The Epistemology of Intentionality: Notional Constituents vs. Direct Grasp

Franz Brentano is well known for highlighting the importance of intentionality, but he said curiously little about the nature of intentionality. According to Mark Textor, there is a deep reason for this: Brentano took intentionality to be a conceptual primitive the nature of which is revealed only in direct grasp. Although there is certainly textual support for this interpretation, it appears in tension with Brentano’s repeated attempts to analyze intentionality in terms of ‘notional constituents’ – aspects of intentionality which cannot come apart in reality but which can be conceptually distinguished. After bringing out this tension, I explore some options for resolving it, ultimately offering my own favored interpretation

Brentano’s lectures on positivism (1893-1894) and his relationship to Ernst Mach

This paper is mainly about Brentano’s commentaries on Ernst Mach in his lectures “Contemporary philosophical questions” which he held one year before he left Austria. I will first identify the main sources of Brentano’s interests in Comte’s and J. S. Mill’s positivism during his Würzburg period. The second section provides a short overview of Brentano’s 1893-1894 lectures and his criticism of Comte, Kirchhoff, and Mill. The next sections bear on Brentano’s criticism of Mach’s monism and Brentano’s argument against the reduction of the mental based on his theory of intentionality. The last section is about Brentano’s proposal to replace the identity relation in Mach’s theory of elements by that of intentional correlation. I conclude with a remark on the history of philosophy in Austria

Quasideuteron configurations in 46V and 58Cu

The data on low spin states in the odd-odd nuclei 46V and 58Cu investigated with the 46Ti(p,ngamma)46V, 32S(16O,pn)46V and 58Ni(p,ngamma)58Cu reactions at the FN-TANDEM accelerator in Cologne are reported. The states containing large quasideuteron components are identified from the strong isovector M1 transitions, from shell model calculations and from experimental data for low-lying states.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, proceedings of the "Nuclear Structure 2000" conference, East Lansing, Michigan, USA, August 15-19, 2000; to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Propuesta de una reforma de la teoría aristotélica de las categorías

Este dictado de Brentano, de fecha desconocida, llevaba como título original “Teoría de las categorías, última versión” (Kategorienlehre, letzte Fassung) y fue publicado por vez primera con el título que ahora lleva (Versuch zur Reform der Aristotelischen Kategorienlehre) por Alfred Kastil en su recopilación de los escritos y dictados brentanianos sobre las categorías: Franz Brentano, Kategorienlehre. Mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen herausgeben von Alfred Kastil (Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1933) 113-129. A pesar del título original, ciertas tesis que en este escrito se defienden fueron luego abandonadas o puestas en tela de juicio por su autor, por lo que el editor alemán, confrontándolo con otros escritos posteriores, piensa que tuvo que ser dictado antes del mes de septiembre de 1914. El ensayo constituye una muestra excelente del ingente esfuerzo que llevó a cabo Brentano por repensar la doctrina aristotélica de las categorías, tratando de purificarla y corregirla de cuantos errores creyó advertir en ella

Alternative Interpretation of Sharply Rising E0 Strengths in Transitional Regions

It is shown that strong 0+2 -> 0+1 E0 transitions provide a clear signature of phase transitional behavior in finite nuclei. Calculations using the IBA show that these transition strengths exhibit a dramatic and robust increase in spherical-deformed shape transition regions, that this rise matches well the existing data, that the predictions of these E0 transitions remain large in deformed nuclei, and that these properties are intrinsic to the way that collectivity and deformation develop through the phase transitional region in the model, arising from the specific d-boson coherence in the wave functions, and that they do not necessarily require the explicit mixing of normal and intruder configurations from different IBA spaces.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

The Phenomenology of Mentality

peer reviewedThis paper offers a phenomenological interpretation of Brentano’s view of mentality. The key idea is that mental phenomena are not only characterized by intentionality; they also exhibit a distinctive way of appearing or being experienced. In short, they also have a distinctive phenomenology. I argue this view may be traced back to Brentano’s theory of inner perception (hereafter IP). Challenging the self-representational reading of IP, I maintain the latter is best understood as a way of appearing, that is, in phenomenological terms. Section 1 addresses Brentano’s claim that IP is one mark of the mental alongside intentionality. Sections 2 and 3 present support for a phenomenological interpretation of IP. And Section 4 briefly discusses two objections.The Phenomenology of Mentality (F.R.S.-FNRS Research Project / PDR