notations / fifth lecture / May 15th / 2018

„Every mental phenomenon is
characterized by what the
Scholastics of the Middle Ages
called the intentional
(or mental) in-existence
of an object, and what we might
call, though not wholly
unambiguously, reference to a
content, direction towards
an object (which is not to be
understood here as meaning a
thing), or immanent objectivity.
–
Every mental phenomenon
includes something as object
within itself although they
do not all do so in the same way.
–
In presentation something is
presented in judgement
something is affirmed or denied
/ in love loved
/ in hate hated
/ in desire desired and so on.
–
This intentional in-existence
is characteristic exclusively
of mental phenomena.

No physical phenomenon
exhibits anything like it.
We could, therefore, define
mental phenomena by
saying that they are those
phenomena which contain an
object intentionally within
themselves.“
–
Franz Brentano,
Psychology from an
Empirical Standpoint
–
That's what Brentano
explains: that in our mental
perception every element
of knowledge is bound to
an intention
–
The knowledge-element is
involuntarily seen as an
object which is needed for
to realize the intended
condition (of being).
Both, the element of knowledge
and the included intention
therein he combined in the
term „mental phenomenon“

/ there is no object without
intention
/ the intention is the core of
objective existence