Brentano y la Psicología del Sentir

Franz Brentano and the Psychology of the Act of Feeling

• Brentano's philosophy of psychology focused on the act of experiencing, rather than the content of experience. He argued against "content-psychology," proposing that mental phenomena are fundamentally active and intentional.

• Brentano's key concept is intentionality. This means that every mental act is directed towards something. A sensation of red, for example, is not just a feeling of redness, but an act of experiencing redness.

• This act of experiencing is crucial. Brentano believed that the act is the essential property of a mental event, not the object of the act. The "redness" is what is perceived, yet the act of perceiving is the fundamental psychological reality.

• Brentano distinguished between "presentative" and "representative" acts.

  • Presentative acts deal with things presently before the mind.
  • Representative acts involve things not presently before the mind, like remembering or imagining.

• The act of perceiving includes both the act of knowing and the object known, but the act of knowing is the central aspect. The mental act is what defines the experience.

• Brentano's psychology stressed the active role of the mind, contrasting with previous approaches that emphasized the passive reception of sensations.

• He introduced the concept of immanence, stating that mental phenomena are known by reflection, and their existence is immanent within the mind itself. This is different from the external world, which is transcendent.

• Brentano believed that the proper method for psychology was introspection. Carefully trained observers could report on the various aspects of their own mental experiences.

The "Psychologism" Aspect of Brentano's Work

• Brentano's work was associated with "psychologism," the view that mental events are the foundation for all knowledge, and that logic and mathematics ultimately derive from psychological processes.
• He believed that laws of consciousness could guide logical analysis.

Relation between Psychology and Philosophy

• A key to Brentano's ideas lays in the relation between psychology and philosophy. A scientific approach to psychology is needed to understand the structure of mental events and thus, the foundation of all logical processes, since mental events are the cornerstone for logical and cognitive operations.
• Brentano's ideas had a deep and lasting influence on subsequent psychological thought, including the development of phenomenology and the subsequent shifts in psychological methodology and theory.
• His work provided a framework for understanding the mind as an active entity, engaging with and interpreting the world through intentional acts.

The Intentional Character of Mental Acts

• Brentano emphasizes a key feature of mental acts: their directionality or intentionality. Every mental state has a "content" or "object", thus, this "aboutness" is characteristic of psychological processes.

Criticism Of Brentano's Work

• Brentano's reliance on introspection has been criticized as a problematic research method. It's inherently subjective and difficult to achieve reliable and verifiable results.

• Some of his ideas have been viewed as too broad or insufficiently defined, contributing to vague aspects in his work.