Franz Brentano (1838-1917) was a psychologist and philosopher who taught at the University of Würzburg and later at the University of Vienna. His works included Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, 1874), and The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong (Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, 1889). His teaching had an important influence on many of his students, who included Edmund Husserl, Alexius Meinong, Tomas Masaryk, Christian Ehrenfels, Anton Marty, and Franz Hillebrand.
Brentano made important contributions to epistemology, moral philosophy, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. The True and the Evident (Wahrheit und Evidenz) is a collection of his essays and letters, which was edited by Oskar Kraus, and published in 1930.
Brentano’s theory of truth defines the concrete nature of judgments of reality, in that it sees truth as existing in concrete things. Truth is not seen as an abstract concept, but as belonging to judgments of things. Every judgment refers to a thing.
According to Brentano, the correspondence theory of truth says that a judgment (or a proposition, belief, or opinion) is true if the judgment refers to something which exists in reality. A judgment is true if it corresponds to things as they are in reality, and is false if it does not correspond to things as they are in reality. Every judgment is either true or false. Every judgment has a formal or subjective reality. The thing to which a true judgment refers has an objective reality.
Brentano criticizes the correspondence theory of truth, saying that it does not explain how a true judgment can affirm the absence or nonexistence of something. If there is nothing to which a judgment may correspond, or of which it may be a representation, then the judgment cannot correspond to something true. A relation of correspondence cannot be established between a true judgment and something which does not exist.
Thus, Brentano argues that the truth of a judgment may not always be defined by a relation of correspondence between the judgment and something which exists in reality. On the other hand, truth may be made evident by a judgment which affirms the existence of something that exists, or by a judgment which denies the existence of something that does not exist.
Brentano introduces a new theory of truth, saying that a true judgment either attributes to an object something which belongs to the object, or that it denies of an object something which does not belong to the object. If the judgment is a simple assertion, then it asserts of some object which exists that the object exists, or asserts of some object which does not exist that the object does not exist.1
In the same way, a false judgment either attributes to an object something which does not belong to the object, or denies of an object something which belongs to the object. If it is a simple assertion, then it asserts of some object which exists that the object does not exist, or asserts of some object which does not exist that the object exists.
Judgments may be positive or negative. A positive judgment may assert the existence of something. A negative judgment may deny the existence of something. According to Brentano, every universal judgment is negative, in that universality indicates that there is no exception. This form of judgment reveals that no accumulation of positive assertions about the existence of an attribute is enough to establish its universality, unless the possibility that there can be an exception to the attribute’s universality is negated.2
Judgments may be simple or compound. Simple judgments may be combined to form compound judgments.Compound judgments may be combined to form more complex judgments of reality.
Brentano also says that judgments may be either assertoric or apodictic. Assertoric judgments are judgments which are possibly true but are unproven. Apodictic judgments are judgments which are clearly provable and logically certain.
Judgments may be evident or non-evident. Evident judgments are informed and logically justified. Non-evident judgments are blind or unjustified.
For Brentano, the truth of a judgment is evident when it is seen to be logically certain. Any judgment which contradicts the evident cannot be evident. To affirm the truth of a judgment contradicting the evident is a form of error. To deny the falsehood of a judgment contradicting the evident is a form of error. Judgments which are evident are universally valid.
Brentano argues that a judgment cannot be "more or less evident." If a judgment is evident, then it is logically certain. If a judgment is logically certain in the strict sense, then it does not have any degree of uncertainty.3
According to Brentano, every thought must refer to a thing. Any abstract concept or quality cannot be thought of unless there is a thing which corresponds to it. When we think of a quality (such as "redness"), or of an abstract concept (such as "virtue"), we are actually thinking of something which has that quality, or which demonstrates that concept. For example, when we think of truth, what we are actually thinking of is something that is true. When we think of falsehood, we are thinking of something that is false. When we say that we are thinking about the existence of something, what we are really thinking about is a thing that exists. There is no thought that refers to an abstract concept such as Being or Existence, because a thought can only refer to a thing. The existence of an object of thought cannot be distinguished from the object itself.
A thing is not merely that which is thought. A thing must have its own reality in order to be an object of thought. Brentano also says that a thing is not the same as an existent. The term “existent” is equivocal, in that it refers to that which exists but does not name anything directly.4
The truth or falsehood of a judgment may change if there is a change in the object to which the judgment refers. For example, if a judgment affirms the existence of something which no longer exists, or denies the existence of something which has begun to exist, the judgment may become false. In a similar manner, if a judgment affirms the existence of something which has begun to exist, or denies the existence of something which no longer exists, the judgment may become true.
Brentano explains that any judgment which is directly evident is not merely seen to be true, but is also seen to be logically justified. If a judgment happens to be true, but is not seen as logically justified, then it is not evident. If a judgment is not evident, then its truth can only be determined by comparing it with another judgment which is seen as true and evident.5
A judgment which is evident may be either directly or indirectly evident. A directly evident judgment requires no further proof from other directly evident judgments. An indirectly evident judgment requires further proof from other directly evident judgments.
Brentano does not distinguish between the evident and the apparent. This distinction is important, in that judgments about the appearance of a perceptual object may be true or false. Judgments about the appearance of a perceptual object may or may not reflect its true reality. For Brentano, the appearance of a perceptual object is a judgment on the part of the subject perceiving the object. Thus, Brentano’s theory of truth recognizes not only that truth is found in the evident, but that truth is not necessarily found in the apparent.
Brentano also does not make a distinction between the evident and the intuitively obvious. This distinction is important, in that directly evident judgments must provide something more than the intuitively obvious if they are to represent a meaningful form of truth. In Brentano’s theory, directly evident judgments may or may not be seen as intuitively obvious, but if they are not obvious, they can be logically justified.
A judgment may be true, and yet may not be evident. However, a judgment may seem to be evident, but may actually be false. According to Brentano, a judgment must be true in order to be evident. In order to be evident, a judgment must not only be true, but must be seen as logically justified.
Brentano’s theory of truth is nominalistic in that it says that the concept of universality cannot be thought of unless there is some particular thing that is universal. Universality as an abstract concept is only a judgment of some particular thing which embodies that concept in reality. The universal is realized only in the particular. True reality is found in the particular and not in the universal. Thus, Truth and Evidence (Wahrheit und Evidenz) are general terms which must refer to particular things that are true and evident.
1 Franz Brentano, The True and the Evident, edited by Oscar Kraus, translated by Roderick Chisholm, Ilse Politzer, and Kurt R. Fischer (New York: Humanities Press, 1966), p. 18.
2Ibid., p. 48.
3Ibid., p. 58.
4Ibid., p. 68.
5Ibid., p. 102.
Brentano, Franz. The True and the Evident. Edited by Oscar Kraus. Translated by Roderick Chisholm, Ilse Politzer, and Kurt R. Fischer. New York: Humanities Press, 1966.