Carl Stumpf

The article explores psychological motives in Leopold Blaustein’s philosophy. Blaustein was educated in Lvov, Freiburg im Breisgau and Berlin. In his original explorations, he attempted to connect a phenomenological perspective with descriptive psychology. As trained by Twardowski, he took over some motives of understanding the method of philosophy (psychology), its objectives and aims. The author situates Blaustein also in a dialogue with Stumpf and next to the context of Dilthey’s humanistic psychology is examined. Finally, the article explores the influences of Gestalt psychology on Blaustein. The ultimate thesis of the article is that Blaustein’s method can be grasped as a
phenomenologically oriented descriptive psychology.

The purpose of this investigation was to vary the load on the patellar tendon bar and to study the subsequent effect this has on the pattern of the pressure distribution at the stump-socket interface. Ten male subjects from the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, UK participated in this study. Measuring systems utilising strain gauge and electrohydraulic technologies were designed, developed and constructed to enable pressure measurements to be conducted. One transducer, the patellar tendon (PT) transducer, was attached to the patellar tendon bar of the socket such that the patellar tendon bar was capable of being translated by ±10. mm towards or away from the tendon. The results of this study showed that the position of the patellar tendon bar had no significant effect on the pressure distribution around the socket indicating that it is an unnecessary feature, which, we propose, may be eliminated during manufacture of a trans-tibial socket. © 2010 IPEM.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1350453310000949

What we cannot notice, we cannot be perceptually aware of either: This view, still very popular in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, has been recently defended by M. Tye and A. Noë. The present paper tries to undermine this idea by referring to some empirical cases showing that we can be perceptually aware of something which our thematic attention fails to grasp. The limits of perception do not coincide with the limits of attention, and this holds not only in the case of so called “primary attention,” but also in the case of “secondary attention.” We therefore reject Arvidson’s hypothesis of the identity between the field of attention and the field of consciousness.

Il volume ricostruisce la storia di un problema classico, quello del rapporto tra anima e corpo, in seno alla filosofia tedesca dell'Ottocento e del primo Novecento. Il tentativo di applicare alla sfera psichica i procedimenti di misurazione e quantificazione tipici delle scienze naturali, scatenò all’epoca un vivace dibattito intorno alla natura dell’anima e ai limiti di applicabilità del metodo scientifico. Al centro di questo nodo problematico si colloca idealmente la psicofisica, disciplina ideata da G.Th. Fechner sulla base delle ricerche fisiologiche di E.H. Weber, ma anche sotto l'influsso determinante del pensiero di Schelling. A metà strada tra la metafisica del XVII secolo e le novecentesche discussioni sul Mind-Body Problem, l’ampia querelle sulla psicofisica coinvolse le maggiori personalità filosofiche del tempo, impegnandole su questioni che rimangono a tutt'oggi di grande attualità teoretica. Muovendo da una puntuale ricerca delle origini del problema, individuabili nell'opera di Kant, il volume affronta le principali scuole di pensiero dell'Ottocento per concludersi infine con l'esame degli importanti contributi offerti dalla scuola descrittivo-fenomenologica di Brentano e dai massimi esponenti del Circolo di Vienna

Abstract: This essay deals with the relationship between philosophy and ex- perimental sciences in Carl Stumpf’s epistemology. A student of both Brentano and Lotze, Stumpf also gained scientific training with the physicist Wilhelm Weber in Göttingen. His double skill set in the fields of philosophy and ex- perimental sciences made his position within the German thought of his time very unusual. Stumpf’s works range from philosophy and phenomenology to experimental investigations into the field of psychology (especially acoustic and musical phenomena, child psychology, animal psychology, psychology of genius). Moreover, he wrote about mathematics, physical acoustics, phonetics and ethnomusicology. Consistent with his personal inclination towards the ascertainment of factual truths by means of experiments, Stumpf claimed his epistemological writings that philosophy should work hand-in-hand with scientific practice.

Some Austro-German philosophers considered thoughts to be mind-dependent entities, that is, psychic products. Yet these authors also attributed “objectivity” to thoughts: distinct thinking subjects can have mental acts with “qualitatively” the same content. Moreover, thoughts, once built, can exist beyond the life of their inventor, “embodied” in “documents”. At the beginning of the 20th century, the notion of “psychic product” was at the centre of the debates on psychologism; a hundred years later, it is rather at the margins of the history of philosophy. While Twardowski’s theory of products has been frequently studied, those of Stumpf and the late Husserl have been much less discussed. A presentation of the Austro-German debates about psychic products is all the more important since these discussions might be of direct interest for contemporary philosophy. This paper examines the Austro-German notion of psychic products in Stumpf, Twardowski, and the late Husserl.

ABSTRACT This essay reconstructs the history of Gestalt psychology taking as its starting points the early 20th century surge in psychology-of-music research. Leaving behind established tradition, authors such as Stumpf, Ehrenfels, Meinong, Krueger, and Witasek developed a new model of psychic development based on musical experience. The melodic and harmonic combination of sounds – with all its sentimental effects – became the new, fascinating dominant paradigm in theories of perception and cognitive flow in general, with important consequences with regard to musical aesthetics.The Gestalt theory properly speaking, formulated by Wertheimer, Koffka and Köhler, arose in this context, its defining characteristic being the tendency to salvage some of the perspectives of romantic philosophy with regard to nature which stemmed from an innovative use of the concept of ‘sense’. This approach is best exemplified by musical applications such as those of Hornbostel, the famous ethnomusicologist who was also an important Gestalt theorist.

This essay illustrates the main aspects of the discussion between Brentano and Stumpf about «tonal fusion» (Tonverschmelzung). In his Tonpsychologie, Stumpf essentially moved from a Brentanian standpoint. Yet, he did not adopt Brentano’s subsequently developed new theory of «sensible qualities», so that a polemic eventually arouse between them. Far from representing a marginal issue, the episode is relevant to our understanding of their relationship. The discussion as to the mechanism of tonal fusion reveals a general divergence between Brentano and Stumpf concerning the idea of human sensibility as a whole and of the method of psychology.

Stumpf’s doctrine of the categories is of great importance for our understanding of his philosophy. This theme had been widely discussed among German thinkers after Kant; Brentano himself had repeatedly dealt with it since his early works. However, Stumpf considerably diverges from Brentano on this crucial philosophical topic. Although a systematic discussion can be found only in Stumpf’s posthumous Erkenntnislehre, his core ideas on the categories can be traced to his early work on space of 1873. In fact, Stumpf claims that the peculiar relationship between extension and color is analogous to the relationship that holds between substance and accidents. Thus, like any other category, substance empirically stems from perception. Sensory experience, for Stumpf, is made up of perceptual wholes, whose attributes are typically bound to each other, rather than separately given in bundles, as Hume and other associationists used to assume. Thus, the achievements of Stumpf’s (and others’) holist psychology effectively contributes a solution to this classic metaphysical problem.

The ancient Greeks already used to give ethnic names (Doric, Phrygian, Lydian, etc.) to their different scales, and observations on differences in music of the various nations always raised the interest of musicians and philosophers. Yet, it was only in the late nineteenth century that “comparative musicology” (i.e. ethnomusicology) became an institutional science. An important role in this process was played by Carl Stumpf, a former pupil of Brentano’s who pioneered these researches in Berlin. Stumpf founded the Phonogrammarchiv (1900) to collect recordings of folk and extra-European music and a dedicated journal, the Sammelbände für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft. Musical consonance – he claimed – lays in this level of “tonal fusion”, not in the allegedly “natural” series of the harmonic partials of a vibrating chord, as suggested by the naturalists of all times from Pythagoras to Stumpf’s great contemporary Hermann Helmholtz. Although Stumpf later revised and finally abandoned this theory, its permanent value lays in its opposition to dominant naturalistic approaches. The fundamentally Eurocentric stance of naturalistic theories of music is also fiercely contrasted by Stumpf’s pupil Erich Hornbostel, who suggests that music ought to be considered as culture, rather than as nature, and focuses attention on the eventually melting human cultures.

Among historians of philosophy it is often taken for granted that the "Brentano school" was one of the influential philosophical movements at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century-but Brentano's own contributions are often eclipsed by that of his direct students. This invites to reflect on the nature of and the unity within the school. Since Brentano's conception of a rigorous, scientific philosophy had a strong impact on his students, it has been argued that this conception constitutes a unifying element in an otherwise heterogeneous group. The scope of this article is to shed light on this thesis and to show its limits. I argue for a differentiated view: the Brentano school is best seen not as a compact movement, but as a heterogeneous group of scholars who approached, in a given historical and geographical period, similar topics in very similar ways.

Resumo: Em todas as críticas feitas por Franz Brentano contra a filosofia do século XIX, seja na Psicologia a partir de um ponto de vista empírico, seja em seus últimos escritos, indubitavelmente Kant ocupa o lugar de honra. Na visão de Brentano, Kant não apenas postulou os juízos sintéticos a priori sem qualquer justificação, mas também instigou a fase de decadência que caracterizou a filosofia alemã na primeira metade do século XIX. Além dessas afirmações polêmicas, que frequentemente atraem a atenção, é importante colocar as coisas em perspectiva e investigar como essas críticas são interpretadas e quais são as suas origens. No presente artigo, eu vou me concentrar mais especificamente na recepção da psicologia kantiana por Brentano e seus alunos. Certamente, a rejeição brentaniana da psicologia de Kant acompanha sua total rejeição dos juízos sintéticos a priori. O que eu quero sugerir aqui é que, no caso específico da psicologia, a hostil recepção da filosofia kantiana na escola de Brentano se deve, principalmente, a uma combinação de dois fatores. O primeiro é a rejeição kantiana da psicologia na teoria do conhecimento. O segundo, que é correlativo ao primeiro fator, é a rejeição brentaniana da tese de Kant acerca da impossibilidade da psicologia se tornar uma ciência. No que se segue, eu investigo detalhadamente esses dois fatores, utilizando como estudo de caso a posição defendida por Carl Stumpf na Psicologia e Teoria do Conhecimento. Este trabalho merece ser discutido em sua totalidade: Stumpf (1848-1936) não foi apenas um dos alunos mais brilhantes e influentes de Brentano, mas seu ensaio também desempenhou um importante papel na escola de Brentano, oferecendo uma das raras confrontações impressas com as posições kantianas e neokantianas sobre a psicologia.

La percezione musicale ha avuto un ruolo significativo nella storia della psicologia della Gestalt. Muovendo dalle critiche di Mach ed Ehrenfels alla dottrina elaborata da Helmholtz e dall’elaborazione teorica di Stumpf, destinata a fungere da ponte concettuale, il lavoro analizza la riflessione svoltasi in seno alla psicologia della Gestalt. Sorprendentemente, Köhler non si concentra sulle Gestalten musicali complesse, ma sulle qualità tonali più elementari, mostrandone la totale irriducibilità a fattori fisico-fisiologici. Sulla stessa linea è anche Hornbostel, il quale amplia tuttavia il discorso mediante il richiamo al complesso antropologico dei vissuti umani, musicali ed extramusicali, che rimandano a un determinato contesto culturale, saldando così il nesso tra psicologia della Gestalt e ricerca nel campo etnomusicologico.

ABSTRACT: Lungo tutto l’Ottocento il rapporto tra musica e filosofia permane assai stretto. Il problema dei fondamenti della musica rappresenta una questione aperta e una sfida per i filosofi: in primo piano emergono soprattutto problemi come la natura del suono o il decorso della percezione acustica. La concezione di problemi classici come l’origine e il significato dell’armonia, o della consonanza e dissonanza, rinvia allora a problemi filosofici di grande rilievo, spesso affrontati sperimentando metodi e soluzioni inedite. Dopo la crisi dell’estetica musicale settecentesca, sancita nel pensiero di Kant, tocca soprattutto alla filosofia della natura, alla psicologia scientifica e alla fisiologia, alla metafisica post-hegeliana e alla fenomenologia sviluppare approcci innovativi e di notevole interesse alle questioni indicate.

The paper compares the ideas developed by Bozzi and Stumpf with regard to unity, identity, and causality. Although Bozzi’s formulation is independent from the one made by Stumpf in his Erkenntnislehre (1939-1940), these two positions share the same innovative importance granted to perceptual experience and to the problem of the origin of categories. Thus, despite different levels of awareness and formalization, in both authors we see the features of what we can call – analogous- ly to Bozzi’s naïve physics – a “naïve metaphysics”, at whose core lie the refusal of intellectualism, and the determination of the origin of categories in the concrete stream of perception.

This essay aims at an analysis of Stumpf’s doctrine of categories. In Erkenntnislehre Stumpf argues that all categories empirically stem from outer and inner perception. Although Stumpf champions an empiricist explanation of the matter, he firmly rejects associationism. In his conception of the origin of categories, including substance, Stumpf builds on the assumption that human perception behaves dynamically. Sensory experience consists indeed essentially of perceptual wholes. The analysis of Stumpf’s theses is of great importance for our thorough understanding of his philosophy. His theory regarding this crucial philosophical topic diverges considerably from Brentano’s.

This essay addresses the attitude of some leading Neo-Kantian philosophers toward scientific psychology and psychophysics. Early influential figures like Friedrich A. Lange counted Gustav T. Fechner’s psychophysical law among their allies in the rehabilitation of the Kantian standpoint. Later on, however, Neo-Kantian philosophers firmly rejected psychological measurement as a whole (Eduard Zeller) and harshly criticized the methods adopted by several psychologists of their time. For example, the Marburg mathematician and philosopher August Stadler reduced the validity of Fechner’s law to the mere physiological sphere, and Hermann Cohen conceived the application of mathematical integration to human sensations as an inane enterprise.

Il lavoro analizza la tempestiva ricezione da parte di Cornelio Fabro della filosofia di Carl Stumpf, così come esposta nella postuma Erkenntnislehre. Fin dai lavori dei primi anni Quaranta Fabro adotta una concezione della ‘fenomenologia’ distante da quella di Husserl perché ricalcata sulla definizione stumpfiana. Più in generale, Fabro si ispira a Stumpf ancor più che allo stesso Brentano. A partire dalla distinzione tra ‘fenomeni' e ‘funzioni psichiche’ Stumpf è infatti capace di proseguire il rilancio dell’aristotelismo con coerenza ancor maggiore di Brentano.

In his Spinozastudien (1919) Stumpf dismisses the commonplace interpretation of Spinoza’s parallelism in psychophysical terms. Rather, he suggests to read Ethics, II, Prop. 7, as the heritage of the scholastic doctrine of intentionality. Accordingly, things (of any kind: res) are the intentional objects of God’s ideas. On this basis, Stumpf also tries to make sense of the puzzling spinozian doctrine of the infinity of God’s attributes. In support of this exegesis, Stumpf offers an interesting reconstruction of the history of intentionality from Plato and Aristotle to the late Scholastics (XVII century). Besides its intrinsic value, Stumpf’s confrontation with Spinoza is illuminating in explaining his own position concerning a crucial phenomenological question such as intentionality. Actually, Stumpf avoids defining the mental in terms of intentionality and maintains, rather, a moderate but professed dualistic position, thus deeply diverging from both Brentano and Husserl.

We will show that Carl Stumpf’s interpretation of the concept of probability is best understood as that of an objective Bayesian. First we analyse Stumpf’s work in relation to that of his contemporary Johannes von Kries, and after that we will discuss various ways in which Stumpf’s probability-concept has been construed. By showing that the construals of Stumpf’s account by Hans Reichenbach, Richard von Mises and Andreas Kamlah are unfair – and at some points incorrect – we uncover the aspects that are essential to Stumpf’s probability interpretation.

In this interview, Vincenzo Costa reports about his personal way of interpreting and developing
Husserl’s phenomenology, referring to his work as a translator of the Husserlian main writings in Italian as
well as to his examination of other philosophers (such as Stumpf and Derrida), whose thought he takes
into account to propose a profitable lecture of Husserl’s phenomenology today – starting from the
problems of our very current time.

In diesem Aufsatz besprechen wir die Ontologie der Sachverhalte, die Carl Stumpf vorgeschlagen hat. Wie viele Vertreter der Brentano-Schule stützt sich hier Stumpf auf die reiche Ontologie der intentionalen Beziehung, die Brentano in seinen Vorlesungen aus der so genannten „mittleren“ Periode vorgeschlagen hat. Stumpf modifiziert jedoch die übernommene Lehre in einer unerwarteten Weise. Brentano sprach nämlich sowohl von immanenten als auch transzendenten propositionalen Entitäten. Stumpf hingegen führt nur die immanenten, aber keine transzendenten Sachverhalte ein, was alle potentiellen Vorteile einer derartigen Erweiterung der Ontologie zunichte zu machen scheint. Wir zeigen jedoch, dass sich die Position Stumpfs erklären lässt, wenn man zwei wichtige Punkte beachtet. Zum einen sind die Brentanoschen Objekte (der nominalen Form) bereits höchst komplizierte Entitäten, die in vielen Aspekten Sachverhalte ersetzen können. Zum anderen verwendet hier Stumpf, wie es scheint, einen konzeptualistischen Erklärungsmuster, den man auch bei dem frühen Brentano oft findet.

Je m’oppose ici à la théorie « structurale » de la sensation développée par Kurt Koffka dans les années 1920, et reprise notamment par Merleau-Ponty, qui en fait le centre théorique des analyses de la psychologie de la forme. Je commence donc par examiner cette théorie et les faits sur lesquels elle repose, en montrant notamment, à l’aide de la méréologie husserlienne, qu’ils ne peuvent paraître corroborer une théorie structurale de la sensation que si l’on confond « abstraire » et « séparer réellement » une qualité de son contexte. Il s’agit par là plus largement de montrer l’impossibilité, en fait comme en droit, de toute philosophie de la perception qui chercherait à réduire les sensations ou « qualia » à des prédicats relationnels. Je convoque alors William James à l’appui de ces conclusions, en rappelant qu’il avait déjà montré contre les théories néo-hégéliennes de son époque l’illégitimité de leur prétention à se réclamer de faits psychologiques similaires, et qu’il avait soutenu contre eux une théorie de la connaissance par accointance et de l’absoluité ontologique des qualités sensorielles que je cherche à reprendre à mon compte.

This paper defends hedonic intentionalism, the view that all pleasures, including bodily pleasures, are directed towards objects distinct from themselves. Brentano is the leading proponent of this view. My goal here is to disentangle his significant proposals from the more disputable ones so as to arrive at a hopefully promising version of hedonic intentionalism. I mainly focus on bodily pleasures, which constitute the main troublemakers for hedonic intentionalism. Section 1 introduces the problem raised by bodily pleasures for hedonic intentionalism and some of the main reactions to it. Sections 2 and 3 rebut two main approaches equating bodily pleasures with non- intentional episodes. More precisely, section 2 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be purely non-intentional self-conscious feelings, by relying on Brentano’s objection to Hamilton’s theory of pleasure. Section 3 argues that bodily pleasures cannot be non-intentional sensory qualities by relying on Brentano’s objections to Stumpf’s theory of pleasure. Section 4 develops a brentanian view of the intentionality of bodily pleasures by claiming bodily pleasures are directed at a sui generis class of sensory qualities. Section 5 presents an objection to Brentano’s later theory of pleasure according to which all sensory pleasures are directed at sensing acts.