Interpretation of Sense/Meaning in the Communicative Field

The past century has shown the conversion of a so-called anthropological turn which began with works of Franz Brentano, into a linguistic turn (Richard Rorty’s term). The philosophy of language took the place of what once had been classical theory of cognition. It has become either a kind of epistemology, or analytical philosophy, or even a general theory of knowledge called in Greece, Germany and Russia gnoseology (from Greek: gnosis - knowledge). It is necessary to make some clarifications in understanding the current intellectual situation in the field of communication theory. Communication is a term containing a root morpheme ‘uni’ with the meaning of “one”, “unity”. For our purposes, the English word “conversation” is more suitable because, denoting a talk, it actually has the primary existential meaning of “living together”. Developing this topic, we can rely on the classic research in the field of theory and practice of communication conducted over several decades by the American specialist in the field of social psychology Deborah Tannen.

A Critical Analysis of Brentano’s Intentionality in Relation to Meinong’s Object Theory

Our thoughts are certainly about things(objects), however, what kind of things(object) are our thoughts directed at? What is the relationship between mental objects and external world object? What is the nature and character of mental and extra mental objects? An attempt at answering these meta-epistemological questions, brought to light the ideas of Franz Brentano on ‘Intentionality’ and Alexius Meinong’s Theory of object. Through proper method of philosophical analysis, it was discovered that both philosophers agreed that intentionality is a unique character exhibited by the human mind. However, Meinong went further to develop a more comprehensive object theory which attempts at clarifying some of the ontological difficulties associated with Brentano’s notion on intentionality. The research concluded that, though, both philosophers had areas of divergence and convergence in their respective epistemological thoughts, but insisted that the influence of Brentano’s ideas on Meinong cannot be overemphasized, which is to say, Meinong’s object theory, could be said to be a reaction towards the problem of referential opacity present in Brentano’s account of Intentionality.

¿Es posible decidir en qué creer? Respondiendo desde Franz Brentano a la discusión Williams-Cottingham

Bernard Williams, en su artículo “Deciding to believe”, caracteriza la creencia como estructuralmente dirigida hacia la verdad, i.e., no está en nuestras manos la decisión de creer, justamente porque nosotros no somos quienes generamos la verdad. John Cottingham, en cambio, responde años después a este artículo exhibiendo que, en el pensamiento de Descartes, es posible conjugar tanto la libertad de elegir qué creer, como una cierta prescripción que hace tender a la voluntad hacia lo claro y distinto, la que viene dada en tanto el espíritu es un ens creatum. En el marco de esta discusión se pretende, frente a Descartes, afirmar que en la doctrina de Brentano las nociones de “objeto secundario” y “objeto primario” permiten pensar las exigencias expuestas por Williams, ya no recurriendo al argumento de la divinidad, sino encontrando esa tensión en la estructura íntima de la propia conciencia.

Fitting-Attitude Analysis

‘Fitting-Attitude Analysis’ introduces fitting-attitude (FA) analysis. This pattern of value analysis has received considerable attention over the past two decades, and various iterations of it have been proposed and discussed. After having outlined some of the advantages of FA analysis, it is made clear why we should be neither too confident about its success nor too worried about the challenges it faces. A large part of the chapter deals with different challenges to FA analysis, including a recent attempt (which goes back to Franz Brentano) to handle the so-called ‘wrong kind of reason’ problem. The chapter also considers an issue that has received less attention in the literature, which again takes us back to Brentano. G. E. Moore argued that Brentano was wrong in his analysis of what it is for something to be more valuable than something else is. It is argued that Moore was wrong on this matter. In this connection, a way of understanding the strength and weight of reasons is proposed. The proposal is hard to avoid if the FA advocate understands the notion of reason to be primitive in his analysis. The chapter ends by discussing some recent challenges to FA analysis that arise in the wake of the insight that reasons are agency-dependent, but values are not. Once we modify the standard FA analysis in a certain way, these challenges turn out to be less serious than they appear.

L’acte sensoriel comme objet de la représentation d’un sentiment

L’étude scientifique de l’acte sensoriel a pour objectif la réalisation d’une distinction entre la relation des sensations avec les Séries de Sentiments, présents de manière permanente dans la conscience, et la relation des sensations avec les groupes de Possibilités Permanentes de Sensation, lesquels interviennent de manière intermittente dans la conscience. Pour autant, nous sommes partis de la description de ces deux concepts, spécifiques à la psychologie scientifique et attribués à la théorie psychologique de William Hamilton (1853 ; 1859 ; 1860), jusqu’à considérer le regard critique de John Stuart Mill (1869). À partir de là, nous avons cherché à analyser notre objet d’étude, qui est l’acte sensoriel, et ce selon ce deuxième phénomène de relation afin de contribuer aux études scientifiques par deux perspectives, lesquelles sont : a) Le comportement, car selon les relations causales de David Hume (1739), quant à la théorie de la causalité étant la base théorique initiale pour soutenir l’étude de notre objet, le comportement est l’effet des actes sensoriels, qui sont la cause de celui-ci et faisant comme quoi le comportement se réalise par les actions de penser ou d’agir autrement ; b) La mémoire des phénomènes psychiques immédiatement passés, car d’après la description scientifique de la représentation du sentiment, qui est la deuxième base théorique de notre étude encadrée par Franz Brentano (2008), le sentiment a un objet. Les résultats seront le produit d’observations sur les effets de l’acte sensoriel. Les conclusions de l’étude concerneront la pertinence des conditions selon lesquelles cesdites possibilités se réalisent dans la conscience.

Consciousness and Intentionality in Franz Brentano

The paper argues against the growing tendency to interpret Brentano’s conception of inner consciousness in self-representational terms. This trend has received support from the tendency to see Brentano as a forerunner of contemporary same-order theories of consciousness and from the view that Brentano models intransitive consciousness on transitive consciousness, such that a mental state is conscious insofar as it is aware of itself as an object. However, this reading fails to take into account the Brentanian concept of object, which is ultimately derived from ancient and medieval philosophy, as well as the secondary, elusive character that Brentano attributes to inner perception. According to Brentano, we have an aspectual but transparent consciousness of transcendent objects, whereas our awareness of our own mental acts is always complete but incidental, and ultimately opaque. Reversing the relationship between intentionality and consciousness faces difficulties at the textual interpretative level, but also raises theoretical problems, for it risks treating Brentano’s theory of mind as a form of subjectivism and idealism.