RESUMO 01 | PALESTRA INTERNACIONAL

Content and Object

FRÉCHETTE, Guillaume |Universität Salzburg, Canada

For a long time, it was considered that Brentano never distinguished between the content of an act and the object towards which the act is directed, and that this distinction was introduced by Meinong and Höfler (1890), or more systematically by Twardowski (1894). Recent research on Brentano’s lecture manuscripts from the 1870s and 1880s showed that Brentano discussed that distinction at length in these very lectures that were attended by Meinong, Höfler, and Twardowski. Attributing to Brentano the non-distinction view of content and object of presentations, and the corresponding thesis that intentionality is an internal relation with a mental entity, as it has been done by many interprets, applies strong limitations to the intentionality thesis, which aren’t even necessitated by Brentano’s own positions, the kind of phenomenalism often attributed to Brentano being the best example of these limitations. In the following paper, I propose to reconstruct Brentano’s conception of the distinction between content and object of presentations. I will furthermore suggest some parallels with other similar distinctions, like the Fregean distinction between sense and reference, which allows for a more nuanced picture of the distinction between content and object in Brentano and his school.