Brentano and his cultural roots
Brentano’s thinking developed around a vast series of core themes, which have been the subject of a huge debate, thus placing him “at the origin of the main trends of the 20th century”. However, the reception of Brentano’s thought suffers from the lack of a rigorous critical edition of his works and, in many cases, inaccurate editing, which caused numerous “misunderstandings on the diffusion and reception of his ideas”. It is noteworthy that some arbitrary manipulations of Brentano’s writing are under the responsibility of his direct disciples, as in the case of Alfred Kastil and, along with him, Franziska Mayer-Hillebrandt who, with the intention to compose these writings into an organic corpus, inserted some modifications, deletions and interpolations. This reckless editorial approach is quite apparent in the presentation of Aristotle, included in the History of Greek philosophy, and posthumously published by Mayer-Hillebrandt. In the volume, some passages were interpolated, to the point of substituting entire pages, with material that came out not only from Brentano’s Aristotle and his World (1911, English translation 1978), but even from the first volume of Überweg’s history of philosophy, firstly printed in 1863. In other cases, the same text is completed with passages from Brentano’s On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862, English translation 1975) while the original text, deemed outdated, is substituted with passages from various sources – notes, essays – of the last Brentano, dated to more than fifty years later. In the volume devoted to the problem of God, the various manuscripts here collected and printed are not even separated and dated.
As authors such as L. Albertazzi, T. J. Srzednicki and L. McAlister have noticed, the arbitrariness of the criteria adopted in the posthumous publication of Brentano’s writings hamper the study of his thinking. These problems are supplemented by more objective reasons, as it is “a general opinion that Brentano’s thoughts do not form a system for two main reasons. Firstly, the events of his personal life caused, at least partially, a lack of systematicity in his writings; secondly, because he did not have the intention of constructing a system in the style of the German Idealism”. Brentano himself, in a letter sent to Oscar Kraus on 13 January 1916 (almost a year before his death), acknowledged that he had not been able, for external reasons, to provide an accomplished and systematic elaboration to the course of his arguments. “Providence”, he wrote “wise as it always is, has arranged many things in a way different from the one we could expect. Aristotle’s Metaphysic did not reach its completion, and none of his writings reached us in a final edition. As far as I am concerned, external circumstances, amongst many other things, made my work difficult to the point that not a few of the good parts of my production, which I could leave to my neighbours, will be lost”.
The role of Franz Brentano in the training of modern psychology, as it developed before and after 1900, is indeed often underestimated. I would welcome a discussion of individual aspects of his work. The individual German editions of Brentano's books seem sufficient to me.
sequel
A complete edition, which - as far as I know - we do not have, is desirable, but you can manage without it quite well.
sequel
I have to correct my statement above: I see now, there is a complete edition from the publisher de Gruyter, 2018, which I don't know, ed. by Thomas Binder, Arkadiusz Chrudzimski.
never heard of him; an Aristotelian, it seems can you give some details about his life?
For more information see the Wikipedia entry about Brentano. I don't know what our question poser at Brentano means by "PUZZLE", but he will hopefully explain it.
Have a look please at: R. Poli, ed. by, The Brentano Puzzle, Ashgate, Aldershot- Brookfield, USA, 1998
List of Contributors: L. Albertazzi, C. Ortiz Hill, R. Rollinger, K. Schumann, J. Srzednicki, A. Zimmer, etc.; furthermore you can read: L. Albertazzi, M. Libardi, R. Poli, editors, The School of Franz Brentano, Kluwer, 1996, pp.1-25, Brentano and his School: Rassembling the Puzzle
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