1990 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Brentano and His School in Relation to Philosophy of Science
| Project/Area Number |
63510010
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Philosophy
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| Research Institution | Kansai University |
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Principal Investigator |
JIICHIRO Takeo Kansai University Faculty of Letters Professor, 文学部, 教授 (00067448)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1988 – 1990
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| Keywords | Brentano / Descriptive psychology / Foundationalism / Intensionality / Positivism / Theory of objects / Reference / Vienna Circle |
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| Research Abstract |
1. We attempted to make it clear to what extent the positivistic philosophy in the 20th century Vienna is said to be related, in its adoption of the exact and experimental method of science, to the seemingly heterogeneous tradition represented by Brentano and his school. To this end, we studied the position Brentano Kept for his lifelong conviction that the method of philosophy is nothing other than that of empirical science, and asked whether such an aspiration bid fair to be consistent with his philosophical outlook, in view of his epistemology the basis of which comes solely from 'immediately evident judgment'. We also examined, in respect of the 'scientific' goal of philosophy, how Meinong appraised and modified descriptive psychology in his theory of objects. In conclusion, we took it that Brentano and his followers had been emphatic in defense of 'scientific' philosophy not so much about any global and vacuous talk of science in general as about a way of thinking as for what makes our particular sciences possible ; and that, in this respect, Brentanians might well be said to have shared the cause with the positivists, and even with Wittgenstein. 2. We confirmed that the distinctions and the ensuing problems around the concept of intensionality in mental act indeed run parallel to those around that of reference in linguistic expressions. This seems, however, far from giving any definite answer to the question of propositional attitudes ; it only reformulates it. 3. As for the question of the basis of knowledge, the philosophers of the Vienna Circle, let alone Brentanians, were all in all dogmatic foundationalists, with the exception of Neurath in his expositions of foundations and the history of scientific knowledge.
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