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Section 9. Philosophy
Ivanyk Stepan, University of Warsaw, PhD in Philosophy, the Institute of Philosophy E-mail: stepan.ivanyk@gmail.com
Franz Brentano's and Kazimierz Twardowski's theories of mental acts: comparative analysis
This publication has been realized with the financial support of the National Science Centre in Cracow under the program "Sonata-5"
Abstract: The aim of the article is to attempt to represent the new empirical data that could deliver additional evidence for the advantages of the geographical approach to the historiography of science. To achieve this goal, the author considers the example of migration of knowledge within a particular philosophical science (theory of mental acts) between two specific cities (Vienna and Lvov) in a specific period of time (at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries). It was shown that among the elements of theory of mental acts, which Twardowski took over from Brentano and instilled in his students, there are three main theses: the thesis about introspection declares that introspection, providing data to conceptual analysis, is a reliable way of cognition; the thesis about intentionality says that inten-tionality, that is, reference to an object, is the distinctive feature of all mental acts; the thesis about the principle of classification of mental acts states that the principle of this classification is a way of reference to the object in these acts.
Keywords: Franz Brentano, Kazimierz Twardowski, the Lvov School of Philosophy, theory of mental acts.
1. Geography of knowledge the leading European centers of the development of psychol-
For the last 20 years we have been witnessing the emer- ogy as a science. A special authority received the so-called
gence and rapid development of a new scientific discipline under somewhat paradoxical title "Geography of knowledge". The main representatives of this trend, such as Jon Agar, Di-armid Finnegan, Thomas Gieryn, David Livingstone, Peter Meusburger, Simon Naylor, Richard Powell, Crosbie Smith, Paul Vallance and others developed a variety of theoretical models and methodological approaches [1; 4; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 24]. All of them, however, share a common idea, which could be defined after Finnegan as the idea of "spatial turn" in the history of science. The essence of this idea is that the research of emergence, development and circulation of scientific knowledge must be based on consideration of "situated nature of scientific knowledge production and reception", and, accordingly, on the aspirations to discover "the migratory patterns of science on the move" [4, 349]. The aim of this article is to attempt to represent the new empirical data that could deliver additional evidence for the advantages of the geographical approach to the historiography of science. To achieve this goal, the author are going to consider the example of migration of scientific knowledge within a particular science (theory of mental acts) between two specific cities (Vienna and Lvov) in a specific period of time (at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries).
2. Franz Brentano and Kazimierz Twardowski
In the last three decades of the XIX century the capital of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire — Vienna — became one of
"Vienna school of psychology" led by eminent German philosopher — Franz Brentano (1838-1919) [1; 15]. Brentano had numerous pupils and followers who established their own schools in other big cultural centers of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and Germany: Alexius Meinong (in Graz), Franz Hillebrand (in Innsbruck), Anton Marty (in Chernivtsi and Prague), Christian von Ehrenfels (in Prague), Tomás Ma-saryk (in Prague), Carl Stumpf (in Berlin) etc [16]. A Polish philosopher Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938) was one of these pupils. November 15, 1895, when he gave his inaugural lecture at the University of Lvov, is considered to be the beginning of the existence of the Lvov (later Lvov-Warsaw) school of philosophy. Twardowski came to Lvov from Vienna — the city where he was born, graduated from gymnasium, and during 1885-1889 studied philosophy at the university, mainly under a supervision of Brentano. Creating in Lvov philosophical school, Twardowski considered himself the follower of his Viennese master and endeavored to create one of the centers of Brentano's philosophical thought in Lvov. In his autobiography he wrote in this regard:
«I felt it was my call to bring closer to my compatriots that way of philosophizing that Franz Brentano had taught me, especially to introduce the spirit and method of that philosophy to the university students» [19, 29].
Educational, scientific and organizational work of Twardowski in Lvov, which aims to educate competent phi-
losophers, quickly led to the emergence in this city of intellectual formation, known as the "Lvov school" or "school of Twardowski" (In the 20-30-s of the XXth century a group of outstanding disciples of Twardowski came to work in Warsaw, so from that time school began to be called "The Lvov-Warsaw School". Under very this name the school is commonly known today), which was gathered around him and imbued with the spirit of the serious scientific work. This school consisted of several generations of Twardowski's disciples, among which the most famous were Jan Lukasiewicz, Wladyslaw Witwicki, Stefan Baley, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbinski, Stanislaw Lesniewski and others. In this way, Lvov along with Vienna, Graz, Prague, Leipzig and Wurzburg became one of the powerful centers of philosophical tradition stemming from Brentano — so called brentanism. This fact leads to the search for theoretical and methodological roots of Lvov school of Twardowski in philosophy of Brentano.
3. Theory of mental acts
Brentano was primarily interested in finding the proper method of practicing the philosophy. He entertained the conviction that philosophy as "the queen of sciences" should comply with the scientific method, that is, to use the close scientific method. In imbued with the spirit of scientism second half of the XIX century, this conviction was expressed in the following thesis: a method of philosophy should be analogous to the method of the natural sciences. Brentano harbored high hopes for a revival of the philosophy with the use of just such a method.
The Brentano's belief about the scientific status of philosophy leads him to elevation of psychology to the rank of empirical science, which has to provide a philosophy with the basic data: concepts and statements. "Empiria" was understood by Brentano widely — he included to it both extraspection and introspection. Brentano marked the following tasks of psychology which uses introspective experience:
(1) to examine the features of psychic phenomena and to determine common properties of all mental phenomena;
(2) to classify mental phenomena;
(3) to indicate the hierarchy and structure of psychic phenomena (to reveal primary mental elements which produce more complex ones);
(4) to discover the rights of consequences of psychic phenomena (Brentano 33-48).
Brentano accepted the principle that any mental phenomenon to be explained must be described in the first place — hence Brentano in his psychology uses the name — "descriptive psychology" [5, XXXI-XXXII]. This psychology combines reference to the experience (introspection) with the logical analysis (conceptual analysis), which provides it with the status of scientificity. It was a specificity of Brentano's so called „descriptive psychology" which he opposed to the genetic and physiological psychology. This specificity was aptly expressed by Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz who wrote that "it was in the spirit of Aristotle: to base concepts on experience, but to strive to the most general terms" [17, 157].
In addition to the scientificity, descriptive psychology has to provide all disciplines of philosophy with a common denominator. According to Brentano, philosophy consists of five disciplines: two theoretical — metaphysics and psychology, as well as three practical — logic, ethics and esthetics (By the division of philosophy to the practical and theoretical areas Brentano alluded to the tradition of Aristotle). Psychology fulfils the role of kernel which links other parts of philosophy: metaphysics, logic, ethics and esthetics. It concern some objects given us in introspective experience, and these, in turn, are objects of study of psychology. This thought was copied by Twardowski too:
"All the threads linking together the different areas of human cognition converge in psychology — in another sense, of course, than in metaphysics. If woven with the flaccid material metaphysics can be compared with the ceiling, building up over the whole edifice of scientific knowledge and harmoniously combining its various pillars with a strong perimeter forming blocks, psychology would present itself as the central pillar of the building, which by means of outgoing from within the perimeter of the building pillars connections strengthens the pillars and mutually is based on them" [20, 271].
In the "Autobiography" Twardowski expressed his position on this issue briefly: "Psychology is the basic philosophical science" [19, 32].
A proper object of philosophical research in the Brentano's tradition is therefore an area of psychic phenomena, in which the bases of metaphysics, logic, ethics and esthetics should be searched for. Descriptive psychology in relation to these sciences fulfils the function of a tool used to clarify the basic concepts and indirectly — to output their laws.
A position in the philosophy granting priority to psychological methods is sometimes referred to as "methodological psychologism". The ontological psychologism, in turn, consists in the recognition of objects of all philosophical sciences as mental objects, and thus — the recognition of these sciences as parts of psychology. While Brentano was both a methodological and ontological psychologist, psychologism of Twardowski evolved, namely: until 1912 (i. e. the year of publishing "On Acts and Products") Twardowski had been a psychologist, both methodological and ontological, and after 1912 — he broke with ontological psychologism, but remained a methodological psychologist [25, 40]. Simplifying the issue, it may be assumed that the methodological-psychological position of Twardowski was more or less consistently observed in Lvov wing of the Lvov-Warsaw School, whereas the representatives of the Warsaw wing rejected both ontological and methodological psychologism opting for logicism program by Lukasiewicz [26, 31-34].
Among the elements of descriptive psychology, which Twardowski took over from Brentano and instilled in his students, there are three main theses. The thesis about introspection declares that introspection, providing data to conceptual analysis, is a reliable way of cognition. The thesis about in-tentionality says that intentionality, that is, reference to an
object, is the distinctive feature of all mental acts. The thesis about the principle of classification of mental acts states that the principle of this classification is a way of reference to the object in these acts. The theses are as follows:
4. Introspectionism (Thesis about introspection)
As already mentioned, Brentano noticed the importance of descriptive psychology as it had become the basis of scientific philosophy. It is explained by the Brentano's belief in the scientificity of psychology itself. This scientificity of psychology, in turn, it is provided by the introspective method. He writes in this context in his work "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint" (1874):
"Psychology, like the natural sciences, has its basis in perception and experience. Above all, however, its source is to be found in the inner perception of our own mental phenomena. We would never know what a thought is, or a judgment, pleasure or pain, desires or aversions, hopes or fears, courage or despair, decisions and voluntary intentions ifwe did not learn what they are through inner perception of our own phenomena" [3, 22].
Internal perception (introspection) is certain because the mental act is directed here at itself, and at the same time goes without intermediate cells, as in the case of external perception. Introspection is the source of certainty — hence real — judgments. External perception can be a source of more or less probable judgments, but never certain judgments.
Brentano's view on the method of obtaining empirical data as a source of construction of concepts also was taken over by Twardowski:
"Inner experience is not [...] a delusion of backward psychologists, it is, on the contrary, the only way we can get some direct knowledge of psychic phenomena" [22, 99].
Twardowski, however, didn't content himself with simply borrowing the introspective method used by his master. The point is that Brentano himself drew attention to the fact that although introspection is the only source of direct knowledge of psychic phenomena, it is not free from some defects, the largest of which is subjectivity, which limits the range of knowledge only to the borders of own psyche of the subject. In work "On Psychology, its subject, tasks, method, relationship to other sciences and its development" Twardowski calls for supplementation of introspection data by reference to the so-called "objective method" due to which we get to know other psychic phenomena [20, 259]. The material for this method is psychophysical acts and products that are expressions of the corresponding mental acts and products. Then by analyzing the products of psychophysical acts and products we obtain indirect information about someone else's psychic life, which is not available for our introspection.
5. Intentionalism (thesis about intentionality)
Among all possible features of psychic phenomena that
distinguish them from physical phenomena, Brentano as a distinctive feature puts forward their intentionality:
"Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or men-
tal) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction towards an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on" [3, 68].
The thesis about intentionality of mental acts had gained importance of program within Brentanistic philosophy and became the starting point for more sophisticated theories of consciousness expressed by disciples of Brentano, primarily Meinong, Husserl and Twardowski.
Following Brentano, Twardowski claimed that intentionality was the natural feature of mental acts. The very first sentences of his habilitation dissertation "On the content and object of presentation" are as follows:
"Mental phenomena of presenting themselves, judging, desiring and disdaining always corresponds to something that is presented, judged, desired and despised — and without that these phenomena are nothing" [21, 3].
In other words, there are no such acts of consciousness that would not have been intentional, i. e. do not refer to some objects outside the consciousness, and do not have any content inside the consciousness. Twardowski, however, noted that Brentano, formulating his theory of intentionality, actually identified "direction of act to the obj ect" and "referring in the act to some content". Therefore, the question is which of the terms of intentional reference — the content or the object — Brentano included in his theory of intentionality. Did he mean the object, which existed within the consciousness (immanent object), or the object which was transcendent in relation to consciousness? According to Twardowski, the source of this deep passage lies in the fact that Brentano had not noticed the ambiguity of name "that which is presented": it can mean both object of presentation and content of presentation. Twardowski filled the gap by making a clear distinction between the object and the content of presentations [21, 4]: object of presentation — this is a transcendent object, which exists objectively, beyond the consciousness and that our consciousness is directed to; content of presentation — this is an immanent object, mental equivalent of object of presentation.
6. The classification of mental phenomena (thesis about the principle of classification of mental phenomena)
Brentano considered different ways of references to immanent objects of psychic acts a basis for the classification of these phenomena. Due to a criterion of variety of intentional references, Brentano identified three basic classes of all possible psychic phenomena, namely presentations, judgments and emotions.
Twardowski took the Brentanistic classification of psychic phenomena on presentations, judgments and emotions for its
starting pint; but, unlike his master, he did not recognize this classification as the final one. He believed that the discovery of new properties of mental phenomena should lead to modifications in their classification [23, 82]. Twardowski, however, had no doubt that psychic phenomena, even as complex as feelings can be classified in a logical way. In the work "On the classification of mental phenomena" (1898) he proposed the following classification:
(1) presentations (including images and concepts);
(2) judgments;
(3) feelings;
(4) acts of will [23, 38].
As we can see, this classification is the extension of Brentano's classification of mental phenomena; Twardowski only divided a class of emotions into two distinct classes: feelings and acts of will.
According to Brentano and Twardowski, three classes of mental phenomena correspond to three practical disciplines of philosophy concerned with the study of these classes of phenomena, namely:
(1) presentations — esthetics;
(2) judgments — logic;
(3) emotions — ethics.
The laws of each of these sciences should be output through the appropriate analysis of the relevant class of psychic phenomena [22, 109-110].
7. Conclusions
Thus, we clearly see that the fulcrum of the Twardowski's philosophical doctrine was Brentano's conception of philosophy, because it turned out that the defining features of Twardowski's philosophy were the same elements that we have identified as the methodological and theoretical paradigms of Brentano's philosophy. However, Twardowski didn't simply borrow the methodological and theoretical base of his philosophy from finished samples of his teacher, but suggested original
arguments in their favour, so he was able to develop and significantly modify them. For instance, Brentano's introspectionism was significantly amended by "objective method", intentional-ism — by distinction of subject and content of presentations, classification of mental phenomena — by splitting class of emotions into two separate classes: feelings and acts of will. Similar modifications of the basic three elements of Brentano's philosophy (with their simultaneous adoption as fulcrum) can be found in all of his other students' works, in particular in ones by Alexius Meinong, Anton Marty, Christian von Ehrenfels, Carl Stumpf, Edmund Husserl and others. On the other hand, all these characteristic elements of brentanistic philosophy constitute the skeleton of philosophical researches of Lvov students of Twardowski: Wladyslaw and Tadeusz Witwickis, Stefan Baley, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Mieczyslaw Kreuz, Tadeusz Czezowski, Leopold Blaustein, Salomon Igel and others. So, we can say that all main principles of Brentano's descriptive psychology were 'imported' by Twardowski at the end of the XIX c. from Vienna to Lvov and instilled in his own followers.
The authors would also like to note that some specific features of this example of migration of scientific knowledge logically lead us to some theoretical consequences which, in the case of their generalization, may be relevant to the "Geography of knowledge" as follows:
(1) Geographic migration of scientific knowledge within empires was centrifugal in nature: its direction was from the larger city (in this case — the center of the empire (Vienna)) to the smaller one (in this case — one of the peripheries of the empire (Lvov)).
(2) Scientific knowledge, with regards to its geographic migration, cannot move from one spatial context to another space in an invariable kind: it passes a transformation that is presented in some modifications and specifications of its external elements, but herewith saves its theoretical and methodological core.
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Modeling of Quasi-graphical Objects
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Karasevich Anton Olegovich, The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus postgraduate student, The Institute of Philosophy E-mail: karasevich_anton@mail.ru
Modeling of Quasi-graphical Objects
Abstract: The article describes Quasi-graphical Objects in the context of Four-dimensional Psychophysical Model of Reality. The described Model is a promising new approach for integrating and arrangement the world's psychological knowledge. By using a model can combine the detailed description of the dynamic of the psyche, the organism of the individual and his behavior, as well as the objective and social external world.
Keywords: Four-dimensional Psychophysical Model of Reality; Quasi-graphical Objects; Dynamic Model of the Psyche; the modelling of the psyche; thinking.
Four-Dimensional Psychophysical Model of Reality is a promising new approach for the integration and systematiza-tion of worldwide psychological knowledge. Using the Model we can integrate the basic psychological paradigms to unite their practical potential, and to find new areas of perspective research. Psychology has accumulated huge amount of scientific knowledge and skills. The problem is this knowledge is not systematized. We can do that with the use of Four-Dimensional Psychophysical Model of Reality. Visualization makes knowledge understandable and easily accessible. The computer program, which is now developed on the basis of the Model, can be used to model all diversity of psychic processes. The Model enables joint description of psyche, human organism and environment [1].
"Need-goal" matrix is the basis of Dynamic Model of Psyche. It includes the time period of mental activity between
activator of mental activity ("need") and "stop" of mental activity ("goal"). "Need" and "goal" in The Model are identical with many different notions of psychological paradigms. Under our Model there are external (organismal) and internal (psychical) activities. Organismal activity includes the organism movement and work of organs. Psychical activity includes the processes of sensation, perception, internal speech, thought, imagination, memory and emotion. It corresponds to the dynamic block of psyche. Stationary block of psyche covers all inborn and accumulated psychical material of the human. At the instant only small part of the psyche is in the psychical processes (actualized part). Other biggest not actualized part of the psyche is a stationary block of psyche. Stationary block has many components: knowledge, needs, goals, motives, temperament, character, self-esteem, ways to respond, and many others.
