Denis Fisette & Guillaume Fréchette 
Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years 
From History of Philosophy to Reism

This volume brings together contributions that explore the philosophy of Franz Brentano. It looks at his work both critically and in the context of contemporary philosophy. For instance, Brentano influenced the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, the theory of objects of Alexius Meinong, the early development of the Gestalt theory, the philosophy of language of Anton Marty, the works of Carl Stumpf in the psychology of tone, and many others. Readers will also learn the contributions of Brentano’s work to much debated contemporary issues in philosophy of mind, ontology, and the theory of emotions.

The first section deals with Brentano’s conception of the history of philosophy. The next approaches his conception of empirical psychology from an empirical standpoint and in relation with competing views on psychology from the period. The third section discusses Brentano’s later programme of a descriptive psychology or “descriptive phenomenology” and some of his most innovative developments, for instance in the theory of emotions. The final section examines metaphysical issues and applications of his mereology. His reism takes here an important place.

The intended readership of this book comprises phenomenologists, analytic philosophers, philosophers of mind and value, as well as metaphysicians. It will appeal to both graduate and undergraduate students, professors, and researchers in philosophy and psychology.

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction (Fisette, Fréchette, Janousek).- Part1. History of Philosophy. Chapter1. Brentano as a Historian of (Medieval) Philosophy (Laurent Cesalli (Geneva) ).- Chapter2. Brentano on Aristotle’s Categories. A Critical Assessment (Venanzio Raspa (Urbino) ).- Chapter3. Brentano, Aristotle, and the Project of a scientific Philosophy (Emanuele Mariani (Lissabon)).- Chapter4. Brentano and his scholastic roots (David Torrijos-Castrillejo (Madrid)).- Part2. Psychology. Chapter5. Brentano on Phenomenalism and Physical Phenomena (Denis Fisette (Montreal)).- Chapter6. Brentanian Psychology as a Foundation for Philosophy (Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (Stettin)).- Chapter7. On the Several Senses of Psychology in Brentano (Charles Niveleau (Paris)).- Chapter8. Franz Brentano and Brain Anatomy in Vienna (Josef Halde (Graz)).- Part3. Descriptive phenomenology. Chapter9. Was Brentano a Self-Representationalist? (Denis Seron(Liège) ).- Chapter10. The Phenomenology of Mentality (Arnaud Dewalque (Liège)).- Chapter11. Attention in Brentano’s Descriptive Psychology (Hynek Janousek (Prague)).- Chapter12. Brentano, Pre-Reflexive Consciousness, and Temporality (Martin Moore (Montreal)).- Chapter13. Brentano’s Emotional Cognitivism (Gemmo Iocco (Parma)).- Chapter14. Brentano on Emotions (Ingrid Vendrell Ferran (Basel)).- Part 4. Chapter15. Language and Existence. About some Brentanian Paradoxes (Jan Sebestik (Paris)).- Chapter16. Brentanian Mereology. The theory of Parts and Wholes (Wilhelm Baumgartner (Würzburg)).- Chapter17. Substance and Accident in Brentano’s Reism (Robin Rollinger (Prague)).- Chapter18. Logical tools for descriptive psychology. Set theory and foundational Mereology (Bruno Leclercq (Liège)).- Chapter19. Are Ideal Objects only Objects of Thought? The Controversy between Kotarbinski and Ingarden (Sébastien Richard (Brussels) .-Chapter20. Linguistic Fictions in Brentano (Charlotte Gauvry (Liège)).

Om författaren

Denis Fisette is professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Quebec in Montreal. He teaches contemporary philosophy of mind and history of German speaking philosophy (XIXe and XXe c.) and he has published extensively in both domains. His recent research bears on Husserl’s phenomenology.


Guillaume Fréchette is project director at the University of Salzburg. His research is devoted to the Austro-German tradition. He studies the relation of this tradition both  to other trends of 19th Century philosophy and to contemporary philosophy of consciousness and mind. 




Hynek Janoušek is research fellow in the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. His research concerns Austro-German philosophy in Bohemia (Bolzano, Brentano, Masaryk, Husserl) and the philosophy of David Hume