Carl Stumpf

From the point of view of Husserl’s critique of empiricist theories of abstraction in the Logical Investigations, it seems that Brentano and most of his students would have endorsed the presupposition of Locke’s theory of abstraction, which Husserl labels as the ‘psychological hypostatization of the general’. For Husserl himself, but also for most of his followers, the motivation behind this critique is that the descriptive psychology of the School of Brentano leads to psychologism if one doesn’t accept Platonic ideal objects.
In the following article, I argue that Husserl’s critique doesn’t do justice to the accounts of abstraction developed in the school of Brentano. I take here the particular case of Carl Stumpf, showing that not only does Husserl’s accusation miss its target, but also that it attribute indirectly to Stumpf a position that he didn’t defend. I suggest that even before the Logical Investigations, Stumpf formulated the basis of an account of abstraction in terms of generalization, an account which will later turn out to be in many ways compatible with Husserl’s theory of Spezies in the Logical Investigations, and which provide a viable alternative both to Platonism and to Empiricism, thereby calling for a reassessment of the positions on abstraction in the School of Brentano.

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.

Allievo di Franz Brentano e di Hermann Lotze, maestro di Edmund Husserl e in seguito dei fondatori della psicologia della Gestalt – Köhler, Koffka e Wertheimer – Carl Stumpf fu uno dei massimi esponenti della filosofia del suo tempo. Filosofo dai vasti interessi, ma anche psicologo di rango, attento studioso di filosofia della musica e pioniere dell’etnomusicologia, Stumpf è una figura originale, il cui lungo itinerario intellettuale appare sempre più imprescindibile per comprendere l’evoluzione del pensiero filosofico della seconda metà dell’Ottocento e del primo Novecento in Germania. Estraneo ai dogmi del positivismo allora imperante, ma anche alla fascinazione trascendentale della fenomenologia husserliana, Stumpf concepisce la riflessione filosofica come esercizio critico aperto all’esperienza e tuttavia capace di trascenderla per mirare alle vette della speculazione metafisica ed etica. Gli scritti qui tradotti (Psicologia e teoria della conoscenza; Il corpo e l'anima; Fenomeni e funzioni psichiche; La classificazione delle scienze; La rinascita della filosofia; Autobiografia) consentono, con l'aiuto dell'apparato critico, di dare corpo all’idea di una rinascita della filosofia, che riecheggia il titolo di una conferenza berlinese di Stumpf del 1907, ma che ben si attaglia al suo progetto filosofico complessivo.

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.

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.

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.

Like most of Franz Brentano’s students, Carl Stumpf showed an interest in the philosophy of mathematics. In particular, Stumpf wrote his habilitation thesis On the Foundations of Mathematics, used mathematical examples in central parts of his lectures, and later returned to the topic in the posthumously published Erkenntnislehre. I will try to show the development and the continuity of Stumpf’s position on the basis of his writings and (unpublished) lectures on logic and psycholo- gy, taking into account the Brentanist approach to the philosophy of mathematics that developed in the 1880s and 1890s in the School of Brentano.

Among the correspondence between Husserl and Brentano kept at the Houghton Library of Harvard University there is a letter from Husserl to Brentano from 29 XII 1889, whose contents were completely unknown until now. The letter is of some significance, both historically as well as systematically for Husserl’s early development, painting a vivid picture of his relation and indebtedness to his teacher Franz Brentano. As in his letter to Stumpf from February 1890, Husserl describes the issues he had encountered during the elaboration of his habilitation work into the Philosophy of Arithmetic, but also announces that he has finally found "clarity" regarding the arithmetica universalis.

Carl Stumpf, in his Spinozastudien, presents the Aristotelico-Scholastic thesis of the “parallelism” between mental acts and contents, i.e., the thesis that “the essential differences and divisions of the acts run in parallel to those of the contents, since they are determined in their specificity by the latter.” In his paper, Stumpf also distinguishes between passive and active accounts of intellection in the history of philosophy. Now, Stumpf, in his own theory of intentionality, has rather an active account of intellection: he holds that the contents of abstract presentations and judgments are “products” of these acts. Stumpf does not explicitly give a historical precedent for his position. In this note, I would like to discuss Stumpf’s historical narrative concerning the active accounts of intellection, as well as to complete this narrative with information about some prior philosophical positions resembling Stumpf’s own views on psychic products.

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.

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.

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.

The second half of the 19th century is particularly important for psychology. Thanks to the works of Wilhelm Wundt and William James, she in fact has been defined as an autonomous discipline, and therefore rapidly developed towards the 20th century perspectives. This development followed basically two main research lines: on one side – mostly in Germany – we find the stimulating interest in the scientific themes in the work of Kant (particularly those relating to problems of psychology and anthropology), and the studies in physiology provided, among the others, by Johann Herbart, Johannes Müller and Gustav Fechner. On the other side (of the Ocean) we find the investigation of American Pragmatists such as the already mentioned James, John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. These research lines are not deviating. On the contrary, as we can see in particular from the correspondence between James and Mach (which probably began in the middle 1870s) and the former visiting Prague in 1882 (where he met Ewald Hering, Carl Stumpf, and Mach), the research lines actually meet. The most clear expression of this correspondence is the quite similar outcome of James’s and Mach’s investigation in psychology: the perspective to which also Bertrand Russell, in dealing with the mind-body problem, will adhere, and that he called neutral monism. As Russell observes, both James’s radical empiricism and Mach’s anti-metaphysically-aimed studies in psychology fall within the context of neutral monism – the latter having in fact inaugurated this movement.

This special issue of Philosophical Readings shall deal with these research lines. It is first aimed to shed light to the context of both James’s and Mach’s investigation and, secondly, to give an overview of some strategies for dealing with the ontologically problematic in psychology that have been developed during the late 19th and early 20th century.

The problem of passivity and its relationship with the mind’s activity is a key issue that allows us to measure the distance and proximity of Husserl's phenomenology from the empiricist and Kantian tradition, as well as his confrontation with the emerging scientific psychology.
It is also a matter of great relevance to contemporary debates in analytic philosophy, concerning the epistemological and phenomenological nature of perceptual experiences. In my talk I would like first (1) to show how this problem is already present in Husserl’s early works on the foundation of mathematics – especially under the influence and confrontation with his teacher Carl Stumpf – where can we locate the concept of “structuring moments” (Gestaltmomenten); secondly (2) I will how the Analysis of passive syntheses strives to account for manner in which the synthetic activity carried out by the active consciousness is constantly motivated by passive syntheses performed in the framework of sensory experience and completely independent of the egological activity; and finally (3) to highlight some problems and difficulties left unsolved by Husserl. As far as I know, Husserl has never clearly established de facto a phenomenal principle that allows us to distinguish between activity and passivity, a discriminating criterion that permit us to establish the activity of consciousness.
In this regard, I would suggest that Stumpf and some others psychologists seem to me to present more detailed and empirically appropriate insights into this issue