In 1890 Christian von Ehrenfels published his classic paper "Über 'Gestaltqualitäten'", the first systematic investigation of the philosophy and psychology of Gestalt. Ehrenfels thereby issued an important challenge to the psychological atomism that was still predominant in his day. His paper not only exerted a powerful influence on the philosophy of the Meinong school, it also marked the beginning of the Gestalt tradition in psychology, later associated with the work of Wertheimer, Köhler and Koffka in Berlin. Includes papers by C. (...) Von Ehrenfels, Kurt Grelling and Paul Oppenheim and contributions by K. Mulligan, P.M. Simons and Barry Smith. (shrink)

Our views of sensation, of feeling, and of attention determine, if we are logical, the whole further course of our psychological thought and exposition. ...

Those who conceive logic as a science have generally favoured one of two alternative conceptions as to what the subject-matter of this science ought to be. On the one hand is the nowadays somewhat old-fashioned-seeming view of logic as the science of judgment, or of thinking or reasoning activities in general. On the other hand is the view of logic as a science of ideal meanings, 'thoughts', or 'propositions in themselves'. There is, however, a third alternative conception, which enjoyed only (...) a brief flowering in the years leading up to the first World War, but whose lingering presence can be detected in the background of more recent ontologising trends in logic, as for example in the 'situation semantics' of Barwise and Perry. This third conception sees logic as a science of special objects called 'Sachverhalte' or 'states of affairs'. A view of this sort is present in simplified form in the works of Meinong, but it received its definitive formulation in the writings of Adolf Reinach, a student of Husserl who is otherwise noteworthy for having anticipated, in a monograph of 1913, large chunks of what later became known as the theory of speech acts.(1). (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning and value of the criticism that Stumpf address to Husserl's phenomenology in Ideas I. My presentation is divided into four parts: I briefly describe the relationship between Stumpf and the young Husserl during his stay in Halle (1886-1901); then I will comment Stumpf's remarks on the definition of Husserl's phenomenology as descriptive psychology in his Logical Investigations; in the third part, I examine Husserl's notice in section 86 of Ideas I (...) where he compares his own terminology to that of Stumpf; finally I comment on Stumpf's criticism of Husserl's phenomenology in his last book Erkenntnislehre. (shrink)

While many of the phenomenological currents in philosophy allegedly utilize a peculiar method, the type under consideration here is characterized by Franz Brentano s ambition to make philosophy scientific by adopting no other method but that of natural science. Brentano became particularly influential in teaching his students (such as Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Alexius Meinong, and Edmund Husserl) his descriptive psychology, which is concerned with mind as intentionally directed at objects. As Brentano and his students continued in their investigations in (...) descriptive psychology, another side of Austrian phenomenology, namely object theory, became more and more prominent. The philosophical orientation under consideration in this collection of essays is accordingly a two-sided discipline, concerned with both mind and objects, and applicable to various areas of philosophy such as epistemology, philosophy of language, value theory, and ontology.". (shrink)

This essay illustrates the main aspects of the discussion between Brentano and Stumpf about «tonal fusion». 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. (shrink)

Study of the controversy between Franz Brentano and his student Carl Stumpf on emotions and sense-feelings. The issue is whether the pleasure that provides an object such as a work of art is intentional, as it is the case in Brentano's theory in which it is closely related to the class of emotions (love and hate), or merely phenomenal as Stumpf wants it. The paper is divided into two parts : I first examine several aspects of the relationship between Stumpf (...) and Brentano and I evaluate in the second part whether Stumpf's deviations from several theses of Brentano's descriptive psychology, namely on emotions and sense-feelings, challenge his commitment to Brentano's program in philosophy. (shrink)

Introduction à l'ouvrage: À l'École de Brentano, Paris, Vrin, 2007.

In the second edition of the Logische Untersuchungen Husserl claims to have investigated higher order objects and Gestalt qualities before anyone else in the School of Brentano. Indeed, in the Philosophie der Arithmetik we find a discussion of figural moments and fusion that could lend some support to such a claim. By considering the concepts of Gestalt and Verschmelzung in their relevant historical context, the latter especially in connection to Stumpf, we find that Husserl indeed gave a quite original and (...) interesting account of such higher order phenomena. (shrink)

A substantial introduction to Stumpf's work in philosophy and science.

James and Stumpf first met in Prague in 1882. James soon started corresponding with a "colleague with whose persons and whose ideas alike I feel so warm a sympathy." With this, a lifelong epistolary friendship began. For 28 years until James's death in 1910, Stumpf became James's most important European correspondent. Besides psychological themes of great importance, such as the perception of space and of sound, the letters include commentary upon Stumpf's (Tonpsychologie) and James's main books (The Principles of Psychology, (...) The Varieties of Religious Experience), and many other works. The two friends also exchange views concerning other scholars, religious faith and metaphysical topics. The different perspectives of the American and the German (European) way of living, philosophizing and doing science are frequently under discussion. The letters also touch upon personal questions of historical interest. The book offers a critical edition and the English translation of hitherto unpublished primary sources. Historians of psychology and historians of philosophy will welcome the volume as a useful tool for their understanding of some crucial developments of the time. Scholars in the history of pragmatism and of phenomenology will also be interested in the volume. (shrink)

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 holist psychology effectively contributes a solution to this classic metaphysical problem. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Die Brentanoschule -- Bd. 2. Die Münchener Phänomenologen -- Bd. 3. Die Göttinger Schule -- Bd. 4. Die Freiburger Schüler -- Bd. 5. Die Neukantianer -- Bd. 6. Philosophenbriefe -- Bd. 7. Wissenschaftlerkorrespondenz -- Bd. 8. Institutionelle Schreiben -- Bd. 9. Familienbriefe -- Bd. 10. Einführung und Register.

Cette étude porte sur l'influence exercée par les travaux de Carl Stumpf sur la pensée de Karl Bühler. Notre hypothèse de travail repose sur le programme philosophique que Bühler attribue à Stumpf et dont plusieurs de ses travaux sont largement redevables. Notre étude est divisée en cinq parties. La première cherche à établir une filiation entre Bühler et l'école de Brentano à laquelle appartient Stumpf. Dans la deuxième, nous montrons que Bühler a pris connaissance des idées de Brentano et du (...) programme de Stumpf durant un séjour à l'Institut de psychologie de Berlin au semestre d'hiver 1904-1905, et nous commentons brièvement, dans la troisième partie, les nombreuses références à Stumpf dans l'œuvre de Bühler et deux ouvrages dans lesquels il prend la défense de Stumpf contre ses critiques. Après avoir établi la connaissance profonde par Bühler des travaux de Stumpf, nous esquissons, dans la quatrième partie, les grandes lignes du programme de Stumpf et examinons, dans la cinquième, la manière dont Bühler l'applique dans le domaine des phénomènes sensibles (gestalt). Nous concluons cette étude avec quelques remarques sur l'évaluation positive par Stumpf des travaux de Bühler. (shrink)

On the Stumpf-Lotze debate on the theory of local signs.

Die Lust am Trauerspiel.--Leib und Seele.--Der Entwicklungsgedanke in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie.--Zur Methodik der Kinderpsychologie.--Die Wiedergeburt der Philosophie.--Vom ethischen Skeptizismus.--Die Anfänge der Musik.

Formatosi alla lezione di Franz Brentano e di Hermann Lotze, maestro a Halle di Edmund Husserl e in seguito, a Berlino, 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 indubbiamente 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 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. (shrink)

Dieser Buchtitel ist Teil des Digitalisierungsprojekts Springer Book Archives mit Publikationen, die seit den Anfängen des Verlags von 1842 erschienen sind. Der Verlag stellt mit diesem Archiv Quellen für die historische wie auch die disziplingeschichtliche Forschung zur Verfügung, die jeweils im historischen Kontext betrachtet werden müssen. Dieser Titel erschien in der Zeit vor 1945 und wird daher in seiner zeittypischen politisch-ideologischen Ausrichtung vom Verlag nicht beworben.

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 attributes 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. (shrink)