COVID-19 has crowned1 a number of other disasters (wildfires in Australia, Desert Locusts in Kenya, an imminent WWIII merging Iran and the US), causing panic to click into place and horror to become our global predicament, making us realize that we live in the illusion of the permanence of things, of mastery, and of immortality. People’s turning to social media for trans-local news on COVID-19 has stirred great ire in the world. This led to the proliferation of dark images that (...) associate the viral catastrophe with the end as we know it. To problematize the idea of the apocalypse (or the end) this paper speaks of three moments of survival in human existence: the beneath, the behind and the beyond. We argue that the apocalyptic nature of the pandemic and its global horrorism are part of a congeries of apocalyptic simulations that have always been part of the narrative with which we try to define ourexistence on earth. This paper masks itself against perfunctory examinations of the term apocalypse, and offers instead an understanding that runs along the lines of its Greek etymological sense as apokalyptein (revelation). It offers what Foucault calls an ontology of the present, that interrogates the history of COVID -19 with an emphasis neither on its origin nor on its telos. As beyondists, the COVID-19 catastrophe has revealed to us that 1) we have ‘access to knowledge beyond knowledge’ (see Gumpert Citation2012), and therefore that 2) our modern predicament is not very modern. The end, (not) to be sure, has been lived and relived in the boundary between reality and simulation. After all, the end of something comprises the beginning (in reverse) of that which “endeth”, throwing the beyond, behind and beneath in the Ferris wheel of epistemological and existential entanglement. (shrink)

This book sheds new light on the history of the philosophically crucial notion of intentionality, which accounts for one of the most distinctive aspects of our mental life: the fact that our thoughts are about objects. Intentionality is often described as a certain kind of relation. Focusing on Franz Brentano, who introduced the notion into contemporary philosophy, and on the Aristotelian tradition, which was Brentano’s main source of inspiration, the book reveals a rich history of debate on precisely the relational (...) nature of intentionality. It shows that Brentano and the Aristotelian authors from which he drew not only addressed the question whether intentionality is a relation, but also devoted extensive discussions to what kind of relation it is, if any. The book aims to show that Brentano distinguishes the intentional relation from two other relations with which it might be confused, namely, causality and reference, which also hold between thoughts and their objects. Intentionality accounts for the aboutness of a thought; causality, by contrast, explains how the thought is generated, and reference, understood as a sort of similarity, occurs when the object towards which the thought is directed exists. Brentano claims to find some anticipation of his views in Aristotle. This book argues that, whether or not Brentano’s interpretation of Aristotle is correct, his claim is true of the Aristotelian tradition as a whole, since followers of Aristotle more or less explicitly made some or all of Brentano’s distinctions. This is demonstrated through examination of some major figures of the Aristotelian tradition (broadly understood), including Alexander of Aphrodisias, the Neoplatonic commentators, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Francisco Suárez. This book combines a longue durée approach – focusing on the long-term evolution of philosophical concepts rather than restricting itself to a specific author or period – with systematic analysis in the history of philosophy. By studying Brentano and the Aristotelian authors with theoretical sensitivity, it also aims to contribute to our understanding of intentionality and cognate features of the mind. (shrink)

Brentano’s account of intentionality has often been traced back to its scholastic sources. This is justified by his claim that objects of thought have a specific mode of being—namely, “intentional inexistence” —and that mental acts have an “intentional relation” to these objects. These technical terms in Brentano do indeed recall the medieval notions of esse intentionale, which is a mode of being, and of intentio, which is a “tending towards” of mental acts. However, within the lexical family of intentio there (...) is another distinction that plays an important role in medieval philosophy—namely, the distinction between first and second intentions, which are, roughly speaking, concepts of things and concepts of concepts respectively. What is less well-known is that Brentano explicitly borrowed this distinction as well, and used it in his account of intentionality. This paper explores this little-known chapter in the scholastic-Austrian history of intentionality by evaluating both the historical accuracy and the philosophical significance of Brentano’s borrowing of the scholastic distinction between first and second intentions. (shrink)

This paper aims to present and evaluate the (unduly neglected) account of the essence of colours developed by the early phenomenologist Adolf Reinach. Reinach claims that colours, as regards their nature or essence, are physical entities. He is opposed to the idea that colours are “subjective” or “psychic”. It might be the case that the colours we see in the world do not exist but are mere appearances. However, their non-existence would not entail any change in their essence: that is, (...) they would not be psychic, but would just be non-existent physical entities. In Reinach’s view, we can be “ontic-neutral essentialists” about colours: we can remain neutral as to the existence of colours but still make claims about their essence. In the first part of the paper, I present Reinach’s take on the essence of colours. In the second part, I address his existential neutrality about colours; in particular, I argue that Reinach’s ontic-neutral essentialism brings to the fore a seldom noted but crucial distinction to be made in the discussion of colours, that between empirical and metaphysical non-realism about colours. (shrink)

In this paper, we seek to answer two questions: (1) what does boardroom diversity stand for in the strategic management literature? And, (2) is there a significant relationship between boardroom diversity and corporate social performance. We first clarify the boardroom diversity concept, distinguishing between a structural diversity of boards and a demographic diversity in boards, and then we investigate its possible linkage to social performance in a sample of S&P500 firms. We find a significant relationship between diversity in boards and (...) social performance. This relationship is moderated by diversity of boards. Our results also reveal the effects of the specific variables that make up the diversity of boards and diversity in boards constructs. In particular, gender, and age have a significant effect on corporate social performance. Some important measurement issues are raised and discussed. (shrink)

Applying the characterization of ‘rumour’ to designate transmission of unconfirmed information or to designate political initiatives reflecting a particular configuration is a way of indicating that certain contradictory items of information are in circulation, but does not allow these to be related back to the political circumstances that are determining them. The journalistic preoccupation with rumour thus leads to the media becoming blinded to the political significance implicit in such information exchanges. As a consequence, the narrative content of this type (...) of information, whether or not it resembles that which is carried by certain forms of rumour, may effectively escape the central focus of the media treatment, which could open up a more political perception of these same exchanges. If, by limiting itself to doing no more than relay ‘rumours’, the press thus avoids taking part in the political game which conditions this information, it nevertheless fails to bring out the flavour of this game and to deconstruct the focal effect sought after. The ‘rumours’ of journalism are a political resource for the participants associated with them who are involved in a much broader political process which cannot be reduced to the simple dimension of rumour. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the study of the proximities between phenomenology and analytic philosophy. Starting with some remarks on Husserl’s theory of the Lebenswelt and the echoes it finds among analytic philosophers partisans of the common sense, the paper focuses on some specific constituents of the Lebenswelt, namely «secondary qualities». More precisely, the paper points out the parallels between the theories of secondary qualities of Husserl and of P. F. Strawson, a major defender of the common sense. Both (...) Strawson and Husserl attribute an «objectivity», in the sense of «intersubjectivity», to secondary qualities. Besides, both these authors consider that the perception of primary qualities requires the perception of secondary qualities. This leads Strawson and Husserl to ask to what extent physics itself may epistemologically depend on the perception of secondary qualities. (shrink)

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

The aim of my article is to present the critique by Brentanians – more precisely, by Brentano himself and his students Stumpf and Marty – of the thesis that colours are properties that are relational to a perceiver. For Brentanians, colours are monadic physical properties. Brentanians, I will show, think that colours do not exhibit a relationality to perception when we experience them, and that the concepts of them do not contain any mark representing a relation to perception; this phenomenological (...) and logical non-relationality, they think, allows them to hold that colours are not relational by nature. Despite arguing that colours are monadic and physical, Brentanians also hold that colours do not exist in reality, and in their opinion these two theses are perfectly compatible. I will further show that although Brentanians (especially Marty) claim that colours are monadic, they nonetheless allow for a loose relationality of colours to perception which is, however, identical to that of any other physical property. I will conclude by discussing some interesting consequences of the Brentanian theory for contemporary debates about colours. (shrink)

This paper presents and evaluates the Brentanian theory of association of ideas. The topic of association usually brings to mind British Empiricism, which is often thought to have a monopoly on the matter. Brentano, however, adopts an original, alternative account of association. He argues that all cases of association can be placed under a single general law, that of “habit”. His explicit account of the topic is rather brief; however, his most faithful pupil, Anton Marty, thoroughly developed his master’s views. (...) Marty presents Brentano’s account of association in detail, and endeavours to defend it against rival theories, notably those which hold that the laws of “similarity”, or of what is called “redintegration”, are able to explain all cases of association. First, the paper presents the information found in Brentano himself on association of ideas. Then, it turns to Marty to analyze his developments of the Brentanian view. Finally, the paper evaluates Brentano and Marty’s account by tackling some objections that it may face. (shrink)

Institutional and resource dependence theories point at the roles of government and peers’ behavior as determinants of firms’ social behavior. This is tested in this research, with important implications for both theory and practice. Using data from a national survey of Chinese private small- and medium-sized enterprises in 2008, this paper examines the role of government intervention in corporate philanthropy, as well as the moderation effect of peers’ giving. Results show that government intervention, when using a Marketization Index as a (...) measure, increases CP. In addition, the community peers’ giving enhances the positive effect of government intervention on SMEs’ giving. But the moderation effect of industry peers’ giving is generally not supported except when CP is measured as giving-to-sales. In general, community peers appear to be a clear reference for SMEs and, in relation to government intervention, exert a dominant isomorphic influence. The findings provide strong support to the neo-institutional theory perspective on philanthropy. Important theoretical and practical implications are suggested. (shrink)

This paper aims to address a problem faced by any philosopher who treats universals as intentional objects: in defending this thesis, aren't they committed to the view that each of us thinks an individuated universal, since each of us, when thinking of a universal, must have our own intentional object? This problem, which is mentioned by Brentano at the turn of the twentieth century, originated in the Middle Ages in debates initiated by Averroes about the nature of the intellect. It (...) shows up in the later Aquinas, due to his theory of the verbum, which might be interpreted as a sort of intentional object, but it is solved without too much difficulty. It is later found in Hervaeus Natalis, who does accept intentional objects; in contrast to Aquinas, it is not clear that Hervaeus has a good solution to the problem. After first presenting the problem, this paper then turns to its medieval origins by analyzing its occurrence in Aquinas's criticism of Averroes. It then explains why Hervaeus has more difficulties than Aquinas in solving the problem. It concludes with a systematic reflection on the various possible solutions to the problem. (shrink)

This study investigates the engagement of family firms in corporate social responsibility. We first compare their corporate social performance to non-family firms. Then, following recent evidence on the heterogeneity of family firms, we examine two factors that may influence CSP within family firms: the level of family control and the governance orientation of the country in which they operate. This research is based on a theoretical framework which considers both agency and socioemotional wealth influences on family firms CSR engagements. Overall, (...) we find that family firms exhibit lower CSP than non-family firms. But when focusing on family firms, our analyses show a curvilinear relationship between family control and CSP. At lower levels of control, family owners invest more in social initiatives to protect their SEW. Beyond a threshold level of control that we estimate at 36 % in our sample, economic considerations prevail over SEW and social performance starts decreasing. We also find that family firms operating in stakeholder-oriented countries are more attentive to social concerns than those operating in more shareholder-oriented countries. (shrink)

This paper presents and evaluates the early Husserl’s account of typicality. In the Logical Investigations, Husserl holds that the meaning of ordinary language (common) names is sensitive to typicality: this meaning depends on typical examples which vary in different contexts and are more or less similar to one another. This seems to entail that meanings, which according to Husserl are concepts, are “fluctuating” (schwankend) and vague. Prima facie, such a claim contravenes his theory of ideal meanings, or concepts, which are (...) “fixed” (fest) and sharp. However, Husserl wants to save this theory. He claims that the fluctuation and vagueness in question are not to be found in the meaning itself, or the concept, but rather derive from the act of meaning. Thus, he apparently manages to make room for typicality in ordinary language while accepting only fixed and sharp meanings. After presenting Husserl’s theory, I evaluate it and ask whether he will still be committed, despite his own claims, to accepting prototype concepts to account for typicality in ordinary language. (shrink)

Anton Marty (1847-1914) is known to be the most faithful pupil of Franz Brentano. As a matter of fact, most of his philosophical ideas find their source in the works of his master. Yet, the faithfulness of Marty is not constant. As the rich correspondence between the two thinkers shows, Marty elaborates an original theory of intentionality from ca. 1904 onward. This theory is based on the idea that intentionality is a process of mental assimilation (ideelle Verähnlichung), a process at (...) the core of which lies a sui generis relation of “ideal similitude” holding between a thinking subject and its object. This study spells out the Martyian notion of mental assimilation and traces back Marty’s evolution from his earlier position (prominently described in the recently published Deskriptive Psychologie of 1893-1894) to his final view as it is found in the Untersuchungen of 1908. It turns out that besides Brentano, Husserl is a key figure in that evolution. Such a “genetic”elucidation of Marty’s last theory is required in order to reach the main goal of this paper, namely: the clarification of Marty’s degree of dependence upon Brentano with respect to the theory of intentionality. That being said, we do not merely intend to compare the mature Marty with Brentano: our “genetic” considerations will also allow us to describe the interaction between the two thinkers before 1904. Accordingly, we begin by presenting Brentano’s own position on intentionality in discussing its two currently competing readings, namely the “discontinuist” and the “continuist” one. Against a recent interpretation, we argue that Marty’s endorsement of a “discontinuist” reading is not based on a misunderstanding of Brentano’s position. (shrink)

Anton Marty (Schwyz, 1847–Prague, 1914) contributed significantly to some of the central themes of Austrian philosophy. This collection contributes to assessing the specificity of his theses in relation with other Austrian philosophers. Although strongly inspired by his master, Franz Brentano, Marty developed his own theory of intentionality, understood as a sui generis relation of similarity. Moreover, he established a comprehensive philosophy of language, or "semasiology", based on descriptive psychology, and in which the utterer’s meaning plays a central role, anticipating Grice’s (...) pragmatic semantics. The present volume, including sixteen articles by scholars in the field of the history of Austrian philosophy and in contemporary philosophy, aims at exposing some of Marty’s most important contributions in philosophy of mind and language, but also in other fields of research such as ontology and metaphysics. As archive material, the volume contains the edition of a correspondence between Marty and Hans Cornelius on similarity. This book will interest scholars in the fields of the history of philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries, historians of phenomenology, and, more broadly, contemporary theoretical philosophers. (shrink)

This study explores why and how firms respond to social demands through philanthropic giving in the context of a severe natural disaster. Drawing on Marquis and Qian's organizational response model to government signals, we integrate resource dependence theory and institutional theory to build a two-step model of organizational response to social needs, in situations of disaster relief. We argue that firms depending more on the government for support are more likely to donate in disaster relief, while firms who receive more (...) scrutiny from the government and the general public and firms having more slack resources are likely to donate more. Evidence from Chinese listed companies' donations to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake largely supports our predictions. This study provides a more precise understanding of the corporate philanthropic decision process, decoupling the drivers of philanthropic giving, and those determining the amount given. Theoretical and practical implications are suggested. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of how to best account for the diversity of our (synchronic) mental activities. The discussion starts with Mark Textor’s mental monism. According to mental monism, our mental life is constituted by just one simple mental act, in which different sub-acts can be conceptually distinguished. Textor grounds this view in the work of the early Brentano and contrasts it with the theory of the later Brentano, who introduces a mental substance into his philosophy. According to Textor, (...) Brentano needs a substance because he is unable to explain how mental monism can account for the separability of our mental activities, e.g. the fact that I can stop hearing F while still seeing blue. Textor argues, however, that mental monism can solve this problem. I address two issues regarding Textor’s view. First, I challenge his interpretation of Brentano by arguing that the early Brentano imports ontological complexity into our mental life; I defend Brentano’s view against possible criticisms, and I address some objections to mental monism. Second, I oppose Textor’s narrative about the mental substance. I argue that Brentano needs a substance not to explain separability, but rather to individuate our mental acts. I still argue, however, that Brentano’s earlier view (understood in my sense) is better than the substance account for dividing the mind. (shrink)

This paper presents the defense by the medieval philosopher Peter Auriol of the thesis that sounds and odors have no real, mind-independent being, but exist only as mental correlates of acts of hearing and smelling. Auriol does not see this as an idiosyncratic position, as he claims to be following not only Aristotle, but also Averroes on the issue. Since it is often thought that non-realism about sensible qualities was “inconceivable” for medieval authors and was made possible only by the (...) early modern scientific revolution led by Galileo, it is crucial to bring Auriol’s position to the fore. Auriol’s view, and its alleged roots in Arabic philosophy, invites us to reassess our standard narrative in the history of philosophy and science. (shrink)

Brentanians defend the view that there are distinct types of object, but that this does not entail the admission of different modes of being. The most general distinction among objects is the one between realia, which are causally efficacious, and irrealia, which are causally inert. As for being, which is equated with existence, it is understood in terms of “correct acknowledgeability.” This view was defended for some time by Brentano himself and then by his student Anton Marty. Their position is (...) opposed to Bolzanian, Husserlian, and Meinongian ontologies, in which a distinction in the (higher) types of object implies a distinction in their mode of being. These Austro-German discussions anticipate much of the contemporary debate between Quineans, who accept only differences in objects, and neo-Meinongians or other ontological pluralists, who accept different modes of being. My paper first presents the Brentanian view in detail and then evaluates its philosophical significance. (shrink)

In this paper, I present Brentano’s account of sensation. In the first part, I focus on Brentano’s positive views on sensation, according to which it is an intuitive fundamental presentation of a real physical phenomenon. In the second part, I discuss the way Brentano distinguishes sensation from other mental acts, namely, outer perception, inner perception, acts of interest, proteraesthesis, memory, conceptual presentations, and imagination.

The aim of my paper is to study the relations between habit and the operation of intellection in Aquinas. I will start with a presentation of the acquisition of intellection and the constitution of intellectual habit. I will then turn to the problem of the reactivation of the “stored” intelligible species, which constitutes the intellectual habit. This reactivation, for Aquinas, is not yet the act of intellection. Indeed, an additional step is required in order for intellection to be achieved, namely (...) an “operation.” I will explain why this additional step is needed. In his later works, following Augustine, Aquinas holds that the operation of the intellect, besides the use of the species, entails the production of another means of cognition: the “word.” I will argue in favour of the view that the later Aquinas does not abandon the first type of intellectual operation, based only on the species, but maintains both operations in parallel, and that his reason for maintaining these two different operations is that the species and the word provide different kinds of cognition. I will then tackle the complicated question as to how this difference of cognition is to be accounted for at the habitual level. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the way Duns Scotus’ philosophy is used in the contemporary discussions on properties. I point out that both realists about universals and trope theorists invoke Scotus to defend their positions. Moreover, I show that they do it by taking the same concept, formal distinction, to apply it to the same problem: the distinction between the qualitative and the individuating features of properties. After presenting the contemporary uses of Scotus, I turn to his own theory of (...) natures and I ask to what extent he may be a realist about universals or a defender of the trope view. I do not provide a firm answer to this question, but I show that much depends on Scotus’ account of the formal distinction, and on his possible change of mind with respect to this notion. (shrink)

This paper discusses the thesis defended by Edith Stein that certain acts can be attributed to the State. According to Stein, the State is a social structure characterized by sovereignty. As such, it is responsible for the production, interpretation, and application of law. These tasks require the performance of acts, most of which are what Stein calls “social acts” like enactments and orders. For Stein, the acts in question are made by the organs of the State, but in the name (...) of the State, and are thus attributed to the State via a relation of representation. In the first section, the paper presents Stein’s thesis that the sovereignty of the State entails a series of legal prerogatives, which in turn result in various social acts being ascribed to the State through its representatives. In the second section, the paper critically discusses Stein’s views, notably her theory of representation, and her account of the nature of the State, while emphasizing its most interesting aspects, namely, its fine-grained analyses of the various acts that are attributed to the State. (shrink)

Brentano distinguishes between intentionality and reference. According to Brentano, all mental acts are intentionally directed toward something. Some mental acts also refer to something, which is the case when their object exists in reality. For Brentano, such acts, besides their intentionality, have a peculiar relation of similarity to their object. However, there is no mention of Brentano’s distinction between intentionality and reference in the literature. Drawing on some lesser known texts, this paper aims both at showing that Brentano makes such (...) a distinction and at underscoring the philosophical significance of his position. (shrink)

Husserl often pays tribute to his teacher Brentano for having opened the path towards phenomenology. However, the praise is systematically followed by a criticism: Brentano failed to draw all the consequences from his ground-breaking rediscovery of intentionality, and remained stuck in inadequate psychological research. For Husserl, there are three ways to study mental acts: empirical, eidetic, and transcendental. What is objected to Brentano is his adherence to empirical psychology. Husserl himself focuses on the second and third levels. It is clear (...) that Brentano never entered into transcendental considerations. However, it seems also clear that he was doing eidetic-like research in psychology in a way similar to Husserl. In the paper, I first present Husserl’s criticism of empirical and, thus, Brentanian psychology. I then turn to Brentano’s and the psychology of his heirs and try to show that Husserl’s criticism is not quite correct. In the course of the discussion, I treat the crucial epistemological question of eidetic vs empirical knowledge, both in Husserl and in Brentano. (shrink)

Par opposition à son maître Trendelenburg, qui ramenait les catégories aristotéliciennes à leur "origine grammaticale", Brentano, dans sa dissertation de 1862 sur l’ontologie d’Aristote, les qualifie de concepts d’étants. De ses premiers cours de métaphysique, donnés à Wurtzbourg en 1867, jusqu’à ses derniers textes sur la question de l’être, datés de 1917, Brentano consacrera une part importante de ses réflexions aux catégories. Il reviendra non seulement sur la question du nombre des catégories, augmentant ou diminuant celui-ci, mais aussi sur la (...) place à leur accorder dans une ontologie bien pensée. Durant ses années de maturité, Brentano proposera de distinguer, parmi les étants, les realia et les irrealia. Tandis que les realia sont des entités causalement actives, les irrealia sont causalement inertes et incluent ainsi les abstracta : l’humanité, la rougeur, etc. Se pose dès lors la question de savoir si les catégories sont concrètes ou abstraites, réelles ou irréelles. De la réponse à cette question dépendra en outre le sort des catégories chez le dernier Brentano, "réiste", dont l’ontologie se restreint au réel : puisque le réisme implique l’abandon des abstracta, les catégories ne survivraient pas à être abstraites. (shrink)

This paper aims to present and evaluate Brentano’s account of the individuation of mental acts. In his early works, Brentano assimilated mental acts to tropes; however, he encountered difficulties in explaining their individuation, since the usual solutions for the individuation of tropes were not readily applicable to his theory of mental acts. In a later period, Brentano introduced into his psychology what he called the “soul”, and this allowed him to explain the individuation of mental acts. Finally, after his “reistic” (...) turn, he excluded mental acts from his ontology, for he rejected abstracta of any kind, including abstract particulars, and admitted only things, or res (in Latin), that is, concrete particulars; in his late philosophy, there are no “thinkings”, but only “thinkers”. However, he still needed to explain what individuates different thinkers, and this was again the soul. In the conclusion, the paper critically compares the different theoretical options considered by Brentano. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Since the first discussion of Brentano’s relation to (and account of) medieval philosophy by Spiegelberg in 1936, a fair amount of studies have been dedicated to the topic. And if those studies focused on some systematic issue at all, the beloved topic of intentionality clearly occupied a hegemonic position in the scholarly landscape . The following pages consider the question from the point of view of ontology, and in a twofold perspective: What did Brentano know about medieval ontology and what (...) kind of access did he have to that material (section 1)? What kind of use did Brentano make of medieval material in his own philosophy, and with what kind of results (section 2)? (shrink)

This paper examines the account of ordinary language semantics developed by Franz Brentano and his pupil Anton Marty. Long before the interest in ordinary language in the analytic tradition, Brentanian philosophers were exploring our everyday use of words, as opposed to the scientific use of language. Brentano and Marty were especially interested in the semantics of (common) names in ordinary language. They claimed that these names are vague, and that this is due to the structure of the concepts that constitute (...) their meaning: concepts expressed by such names are themselves vague, based on typicality, and have more or less similar items within their extension. After presenting the views of Brentano and Marty, this paper compares them to later accounts of meaning and concepts, notably Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblances and the prototype theory of concepts, and emphasizes the originality of the Brentanian position. (shrink)

This paper will present an analysis of the relational aspect of Brentano’s last theory of intentionality. My main thesis is that Brentano, at the end of his life, considered relations (relatives) without existent terms to be genuine relations (relatives). Thus, intentionality is a non-reducible real relation (the thinking subject is a non-reducible real relative) regardless of whether or not the object exists. I will use unpublished texts from the Brentanian Nachlass to support my argument.

My paper aims at presenting Peter Auriol’s theory of cognition. Auriol holds that cognition is “something which makes an object appear to someone.” This claim, for Auriol, is meant to be indeterminate, as he explicitly says that the “something” in question can refer to any type of being. However, when he states how cognition is “implemented” in cognizers, Auriol specifies what this “something” is: for God, it is simply the deity itself; for creatures, cognition is described as something “absolute,” i.e. (...) non-relational, more precisely a complex entity made up of a cognitive power and a “likeness.” However, one also finds Auriol saying that created cognition, as a “likeness,” is relative. Yet, when Auriol talks of created cognition as something relative, he does not make an ontological claim: he means that one cannot think of cognition without thinking of it as having a relation to an object. In brief, created cognition, for Auriol, is ontologically absolute, but it is always represented together with a relation. (shrink)

This paper analyses the ontological status of the ‘intellected thing’ (res intellecta) in Hervaeus Natalis. For Hervaeus an intellected thing is not a thing in the outer world, but something radically different, namely an internal, mind-dependent entity, something having a peculiar mode of being, ‘esse obiective’. While Hervaeus often says that the act of intellection is directed upon real things, this does not mean that the act is directed upon things existing actually outside the mind. Hervaeus argues that the act (...) of intellection is directed upon things existing ‘aptitudinally’ outside the mind, not actually outside the mind. A thing existing aptitudinally outside the mind is a mind-dependent entity, something having esse obiective. In order to establish this point, I will explain how the property ‘being intellected’ (esse intellectum) should be interpreted in Hervaeus’ philosophy. This property is a peculiar type of relation, namely a relation of reason that gives a peculiar ontological status to its bearer. To neglect the distinction between actually outside and aptitudinally outside could falsely lead one to ascribe to Hervaeus a theory of intellection where the mental act is directed upon mind-independent entities. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a crucial question of social ontology addressed by Gerda Walther, namely, whether a social community has its own reality over and above that of its members and its cultural “products”, such as language, religion, infrastructure, and works of art. Walther has a nuanced answer which combines elements of phenomenology and Marxism. She praises Marxists for drawing our attention to the “community as such”, taken as an object distinct from its members and their relations. She maintains the (...) thesis, defended according to her by “certain socialists and Hegelians” (which presumably includes Marxists), that communities have their own reality. However, she develops it one step further, arguing that these social structures are “higher-order” unitary realities that exist over and above their members and cultural products. In addition, she enriches this realist position from a phenomenological point of view by identifying with precision the kinds of mental act on which communities are founded, namely, “unifications” and “we-experiences”. As such, Walther’s theory is an early encounter between phenomenology and Marxism, prior to Trần Đức Thảo and Jean-Paul Sartre, and thus deserves much more attention than it has received in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Some Austro-German philosophers considered thoughts to be mind-dependent entities, that is, psychic products. Yet these authors also attrib- uted “objectivity” to thoughts: distinct thinking subjects can have mental acts with “qualitatively” the same content. Moreover, thoughts, once built, can exist beyond the life of their inventor, “embodied” in “documents”. At the beginning of the 20th century, the notion of “psychic product” was at the centre of the debates on psychologism; a hundred years later, it is rather at the margins of (...) the history of philosophy. While Twardowski’s theory of products has been fre- quently studied, those of Stumpf and the late Husserl have been much less dis- cussed. A presentation of the Austro-German debates about psychic products is all the more important since these discussions might be of direct interest for contemporary philosophy of mind and epistemology. This paper examines the Austro-German notion of psychic products in Stumpf, Twardowski, and the later Husserl. (shrink)