Gemmo Iocco

Il presente studio è rivolto a delineare contorni e contenuti della riflessione sul problema della valutazione nella filosofia austro-tedesca della seconda metà del diciannovesimo secolo e dei primi decenni del ventesimo mostrando come l'individuazione dell'intenzionalità, quale carattere specifico della coscienza, permetta una più precisa analisi e comprensione delle stratificazioni che caratterizzano i fenomeni valoriali ed emotivi. Ciò ha aperto la strada all'elaborazione di una teoria scientifica dei valori, o assiologia, capace, almeno a livello programmatico, di superare le aporie che caratterizzano le operazioni valutative considerandole non più semplici funzioni soggettive bensì procedimenti dotati di validità oggettiva.
All'interno di questo quadro problematico la riflessione sul valore proposta da Brentano, Meinong e Husserl presenta delle specificità costitutive che la diversificano sia dalla filosofia dei valori di impostazione neokantiana, sia dalla filosofia personalistica proposta da Scheler facendone un passaggio fondamentale per comprendere il ruolo centrale ricoperto dalla fenomenologia nel processo novecentesco di ridefinizione dei saperi.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the resemblance, remarked by Max Scheler, between his value-theory and that developed by Alexius Meinong in order to shed light on those theoretical aspects of their value- theories that effectively legitimize Scheler’s assessment that Meinong’s research on value is compatible with his own. After having briefly showed (section 1) in what representationalism consists, I move (section 2) to outline Meinong’s account of presentation in order to stress out the cognitive function of feeling and its role in value-experience. In the third section I turn to briefly sketch out Scheler’s account of feeling in light of his criticism toward Brentano’s thesis according to which only inner perception is endowed with evidence. I argue that the resemblance between Scheler’s and Meinong’s theories of value can be found in their attempt to overcome representationalism both by pointing out the intertwinement between feeling and value and highlighting the immediate nature of emotional experience.

The problem of value and the related effort in proposing a scientific-objective treatment of it are of the utmost importance in Meinong's philosophical thought. Theoretically speaking, it is common to talk of a conceptual path that led Meinong to abandon the subjective perspective he outlined in the early 1890s in favour of an objective one developed during the period 1910-1920. Accordingly , the goal of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, we sketch out both the more significant aspects of the subjective value-theory developed in the Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werth-Theorie (1894) and the main thesis characterizing the objective value-theory that Meinong approximately started to outline after the publication of the second edition of Über Annahmen (1910). On the other hand, we wish to highlight that this change was determined both (1) by his elaboration , from 1899 onwards, of a theory of objects within which the so-called 'dig-nitatives' and 'desideratives' have a specific ontological relationship, and (2) by the attention Meinong paid to assumptive phenomena.

In order to recognize and legitimise the existence of moral facts which are the core of the value-theory proposed by Scheler, the criticism of so-called «moral illu- sions» plays a fundamental role. Theoretically speaking, according to Scheler, we are dealing with moral illusion, when we consider the psychic sphere as it were neutral from the axiological point of view. Thus the identification and explanation of moral illusions is an essential step in order to both outline and ground a phenomenological investigation of value-experience inasmuch it allows the outflanking of the moral idols hindering intrinsic-values. Accordingly this essay is aimed to demonstrate which are the most frequent moral illusions occurring in the history of modern and con- temporary philosophy, focusing especially on the «psychologist-account» proposed by Franz Brentano.

Dans ses écrits sur l’éthique, Brentano affirme que les propriétés morales — comme « bon » — sont l’objet d’une représentation intuitive non sensible dont le contenu est de nature « mentale ». Si la nature mentale de ces contenus en garantit le caractère d’évidence, elle en complexifie aussi l’élucidation ontologique et épistémologique, qui doit tenir compte de la classification brentanienne des actes psychiques. C’est justement cette complexité constitutive qui a fait de la théorie éthique de Brentano un passage obligé pour beaucoup de courants philosophiques importants du xxe siècle, par exemple pour la phénoménologie des valeurs et l’intuitionnisme éthique. Le but de cette étude est de rappeler les aspects les plus significatifs de la théorie éthique de Brentano et de montrer si — et si oui, en quel sens — elle peut être qualifiée de « réaliste ».

Il presente studio intende mostrare la natura specifica del cognitivismo emotivo proposto da Franz Brentano. In maniera più o meno evidente, la teoria del valore delineata da Brentano ha ricoperto un ruolo di primaria importanza nel dibattito assiologico-etico di fine Ottocento e inizio Novecento ed è ampiamente discussa anche all’interno del dibattito contemporaneo. Nel contributo (a) vengono richia-mati gli aspetti generali di tale teoria soffermandosi sulla nozione di “rappresentazione intuitiva” intesa come modalità che permette di conoscere ciò che giusto e ciò che è ingiusto. Si passa dunque a (b) discute-re l’accezione brentaniana di “preferibilità intrinseca”, (c) rilevando, in sede di conclusione, che l’effettiva centralità e attualità della teoria brentaniana sono conseguenza diretta della sua intrinseca natura “non univoca”.
PAROLE CHIAVE: Franz Brentano; Valore; Emozione; Cognitivismo emotivo; rappresentazione intuitiva

Franz Brentano and Emotional Cognitivism – This essay aims to describe the specific nature of the emotional cognitivism sketched out by Franz Brentano. Indeed in a more or less direct way the value-theory he developed has played a key-role both within the ethical-axiological debate at the turn of the 20th century and in contemporary debate. In this paper I (a) describe the general traits of Brentano’s val-ue-theory focusing primarily on his account of concrete intuitive presentation insofar as it allows us to acknowledge what it is right and wrong. Then (b) I discuss Brentano’s characterization of “intrinsic pref-erability” and conclude by arguing that (c) the historical-philosophical prominence and relevance of this value-account may be sought in its “not univocal nature”.

The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand it aims to show the main traits of Lotze’s theory of emotion, focusing specifically on the correlation between emotion and self-consciousness, and, on the other hand, to demonstrate how Lotze’s theory of emotion plays a key role in the phenomenology of emotional life as propounded by Max Scheler. Indeed their shared belief is that one should be able to understand one’s own individuality through one’s emotional state and not through theoretical operations such as reflection or thinking. Accordingly I argue that Lotze and Scheler suggest an emotional account of self-consciousness which manifests itself as closely related to an individual’s moral sensibility.

The purpose of this article is twofold: on one hand it is aimed to highlight the theoretical significance of the Husserlian criticism toward the psychologistic-logical accounts according to the most contemporary interpretive proposals – through the resulting determination of what «psychologism» means from the epistemological point of view – on the other hand it is focused on the decisive role played by H. Lotze in the development of the phenomenological idea of a pure logic: this debt has not yet been sufficiently emphasized. In addition the identification of an univocal definition of «psychologism» represents a fundamental step in order to define in which way the phenomenological correlation between ideal and real realm is possible. Thematically speaking the primary function underlining the Husserlian anti-psychologism lies especially in its generative aspect dealing with the identification of the conditions of possibility of the categorial intuition and of the pure logical laws.

As is well known, Max Scheler's account of personhood is quite different from the 'reflexive accounts' developed by other phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl or Jean Paul Sartre. According to Scheler, a person can know himself not so much through theoretical or rational processes but primarily through emotional experiences. Indeed, emotions, feelings, moods are what determine the essence of every person. By means of emotions and feelings the person fills the epistemological gap inherent in every objectifying-reflexive act: thus, in Scheler's phenomenology, personhood cannot be 'objectified' since through objectification it recedes to a transcendent level whilst phenomenology is primarily an a-symbolic, immanent and non-observational experience. In this regard, starting from the criticism of those accounts that understand personal identity in a strictly temporal meaning, Scheler emphasizes the 'normative' nature of selfhood. Precisely he suggests that every person is endowed with a particular 'ordo amoris' and whoever has the ordo amoris of a man has the man himself. Specifically, it is the 'normative' meaning of ordo amoris, rather than the purely factual and descriptive one, that represents the innermost essence of personhood. This idea is the result of the profound analysis by which Scheler addresses not only emotional experiences but also the relationship between personhood and temporality. As far as the historical-philosophical point of view is concerned, he claims that there are two different ways to stress the intimate relationship between person and time. On the one hand the ego is conceived as an 'enduring point' set above a continuously flowing moment, analogous to the moment in which a man in a tower views a stream flowing by below, as something identified with the 'interconnective whole' of this stream. On the other hand the individual ego does not 'endure' but is instead 'modified', without damage to its nature as ego, in every one of its experiences. According to Scheler both images are wrong given that the essence of a person consists rather in 'becoming different' (anderswerden) through that person's experiences. Accordingly, personal identity is not constituted through identifying acts that pertain to contents of experience and the relations of meaning among them but rather through the 'individual mode' of experiencing all such contents. In my paper I intend to highlight the specific phenomenological account of personal identity outlined by Scheler. Firstly, I will sketch out the fundamental traits of Scheler's account of personhood focusing on the relationship between time and person. I will then discuss the normative meaning of ordo amoris and will argue that, according to Scheler, if the essence of personhood lies in continually“becoming different” then the temporal unity of the self takes second place in his thinking. Scheler focuses instead on the moral nature of personhood: being a person basically means to be endowed with a moral sensibility which allows one to orientate oneself to a specific hierarchy of values.

It is well known that the ethical account developed by Franz Brentano exerted a decisive influence in the ethical-moral debate at the turn of nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, the theory he proposed in the conference of 1889 – published under the title " The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong "  – and in his lectures on practical philosophy delivered at the University of Vienna from 1876 to 1894, made him in fact a theorist of value. Moreover we can state that the psychology of evaluation he developed, plays in a more or less direct way a role of utmost importance in: a) the marginal theory of value (Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, von Wieser); b) the psychology of value (von Ehrenfels, Meinong, Urban); c) the phenomenology of value (Husserl, Scheler, Hartmann); and also d) the ethical intuitionism (Moore, Ross). Accordingly it is really surprising that Brentano's ethical theory provided the basic grounding for not entirely amalgamable moral theories. In all probability it is the " not definitive nature " of Brentano's ethics  that allows it to be a reference-point for various ethical theories. Specifically what has been discussed is the kernel of his value-theory that, in turn, is grounded on his descriptive account of psychology according to which the primary role of psychology is to investigate the particular nature of mental activities. Furthermore Brentano's ethical-theory is widely discussed also in the contemporary debate, when we address questions  aimed at showing whether emotions are " evaluative judgments " or " evaluative perceptions ". In a narrower sense, and depending on the answers we give to such questions, we can outline which kind of theory of value Brentano proposed. * Gemmo Iocco, University of Parma (gemmo.iocco@unipr.it)