Philosophy 5: Critical Thinking and Composition  

Pierce College

Department of History, Philosophy, & Sociology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Group Exercise a Brentano Reading  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Notes on the importance of group exercises.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each group summarizes one of the significant parts from the following excerpts, and then provides an explanation to help someone understand the excerpt–and an example if you have time.

 

a) "If the attempt to observe the anger which stirs us becomes impossible because the phenomenon disappears, it is clear that an earlier state of excitement can no longer be interfered with in this way. And we really can focus our attention on a past mental phenomenon just as we can upon a present physical phenomenon, and in this way we can, so to speak, observe it. Furthermore, we could say that it is even possible to undertake experimentation on our own mental phenomena in this manner. For we can, by various means, arouse certain mental phenomena in ourselves intentionally, in order to find out whether this or that other phenomenon occurs as a result. We can then contemplate the result of the experiment calmly and attentively in our memory."

b) "To be sure, this procedure, which we could call observation in memory, is obviously not fully equivalent to genuine observation of present events. As everyone knows, memory is, to a great extent, subject to illusion, while inner perception is infallible and does not admit of doubt. When the phenomena which are retained by the memory are substituted for those of inner perception, they introduce uncertainty and the possibility of many sorts of self- deception into this area at the same time. And once the possibility of deception exists, its actual occurrence is not far off, for that unbiased frame of mind which the observer must have is hardest to achieve in connection with one’s own mental acts."

c) "In addition to the direct perception of our own mental phenomena we have an indirect knowledge of the mental phenomena of others. The phenomena of inner life usually express themselves, so to speak, i.e. they cause externally perceivable changes.  They are expressed most fully when a person describes them directly in words. Of course such a description would be incomprehensible or rather impossible if the difference between the mental lives of two individuals was such that they did not contain any com- mon element. In that case their exchange of ideas would be like that between a person who was born blind and another who was born without the sense of smell trying to explain to one another the color and the scent of a violet. But this is not the case."

d) "Less perfectly, perhaps, but often in a sufficiently clear way, mental states can be manifested even without verbal communication.  In this category belong, above all, human behavior and voluntary action. The conclusions that we can draw from them concerning the inner states from which they derive are often much more certain than those based on verbal statements ... .  Besides these voluntary ones, there are also involuntary physical changes which naturally accompany or follow certain mental states. Fright makes us turn pale, fear induces trembling, our cheeks blush red with shame."

e) "Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental)† inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object9 (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing),10 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. ... .  We can, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves."

f) "Another characteristic which all mental phenomena have in common is the fact that they are only perceived in inner consciousness, while in the case of physical phenomena only external perception is possible. ... .  [W]hen we say that mental phenomena are those which are apprehended by means of inner perception, we say that their perception is immediately evident."