Ramifications of the Analysis of Truth

Abstract

Having said all that we said in previous chapters, let us have a look at some of the interesting points discussed by Brentano in connection with the problem of truth. We judge with evidence about ourown present inner experience.¹ Brentano is inclined to deny that an evidently factual judgement about the external world is possible.² This view is related to his theory of mental acts in its later form. Since it is the case that when we judge³ we must exist, but the things about which we judge do not have to exist, therefore we have evidence only of ourselves. To this, one might reply that what is evident is this — that we should assent to, e.g., there is a real (existent) horse on the lawn. In view of this, the argument might be regarded as invalid unless we wish to divorce mental acts completely from reality, which in turn is very much against the spirit of the rest of Brentano’s philosophy. In fact, there is good reason to believe that he did not consider the fact that we are sometimes mistaken, even when we are certain, as a fatal objection to the possiblity of knowledge. After all, when we are not mistaken we are not mistaken, but it is not logically necessary that we cannot be mistaken. This makes it plausible to maintain that the view of Bretano’s which we are discussing is developed without sufficient regard to other important elements of his analysis of truth.⁴ This, however, is not extraordinary in itself. It was Brentano’s usual method, to attack any new problem with a completely open mind and without ties to any of his other views.