Modists, and unlike Marty, reified meanings in order to enable ‘categoriality’.²⁷ In both cases, this is an isomorphic foundation that justifies the universality of signification (and methodologically, for the speculative grammarians, the right to limit their examples to a unique particular language: Latin). Moreover, it gives grammar the status of a science —the Modists refer to Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics: a science is a discipline different from another, defined by the fact that it has its own principles and its own object. Grammar, for speculative grammarians, although human, is a discovery and not an arbitrary invention, it is ultimately based, as an instrument, on ontological properties (Boethius of Dacia 1969: 20 – 25).²⁸  Cf. Meier-Oeser 1997: 74.  On the opposition between Marty and Husserl (and Frege), as regards the reification of meanings, see Mulligan 1990: 13 – 15. On the grammatical ‘categoriality’ of Husserl, see Benoist 2002: 96 – 97, and for more detail 1997, Chap. 4.  See also Formigari 2001: 108.

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This is the reason why, in Marty’s critique, the denomination ‘grammaire universelle’ (and not only general grammar), understood in a very strong sense, correctly applies to the grammatica speculativa. In any case, it applies to the grammatica speculativa much better than it does to the grammaire générale. To that extent, speculative grammar could be closer to Husserl’s reine Grammatik than Port-Royal; and it seems a plausible target for Marty’s critique of what he calls grammaire universelle. Obviously, my claim here is not that it is a material reference, that is, that there is a causal relation between speculative grammar and Husserl’s and Marty’s standpoints on general grammar. Work on the concrete influences is yet to be undertaken. Nevertheless, especially in Husserl’s case—since unlike Marty he does not have a scholastic education—one might find only a very indirect influence.²⁹ In contrast, in this paper my intention is to stress a conceptual similarity and some structural relations between the grammatica speculativa and what Husserl and Marty, in different ways, had in mind when they spoke of an allgemeine Grammatik.

5 Coming back to Marty and Husserl As we have seen, Husserl’s critique targets the conflation of the a priori and the empirical, whereas Marty deals with the conflation of meaning and forms of expression. But while Husserl’s critique explicitly targets the project of Port-Royal, Marty’s reference to the ‘grammaire universelle’ gradually turns into a critique, without precisely naming its historical object, against something that can be structurally identified as the Modist project of an ontologically based ‘speculative grammar’. In conclusion, let us make two types of cross-reference: between Husserl and Marty, and between each of them and Port-Royal’s grammar and grammatica speculativa. First, Marty offers two critiques of Husserl, pointing to: 1. the conflation of meaning as the end of language and forms of expression as its means; 2. the consideration of meanings as ideal entities, whereby in Husserl logic is a pure logic, i. e. the a priori science of meanings and their laws of composition. Husserl, on his side, used an explicit reference to Port-Royal. He criticises the 17th century movement for conflating the a priori and the empirical, and it is

 Other texts are much closer, and in both cases are much more probable material sources of this idea. An obvious example is Brentano (1895: 34), who proposes his descriptive psychology as a basis for a characteristica universalis, with reference to Descartes and Leibniz.

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from this critique that he can move from the ‘grammaire générale’ to a universal grammar, namely a pure morphology of meanings, whose sphere is universally valid but limited. In this sense, Marty appears, at first, to stand in contrast to Husserl in defending the denomination of a ‘general grammar’ as found in Port-Royal. But the dispute leads him from a Husserlian critique of a conflation of the a priori and the empirical to one of the conflation of the ends and the means of language, i. e. between meaning and forms of expression. Now, in so doing, Marty duplicates the reference in a reverse movement: the critique is no longer addressed to Port-Royal’s grammaire générale, but to a universal grammar whose historical origin is unclear. Among various candidates for this historical origin, the grammatica speculativa is a good one, given Marty’s scholastic background, and to the extent that the immediate reception (of which Grabmann is an example) of both Marty and Husserl captures the similarities between them. But above all, this paper demonstrates that shifting the reference is a way for Marty to give another formulation of his critique of Husserl: laws of general grammar are not derived from things, in the frame of a material ontology (as the Modists claim), nor from the frame of a formal ontology (as Husserl would have it), but from a descriptive psychology. This paper does not deal with the question of whether the speculative grammar is actually Marty’s historical target in his debate with Husserl. I have simply suggested this by highlighting its conceptual likelihood. But above all, the introduction of this candidate has allowed us to disentangle the debate and to highlight its salient points. It has been suggested, finally, that there is still a lot to learn from Marty’s references to the history of philosophy.

References Arnauld, A. and Lancelot, C. (1975), General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar, edited and translated by J. Rieux and B. Rollin, The Hague, Mouton. Arnauld, A. (1754), Grammaire générale et raisonnée, Paris, Prault. Arnauld, A. and Nicole, P. (1996), Logic or the Art of Thinking, edited and translated by J. V. Buroker, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Arnauld, A. and Nicole, P. (2012), La Logique ou l’art de penser, edited by P. Clair and F. Girbal, Paris, Vrin. Beauzée, N. (1767), Grammaire générale ou exposition raisonnée des éléments nécessaires du langage, pour servir de fondement à l’étude de toutes les langues, Paris; reprinted 1974, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, F. Frommann Verlag. Benoist, J. (1997), Phénoménologie, sémantique, ontologie: Husserl et la tradition logique autrichienne, Paris, P.U.F.

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Benoist, J. (2002), ‘The Question of Grammar in Logical Investigations, with Special Reference to Brentano, Marty, Bolzano and Later Developments in Logic’, in Phenomenology World-Wide. Foundations—Expanding Dynamics—Life-Engagements. A Guide for Research and Study, edited by A.-T. Tymieniecka, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 94 – 97. Boethius of Dacia (1969), De modis significandi sive quaestiones super Priscianum Maiorem, edited by J. Pinborg, H. Roos and S. S. Jensen, ‘Corpus philosophorum danicorum medii aevi 4’, Copenhagen, G. E. C. Gad. Brekle, H. E. (1964), ‘Semiotik und linguistische Semantik in Port-Royal’, Indogermanische Forschungen 69 (2), p. 103 – 121. Brentano, F. (1895), Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich, Stuttgart, Cotta. Breva-Claramonte, M. (1978), ‘The Sign and the Notion of “General” Grammar in Sanctius and Port-Royal’, Semiotica 24 (3 – 4), p. 353 – 370. Bursill-Hall, G. L. (1971), Speculative Grammar of the Middle Ages: The Doctrine of ‘Partes Orationis’ in the Modistae, The Hague, Mouton. Cesalli, L. (2010), ‘Medieval Logic as Sprachphilosophie’, Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 52, p. 117 – 152. Cesalli, L. (2015), ‘Meaning in Action. Anton Marty’s Pragmatic Semantics’, in Linguistic Content. New Essays on the History of Philosophy of Language, edited by M. Cameron and R. Stainton, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 245 – 265. Chomsky, N. (1966), Cartesian Linguistics. A Chapter in the History of Rationalistic Thought, New York, Harper & Row. Dalgarno, G. (1661), Ars signorum vulgo character universalis et lingua philosophica, London, J. Hayes; reprinted 1974, London, Scolar Press. Du Marsais, C. C. (1797), Logique, ou Réflexions sur les principales opérations de l’esprit, Œuvres, Paris, De l’Imprimerie de Pougin, p. 301 – 386. Eco, U. (1995), The Search for the Perfect Language, translated by J. Fentress, Oxford, Blackwell. Formigari, L. (2001), Il linguaggio. Storia delle teorie, Roma, Editori Laterza. Grabmann, M. (1926), ‘Die Entwicklung der mittelalterlichen Sprachlogik’, in M. Grabmann, Mittelalterliches Geistesleben, vol. I, München, M. Huber, p. 104 – 146. Heidegger, M. (1916), Die Kategorien- und Bedeutungslehre des Duns Scotus, Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr; reprinted in Heidegger, M. (1972), Frühe Schriften, Frankfurt, Vittorio Klostermann, p. 130 – 375. Holenstein, E. (1990), ‘Classical and Modern Work on Universals: The Philosophical Background and Marty’s Contribution’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 89 – 102. Husserl, E. (1901), ‘Selbstanzeigen. Husserl, Edmund, Logische Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. Halle a. S., Max Niemeyer, 1901, XVI und 718 S’., Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 25, p. 260 – 263. Husserl, E. (1913), Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band, Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, I. Teil (2nd edition), Halle, Max Niemeyer. Husserl, E. (2001), Logical Investigations, translated by J. N. Findlay, edited by D. Moran, vol. II, London, Routledge.

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Joly, A. and Stefanini, J. (eds.) (1977), La Grammaire générale. Des Modistes aux Idéologues, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Publications de l’Université de Lille 3. de Libera, A. (1986), ‘La logique du moyen âge comme logique naturelle (Sprachlogik)’ in Sprachphilosophie in Antike und Mittelalter. Bochumer Kolloquium, 2.–4. Juni 1982, edited by B. Mojsisch, Amsterdam, Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie, p. 403 – 437. Kircher, A. (1663), Polygraphia nova et universalis ex combinatoria arte detecta, Romae, Ex typographia Varesij. Kuroda, S. Y. (1973), ‘Edmund Husserl, Grammaire Générale et Raisonnée and Anton Marty’, Foundations of Language 10 (2), p. 169 – 195. Lakoff, R. (1969), ‘La grammaire générale et raisonnée ou la Grammaire de Port-Royal’, in History of Linguistic Thought and contemporary Linguistics, edited by H. Parret, Berlin, De Gruyter, p. 348 – 373. Leibniz, G. W. (1880), Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria, in Philosophische Schriften IV, edited by C. I. Gerhardt, Berlin, Weidmann; reprinted 1960, Hildesheim, Olms, p. 27 – 104. Leibniz, G. W. (1966), Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement humain, edited by J. Brunschwig, Paris, Garnier-Flammarion. Lodwick, F. (1972), A Common Writing, in The Works of Francis Lodwick: A Study of his Writings in the Intellectual Context of the Seventeenth Century, edited by V. Salmon, London, Longman. Majolino, C. (2003), ‘Le différend logique: jugement et énoncé. Éléments pour une reconstruction du débat entre Husserl et Marty’, Studia Phaenomenologica III (1 – 2), p. 135 – 153. Marmo, C. (1994), Semiotica e linguaggio nella scolastica: Parigi, Bologna, Erfurt 1270 – 1330. La semiotica dei Modisti, Roma, Nella sede dell’Istituto Palazzo Borromini. Marty, A. (1893), ‘Über das Verhältnis von Grammatik und Logik’, Symbolae Pragenses, p. 99 – 126. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. vol. I, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Marty, A. (1918), ‘Schriften zur deskriptiven Psychologie und Sprachphilosophie’, in Gesammelte Schriften II.1, edited by J. Eisenmeier, A. Kastil and O. Kraus, Halle, Max Niemeyer. Meier-Oeser, S. (1997), Die Spur des Zeichens. Das Zeichen und seine Funktion in der Philosophie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, Berlin, De Gruyter. Mulligan, K. (1990), ‘Marty’s Philosophical Grammar’, in Mind, Meaning and Metaphysics. The Philosophy and Theory of Language of Anton Marty, edited by K. Mulligan, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 11 – 27. Pariente, J.-C. (1985), L’analyse du langage à Port-Royal, Paris, Les éditions de Minuit. Parret, H. (1976), ‘Le débat de la psychologie et de la logique concernant le langage: Marty et Husserl’, in History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics, edited by H. Parret, Berlin, De Gruyter, p. 732 – 771. Pinborg, J. (1967), Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter, Münster, Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Porset, C. (1977), ‘Grammatica philosophans. Les sciences du langage de Port-Royal aux Idéologues (1660 – 1818). Bibliographie’, in La Grammaire générale. Des modistes aux Idéologues, edited by A. Joly and J. Stefanini, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Publications de l’Université de Lille 3, p. 11 – 96.

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Roesner, M. (2013), ‘Duns Scot et la phénoménologie’, in La réception de Duns Scot,/Die Rezeption des Duns Scotus/Scotism through the Centuries, Proceedings of ‘The Quadruple Congress’ on John Duns Scotus, part 4, edited by M. Dreyer, E. Mehl, and M. Vollet, Münster–New-York, Aschendorff Verlag–Franciscan Institute Publications, p. 221 – 232. Rosiello, L. (1967), Linguistica illuminista, Bologna, Il Mulino. Rosier-Catach, I. (1999), ‘Modisme, pré-modisme, proto-modisme: pour une définition modulaire’, in Medieval Analyses in Language and Cognition, edited by S. Ebbesen and R. Friedman, Copenhagen, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, p. 45 – 81. Rosier-Catach, I. (2010), ‘Grammar’, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy. 2 vols., edited by R. Pasnau, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p. 197 – 207. Rosier, I. (1983), La grammaire spéculative des modistes, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille. Rosier, I. (1984), ‘Grammaire, logique, sémantique. Deux positions opposées au XIIIe siècle: Roger Bacon et les Modistes’, Histoire Epistémologie Langage 6, p. 21 – 34. Salus, P. H. (1976), ‘Universal Grammar 1000 – 1850’, in History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics, edited by H. Parret, Berlin, De Gruyter, p. 85 – 101. Swiggers, P. (1981), ‘La théorie du signe à Port-Royal’, Semiotica 35 (3 – 4), p. 267 – 285. Wilkins, J. (1668), An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, London, S. Gellibrand and J. Martyn; reprinted 1968, Menston, Scolar Press. Zupko, J. (2015), ‘Thomas of Erfurt’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/erfurt/, last accessed 25th January 2017.

Savina Raynaud

Anton Marty’s Heritage – From Philosophy to Linguistics: Dissemination and Theory Testing Abstract: The paper aims to reveal some of the main features of Marty’s thought, while investigating both its original environment and its area of influence—from the closest, Swiss educational context to the remotest outcomes developed in Far-East linguistics and philosophy. Marty’s Austrian editor, the Anglicist Otto Funke, is examined, on the basis of a number of common features regarding education and his important role in dissemination.

1 Remote premises of an educational framework If it had simply been a detail in Marty’s biography, it could easily have been missed. However, the presence of two identical points in the curricula of two different, though related, authors—one the author and the other his editor—cannot be overlooked. They suggest a rather strong parallelism, which deserves careful inquiry. The facts may be recounted as follows. Anton Marty was a student at the Benedictine Abbey School of Einsiedeln (in the Swiss Canton of Schwyz) from 1863 to 1865¹ (from 16 to 18 years of age), while Otto Funke (1885 – 1973), the Austrian editor of his posthumous works, was a student at the Benedictine Abbey School in Kremsmünster (in Upper Austria),² from 1895 to 1903 (where he took his Matura).³

 Information received from the Monastery of Einsiedeln (from Pater Alois Kurmann, thanks to Johannes Eichrodt, Rektor der Stiftsschule Einsiedeln, 31.12.14). Before going to Einsiedeln, Marty attended school in the cantonal College of his town, Schwyz. The history of the school is summarised at the following web page: https://kks.ch/schule/portraet/geschichte/. See also Kälin: 1981.  Horst Weinstock, the author of Otto Funke’s Obituary, wrote in 1975 in Historiographia Linguistica that Funke was ‘born in Salzburg on 2 October 1885 and brought up in the culturally stimulating atmosphere of Mozart’s birthplace’. He explains that ‘the boy was soon imbued with a lifelong love of the violin and the fine arts’ (Weinstock 1975: 405). Funke received his secondary education at Kremsmünster, a Benedictine grammar school which carried on the tradition of the late 8th century abbey with Tassilo’s chalice still among its relics. Afterwards, he went up to Vienna for his undergraduate studies under Karl Luick (an anglicist) (1865 – 1935). Funke took up his postgraduate studies of philosophy and modern philology (another great opportunity, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-016

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It is not only this clear fact, but also the enduring devotion to linguistic and language studies shared by the two, together with some original, unconventional features of their scientific creations, which intrigue the observer, who is eager to understand not only the facts but also their background. A first question arises when we first consider the role that grammar plays in Marty’s project, and likewise in Funke’s personal research. They both appear to be familiar with the wide genre of grammatical studies, from descriptive to normative studies, from single- to multiple-language comparisons, from present-day to historical accounts, from general vs. universal to philosophical grammars. This familiarity is noticed and appreciated in reviews of their works. It is even more surprising if we consider that such familiarity cannot be taken for granted as typical for a philosopher or for a linguist, not even a century ago. On the contrary, it allows the bridging of traditional gaps which in the Modern Age separate what in the Middle Ages was literally ‘trivial’, i. e. belonged to the Trivium—Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic (Logic⁴)—which all concern the forms and power of logos and logoi, human speech investigated from its minimal units up to its highest, communicative performances. This testifies to the absence of an assumed break between classical and living languages, and to a plausible encounter between linguistic (outer and inner) forms⁵ and their meanings, both intentional on the part of the speaker and acknowledged on the part of the receiver. But it is a surprise if compared to the more fragmented, strictly separate issue of studies concerning language and languages at stake in the 19th- and the turn of the 20th century.

that of uniting a Hauptfach and a Nebenfach in the German academic system) in Munich in the days of Theodor Lipps (1851– 1914) (the philosopher and psychologist) and Hermann Paul (1846 – 1921) (the linguist), and completed his doctoral thesis in 1907 (Funke 1907: Kasus-Syntax bei Orrm und Layamon). In 1911, Dr. Otto Funke was elected ‘imperial and royal master at a grammar school’ in Prague. After his Habilitation in 1914 (Funke 1914: Die gelehrten lateinischen Lehnund Fremdwörter in der altenglischen Literatur [Von der Mitte des 10. Jahrhundert bis um 1066]), the German University of the Bohemian capital called him to join its teaching staff. Although World War I had ended the Dual Danube Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, it did not interrupt the promising scholar’s university career. In 1926, Switzerland invited him to occupy a chair at the University of Bern (Weinstock 1975: 405).  Information received from the Monastery of Kremsmünster, from Pater Petrus Schuster OSB.  See Köhn 1986: 257– 265. The traditional name during high Scholasticism was dialectica, but the new term logica did not signify anything more. Earlier, the term dialectica did not represent the entirety of logic, but only the Topics, i. e. it dealt with non-demonstrative argumentation.  The notions of outer and inner form are of Humboldtian origin: outer forms are the phonic (phonetic, phonologic, prosodic) or graphic signifiers, while, put simply, inner forms are the etyma. See Chabrolle-Cerretini and Raynaud 2015 and the corresponding bibliography.

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While reading Funke’s obituary, I discovered that it contained diverse, unusually connected research fields, namely those of linguistics and literature, philosophy and philology, and classic and modern languages.⁶ Funke’s early, intensive training in the humanities left a clear mark on his personality and scholarship. He had a thorough command of the classical authors. He would, of course, document Latin passages and smoothly incorporate them without quotation marks, because textual loans appeared familiar to him and therefore as natural utterances in his native, written language. He never ceased investigating ad fontes, inspecting medieval manuscripts and early printed editions with his own eyes. A faithful, though alert and critical disciple of Kremsmünster, he strove to preserve and augment the enduring values of classical as well as Christian humanism, especially their Anglo-Saxon versions since the Venerable Bede. However, he had also learned to distinguish cunning clerics and church machinery from honest faith and obedient servants of the Lord. At an early stage, Professor Funke entered the sane middle ground between a scholar’s devoted isolation—very much resembling Marty’s attitude, it has to be said—and his permanent worldwide outlook. He always abided by the fundamental laws of research, regarding advancement of learning as slow and steady progress, weighing modernisms against secure positions, and rejecting all detached views that ignored the possibly wider framework of their connections. This resolve protected him from ever going so far as to hunt after insignificant particulars or to adhere to odd theories. For him, English language and literature formed an organic whole that also encompassed the pertinent ancillary studies. He thus showed mastery in both branches of philology, as was first reflected in a brief guide for university students of English, which he drafted in 1923. He was an expert in Old, Middle, and Modern English literature. Yet in his innermost being, Funke gave preference to linguistics. He considered language to be the ’gateway’ to the profession of letters. (Weinstock 1975: 405 – 406) From 1924 [or rather, 1923] until 1965 [more than 40 years], Otto Funke undertook quite an unusual editorship. He secured the publication of the philosophical and semasiological writings left behind by Anton Marty. (Weinstock 1975: 406)

Nearly ten years after his Habilitation, in 1923 Funke published ‘Über Prinzipienfragen der Sprachwissenschaft (Unter Benutzung eines nachgelassenen unveröffentlichten Fragments von A. Marty)’,⁷ and in 1924, Innere Sprachform: Eine Einführung in A. Martys Sprachphilosophie. ⁸ Following this, three volumes were published, namely Marty’s ‘Nachgelassene Schriften’, edited by Funke between 1926 and 1940 and then re-edited between 1940 and 1965: Satz und Wort: Eine

 See Funke 1965: 137– 142 for Funke’s bibliography. See also Koerner 1975.  Englische Studien 57: 161– 186.  Kraus 1924.

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kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der üblichen grammatischen Lehre und ihren Begriffsbestimmungen (Reichenberg, Stiegel, 1926; new ed., Bern, A. Francke, 1950); Ueber Wert und Methode einer allgemeinen beschreibenden Bedeutungslehre (Reichenberg, Stiegel, 1926; new ed., Bern, A. Francke, 1950), and Psyche und Sprachstruktur (Bern, A. Francke, 1940; 2nd ed., 1965). This last work shows a smooth transition from the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind or, rather, an evident grounding of the philosophy of language in psychology. The question is then the following: would it be sufficient to attend a Gymnasium to go beyond these ‘epistemological ruptures’? Our answer tends to be in the negative, in spite of the fact that the first interpretation of what ‘grammar school’ may signify in the framework of a Benedictine College, coming from the same Kremstmünster Abbey, was exactly that: ‘grammar school’ in Funke’s obituary is a current translation of ‘Gymnasium’ into English.⁹ Although it is true that even the most ancient and greatest cultural institutions have to obey certain worldly criteria, such as the legal value of school qualifications, we cannot avoid examining some basic features of the Benedictine setting and millennial tradition.¹⁰ We take these sketchy outlines from a classical source, Dom Jean Leclercq’s well-known book L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu (1957), and from a more recent contribution by Pater Ulrich Faust OSB (1997), who in turn refers to Leclercq’s claims. Ultimately, it is up to the reader to evaluate how closely or differently inspired the Humboldtian Gymnasium proves to be when compared to a Benedictine high school.¹¹  From Kremsmünster (P. Petrus Schuster OSB, Stiftsbibliothekar und -archivar) I received this reply: “From the name of the school, no emphasis on grammar [Grammatik-Schwerpunkt] can be derived. The weight placed on Latin and Greek, and the grammar of both languages was, of course, the basic teaching in the lower classes. Living languages were also offered only as free subjects. Otto Funke had chosen Italian in the 6th and 7th classes. He did not learn English and French at school”.  I received more detailed information by P. Alois Kurmann OSB at Einsiedeln: “there are records of two Patres from Einsiedeln, which deal with the matter of grammar in Benedictine schools. One is P. Gall Morel (1803 – 1872), Head of the Gymnasium, who writes about Marty: ‘Eximis dotibus praeditus’ (excellently talented). The other is P. Romuald Banz, Rector of the Gymnasium 1916 – 1941. Many writings of these two Patres have been published because they took part in public debates on school and educational matters. However, in the Archive of Einsiedeln there are non-printed records of the two Patres, named ‘der literarische Nachlass’ (shelfmark EM and GM), which are at researchers’ disposal”.  See Cramer 1919. There are two different ideals which respectively nourished the Humboldtian design of classical studies and the Benedictine educational model, first operating within the monasteries themselves. We should recall Humboldt’s celebrated Latium und Hellas (1806 – 1807) and Benedict’s rule Ora et labora (the Rule dating as far as first middle of the 6th century), to-

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We feel strongly sympathetic with Hélène Leblanc’s inquiries regarding the historical roots of the Marty–Husserl debate on grammar (Allgemeine Grammatik —Grammaire générale—Grammatica speculativa). Something similar was carried out by Funke: ‘the long established scholar at Berne has left a most valuable synopsis of medieval and post-medieval grammatical classifications’ (Funke 1954, quoted in Weinstock 1975: 409). More generally, we intend to move towards the standpoint of a more critically aware reconstruction that is able to show a hidden continuity (or rather to highlight a fallacious claim of sharp discontinuity, or radical novelty) between certain philosophical instances of the 19th century and other instances, which were already debated in medieval times. We see this when we turn to scholars such as Sofia Vanni Rovighi, Paul Vignaux, Alain De Libera, Laurent Cesalli, Katherine Tachau, Robert Pasnau, and Dominik Perler. However, beyond the evidence of a number of theoretical convergences, we are inclined to believe that there are cultural and educational premises that imbued the temperaments of our two authors during their years as internal students at their respective colleges. It is often insufficient to trace only the university years in tracking a person’s education. In those early years, the environment they experienced may have been described in this way: All that constitutes the monastic education can, as it were, be presented and summarised in two words: grammar and eschatology. On the one hand, what is needed is the literary education, in order to come closer to God and to become equipped to express what is perceived about him. On the other hand, because of the striving for eternal life, what is needed is to constantly overcome the literary training. (Leclercq 1957: 17, quoted in Faust 1997: 81)

We may also recall the Epistola de litteris colendis, addressed by Charles the Great to the Abbot of Fulda, a programmatic piece of writing of the Carolingian Renaissance. Moreover, how could one fail to notice that an emblematic Benedictine author such as Anselm of Canterbury (d’Aosta) wrote, after his Monologion and Proslogion, other treatises among which is a text entitled De grammatico? Scriptoria and libraries visibly condensed the daily monastic work of reading and writing.¹² L’amour des lettres, in point of fact, reminds us that grammar takes its name (i. e. owes its inner linguistic form) from letters (grammata), that is, from the written form that objectifies our skill of speaking and which allows literature—Sacra

gether with its service to Divine Scriptures, and libraries and scriptoria as complementary resources.  Faust 1997: 81, 83, 84, 93, 113, 114.

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Scriptura as well as humanae litterae—to be shaped in a lasting way. Litterae and Scripturae suggest the notorious, gradual, and intimate monastic ascent of lectio, meditatio (cogitatio, consideratio), and oratio, which were more familiar to our authors than the more academic triplet, lectio, quaestio, and disputatio. ¹³ Marty would focus much more on written sources than on oral conversations, and on classical and modern Western languages than on the Czech speech that surrounded him throughout the second half of his life—speech that would have prevailed to such an extent, even in the cultivated milieu of Prague, that two years after he had been called (in 1880) to the German-speaking Universitas Carolina—founded in 1348 by Charles IV—i. e. in 1882, the University would be evenly divided into two parts, or rather, split into two Universities, recognisable as German and Czech by ear.

2 Epistemological implications of an empirical and functional standpoint Marty’s silence and apparent disregard of the Czech-speaking community— which would change the country a great deal, as would become evident immediately after WWI, too late to be witnessed by Marty—seems however to be better explained by an overly shy attitude than by true hostility. If we focus, however, on the theoretical side of Marty’s commitment rather than on his personal attitudes towards his milieu, Marty’s choice to identify his own theoretical perspective as empiricist-teleological deserves careful examination. ‘Empiricist’: trusting experience and depending on it does not mean relying on experience exclusively.¹⁴ Beyond Franz Brentano’s ‘empirical standpoint’—a programmatic pronouncement concerning his contribution to psychology, which had already influenced Marty’s Würzburg years under Brentano’s supervision—we must also mention Hermann Lotze’s (1817– 1881) critical realism at Göttingen,¹⁵ where Marty had been one of Lotze’s doctoral students (1875). Em-

 Leclercq 1957: 17, 23 – 24, 41, 42– 43 n. 4, 70 – 72.  Raynaud 1982: 55 – 102, especially 77; cf. also the fourth part of Cesalli and Friedrich 2014: 237– 330 devoted to ‘Empirical approaches to language’, with papers by Samain, Moeschler and Knobloch.  See Lotze 1880: §340. Lotze opposes ‘sachlich, aber doch nicht dinghaft uns gegebenen Inhalte’ while asserting that ‘[i]n mathematics, where we do not have to deal with things (Dinge) or essences, where practical philosophy and jurisprudence speak about virtue and crime, or that which should or should not be, furthermore where in life an important decision

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pirical and empiristic are not really synonyms, given the due respect to metaphysics (bestowed by metaphysicians like Lotze, Brentano, and Marty themselves), whose inferred entities transcend sense-experience. However, beyond any terminological choice, it seems clear that Marty is extremely keen on evaluating accurate descriptions,¹⁶ the richness and variety of data, and a multiplicity of approaches even to a single task.¹⁷ Moreover, Marty is eager to update the status questionis related to the many subjects he is dealing with. If readers of his works encounter a large number of detailed discussions and a great quantity of bitter criticism, Marty always develops his own claim before making it explicit, thus challenging readers’ patience, and this proves that he does not avoid debates and quarrels, which are better viewed through the distance of the printed page. Rather, he is willing to meet disciples and to reserve time for them beyond that which is dedicated to his scheduled lectures. Marty’s meetings with his disciples at the Café Louvre¹⁸ in Prague testify to this gentle and cooperative attitude, which recalls a temperament shared by other Brentanisten, as well as elsewhere—to remain in context (because of Funke), we can refer to the case in Munich, with Lipps’ Psychologischer Verein, which was shortly after imitated in Göttingen by Husserl’s students. It is evident that in connection to the epistemological implications of an empirical and functional standpoint, two further important topics may be considered: (i) Brentano’s role in the development of Marty’s empiricist and teleological account of

is considered, by subordinating a given situation (Sachlage) under a general concept. In all these examples, the normative meaning of the universal comes under consideration for these contents which are objectively (sachlich), but not as thing-like (dinghaft), given to us’. See also Fisette 2015: 18, on Stumpf’s critical realism.  See Fréchette 2014: 79 – 102.  Here is how Humboldt, in his major work on language (1836), characterizes the task of linguistic research: “Language is one of the fields whence the general mental power of human beings emerges in constantly active operation. To put it otherwise, we see in it the endeavor to secure being in reality for the idea of linguistic completeness. To follow and depict this endeavor is the task of the linguist in its final, yet simplest analysis” (Humboldt 1999: 27, [§3]; in the last sentence italics have been added); see also §13: “The aim of this introduction, to depict languages, in the diversity of their structure, as the necessary foundation for the progress of the human mind, and to discuss the reciprocal influence of the one upon the other, has obliged me to enter into the nature of language as such. […] If we seek the nature of language in the forms of sound and idea, and the correct and vigorous interpenetration of the two, it still remains for us to specify here a numberless multitude of details whereby application is confused” (Humboldt 1999: 90).  Leška 2002 and 2012. We recall the presence of Marty’s pupils Oskar Kraus, Josef Eisenmeier, and Alfred Kastil, as well as those of Hugo Bergmann, Franz Kafka, and Max Brod. See Anz 2009: 69.

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language formation; and (ii) the discussion with Steinthal and Wundt on linguistics and on the relationship between grammar and psychology. I will not dwell on this twofold connection here, but rather remain in the Prague context.¹⁹ The philosophical foyers mentioned above and the later Prague Linguistic Circle show some similarities—the decision to plan regular meetings devoted to mutual listening and discussion regarding various set topics, from a common perspective. This is not the kind of discussion that can take place in a scientific society that only concerns a certain area of research, but according to many different paradigms. It is rather the regular development of a scientific enterprise in awareness of the importance of strengthening the community, and willing to accomplish it while continuing to refine its theoretical standpoint. However, there is something different in these Prague foyers. Marty does not seem to want to look for further goals in order to advance the results of his research or its methods. Mathesius, on the other hand, the founder and first president of the Prague Linguistic Circle, is ready to take on different locations, appointments, and areas of research to introduce the tasks and methods developed by the members of the Circle—in 1928, the First International Congress of Linguists, in 1929, the first Conference of the Slavicists, and in 1932, the First Congress of Phonetic Sciences, among others. Yet there are two perspectives that may be recognised as working through both Marty and the Circle: teleology or functionalism,²⁰ and semasiology (including onomasiology)—and, therefore, semiotics. These would become steady markers of Prague linguistics throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.²¹ Functionalism is what identifies Prague structuralism²² before the other structuralist schools.²³ Here, I can quote the first 1929 thesis of the Circle and note that, according to this thesis, their entire linguistic theory will consequently be characterised as functional onomatology, functional syntax, or functional sentence perspective, etc.

 I thank a referee of this volume for having pointed out these two topics.  Cf. Cesalli 2014; I would like to suggest here that another source for Marty’s teleology could be considered, namely Lotze. See also the role of Engliš 1930 in Raynaud 1990: 91– 92, 367 n. 254; Slotty 1935; Sornicola 2014.  Cf. Travaux du Cercle Linguistiques de Prague 1– 8 (1929 – 1939); Travaux Linguistiques de Prague 1– 4 (1964– 1971); Prague Linguistic Circle Papers—Travaux du Cercle Linguistiques de Prague nouvelle série 1– 4 (1995 – 2004). Cf. also Leška 2012 (the volume had originally been planned as TCLP n.s. 5); Veltruský 2012, TCLP n.s. 6; Hoskovec 2017, TCLP n.s. 7.  The main tenet of structuralism is that of conceiving each language as a system of systems, i.e. as a whole where not only elements, but also their relations are relevant, primarily from a synchronic point of view.  Cf. Linhares-Dias 2009; Čermak 2014.

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Resulting from human activity, language partakes in its purposefulness. Whether one analyses language as expression or as communication, it is the intention of the speaker which can explain it in a most evident and most natural manner. For this reason, linguistic analysis should respect the functionalist standpoint. Seen from the functionalist viewpoint, language is a system of purposeful means of expression. No fact of language can be understood without regard to the system to which it pertains. (1983: 77)²⁴

Semantics (Semasiologie by Marty) has never been abandoned in Prague linguistics. In the ‘Introduction’ to the first issue of Slovo a slovesnost, the journal founded by the Prague Linguistic Circle in 1935, Havránek, Jakobson, Mathesius, Mukařovský, and Trnka wrote: ‘The relationship between the linguistic sign and its aim, in Marty’s studies, is accurately interpreted’.²⁵ The contemporary development of the Prague tradition in computational linguistics includes all the layers of linguistic annotation in order to reach the socalled tectogrammatical layer. Again I quote the first 1929 thesis of the Circle: The tectogrammatical layer can be characterised as the level of linguistic (literal) meaning, i. e. as the structuring of the cognitive content proper to a particular language. On this level, the irregularities of the outer shape of sentences are absent (including synonymy and at least the prototypical cases of ambiguity) and it can thus serve as a useful interface between linguistics in the narrow sense (as the theory of language systems) on one side and such interdisciplinary domains as that of semantic interpretation (logical analysis of language, reference assignment based on inferencing using contextual and other knowledge, further metaphorical and other figurative meanings), that of discourse analysis or text linguistics, and so on, on the other.²⁶

In one of his last contributions (1956), on the rather classical topic of wordclasses and American structuralists, Funke (1965: 128) writes that ‘[i]f one deprives language of its semantic side, one deprives it of its very essence’. All that has been noted needs some elucidation: 1. Marty is quoted very rarely and the debt towards his work and thought is seldom acknowledged.²⁷

 Prague Linguistic Circle, Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavists Held in Prague in 1929, 1, in Vachek 1983: 77.  Havránek, Jakobson, Mathesius, Mukařovský, Trnka, ‘Introduction’ in Slovo a slovesnost (1935: 1).  https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/pdt/Corpora/PDT_1.0/Doc/tect.html.  Leška 2002; Toman 2011; Čermák, Poeta, Čermák 2012: 178 – 179, 179 – 181, 207– 208: the lectures given at the Prague Linguistic Circle (PLC) by Edmund Husserl, Oskar Kraus, and Ludwig Landgrebe (resp. for Phenomenology and Linguistics, 18.11.1935; Reistic Linguistic Observations in their Relationships towards Logic and Phenomenology, 16.12.1935; Concepts of Field in Linguistics and Philosophy of Language, 18. 5.1936) are accurately reported; the names of Husserl,

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In spite of this, if we look into the context of Bohemian/Prague linguistic research, the theoretical commitment shared by Marty and the Circle mutually reinforces their originality compared to the prevailing historico-comparative or grammatical-normative perspectives.

So if we wonder why those who are in close proximity do not seem to be recognised as such from the inside (and evidently, for chronological reasons, the misrecognition involves the Circle all together, at least in its first, classical period), any answer must consider extra-theoretical reasons, such as political correctness, such as the warning not to pay tribute to the German speaking world while still fighting for the new Czech identity and autonomy.

3 The eastern dissemination: A successful reception and a strong multicultural challenge A kind of a complementary attitude can be observed in quite another context, which is relevant not only because of its political proximity to Germany in the interwar period with which we are concerned, but mainly for its cultural proximity to the entire Germanophone area—Japan. Although we cannot directly investigate the reception of Marty’s thought in this area, we can at least identify a long-lasting interest in his theory of language and a lively and multifarious approach towards his works which began in the thirties, if not even earlier, and matured up to the end of last century and beyond.

Kraus, and Landgrebe occur more or less twenty times each, while those of Brentano, Marty, Eisenmeier, Kastil, and Funke are absent from the index of names; Brentano and Marty are mentioned in the synthesis of the lecture given by Kraus, published in Slovo a Slovesnost II (1936: 128). The PLC on some occasions hosted lectures about philosophical topics. Here we quote Karl Bühler, Rudolf Carnap, and Leopold Silberstein. Beyond Silberstein’s contribution regarding the Czech Philosophical Terminology (PLC lecture, 2.12.1935), his Philosophisches Streben und Schaffen im Lande Masaryks (1938) is worth mentioning. A clue to some link (between the PLC and Funke) may be found in Havránková 2014: 480 – 481, i. e. in the published collection of PLC correspondence (1924– 1989), preserved at the Czech Academy of Science (Archives and Library)—there is one letter by the founder of the PLC, Vilém Mathesius, to René Wellek (a pupil of his who became an important literary critic and theorist of literature in the States), dated 14.10.1928, where Funke is mentioned: “O. Funke too in his last book, published a couple of years ago in Switzerland, deals with the linguistic thought in the Seventeenth Century”. The reference could be to Funke: 1926. As a matter of fact Wellek also wrote Immanuel Kant in England 1793 – 1838, published in 1931.

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If we attempt to summarise as carefully as possible this surprising scenario, it not only testifies to the high quality of intercultural commitment undertaken by Japanese scholars coming from different specialisations,²⁸ but also serves to highlight the objective ability of Marty’s thought to overcome borders and to break through epistemological barriers. Our aim is thus to underscore the explicative power of his theory regarding linguistic facts throughout typologically different languages, the attention paid to his works outside the philosophical domain, and beyond the mere comparison of ideas or of philosophical traditions. On the contrary, if his claims and research perspectives proved to be pathfinders in more than one respect in linguistic inquiries, then it is no longer a matter of dealing only with the history of ideas, but rather of discussing truth and facts, or at least with hypotheses which attempt to foster inquiries in the field. Let us begin with what seems to be the first monograph published in the land of the rising sun: Chikahira Kobayashi’s (born 1907) book, Maruti no gengogaku (Marty’s study of language), Tokyo 1937.²⁹ The fact that Kobayashi was an Anglicist suggests that Funke’s editorial work played a role here, as well as his applied perspective as an author. Reversing the title of a good recent monograph (McLelland 2015), Funke’s articles and monographs worked as an efficient contribution when it came to ‘English through German eyes’. Those Japanese scholars who could read German to inquire about English found in Funke’s works a promising pathway.³⁰ The same probably occurred with Fumio Nakajima (1904 – 1999), author of Imiron (Semantics) in 1939 and of Bunpoo no genri (Principles of Grammar) in 1949. According to Akimoto (2012), Nakajima was a student of the Angliscist Sanki Ichikawa (1886 – 1970), who started studying English philology in Japan

 Complementarily, we should mention Thomas Immoos (1918 – 2001; see Watanabe 2002), born in Schwyz (as was Marty), and Elmar Holenstein (1937–), who both reached Japan from Switzerland because of their scholarly commitment and contributed to the dissemination of Western tradition in Japan. In May 1983, in a letter addressed to the author of this paper from the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa of the Tokyo Gaikokugo Daigaku (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), Elmar Holenstein wrote: “I met here by chance at the University a handful of Germanists, who every two weeks organize a private Marty seminar. […] I had suggested to the students, as a completion to your extended bibliography [Raynaud 1982, now Bokhove-Raynaud 1990], that they edit a bibliography of all the works which appeared in Japanese about (and apparently also by) Marty. There is here—it seems—an ongoing Marty reception, presumably through Japanese Anglicists, who studied thanks to Funke. Beyond the students (and independently of them) I met at Sophia University an old follower of Marty from his homeland Schwyz” (my translation).  Quoted in the ‘Introduction’ by Cesalli and Friedrich 2014: XIII n. 20.  Regarding the context of Japanese–English studies, see Akira 1967.

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and established one of the oldest societies in Japan, the English Literary Society (1929). We can quote the English translation of the preface of Imiron here, thanks to a colleague, Kenichi Kadooka: This book is an attempt to clarify the essential nature of the meaning of language. It is well known that linguistics has played a certain role in the history of languages studying the concrete facts, and in phonetics studying the external structure of languages, nevertheless as for the internal structure or contents—i. e. meanings—I must say that fundamental recognition is extremely insufficient and dilettantism has been rampant. As will be told in the main text below, fundamental introspection with regard to the mental phenomena is necessary in order to research the linguistic meanings, as far as languages express our mental lives and through these expressions we project the exact or similar status into other people’s consciousness. A book showing us enormous inspiration about these situations is: Franz Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. This book shows us that the cognitive structures are [captured by] descriptive analyses through internal recognition, and that symbols, judgments, emotions can be listed as fundamental mental phenomena. When descriptions are based upon such fundamental recognitions, we should be able to analyze various meanings of linguistic means into elemental mental phenomena, just as phoneticians analyze various external linguistic forms into elemental phonemes. In fact, Marty (1847– 1914) proceeded into this direction, developing a new field of semantics as one branch of linguistics. His essential concern for the philosophy of language is on what kinds of semantic units can be found in human languages. Based on Brentano’s tripartite of mental phenomena, Marty defined the corresponding linguistic means as symbolic representation, statement and emotional expression. The discussion on the function occupies most of the following book: Anton Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. The question of semantic units refers not only to autosemantic linguistic means but also to what is called synsemantic, which function only related to discourse. As for this, the above book only indicates plans of the later researches. Plans of the research of synsemantic symbols can be found in his posthumous publishing Satz und Wort. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der üblichen grammatischen Lehre und ihren Begriffsbestimmungen. ‘Von den logisch nicht begründeten synsemantischen Zeichen’, together with Funke’s ‘Von den semasiologischen Einheiten und ihren Untergruppen’, is included in the following volume: Otto Funke: Grundfragen zur Bedeutungslehre, Leipzig 1928. Thus, descriptive semantics is a psychological study, and its status as one branch of linguistics cannot be denied. Rather, the mental aspects of linguistic lives cannot be independent from the field dealt by psychology. Those linguists, however, who admit such mental world as linguistic thoughts, cannot exactly distinguish differences between language forms and meanings. Linguists such as Humboldt, Steinthal, Wundt insist on the parallelism between language and thought, which seems to be universal in the modern period. While Marty in his early book Über den Ursprung der Sprache has shown that such parallelism is not the case. Since language and thoughts are not related neither consistently nor necessarily, language does not always take structures consistent with thoughts. Consequently, we can observe polysemy in one linguistic form and synonymy among different lin-

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guistic forms. It is essential that language structures are related to psychological structures. This relation is just as spellings are developmentally related to pronunciations, however they are inconsistent. Just as we must analyse sounds themselves independent from the spellings, in addition, it must be emphasized that semantics must be empirically pursued through observations of mental phenomena themselves. Our methodology is utterly contrastive with those in which thinking forms are intuitively inferred from language structures. While they directly construct linguistic theories, we try to analyse and describe meanings of linguistic measures one by one empirically and psychologically, constructing nothing. This is to proceed to completion gradually by the efforts of many scholars, just as in linguistic history and phonetics. There is nothing but scholastic demand of pursuing the essential situations. This book, thus, addresses various challenges with the methodology mentioned above, and owes much to Marty. This is not, however, to introduce Marty’s linguistic philosophy, but a humble effort to analyse language with Marty’s methodology of firm fundamental recognition, confronting the object of language itself. August, 1939 (Nakajima 1939; translated by Kenichi Kadooka)

It was, rather, German as object language and not only as vehicular language, and the interest in linguistic theory which moved the Germanist Tsugio Sekiguchi (1894 – 1958) towards Marty’s work. In particular, Sekiguchi dealt with Marty’s theory regarding the inner form of language (innere Sprachform, in Japanese imikeitai; see Ringmacher 1996). In 1924, Funke had published his monograph Innere Sprachform: Eine Einführung in A. Martys Sprachphilosophie. Shige-Yuki Kuroda (1934– 2009) instead focused on general grammar, and Marty’s theory of the two kinds of judgements, and therefore of the twofold semantic structure of assertions.³¹ Kuroda was a general linguist who in the early seventies dealt first with theoretical matters pertaining to Marty’s project, then tested one of his specific claims on the Japanese language, with quite interesting results.³² It is worth noting how Kuroda read Marty’s Untersuchungen. First, we have to mention when (1965), where (at MIT, USA), and on what subject Kuroda wrote his

 For Kuroda’s biography see http://ling.ucsd.edu/kuroda/obituary.html; for his bibliography see http://ling.ucsd.edu/kuroda/bibliography.html.  From the point of view of linguistic historiography, it has been assumed (Lamprecht 1994: 140) that Brentano’s and Marty’s theories remained silent until Kuroda’s applied research to Japanese in the seventies: “To my knowledge, the first systematic attempt to apply Brentano’s and Marty’s logical dichotomy to linguistic theory was made by Kuroda (1972). According to Kuroda, the logical distinction between thetic and categorical judgements is empirically confirmed in Japanese grammar in the formal distinction between the particles wa and ga”. However, see also, for further reconstructions, Venier 2002 and Raynaud 2013, introducing the Italian translation of Mathesius 1911.

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PhD thesis, entitled Generative Grammatical Studies in the Japanese Language. His supervisor was Noam Chomsky and the abstract outlines the goal and the structure of the thesis: This thesis is an attempt to apply the theory of transformational grammar to the Japanese language. This theory was introduced by Noam Chomsky some ten years ago and since then has been successfully applied to the study of several languages, especially English. It is shown here that the application of this theory to Japanese is also very revealing. Comparison of the structure of Japanese and English is also our concern, whenever possible, and it is seen that the transformational theory is helpful in such contrastive studies. The thesis may be conveniently divided into two parts; Part One (Chapters I–VI) is devoted to syntax, and Part Two (Chapter VII) to phonology. (Kuroda 1965)

In this context, the cross-effect of a praiseworthy desire to explore the classics— supported by the commendable domain of ‘exotic’ languages (from a Japanese point of view), i. e. French and German—and the mere fact of the temporary and limited availability of one edition instead of another of the desired classic in a public library, generates a third, unforeseeable but promising result. This was a case of serendipity at the intersection of linguistics and philosophy. With the complicity of Chomsky’s move, in order to assign noble ancestors to his scientific revolution against antimentalism,³³ Kuroda found himself on Marty’s track. This is his reconstruction of the premises of his publication of the three subsequent articles devoted to Marty (Kuroda 1971, 1972, 1973). Chomsky’s Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966), the text that would stir the hornets’ nest of linguists and historians of linguistics, had yet to be published, but Chomsky was already giving courses on the topic. Kuroda chose to write his term essay on Husserl’s pure logical grammar.

 It would be impossible to adequately outline Bloomfield’s antimentalistic attitude and Chomsky’s mentalistic turn here, thus explaining the paradigmatic shift from American descriptivist structuralism to generativism. We will just mention (see Thomas 2004: 166) Bloomfield’s aim of establishing the scientific status of linguistics by locating its basis in empirical facts open to public identification. To Bloomfield, mentalism ‘may tempt the observer to appeal to pure spiritual standards instead of reporting the facts’, whereas under a ‘materialistic hypothesis’ that temptation is avoided. Therefore, ‘in all sciences like linguistics […] the worker must proceed exactly as if he held the materialistic view’ (Bloomfield 1933: 38). On the other hand, according to Chomsky’s mentalistic approach, it is an innate Language Acquisition Device that allows a child to acquire a language, even with minimal help and no formal teaching. Chomsky refers to this language-learning mechanism as universal grammar. If mind, however, is once again included in the horizon of language research, everybody will understand the vast difference between the two research programs, that developed by Marty and that developed by Chomsky.

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Having received a French translation of Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen, lent to him by Chomsky himself—‘there being no English translation then’ (Kuroda 1990: 77)³⁴—Kuroda looked in the Harvard library for the German original. While the French translation was based on the second edition, the corresponding German original was absent, so he borrowed the first one and began to notice differences between the two editions. He soon discovered that at the origin of the changes introduced by Husserl in the second edition were comments and discussions by Marty. This was the starting point that caused three kinds of effect: the difference between a universal, rationalistic grammar and a general, empiric grammar became relevant; a contrastive analysis between English and Japanese continued; and an abstract theory on language underwent severe testing on a linguistic system typologically quite different from those that had been thought of by the author of the theory, i. e. Marty. What is the main point of Kuroda’s argument? He refers to the so-called wa and ga distinction. […] When one is exposed to Japanese, one is struck by the fact that the subject of an English [or German, or French…] sentence is translated sometimes by a noun phrase followed by the particle wa, sometimes by a noun phrase followed by the particle ga. It appears that one English sentence can be translated into two sentences in Japanese, a wa sentence and a ga sentence. How do they differ in meaning and function? (Kuroda 1990: 79)

Though simplified, this is the description of a contrast which needs to be explained. Kuroda’s claim is that the distinction between the categorical and the thetic judgment, a semantic-functional distinction that Marty claimed exists but is not directly expressed in speech forms (in German, etc.), is made explicitly, by means of different outer speech forms of sentences in Japanese, namely ga sentences for thetic judgments and wa sentences for categorical judgments. (Kuroda 1990: 79)

In the background is the Humboldtian notion of inner-language form: [T]he problem of the distinction between the categorical and the thetic judgement is where Marty primarily applied his theory of inner speech form in syntax in a way that made me draw a parallel between Marty and Chomsky. To put it briefly, Marty’s claim is that the cat-

 Let us highlight once more how much the history of science and the history of culture together depend on mediating languages, translations, and on the cultural premises determining one linguistic choice or another—in this case, the positive attitude towards phenomenology in France.

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egorical form of judgment serves as an inner speech form to represent thetic judgments. (Kuroda 1990: 78 – 79)

So both Sekiguchi and Kuroda, even if they were working on different languages and in different theoretical frameworks, confirm the strategic role of the notion of inner form of language in Marty’s theory and—consistently—of a term which is typical of his pragmatic and cognitive model: suggestiv. At first glance, the word invokes more of a weak hint of thinking (representing or presenting, judging, or feeling) than of a technical naming of inferential activities caused by some minimal features, or side-representations called to mind by linguistic devices in order to invoke meaning. However, to suggest can be efficient only, as is well known, if a principle of cooperation works. The one to whom the suggestion is addressed has to welcome it. The addressee of a message has to interpret it and to understand it. Beyond the ingenuity of people in shaping languages, as Humboldt says, the ingenuity of those who are involved in speech is required. ‘Who has ears to hear, let him hear’. So much regarding linguistics. What about philosophy? I asked Takashi Suzuki, a doctoral program student at Kyoto University. He is studying Husserl’s theory of expression, and has researched the influence of Marty’s philosophy of language upon Husserl. This was his answer: In Japan, as you know, mainly linguists have studied Marty’s thought. Of course, Japanese philosophers soon accepted Marty. (For example, famous early Japanese philosophers, Kitaro Nishida [1870 – 1945] and Hajime Tanabe [1885 – 1962] owned several of Marty’s books and were familiar with the Brentano-School at the time.) However, Japanese philosophers have referred to Marty only in connection with other philosophers, and do not specialise in his philosophy. To my knowledge, there are no books about Marty written by Japanese philosophers. Under these conditions, Marty is studied by Japanese philosophers, who do not specialize in Marty, but quote his theory to compare him with the main subjects of their research (Brentano, Husserl, Frege etc.).

‘As far as I know’, adds Suzuki, ‘recent philosophical papers referring to Marty are: Fujimura (2004), Yaegashi (2006), Tsuyoshi (2007), and Suzuki himself (2013)’.

4 Theory testing. Beyond suspicions of ethnocentrism Let us now conclude and gather together some informative consequences from what has been ascertained.

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First, both vehicular and object languages matter for the dissemination of theories. In the case presented here, English, German, and Japanese as object-languages vs. German, the long-lasting vehicular language of a multifarious metalinguistic approach during the last 200 years, from a broad, mid-European location towards the Far-East and further, to North America through older and newer linguistic paradigms, such as Humboldtianism, functional structuralism, and generativism. Second, the ethnocentric suspicion advanced against Western philosophical schools (and often within the Western context itself ³⁵) has to be overcome and abandoned after successfully testing theories on typologically different languages. Third and finally, philosophy can trespass more easily on its own perimeter if experience, as well as reality, are taken into consideration. It is not through a naïve pretence of instantly interfacing with reality that philosophy should express premises about ‘real objects’, but rather through the sciences and their tools. Otherwise, philosophy risks reducing itself either to a discussion about its own ideas through history or to the claim of the self-sufficiency of ideas, without structured or methodical connections to their referents. Marty’s intensive and extensive reading and discussion of linguistic research testifies to both a consistent philosophical and scientific approach to language (Raynaud 2016). The later, independent inquiry into further language structures and metalinguistic traditions can then be considered the correspondent undertaking of a multilateral enterprise, which remains a work in progress.

 Cf. Dalla Chiesa 2016: “Nonetheless, in reading Williams I had the impression that in philosophical debate the linguistic notions of tense and aspect—clearly corresponding with the temporal determinations of McTaggart’s A Series and B Series [A and B: see McTaggart 1927]—were considered to be too greatly conditioned by Indo-European grammar to be used in support of the analysis of the English philosopher or even simply in association with him, and therefore are an obstacle to the comprehension of the analytical categories suggested by McTaggart, rather than proof of their phenomenical expressions in language (on this, see e. g. Williams 1951: 459 – 460). As the field of a shared analysis [between philosophy and linguistics] is lacking, the philosophical debate has given few suggestions to the linguistic one. This paper moves, however, from considering the analytical categories singled out by the English philosopher as a heuristically powerful instrument to understanding how all languages codify the expression of temporality. Its aim is to show that the grammatical treatment of temporal expressions in Japanese—a very distant language from Indo-European—is precisely conditioned by McTaggart’s temporal series oppositions”.

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List of Contributors Giuliano Bacigalupo, Research fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva. Email: [email protected] Laurent Cesalli, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva. Email: [email protected] Denis Fisette, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Quebec at Montreal. Email: [email protected] Guillaume Fréchette, Project director, Department of Philosophy, University of Salzburg. Email: [email protected] Hynek Janoušek, Research fellow, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague. Email: [email protected] Hélène Leblanc, Research fellow, Department of Philosophy, University of Geneva. Email: [email protected] Guy Longworth, Associate professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Warwick. Email: [email protected] Claudio Majolino, Maître de conférences, Department of Philosophy, University of Lille-3. Email: [email protected] Kevin Mulligan, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Universities of Lugano and Geneva. Email: [email protected] Savina Raynaud, Professor, Department Philosophy, Catholic University of Milan. Email: [email protected] Anne Reboul, Research director, CNRS, Institut des sciences cognitives, University of Lyon. Email: [email protected] Sébastien Richard, Maître de conférences, Department of Philosophy, University of Liège. Email: [email protected] Robin D. Rollinger, Research fellow, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague. Email: [email protected] Denis Seron, Maître de conférences, Department of Philosophy, University of Liège. Email: [email protected] Hamid Taieb, Research fellow, Department of Philosophy, Universities of Geneva and Salzburg. Email: [email protected]

Register Adorno, Th. 106 Ahlman, E. 14, 166 Akimoto, M. 356 Akira, O. 356 Alston, W. 282 Anselm of Canterbury 349 Antonelli, M. 23, 26, 50, 311 f. Anz, T. 351 Aristarchus of Samos 266 Aristotle 1 f., 28, 33, 50, 63, 66, 68 – 71, 80, 91 f., 96, 160, 172, 174, 183, 317, 335, 338 Arleth, E. 6 Arnauld, A. 328 – 330, 332 – 335 Aster, E. v. 106 Augustin 174 f. Austin, J. L. 149, 264 Bacon, F. 330, 336 Banz, R. 348 Bar-Hillel, Y. 13 Bar-On, D. 282 Barnes, W. H. F. 154, 159 Baugulf of Fulda 349 Baumgartner, W. 50, 173, 176 Beauzée, N. 330 Becker, K. F. 337 Beckett, S. 83 Bede 347 Bell, D. 321 Benfey, Th. 11 Benoist, J. 338 Bergman, H. 5 f., 13, 63, 70, 80, 351 Berkeley, G. 108, 170, 176 Betschart, I. 2 Biel, G. 63, 70 – 72, 80 Bischof, F. X. 2 Blanc-Benon, L. 78 Bloomfield, L. 358 Boethius of Dacia 336 – 338 Bokhove, N. W. 355 Bolyai, J. 223 Bolzano, B. 2, 13, 105, 162, 258, 310 f., 315, 321 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110531480-017

Bopp., F. 12 Bradley, F. H. 65 Braithwaite, R. B. 150, 153, 162 Brekle, H. E. 334 Brentano, F. 1 – 13, 15, 23 – 33, 35 – 39, 41, 44 – 47, 49 – 54, 56, 58 f., 63 f., 66, 68, 70, 87 f., 90, 105, 107 f., 110, 149, 151, 157, 159 – 162, 166 f., 169 – 182, 186 f., 189 – 191, 195 – 200, 203, 205 f., 209 f., 214 – 216, 219 f., 222, 224, 228 f., 231 f., 236 f., 241 – 246, 248 – 255, 257 f., 311 f., 314, 319 – 321, 333, 339, 350 – 352, 354, 356, 358, 360 Breva-Claramonte, M. 335 Brisart, R. 224 Broad, C. D. 153 f., 157 Brod, M. 6, 12, 351 Brück, H. 2 Bühler, K. 6, 13 f., 76, 80, 166, 187, 245, 354 Burge, T. 302 Bursill-Hall, G. L. 336 C Calkins, M. W. 105 Carnap, R. 354 Carston, R. 300 Caston, V. 174 Cesalli, L. 7 – 11, 14 f., 26, 45, 50, 63, 65, 73, 78, 83, 86, 166, 191, 200, 202 f., 245, 263 f., 270 f., 280, 337, 349 f., 352, 355 Chabrolle-Cerretini, A. M. 346 Charles IV 350 Charles the Great 349 Chisholm, R. M. 50, 197, 213, 241, 250, 252, 321 Chitz, A. 23 Chomsky, N. 13, 330, 336, 358 – 360 Chrudzimski, A. 9, 44 – 48, 50, 65, 80, 173, 199, 203 – 205, 243, 309 Comte, A. 33 Copernicus, N. 266 Cornelius, H. 105 – 109, 111, 114, 117, 124, 127 f., 131, 134, 141, 143

370

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Cramer, F. 348 Crane, T. 27, 76 Crowther, T. 263 Csengeri, K. 158 Dalgarno, G. 330 Dalla Chiesa, S. 361 Daubert, J. 106 Delbrück, B. 11, 337 Descartes, R. 63, 72, 74 – 77, 80, 242, 330, 339 Dewalque, A. 229 Donatus 336 Donnellan, K. S. 302 f. Dretske, F. 290 Ebbinghaus, H. 111, 128 Eco, U. 330 Ehrenfels, Ch. v. 6, 105, 166 Eichrodt, J. 345 Eilan, N. 263 Eisenmeier, J. 6, 351, 354 Engliš, K. 352 Faust, U. 348 f. Findlay, J. L. 43, 59, 151, 213, 224, 234 f., 326 f., 329 – 331 Fisette, D. 3, 7, 14, 23, 32, 68, 80, 108, 309, 351 Fodor, J. 289 Formigari, L. 330, 338 Fréchette, G. 1, 3, 5, 10, 13 f., 23, 26, 41 f., 50, 53, 68, 70, 80, 108, 169, 176, 200, 216, 219, 309, 321, 351 Frege, G. 11, 186, 222, 315, 338, 360 Friedrich, J. 245, 350, 355 Fritz, G. 13 Fujimura, T. 361 Funke, O. 4, 6, 13, 87, 345 – 349, 351, 353 – 357 Gabriel, W. 14, 63, 70 Gardiner, A. H. 14, 166, 268, 272 Gehrig-Straube, C. 2 Geiger, L. 337 Geiger, M. 106 Gingerich, O. 267

Gladstone, W. E. 5 Goethe, J. W. v. 2 Goodman, N. 63, 78 f. Goubier, F. 11 Grabmann, M. 336 f., 340 Green, M. 282 Grice, P. 9, 15, 163, 166, 245, 248, 263 – 265, 267 – 270, 272 – 283, 285 – 287, 290 – 295, 299 – 301, 304 f. Grimmich, V. 67 f., 80 Grossmann, R. 54, 58, 226 Guastella, C. 108 Hägerström, A. 157 Hartmann, N. 154, 166 Havránek, B. 353 Havránková, M. 354 Heidegger, M. 337 Heyse, K. W. L. 11 Hillebrand, F. 48 f., 53, 220 Hobbes, Th. 157, 334 Höfler, A. 6, 41 – 43, 45 f., 49, 52, 56, 58 f. Holenstein, E. 337, 355 Homer 5 Horkheimer, M. 106 Hulme, T. E. 158 Humboldt, W. v. 11, 336 f., 348, 351, 357, 360 Hume, D. 107 f., 112, 120, 126, 129, 136 f., 142, 169, 256, 318 Husserl, E. 6, 11, 13 f., 41, 43 – 45, 47, 52, 55, 59, 87, 90, 105 – 107, 109 f., 149 f., 161 f., 166, 169 – 171, 176, 190 f., 224 f., 232, 242 f., 247, 256, 309 – 313, 315 – 321, 325 – 340, 349, 351, 354, 359 f. Ichikawa, S. Immoos, Th. Ingarden, R.

356 355 224, 237

Jakobson, R. 13, 353 James, W. 90, 105, 109 f. Johansson, I. 65 John Duns Scotus (Pseudo‐) 337 John of Dacia 336 John of St. Thomas (see Poinsot, J.)

72

Register

Joly, A. 336 Jones, D. 153, 157, 161, 302 f., 306 Kadooka, K. 356 f. Kafka, F. 6, 12 f., 351 Kälin, W. 345 Kant, I. 1 f., 151, 176, 213, 215, 309, 318, 354 Kastil, A. 6, 73, 245, 351, 354 Katkov, G. 6, 241 – 245, 248 – 257 Kent, O. 52 f. Kerry, B. 48 f. Ketteler, W. E. v. 2 Kilwardby, R. (Pseudo‐) 336 Kircher, A. 330 Kirchhoff, G. 105 f. Klages, L. 158 Knobloch, C. 350 Kobayashi, Ch. 355 Koerner, E. F. K. 347 Koffka, K. 157 Köhler, W. 157 Köhn, R. 346 Kraus, O. 1 – 3, 6, 14, 53, 161 f., 174, 214, 241 f., 250, 347, 351, 354 Kriegel, U. 27 Kripke, S. 14 Külpe, O. 6 Kurmann, A. 345, 348 Kuroda, S.-Y. 13, 331, 357 – 360 Laird, J. 150, 153, 162 Lakoff, R. 330 Lamprecht, K. 358 Lancelot, C. 328 – 330, 332 f., 335 Landgrebe, L. 6, 14, 166, 354 Lang, D. 157 Langlet, B. 235 Lask, E. 222 Lawrence, D. H. 158 Lazarus, M. 11 f., 337 Leclerc, A. 23 Leclercq, J. 348 – 350 Leibniz, G. W. 63, 72, 74 – 77, 80, 330, 335, 339 Leo XIII 1 Lerman, H. 263

371

Leška, O. 351 f., 354 Leśniewski, S. 106 Libera, A. de 337, 349 Liedtke, F. 9, 15, 245, 264, 271 Linhares-Dias, R. 352 Linke, P. F. 109 Lipps, Th. 106, 346, 351 Lobachevsky, N. I. 223 Locke, J. 108, 118, 135, 335 Lodwick, F. 330 Longworth, G. 15, 80, 166, 263 Losskij, N. 242 Lotze, H. 3 f., 11, 350 – 352 Luick, K. 345 Majolino, C. 8, 67, 83, 100, 333 Mally, E. 105 Marek, J. C. 23 Marmo, C. 336 Marsais, C. C. du 330 Martin of Dacia 336 Martinak, E. 14 f., 150, 162, 165 f. Marty, J. B. 1 Marty, J. J. A. 1 Marty, M. A. 1 Marty, M. 1 Marty, A. 1 – 15, 23 – 38, 41, 43 – 56, 59 f., 63 – 68, 70 – 74, 77 – 80, 83 – 101, 103, 105 – 111, 121, 126 – 128, 137, 143 f., 149 – 151, 160 – 166, 169 – 171, 173 – 176, 179 – 191, 195 – 216, 219, 228 – 237, 241 – 245, 247 f., 251, 257, 263 – 265, 267 – 272, 274, 279 – 283, 285 – 287, 292, 309 – 321, 325 – 340, 345 – 362 Masaryk, Th. 6, 13, 174, 354 Mathesius, V. 6, 12, 352 – 354, 358 Mautner, Th. 157 Mayer-Hillebrand, F. 58 McGinn, C. 245, 248 McLelland, N. 355 McTaggart, J. M. E. 361 Meier-Oeser, S. 72, 338 Meinong, A. 14, 58, 105, 115, 131, 158, 162, 166, 195 f., 204, 206 – 216, 219 – 235, 237, 242 f., 311 Menger, C. 4 Merkel, J. 12

372

Register

Michel, Ch. 221 Miklosich, F. 181 Mill, J. S. 108, 176 f., 317 Millikan, R. 285, 287, 289 – 292, 295 – 305 Moeschler, J. 350 Moore, G. E. 14 f., 150, 158 – 160, 164 Moran, D. 276 f., 279 f. Moran, R. 319 Morel, G. 348 Morpurgo Davies, A. 18 Morscher, E. 198, 232, 311 Moufang, Ch. 2 Mozart, W. A. 189, 295 f. Mukařovský, J. 353 Müller, M. 11, 50 Mulligan, K. 8, 14 f., 47, 50, 56, 76, 80, 109 f., 149 f., 157 f., 160, 162, 166, 187, 191, 204, 252, 263, 267, 269, 283, 286, 304, 309, 311, 338 Nakajima, F. 356 f. Neesen, P. 12 Nicole, P. 334 Nietzsche, F. 151, 157 Nishida, K. 360 Nuccetelli, S. 288 Obama, B. 232 Ogden, C. K. 14 f., 149 – 151, 153, 155, 157, 162, 164 – 166, 267 f. O’Shaughnessy, B. 282 Panaccio, C. 80 Pariente, J.-C. 330, 333 Parret, H. 311 f., 327 Parsons, T. 213, 215 Pasnau, R. 349 Paul, H. 245, 248, 263, 292, 337, 346, 349 Perler, D. 75 f., 349 Peter Helias 336 Pfänder, A. 106, 223 Pinborg, J. 336 Plato 64, 156, 199 f., 207 Poeta, C. 354 Poinsot, J. 72 Poli, R. 213 Porset, C. 330

Potrč, M. 321 Příhonský, F. 2 Priscian 336 Putnam, H. 285, 287 – 289, 301 f., 304 Radakovic, M. 225 Ralph of Beauvais 336 Ramsey, F. P. 159 Rang, B. 44 Rapaport, W. J. 213 Raynaud, S. 13, 345 f., 350, 352, 355, 358, 362 Reboul, A. 15, 263, 285, 292 Recanati, F. 300 Reichlin, E. 1 Reid, Th. 149 Reinach, A. 149, 209, 231, 311, 319 Richards, I. A. 14 f., 149 – 151, 153, 155, 157, 162, 164 – 166, 267 f. Ringmacher, M. 357 Roesner, M. 337 Roessler, J. 282 Roger Bacon 336 Rojszczak, A. 311 Rollinger, R. D. 2, 8, 12, 51, 105, 110, 204, 211, 224, 245, 264, 311 Rosenthal, D. 32 Rosiello, L. 329 Rosier-Catach, I. 336 Routley, R. 213, 215 Rumelhart, D. E. 291 Russell, B. 149, 151, 157 – 162, 164, 211, 215, 222 Salice, A. 209 Salus, P. H. 336 Samain, D. 350 Satris, S. A. 14 f., 151 Sauer, W. 50, 321 Saussure, F. de 11 Schaar, M. v. d. 41, 46, 58 Scheler, M. 15, 149 – 160, 162 – 164, 166 Schlick, M. 313, 319 Schuhmann, K. 56, 109 f. Schuster, P. 346, 348 Schütz, L. 68, 80 Schwarz, H. 63, 70 f., 80

Register

Searle, J. R. 27, 149 Sekiguchi, T. 357, 360 Seron, D. 11, 309, 321 Sidgwick, H. 14 f. Sieg, U. 70 Siewert, Ch. 321 Siger de Courtrai 336 Silberstein, L. 354 Silva, M. 23 Simon of Dacia 336 Simons, P. 197, 211, 215, 243, 311 Slotty, F. 352 Smith, A. D. 170, 173 Smith, B. 11 f., 50, 170, 173, 215, 227, 231, 311 Socrates 64 f., 73, 173, 189, 220 f., 280 Sornicola, R. 352 Soteriou, M. 263 Soto, D. de 72 Sperber, D. 300 Spinicci, P. 9 Stefanini, J. 336 Steinthal, H. 4, 11 f., 337, 352, 357 Stern, G. 13 Stevenson, Ch. L. 14 f., 150 f., 154 f., 264, 267 f. Strawson, P. 295, 299 Stumpf, C. 1 – 6, 11, 68, 105 – 107, 172, 176, 253, 314, 351 Suárez, F. 63, 70 – 72, 80 Suzuki, T. 360 f. Swiggers, P. 334 Swoyer, C. 77 Tachau, K. 349 Taieb, H. 1, 7 f., 26, 41, 45, 50, 63, 73, 78, 80, 83, 191, 200, 202 f., 216, 219, 263, 309, 312 Tanabe, H. 360 Tarski, A. 215 Tassilo III 345 Textor, M. 80, 263 Thomas, M. 2, 6, 68, 157, 355, 358

373

Thomas Aquinas 2, 10, 63, 69, 70, 174, 175 Thomas of Erfurt 336 f. Thouard, D. 2 Toman, J. 354 Torretti, R. 223 Trnka, B. 353 Tsuyoshi, K. 361 Twardowski, K. 42, 44, 46, 49, 54, 56 – 58, 60, 63, 72, 74 f., 80, 220 Urbach, B. 6 Utitz, A. 3, 6 Vachek, J. 353 Vanni Rovighi, S. 349 Venier, F. 358 Vignaux, P. 349 Vossler, K. 337 Wagenbach, K. 12 Watanabe, M. 355 Weierstrass, C. 105 Weinstock, H. 345 – 347, 349 Wellek, R. 354 Wenning, W. 5 Whitney, W. D. 11 Wilkins, J. 330 William of Conches 336 William of Ockham 80 Williams, D. C. 361 Wilson, D. 300 Wittgenstein, L. 14, 76, 80, 149, 157 f., 161 f., 164, 166, 186, 309 Woleński, J. 106 Wundt, W. 4, 352, 357 Yaegashi, T.

361

Zimmermann, R. 57 Zöllner, J. K. F. 253 f., 256 Zoppi, G. 337 Zupko, J. 337