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

Triaxiality and the determination of the cubic shape parameter K3 from five observables

The absolute and the relative quadrupole shape invariants q3 and K3 provide a model independent measure of triaxiality for beta-rigid nuclei. We will show that one can obtain q3 and K3 from a small number of observables. The approximations which are made will be shown to hold within a few percent both in the rigid triaxial rotor model and the interacting boson model. The shape parameter K3 is given for an exemplary set of nuclei and is translated into effective values of the geometrical deformation parameters beta and gamma.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

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

Low-Spin Spectroscopy of 50Mn

The data on low spin states in the odd-odd nucleus 50Mn investigated with the 50Cr(p,ngamma)50Mn fusion evaporation reaction at the FN-TANDEM accelerator in Cologne are reported. Shell model and collective rotational model interpretations of the data are given.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, to be published in the proceedings of the "Bologna 2000 - Structure of the Nucleus at the Dawn of the Century" Conference, (Bologna, Italy, May 29 - June 3, 2000