Book Review: Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint

Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Franz Brentano (edited by Linda McAlister; translated by Antos C. Rancurello, D.B. Terrell and Linda L. McAlister). 1885 London: Routledge, pbk 1995 London: Routledge, pbk.

We have no right... to believe that the objects of so-called external perception really exist as they appear to us. Indeed, they demonstrably do not exist outside of us. In contrast to that which really and truly exists, they are mere phenomena... Defining psychology as the science of mental phenomena in order to make natural science and mental science resemble each other in this respect... has no reasonable justification.

The above quote appears in the opening chapter of Brentano's Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint and sets the tone, purpose and general argument of the text as a whole. It was, and to a large extent still remains, a revolutionary stance to take. How different psychology would be today if more had been willing to give it its proper consideration.

Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint was first published in 1874, the same year that Wilhelm Wundt's Physiological Psychology first appeared. Together, these texts virtually created modern psychology as a discipline in its own right. Perhaps more pertinently to readers of this Journal, Brentano's work deeply stimulated and influenced two young students at the University Vienna - Sigmund Freud and Edmund Husserl - who, by their own accounts, sat enthralled week after week listening to Brentano's lectures. While Brentano's impact is obvious with regard to Husserl's subsequent writings, reading this book reveals numerous and pertinent influences that serve as undercurrents to Freud's developing theory.

Brentano's Psychology was intended to be the first of five related texts which would lead to a final, sixth account that would focus upon the mind-body problem. Unfortunately only two books were completed and one can only speculate from various subsequent monographs (which reveal significant alterations in Brentano's thought which were critical of Husserl's early work) just what Brentano's attempted solution to psychology's still-central dilemma might be.

This English edition consists of a translation of the second (1924) edition of Psychology as an Empirical Science minus some appended essays. Linda McAlister, who translated the work, has succeeded in providing English speaking readers with a clear, highly accessible account that is a pleasure to read. Similarly, Peter Simons' Introduction manages in a few pages to convey the principal themes and arguments that preoccupied Brentano throughout his academic life thereby providing an indispensable context with which to read and appreciate the text.

Brentano's central argument rests upon his conviction that psychology could only be a unified science in its own right by taking mental phenomena as its subject matter. He sought to distinguish mental phenomena from the physical phenomena of the natural sciences while retaining the non-metaphysical attitude of the natural sciences - hence, the word 'empirical' in the title. Brentano asserted that every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself (p 88). Here then, lies the genesis to Husserl's intentionality and, possibly, to significant features of Freud's abandoned Project. While Brentano himself, together with most of his followers, would subsequently reject this assertion in part, nevertheless it remains a brilliant argument, carefully and critically expounded and, once again, in its style, a likely influence upon Freud's splendid way of advancing the arguments presented in his own Lectures on psycho-analysis.

Indeed, Brentano's work reads very much as a series of carefully paced lectures and gives the modern reader a sense of just how beguiling and illuminating it must have been to have been in his presence as a student.

Having read about this book for many years, I approached its reading with some degree of apprehension, worried that I would be faced with a dense and difficult time. Happily, I can report that, while remaining unquestionably difficult, I found it to be a real pleasure to read. Now that it is once again available to us, I hope that many more readers will take a 'leap of faith' and engage with it.

Ernesto Spinelli