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What must be kept in mind is how radically different this type of psychology-philosophy was from
the German idealist philosophy of historical forces (Hegel) or abstract categories of mind (Kant),
or from the English emphasis of the time on logic, on sensory experience as the basis of all
knowledge, and on utilitarian theories of value. These approaches generally dominated the
19th-century understanding of the mind.
In emphasizing intentionality and the soul as its origin, Brentano was reviving a Scholastic (especially a Thomist) notion that sensory stimulation is organized and given meaning in consciousness through the efficient causality of the mind or soul.107 Barclay traces Brentano’s teaching on “Intentionality” back to St. Thomas.108 Now this all has an important similarity to some of the concepts of Freud, who used the idea of intentionality in both his early and his later stages of theorizing. For instance, Freud wrote that it is the intentional character of dreams that makes them “psychical phenomena of complete validity—fulfilments of wishes.”109 Vergote (quoted by Ricoeur) has observed, “[T]his…contains the whole of Freud’s discovery: ‘the psychical is defined as meaning, and this meaning is dynamic and historical.’ Husserl and Freud are seen as heirs of Brentano, who had them both as students.”110 More recently, the strong similarity between Brentano and Freud has been persuasively presented by Raymond E. Fancher, who compares Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint with Freud’s early metapsychology, especially as expressed in his Project for a Scientific Psychology.111 Fancher finds the following major similarities, some of which I have already alluded to: In psychological theory, both men stressed the motivated nature of thought and a conception of a “psychological reality” that is superior to “material reality.” (Here in his own theorizing Freud breaks with the standard scientific materialism of his day.) Both saw consciousness of one’s own mental activity as arising retrospectively and having a calming effect on emotions. Both emphasized a process of “judgment” or reality testing made possible only by the presence of a strong unity of consciousness or ego. Methodologically, both agreed that the retrospective analysis of subjective experience is the principal tool of psychology. Freud eventually agreed with Brentano that psychology proceeds best when separated from physiology.112 These are all foundational similarities, and, again, similarities that contrast markedly with the other approaches to the mind popular at the time. But there are still further connections between Brentano and Freud. Both believed that thought—cognitive structure—was permeated by and in many respects directed by emotionality.113 It is also of importance that in his 1874 book Brentano discussed the issue of the unconscious mind in a |