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Brentano's Theory of Judgement
One of Brentano's foremost aims in philosophy was to provide a newfoundation for epistemology and logic as two closely relateddisciplines. He tried to achieve this by a systematic analysis of themental phenomena involved in attaining knowledge and in drawinginferences. For Brentano knowledge is reached by judgements that aredirectly or indirectly evident, and logical inferences can contributeto our knowledge because they can make a judgement indirectly evidentfor us. Hence both epistemology and logic rely on a conception ofjudgements, how they differ from other mental phenomena, and how theyare related to each other.
Brentano's view of the nature of judgement differs significantlyfrom other views that can be found in Aristotle, Kant, or Frege. Incontrast to Aristotle, Brentano emphasizes the importance ofexistential judgements with only one term, and claims that predicativejudgements are a special case of existential ones. In contrast toKant, he emphasizes the difference between presentations andjudgements, rejecting their unification in the single category“thinking”. In contrast to Frege, he holds that judgementsdo not require the existence of complete thoughts or propositionswhich have to be grasped before a judgement can be made. It is themental act of judging, not its object or content, which is the bearerof truth-values. In view of these differences Brentano's theory ofjudgement has been called existential (non-predicative),idiogenetic (non-reductionist), and reistic(non-propositional).
Today Brentano's theory does not have many adherents. The now dominantview is that propositions or sentences are the objects of belief, andthat judgements occur when beliefs are acquired, manifested, orchanged. Logical inferences are then defined as relations betweenpropositions or sentences, abstracting from the mental attitudes thatgo along with them. Although this anti-psychological approach iswidely accepted today, there is still an open question concerning theorder of explanation here: Are beliefs and judgements true becausethey are directed at true propositions, or should we say thatpropositions (and sentences) are true because they express truebeliefs and judgements? Once this question is raised, Brentano'stheory of judgement remains an interesting alternative to the currentmainstream in logic and epistemology.
1. The Nature of Judgement
The main elements of Brentano's theory of judgement can be found inchapter 7 and appendix IX of his Psychology from an EmpiricalStandpoint (1874; the appendix was added in the second edition1911). A more elaborate exposition of his theory is contained in thelogic lectures which Brentano held at the University of Wuerzburg(1869-71) and at the University of Vienna (1875-1889). UnfortunatelyBrentano never realized his plan—announced in the second editionof the Psychology (Vol. II, p.77n/p.230n)—to publishhis elementary logic as a whole. Up to now only a small selection ofhis lecture notes, mixed with excerpts from other writings by Brentanoand his pupil Franz Hillebrand, has been published in Die Lehrevom richtigen Urteil (1956).
Brentano's leading question was a psychological one: What happens inour minds when we make a judgement? Introspectively it is an act quitesimilar to making a decision, although its behavioral effects aredifferent. Suppose you are uncertain what to think about the existenceof extraterrestrial life. Some data suggest that life exists only onearth, others suggest that there may be intelligent beings somewhereelse in the universe. Eventually you may become convinced one way orthe other, and you either accept or reject the existence ofextraterrestrial life. That is when you judge.
This example illustrates three crucial claims that Brentanomakes:
- Judgements require that something (some object) is given inpresentation, but not that something is predicated of it.
- Judgements are either positive or negative, depending on whether thepresented object is accepted as existing, or rejected as fictitious ornon-existing.
- Judgements are best expressed in sentences of the form“A exists” or “A does notexist”, where the term “A” denotes thepresented object which is also the object of the judgement, and therest of the sentence indicates its quality.
These three claims form the core of Brentano's theory of judgement:The foundational thesis (1) concerns the relation betweenjudgement and predication, the polarity thesis (2)determines the place of negation in judgements, and theexistential thesis (3) determines a canonical form in whichall judgements can be expressed. Of course, these claims must be seenin the context of Brentano's overall theory of mental phenomena, inparticular in the context of his account of intentionality. Thisbackground cannot be discussed here, but it is worth mentioning thatthe term “object of judgement”, as it is used here, alwaysrefers to an entity which is distinct from the judgement itself andnot contained in it. It is also assumed here that judgements have acontent or subject matter, which is not separable from the act itself,and which Brentano originally called the “immanent objectivityof a mental phenomenon”. The content of a judgement must not beconceived as a propositional entity, however, since Brentanoexplicitly denied that judgements have such entities as theircontents. (Complex entities which are not propositional and which arejust as ephemeral as the content of a judgement can already be foundin Aristotle; see G. B. Matthews, 1982.)
All three of Brentano's claims above were already highlycontroversial among his immediate pupils. We find for instance inHusserl's fifth Logical Investigation an account of judgementswhich deviates from Brentano in all three respects. According toHusserl judgements are intentional acts with a propositional contentdirected at proposition-like entities which he callsSachverhalte. Why Husserl deviated from his teacher in sucha radical way, and whether he did so for good reasons, are questionsstill in discussion today. (See for instance Mulligan 1988).
2. The Foundational Thesis and the Judgement/Predication Distinction
The claim that judgements are based on presentations is a commonplacein philosophy, but it is a matter of controversy how this relationshipshould exactly be spelled out. Traditional logic suggests that twopresentations must be involved in every judgement, since a judgementis made when something is attributed or denied of somethingelse. Therefore the sentences that are traditionally used forexpressing judgements have the subject-predicate form“S is P” and “S is notP”.
Brentano rejects this traditional view by pointing out that judgementsmay arise also from a single presentation. When someone judges thatextraterrestrials exist, he does not connect the notion ofextraterrestrial life with the notion of existence. He merely thinksof such beings and accepts their existence, i.e., he has apresentation of such beings and accepts it as a presentation ofsomething existing. Existential judgements are therefore not to beexpressed in the subject-predicate form “S isP”, but in the simple form “Aexists”, when “A” is a singular term, and“A's exist” or “Some Aexist”, when “A” is a generalterm. (Brentano mentions in a footnote that Aristotle himself may haveacknowledged simple judgements of this form. PsychologyVol. II, p.54n/p.211n).
Existential judgements show that predication is not necessaryfor forming a judgement, but neither is it sufficient according toBrentano. Many philosophers have assumed that a predicative judgementis nothing more than “the putting together of twoideas”—in the case of “S isP”—or “the separating of twoideas”—in the case of “S is notP”. This view is sometimes called the“combinatorial theory of judgement”, and Brentano was notthe first to point out the deficiences of this view. He refers to JohnStuart Mill who already denied that judgements arise from a habit ofassociating or dissociating ideas. What Brentano adds to Mill'scriticism is a precise diagnosis of the mistake: the combinatorialtheory tries to locate the characteristic feature of a judgement inits content instead of locating it in itsquality. When we combine a subject- and a predicate-term wejust form a more complex idea which is again the content of apresentation. What is still missing is the qualitative moment ofacceptance or rejection (see Psychology, Vol II,p.63/p.221).
Thus Brentano's theory draws a sharp line between judgement andpredication in recognizing judgements with a non-predicational contentand in taking subjectless sentences at face value. Sentences like“It is raining” or “There is no water on themoon” need not be paraphrased into subject-predicate form alongthe lines of “The weather is rainy” or “The moon islacking water”. They directly express a judgement by specifyingan object which is given in presentation (rain, water on the moon) andby indicating whether this object is accepted or rejected. (Thisadvantage of Brentano's theory was especially exploited by Marty1884-1895).
Things get more complicated, however, when Brentano later (in appendixIX of the second edition of the Psychology) introducesso-called “double judgements”. In making a doublejudgement one first accepts the existence of something, and then addsto this first judgement a second one to the effect that the object,whose existence one already has accepted, either has or lacks someproperty. According to this refined view, a predication is made not bycombining two ideas or presentations, but by combining twojudgements.
The introduction of double judgements leaves the analysis ofexistential judgements intact, since in judging that S existswe do not first accept S as existing and then attributeexistence or non-existence to it. However, one can now predicateP of S in two different ways: either by firstforming the complex presentation of an object S which isP and then accepting this object, or by first accepting theexistence of S and then attributing P to it, thusmaking the double judgement that S is P. In thislatter case too, the attribution of P involves two steps:first the predicate P is connected merely in presentationwith object S whose existence has been accepted, and then theobject S is accepted once more, but this time together withP as one of its properties. That predication and judgementremain distinct acts also in the case of double judgements can be seenfrom the following fact: When we imagine a person (perhaps oneself)who is double-judging that S is P, we can disagreeonly with the second part of her judgement, and still form the complexpresentation of an S which is P. And conversely, wecan form the complex presentation of an S which is Pand yet agree with the double judgement that S is notP. (See Psychologie, Vol. II, p.164/p.295. Thispoint is further elaborated in Terrell 1976).
In its final form Brentano's account of the relation between judgementand predication turns out to be less straightforward than the standardFregean account with its simple distinction between “grasping aproposition” and “judging it to be true”. At nopoint did Brentano, however, lose sight of the claim that predicationis not essentially connected with judging.
3. The Polarity Thesis and the Judgement/Negation Distinction
According to Brentano's second thesis, judgements are always positiveor negative. In this respect they are like preferences and emotionalattitudes which are for or against something. (Brentano holds thecontroversial view that feelings and acts of will belong to the samecategory and that they all involve such a polarity.) Presentations,on the other hand, are neither positive nor negative. They simplypresent an object to the mind without taking a stance towards it. Thishappens when we simply see or hear something, or when we imaginesomething in our phantasy. As long as no judgement is made (and noemotional evaluation and no preference is involved), there is nothingpositive or negative about an act of presentation.
This essential difference tends to be overlooked when one uses thesingle category of “thinking” for both judgements andpresentations, as does the Kantian tradition. According to Brentanopresentations and judgements are as different from each other as theyare different from feelings and acts of will. Their difference is notjust external—having to do with the way in which they influenceour actions—it is an internal difference lying in thedistinctive quality of judgements. Therefore, if one acknowledges thatfeelings or acts of will form a separate category besides the categoryof “thinking”, one should accept for the same reason thatjudgements and presentations form distinct categories as well.
With his polarity thesis Brentano not only dismisses the Kantiantradition, he also rejects a view that Frege made popular, namely thatthere are no negative judgements. When we deny the existence ofsomething, e.g., the existence of extraterrestrial life, we stillaccept something as true, Frege would say, namely the negative thoughtthat there are no extraterrestrials. Negation enters the formation ofthoughts, it does not divide judgements intopositive and negative.
Frege's elimination of negative judgements rests on the assumptionthat thoughts (or judgement-contents) can be true or falseindependently of being accepted or rejected, and therefore can also benegated. Brentano does not explicitly discuss this view, but hisobjection to it seems clear: The polarity between truth and falsitymust be grounded in our ability to form opposite judgements. We firsthave to realize that from two opposing judgements with respect to thesame subject matter, one will be true and the other one false. Onlythen can we understand what it means for a sentence, (a judgementcontent, a proposition, a thought, or whatever), to be true orfalse. (These issues are further discussed in Reinach 1911).
Brentano's treatment of negation has important furtherconsequences. First, if the contrast between truth and falsity isexplained along these lines, then the contrast between positive andnegative concepts must also be explained at the level of judgements,not at the level of presentations. In his later writings Brentano tookup this challenge when he tried to show that only positively conceived“things” are properly regarded as objects ofpresentations. This became his ontological doctrine calledreism. (On this issue see Körner 1978).
Secondly, if negation is completely eliminated from the level ofpresentaions, the analysis of categorial judgements has to be revisedaccordingly. Initially, Brentano paraphrased these judgements inexistential form as follows:
(I) Some S are P There is an S which is P (E) No S is P There is no S which is P (O) Some S are not P There is an S which is a non-P (A) All S are P There is no S which is a non-P
The negation in E-judgements poses no problem: it properly indicatesthat a negative judgement is made. The negative concept“non-P” used in the paraphrases of O- andA-judgements is more problematic, however. Here a negation enters atthe level of presentations, not at the level of judgement as thepolarity thesis requires.
A more complicated analysis is required to get around thisdifficulty. In the case of O-judgements the introduction of doublejudgements will help. It then turns out that an O-judgement does notconsist in predicating non-P of S, but in firstaccepting S and then making a negative judgement to theeffect that S is not P, i.e., a judgement thatdenies the application of P to S. This still leavesthe A-judgements as a problem case. At this point Brentano againinvokes a higher-level presentation, namely the presentation ofsomeone whose judgements are evaluated as right or wrong. With theseadditional tools at hand, Brentano arrives at the following analysisof the four categorical judgements (see Psychology, Vol. II,164-169/pp.295-298):
(I) Some S are P There is an S and that S isP (E) No S is P There is no one who correctly judges “SomeS is P” (O) Some S are not P There is an S and that S is notP (A) All S are P There is no one who correctly judges “SomeS are not P”
All negations here indicate that a negative judgement ismade. This vindicates the claim that the polarity between positive andnegative judgements is basic and provides the distinguishingmark that separates judgements from presentations. Brentano admits,however, that for practical reasons it may be convenient to usenegative concepts, e.g., for simplifying inferences. When one doesso, one should keep in mind however that these concepts do notproperly pick out objects of presentation. Along these lines one couldalso justify the use of propositional clauses and thereby avoid allthe complications of the existential analysis; but Brentano does notseem to have considered this more radical simplification (see Psychology, Vol. II, p.169/p.299).
4. The Existential Thesis
Brentano's third thesis says that all simple judgements (that involveonly a simple act of judging) can be expressed in sentences of theform “A exists” or “A does notexist” (or “A's exist” and“A's do not exist” respectively). This thesismarks the contrast to all propositional theories ofjudgement. Propositional theories assume that a complete sentence (ora that-clause) is needed for expressing the content of ajudgement. That a proposition (or sentence) is actually accepted,i.e., that a judgement is made, must therefore be indicated by anadditional sign—like Frege's judgement-stroke—or itremains implicit in the assertive use of a declarative sentence.
On Brentano's theory, by contrast, only a simple or complexterm is needed to express the content of a judgement, andhence a complete sentence can express both the content andthe quality of a judgement. In making this claim, Brentanorelies on the distinction between categorematic and syncategorematicexpressions, i.e., between terms that purport to denote entities, andexpressions like “is”, “and”,“or”, etc. that do not. The former specify the content ofa judgement, whereas the latter are used for specifying itsquality. This distinction also applies to sentences of the form“A exists”. Here the “exists” doesnot purport to denote anything—the property ofexistence—rather it indicates which judgement is made: Apositive judgement in present tense in the case of “Aexists (now)”, a negative judgement in the present tense in thecase of “A does not exist now”, a positivejudgement in the past tense in the case of “Aexisted”, a negative apodictic judgement in the case of“A does necessarily not exist”, etc. (I considerhere throughout only the most basic distinction between positive andnegative cases.)
Brentano also introduces two special signs to separate those sentenceparts that specify the content of a judgement from those that specifyits quality. He uses the sign “+A” to express thepositive judgement that A exists, and the sign“−A” to express the negative judgement thatA does not exist. These signs remind one of Frege's judgementstroke, but the theory behind them is quite different. Two importantdifferences should be noted here:
Firstly, “+A” is not be read as “it isaccepted that A exists”. This would suggest that thesign “+” functions as the operator “it is acceptedthat”, and that the term “exists” expresses part ofthe content of the judgement. But the whole point of Brentano's theoryis that the term “exists” is syncategorematic and merelyexpresses the quality of thejudgement. “A” alone must therefore express thewhole (non-propositional) content. This also tells against asuggestion made , namely to read “Aexists” as “Something is A”. It is notenough to treat “existence” as a second-level predicate toavoid the misinterpretation that it contributes to the content of thejudgement (see Prior 1976, p.115).
Secondly, “−A” should not to be read as“the existence of A is rejected”. This wouldsuggest that there is a difference between “the existence ofA is rejected” and “the non-existence ofA is accepted”, and equally between “Ais rejected as existing” and “A is accepted asnon-existing”. Brentano's theory leaves no room for suchdistinctions. Otherwise it would reduce to the (non-controversial)claim that all categorial judgements are expressible in the form ofexistential propositions. Brentano's much stronger claim is howeverthat no propositions at all are accepted in such judgements, not evenexistential ones.
What, then, is the best way to read the formulas“+A” and “−A”? Thereis no better way than reading them as “A exists/doesnot exist” or as “A isaccepted/rejected”. Whatever term we use for the symbols“+” and “−”, they will have no specificmeaning beyond their function of indicating the quality of thejudgement expressed.
Having noted these differences between Brentano's and Frege'ssymbolism, one may wonder whether Brentano really has a consistenttheory here.
One problematic fact is that it is unclear how to interpret theformulas “+A” and “−A”when they are not used, but merely mentioned. When such a formula isquoted, the expression “A” is still meaningfuland expresses the content of a judgement, but the signs“+” and “−” become completelyidle. This, of course, is also true of Frege's judgement stroke, whichloses its function when it is not used to make an assertion.
However, there seems to be further difficulty that is peculiar only toBrentano's symbols. Whereas Frege's judgement-stroke is added tocomplete sentences, Brentano's symbols are parts of completesentences. But every complete sentence can be used without expressinga judgement, for instance as the antecedent or consequent of aconditional. There is no obstacle in forming the complex judgement“If A exists, then B does not exist”,and yet we cannot symbolize it as “If +A, then−B”. Apparently, then, the term“exist” is not (or not merely) an indicator of thejudgement-quality, as Brentano would have it. (This objection wasraised in Geach 1965.)
In dealing with this objection one might appeal to Brentano's owntreatment of conditional (or hypothetical) judgements. He reduces themto single existential judgements with a complex object. Thus,a judgement of the form “If A exists, then Bdoes not exist” gets analysed as “An A togetherwith a B does not exist”, where “Atogether with B” denotes the complex object which isrejected (see Psychology Vol. II, p.170/p.299; see alsoLehre p.123).
But there is more to Geach's objection. It shows that on Brentano'stheory the term “exists”, like the copula“is”, can be used in two different ways. It can either beused to express a judgement or to talk about ajudgement made by someone (possibly by oneself). We have already seenhow Brentano uses this distinction for separating judgement andpresentation, and for analysing A-judgements without invoking negativeconcepts. He also needs to make use of this distinction when it comesto conditional judgements. The judgement “If A exists,then B does not exist” might then be analysed as“It is impossible correctly both to accept A and toreject B”, which can be expressed in existential formas “Someone who can correctly accept A and rejectB does not exist”. (This analysis is suggested inChisholm 1982, p.36).
In this way Brentano's theory of judgement may be applicable to awider range of complex judgements (see Pasquarella 1987). Even ifthese extensions are rejected as unnecessarily complicated however,Brentano's existential analysis offers a viable alternative to thepropositional theory at least for some basic kinds of judgements, likethe ones used in syllogistic. This may not be very significant fromthe point of view of modern logic, which does not distinguish betweenbasic and non-basic judgements in this way, but it may have aconsiderable ontological significance. Brentano's theoryshows how a commitment to propositional entities can be avoided atleast within certain limits. Entities like “propositions”,“states of affairs”, “facts”,“Meinongian objectives”, etc. might therefore beintroduced only for convenience, but they need not be takenontologically seriously. Any stronger commitment to such entitiesremains therefore dubious, and it is for this reason that Brentanocame to reject the correspondence theory of truth. Judgements aretrue, according to his existential thesis, because certain entitiesexist (or do not exist), not because certainentities “correspond” to our judgements. (Advocates of acorrespondence theory have criticized Brentano precisely for thisreason. See Schlick 1925, pp.60ff and 176ff).
5. The Reform of Logic
In the second half of the 19th century logic freed itself from theconstraints of the Aristotelian tradition. This move is often linkedwith the demise of “psychologism”, the view that logicneeds to be based on psychology. Mathematical logicians like Bolzanoand Frege established modern logic as a strictly non-psychological,“objective” discipline. From this point of view Brentanoappears as one of the last advocates of the “old logic”,and his theory as a final attempt at providing a psychologicalfoundation for logic.
It is true that Brentano rejected the idea of a “mathematicallogic” as he found it in the writings of George Boole (seePsychology, Appendix X). Nevertheless, as we have noticed,there are important points of convergence between Brentano's andFrege's views (of which neither of them seems to have been aware): (1)judgement is distinct from predication, (2) existence is not afirst-level predicate, (3) logical analysis must penetrate thelinguistic expressions which often disguise the form of ourjudgements. But this is not all. There is even more agreement betweenBrentano and modern logic, however, when one compares them with theold syllogistic logic.
This further convergence becomes visible when one considers Brentano'scriticism of the traditional square of opposition. Thissquare is made up of the four categorial judgements (A) (“AllS are P”), (E) (“No S areP”), (I) (“Some S areP”), and (O) (“Some S are not P”),among which the following relations have been claimed to hold:
Brentano rejects almost all of these claims. After translating thecategorical judgements into existential form (leaving asidedouble-judgements for the moment), he reaches the followingconclusions:
(i) and (ii) are the only logical relationshipscorrectly identified by traditional logic.(iii) to (vi) are mistaken: If S is an empty term, both(A) and (E) are true, and both (I) and (O) are false.
(vii) and (viii) are correct, but not because of a conversion ofone judgement into another one, but only because onejudgement is expressed in two ways.
(ix) and (x) are correct, but no contraposition is needed; only asimple conversion is used.
All these results emerge from one major shift in the underlying theoryof judgements: Traditional logic takes (A) and (I) to be positivejudgements, and (E) and (O) to be negative ones. According to Brentanoall universal judgements (both (A) and (E)) are negative and thereforelack any existential import, whereas all particular judgements (both(I) and (O)) are positive and have such import. Once this“mistake” is corrected, most of the traditional disputesabout their logical relationships become obsolete. This is whyBrentano said that his theory “leads to nothing less than acomplete overthrow, and at the same time, a reconstruction ofelementary logic. Everything then becomes simpler, clearer, and moreexact” (Psychology Vol.II 77/230). (For a criticalsurvey of Brentano's logic reform see Prior 1962, pp.166ff. and Simons1987).
When we compare Brentano's results with the doctrines of modernlogic, we see that they are in complete agreement concerning(i)–(vi). With respect to (vii) and (x) there is at least nomajor disagreement. It is still acceptable to say that the simpleconversion of terms is only a change in the linguistic expression of ajudgement, not in the judgement itself, and the same can be said aboutthe conversion of an A-judgement. Here, too, no contraposition isneeded, since in predicate logic an A-judgement can be eitherexpressed as an implication or a negated conjunction.
In conclusion one may say that Brentano's psychological approach tologic did not prevent him from arriving at results very close to whatmodern logic teaches us. Perhaps, then, the major difference betweenBrentano and modern logic should not be seen in his psychologism, butrather in his focus on general terms. Frege changed this focus withhis function/argument analysis of sentences, thereby replacing generalterms with unsaturated expressions. This step is missing in Brentano'stheory, and that is what sets it apart from the mainstream incontemporary logic and epistemology.
6. Recent Literature
There is a continued and lively interest in Brentano's philosophy ingeneral as well as his theory of judgement in particular. Referencesto Brentano's theory of judgement are frequent in the literature, andthere are several new publications in which this theory is extensivelydiscussed or considered in relation to works that have been directlyor indirectly influenced by Brentano. The Cambridge Companion toBrentano (2004) contains two papers explicitly dealing withBrentano's theory of judgement. In “Judging correctly: Brentanoand the reform of elementary logic”, Peter Simons sets outBrentano's “modest but solid achievements” in the area oflogic. (p.46). He describes Brentano's theory of judgement as “asensible and pedagogically accessible approach to term logic eventoday” that is—“with a little tidyingup”—“fully amenable to the most rigorousmathematical treatment” (ibid.).
Charles Parsons in his paper “Brentano on judgement andtruth” discusses Brentano's theory of judgement as providing thebackground for his criticism of the correspondence theory of truth.In comparing Brentano, Frege, and Tarski, he notes that Brentano mostdirectly raised the question “what the connection should bebetween compositional truth conditions and explanations or definitionsof truth” (p.188). He also notes that Brentano may be seen as a“precursor of one strand of contemporary deflationism”,with the proviso that “although Brentano's meditation on theadequatio formula led in a deflationary direction, […] he does notexplain the transition from his deflationary remarks to the epistemiccriterion”, namely to the criterion according to which truthbelongs to the judgement of the person who judges about a thing in theway in which someone who judged with evidence about it would judge(p. 193).
Arek Chrudzimski's book Intentionalitätstheorie beimfrühen Brentano (2001) contains a chapter onBrentano's theory of judgement in which its implications for hisepistemic concept of truth and the role that normative discourse playsin this context are discussed. Although the book focuses onBrentano's early period, this chapter also contains a succinctaccount of Brentano's later theory of double judgements (seepp. 56ff.).
The historical context of Brentano's theory of judgement isreconsidered in Robin Rollinger's paper “Austrian theories ofjudgement: Bolzano, Brentano, Meinong, and Husserl” (2004). Theclaim of this paper is not that there is much continuity in thehistorical development of these theories; rather it is emphasized thatHusserl's and Meinong's “results were markedly different fromthose of their predecessors and from each other's”(p. 257). Still, it is an interesting historical fact that developinga theory of judgement was a central concern of all of thesephilosophers, and it is simply the importance they attribute to thismatter that unites their views as typically “Austrian”theories of judgement.
Karl Schuhmann's paper on “Johannes Daubert's theory ofjudgement” documents a wider impact that Brentano's theory ofjudgement had within the early days of phenomenology. As Schuhmannnotes, Daubert “was familiar with the works of Brentano and hisschool and moreover shared with the Brentanists a marked interest inlogical matters.” (p. 179). Like Brentano, Daubert is interestedin judgements as a unique class of mental acts whose analysis providesthe basis for an account of modalities, negation, truth, andvalidity.
Finally, it should be noted that two volumes of Husserl's logiclectures have now been published: Urteilstheorie 1905, andAlte und neue Logik 1908/09. Since these lectures in manyrespects follow the tradition of Brentano, important insights aboutBrentano's theory of judgement may be gained from Husserl'slectures. There still remains a great need, however, for thepublication of Brentano's own lectures on logic.
Bibliography
Other Internet Resource
[See the Other Internet Resourceslinks at the end of the entry on Franz Brentano in this Encyclopedia.]