Final Version to appear in

G. Bonino, J. Cumpa, G. Jesson (eds),

Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

Austrian Logical Realism? Brentano on States of Affairs

Guillaume Fréchette
University of Quebec at Montreal (Canada)

Abstract
In the following paper, I will discuss the motives behind Franz Brentano’s judgment contents and
the strategies offered by him to support them, suggesting that most of these strategies – based on his
treatment of true negative existential judgments – are not akin to logical realism in spirit. More
generally, I would like to suggest in this paper that although there definitely is a realist concern in
Austrian philosophy regarding states of affairs, reducing their introduction to a realist concern is
misguided. As shown by the case of Brentano, states of affairs were not always introduced in order
to answer the question of what makes our assertions true, but rather to provide a psychological
account of judgments that would help to distinguish between the two basic classes of acts:
presentations and judgments. I will suggest that Brentano’s way of dealing with states of affairs
actually shares some similarities with the way nominalists’ strategies concerning states of affairs are
sometimes conducted.

1. Varieties of states of affairs in Austrian philosophy

One of the main features characterizing Austrian philosophy, from Bolzano to Husserl, is
undoubtedly its commitment to many core ideas of logical realism. Bolzano’s Sätze an sich,
Meinong’s Objektive and Husserl’s Bedeutungen and Sachverhalte are typical Austrian
specialties in semantics and ontology, and they definitely constitute an essential part of the
realist’s program. Although this observation is true, one shouldn’t neglect the fact that in some
cases, some of the key concepts that shaped the development of Austrian philosophy were dealt
with without any specific concern regarding logical realism. One paradigmatic case of this is the
concept of state of affairs, as developed by Franz Brentano. 1 Brentano believed that the
presentation of the tree and the judgment that the tree exists have two respective contents: the
content of the presentation is the presented tree, while the content of the judgment is the existence
of the tree. This concept of judgment content was highly influential among his students. Two
major Austrian realists, Meinong and the early Husserl, built on Brentano’s concept of judgment
content in order to develop their theories of objectives (Meinong) and states of affairs (Husserl).
However, this fact can easily mislead one to believe that because Brentano’s concept of judgment

                                                                                                               
1
The importance of Brentano’s judgment contents (Urteilsinhalte) in the development of the concept of states of
affairs has been acknowledged in Stumpf (1906, 29), who introduced the term in his logic lectures from the 1880s
precisely to characterize Brentano’s judgment contents. On the history of states of affairs, see Smith (1992).

1
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Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

content had an influence on two Austrian realists like Meinong and Husserl, this concept had to
be based on realist motivations. In the following paper, I will argue against such a belief.
It is generally acknowledged that the concept of states of affairs used in contemporary
philosophy originated in the writings of Austrian philosophers. 2 Indeed, philosophers like
Bolzano, Brentano, Marty, Meinong, Stumpf and Husserl all believed that the content of a
judgment has a different structure than the content of a presentation. Yet, they believed very
different things concerning the nature of these contents of judgment. Bolzano’s Sätze an sich for
instance are not dependent upon actual judgments, while Brentano’s Urteilsinhalte are dependent
upon actual judgers. While Brentano, Marty and Stumpf believed that these contents of
judgments were states of affairs, Meinong and Husserl preferred to think that states of affairs
were distinct from contents of judgments: according to them, they are what these contents of
judgment are referring to.
One might object that talking of states of affairs for both contents of judgments and the
entities these judgments are referring to is pointlessly misleading. After all, it amounts to
confusion between a meaning unit and an entity of the world, which is a basic category mistake.
This is a fair objection. However, one can hardly take it at face value if one is to investigate the
origins of the introduction of the concept in Austrian philosophy, particularly through Bolzano
and Brentano, where this distinction is still not very sharp. In most of his writings, Brentano often
calls the object of a presentation the content of the presentation, meaning thereby that the objects
we are intentionally directed towards are also the contents of our intentional acts. Most of the
followers of Brentano who read Bolzano took his Sätze an sich to be some kind of states of
affairs in the sense that they understood this concept. In order to understand the motive which led
the School of Brentano to introduce states of affairs, it would be historically unsound to
circumscribe this concept to the concept of an entity of the world, since there is no sharp
distinction between these two categories in the writings of Brentano which were influential on his
students.
This is the reason why I will use the term ‘state of affairs’ here mostly in a non-specific
way, i.e., as it was also understood at that time. A general feature that characterizes Bolzano’s
concept of proposition, Brentano’s concept of judgment content and Meinong’s objectives (to
quote only a few of the Austrian varieties of states of affairs) is that the entities meant by these
                                                                                                               
2
Since the 70s, numerous contributions by Morscher, Nyiri, Mulligan, Smith and Simons underlined that fact so well
that a simple reference to some of their writings should suffice to substantiate this claim. See Morscher (1972),
Mulligan, Smith and Simons (1984), Mulligan (1985), Mulligan (1988) and Smith (1994).

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concepts are basically conceived as the content of a judgment and that these entities are different
from presentations contents. As to whether they serve the purpose of truth-makers or of truth-
bearers, or if they play a role in the constitution of an ontology, or even more generally what kind
of entity, if any, are the states of affairs understood in that broad sense of the term: these are quite
tricky questions since there is barely any agreement on this among Austrian philosophers, and
especially among Brentano’s students.
The reasons behind the ambiguity of the expression ‘state of affairs’ in Austrian philosophy
can be roughly summarized by the lack of consensus on the nature of judgment. For Bolzano,
sentences give voice (kundgeben) to judgments that are the matter (Stoff) of propositions in
themselves (Sätze an sich). Unlike Brentano, Bolzano doesn’t distinguish between the act and the
content of judgment: what he calls the matter of the judgment is the proposition in itself, it is an
entity that is distinct from the judgment, both from the point of view of philosophy of mind and
of ontology. The ontological independence of propositions and their semantic function (the
proposition in themselves constitute the meaning (Sinn) of the sentences) make them ideal
candidates for the first category mentioned above, the category of states of affairs as meanings of
judgments.
Against Bolzano, Brentano distinguishes between the act and the content of a judgment.
Brentano’s concept of content is not Bolzano’s ‘matter’ (Stoff).3 According to Brentano, the
content of a judgment is ontologically dependent upon the act (more precisely: act and content
are mutually inseparable although distinguishable).4 As I have shown, this is not the case with
Bolzano’s concept of ‘matter’.
In the absence of a consensus, some of Brentano and Bolzano’s followers are considering
states of affairs as judgment contents that are (or aren’t) ontologically independent upon acts of
judgment.5 Some others will see states of affairs and contents of judgments as distinct categories
that are both ontologically independent of the acts (as Husserl does). It is indeed Stumpf that first
uses the expression ‘state of affairs’ (Sachverhalt) in a technical manner for the first time in 1888
in order to characterize the specific content of the act of judgment.6 Although the expression is
his own, Stumpf underlines that it doesn’t express anything different in its use than what

                                                                                                               
3
This goes against what some Austrians thought at that time, among them Twardowski (1894).
4
See Brentano (1982, 21/1995, 23): “the two correlates [of the intentional pair act-content] are only distinctionally
separable from one another.”
5
This is the case with Stumpf (1906) and Marty (1908).
6
Stumpf (1930, 421).

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Brentano wanted to say long before him by speaking of ‘contents of judgment’ (Urteilsinhalt),
which are immanent to those acts. When we see this concept of a state of affairs as fundamental
for the different Austrian varieties that were to be developed after Brentano, Edgar Morscher’s
diagnosis would need to be supplemented:

As far as I can see, in most or all cases the dominant aim in introducing propositions and/or states of
affairs [in 19th century Austrian philosophy] is to guarantee the independence from time, space,
change, mind and language, of truth and falsity and of logical properties and relations like
(in)validity, logical consequence, (in)compatibility and so on. In order to guarantee the objectivity
of those attributes, the Austrian philosophers […] thought that we need special truth-bearers and/or
special truth-makers, because the ‘normal’ truth-bearers (like sentences and thoughts) and the
‘normal’ truth-makers (the objects the sentences and thoughts are about) are or at least could be
temporal and spatial, changeable and (in the case of truth-bearers like thoughts and sentences) also
mind- or language-dependent […] some Austrian philosophers wanted to guarantee the objectivity
of truth-values and logical attributes via the objectivity of the truth-bearers, others via the
objectivity of the truth-makers. Because of the convergence of aim this difference in the means was
ignored by many Austrian philosophers, which led to confusions and misunderstanding among them.
[…] [T]he views of Austrian philosophers on propositions and states of affairs were similar at a
superficial level but more fundamentally in opposition.7

Following this diagnosis, the introduction by Brentano of a judgment-specific concept of content

should be motivated at least to some extent by the objectivity of logical properties and in the truth
and falsity of propositions. In other words, if Brentano were to be rightly acknowledged as one of
the first people to introduce states of affairs in Austria, his motivation for this would most likely
be to ‘guarantee the objectivity of logical properties’. Since contents of judgment are for
Brentano neither truth-makers nor truth-bearers, this conclusion doesn’t seem appropriate.
I think there are some good reasons to question Morscher’s diagnosis. Moreover, the necessity to
insure the objectivity of truth-bearers and/or truth-makers comes a little bit later in Austrian
philosophy. This is why I don’t think, like Morscher, that the Austrian confusion on states of
affairs depends on confusion of the objectives: to insure the objectivity of truth-bearers vs. to
insure the objectivity of truth-makers. The confusion on the nature and the role of states of affairs
in the first place concerns a confusion as to their objectivity itself, as is shown by this portion of
the history of states of affairs from Brentano to Stumpf. Moreover, not only did Brentano’s
concern with states of affairs (broadly conceived) not touch upon their objectivity (either as truth-
makers or truth-bearers), but also the tendency of his analysis is largely deflationary, in a
somewhat nominalistic fashion. I intend to argue for this in the following sections.

                                                                                                               
7
Morscher (1986, 80ff.).

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2. Content and object of presentations

In 1894 one of Brentano’s last students in Vienna, Kazimierz Twardowski, introduced the
distinction between content and object of presentations, which was inspired by Bolzano but also
by Meinong and Höfler (1890). Curiously enough, Meinong and Höfler reacted quite differently
to Twardowski’s book. While Höfler (1905) largely accepts the paternity of the distinction as
attributed to him by Twardowski, Meinong rather expresses his debt to Twardowski’s distinction,
since he states that he never made this distinction before the publication of Twardowski’s book.8
It was this same book that motivated Husserl to review many crucial aspects of his conception of
presentations. These revisions soon led to the conception exposed in the Logical Investigations.9
Even if Twardowski, Meinong, Husserl and Höfler accepted this distinction, there still were
many students of Brentano who rejected it. This was notably the case of Kastil (1909), who
argued extensively against Twardowski and Höfler. In the same vein, Kraus (1930: 192f.) reacted
vehemently to Höfler, as did Mayer-Hillebrand a few years later.10 For Kraus, Kastil and Mayer-
Hillebrand, there simply would not have been a good reason to distinguish between the content
and the object of presentations if Brentano had never made this distinction.
Why would Brentano reject such a distinction between one’s presentation content of the Eiffel
Tower and the Eiffel Tower itself? In order to understand Brentano’s position, one has to bear in
mind that Brentano’s empirical psychology is relatively independent towards metaphysics. And
this independence guarantees his scientific status to empirical psychology. Empirical psychology
is free from any metaphysical presuppositions regarding the nature and the existence of the soul
and the objects of the world.11 Therefore, external objects, like the Eiffel Tower, are standing
nowhere in the scheme of the relation between act and content (or object) of presentation.

                                                                                                               
8
See Meinong (1899, 185) and Höfler (1905). Given their characterization of the object of presentation as a Kantian
thing in itself (Höfler & Meinong, 1890, 6), it is rather plausible to give reason to Meinong against Höfler, although
Höfler’s version of the story is still largely accepted today. See for instance Jacquette (1990, 178); Jacquette (2004,
105f.); Smith (1994, 186); Benoist (2001, 79); Cavallin (1997, 53); Tanasescu (1998, 53); Chrudzimski (2001, 120);
Chrudzimski (2002, 189); Hickerson (2005, 464).
9
Husserl (1990). English translation in Rollinger (1999, 251ff.)
10
The editorial work on Brentano’s Nachlaß in Brentano (1956 and 1959) gives a good example of Mayer-
Hillebrand’s position in favour of Kraus and Kastil.
11
See Brentano (2008, 34/1973, 13). From 1870 onwards, Brentano advocates a conception of psychology as
foundational for metaphysics, where the former is unilaterally detachable from the latter, as attested by many
passages in the introduction to Brentano (2008). The same idea is also expressed in Brentano (1982, 157f/1995,
166f). See also the introductive remark to the 1874-75 lectures on selected metaphysical questions, as quoted in
Werle (1989, 113).

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We find several textual pieces of evidence for this undistinctedness of the content and object of
presentations: In Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, where Brentano introduces
intentionality as the most important distinctive feature of mental phenomena over physical
phenomena,12 Brentano uses the expressions ‘relation to a content’ and ‘direction towards an
object’ as synonymous characterizations of intentionality; Object (Objekt) and content (Inhalt)
are also used synonymously. Taking written evidence at face value, it is hard to consider how
Brentano would advocate for a distinction between content and object on the level of
presentations.
We also find confirmation of the synonymic use of these expressions in the writings of his
students, which are based on his logic lectures from the 1880s. The best example is found in
Hillebrand (1890):

What remains specifically the same when I present a thaler, a horse or a triangle, is the act of
presentation; what makes these three cases distinct, is generally called content, object (Gegenstand)
or object of the presentation”. [Dasjenige, was der Species nach gleichbleibt, ob ich einen Thaler,
ein Pferd oder ein Dreieck vorstelle, heißt der Vorstellungsact; dasjenige, was diese drei Fälle von
einander unterscheidet, wird allgemein als Inhalt, Gegenstand oder Object der Vorstellung
bezeichnet].13

Of course, these textual pieces of evidence for the use of ‘content’ and ‘object’ as synonyms
don’t address the legitimate objection that there should be, after all, some distinction between the
content and the object of a presentation: there certainly seems to be a difference between the
content of my act of seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Eiffel Tower itself, this Parisian object with
its numerous properties which are totally distinct from the properties of my mental content. A
similar point was made by Twardowski (1894), which was the reason why he is advocating for
the distinction. His first argument is based on the distinction between a painted picture and what
this painted picture depicts. His point was to say that every act of presentation is a presentation in
a twofold way: determinatively, to present is to present a content (the picture), while in a
modifying way, to present is also to present an object (a landscape for instance). Similarly, taking
the act of painting as an example, one could say that this act is first directed towards the canvas
as a material object, but that this canvas is itself a way to present something which is outside the
canvas, i.e. the landscape as such.
                                                                                                               
12
See Brentano (2008, 106/1973, 68).
13
Hillebrand (1891, 37). See also Stumpf (1890, 280) and Husserl (1891, 20, 45, 47, 157, 175).

6
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Twardowski’s example of the canvas is only an illustration. Originally, Twardowski introduced

this distinction between content and object of presentations on the basis of the distinction
between content and object of judgments, which was introduced by Brentano. Following his
master, Twardowski underlines that the object of the judgment is that which is acknowledged
(anerkannt) or rejected (verworfen) – If I judge that A exists, it is A which is acknowledged –
while the content of the judgment is not A, but the existence (or non-existence) of A.
Presupposing a perfect analogy between the functions of judging and presenting, and defending
the thesis that the content of the judgment is a sign of the object, Twardowski concludes that the
same distinction should be made for acts of presentation.14
Twardowski’s second argument for the distinction is also based on another analogy, this time
between names and representations. If we accept a distinction between the three functions of
names (which are communication (Kundgebung), meaning (Bedeutung) and denotation
(Nennung)), and if one accepts an analogy between thought and language (as Twardowski and
many students of Brentano did), one also has to accept an analogy between the functions of the
presentation and the functions of the name: an expression ‘A’ communicates an act of
presentation (the presentation of A), it means a content (the presented A) and it denotes an object
(A).
However, this argument is not fully convincing: the structural analogy is based on the analogy
between thought and language, and Twardowski doesn’t offer any support for the latter analogy,
except by referring to Marty (1884a: p.293). But Marty precisely emphasizes that two different
expressions may communicate the same presentation, which doesn’t fit with Twardowski’s
purpose. In fact, Brentano’s theory of existential judgments and Marty’s idea of the inner form of
language want to show that names and assertions have a structure that is distinct from those of
presentations and judgments. Moreover, this strict analogy presupposes that every name fulfills
its function (and that every presentation presents an object), which is not really obvious: think of
the name “Sherlock Holmes”. 15 In this sense, from the point of view of psychological
justifications, the principle according to which every presentation has an object and a content is
not fully convincing.
If we take these psychological arguments out of the picture, one must then rely on Twardowski’s
analysis between modes of existence (existence/subsistence, or being existent and being

                                                                                                               
14
Twardowski (1894, 13f./1977, 11f). I discuss this point in more details in Fréchette (2012).
15
I thank Wolfgang Künne for drawing my attention to this point.

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presented) in order to reinforce the distinction between content and object: while contents really
exist, objects only enjoy some kind of being-presented. Meinong will develop this distinction
more thoroughly in his theory of object.16 So basically, if Twardowski’s motivation for the
distinction is coming from a psychological ground, his psychological justification seems rather
unconvincing. His distinction has more strengths from an ontological perspective.

3. Contents and objects of judgments

Why would Brentano adopt a distinction between contents and objects of judgments if he doesn’t
make this distinction on the level of presentations? There are a few reasons for this: First and
most importantly, mental phenomena are divided into three classes: presentations, judgments and
volitional acts, where the two latter classes are founded on the former class (although it does not
mean that judgments are analyzable in terms of presentations). This priority of presentations over
other classes of mental phenomena means that in order to judge that A is, I must have a
presentation of A in the first place. The relation that holds between the judgment and the
presentation is a relation of unilateral separability: in the unity of consciousness, the act of
presentation is one-sidedly detachable from the act of judgment, but not the other way round).17
Judgments being the acceptance or denial of the existence of an object, the object of the judgment
voiced by “A is” is A, but its content can’t be A: since the judgment is the acceptance or denial of
the existence of A (and not of A simpliciter) and since existence is not a property of objects
according to Brentano, the content and the object of a judgment must be different: the content of
“A is” is the existence of A, while its object is A simpliciter.
Another reason that motivates Brentano towards a distinction between content and object of
judgments is his mereological conception of the relation between acts and contents: contents are
only conceptually distinguishable parts (distinktionell verschieden) of acts, while presentations
are really (and one-sidedly) separable parts from judgments. The fact that presenting A (act cum
content) is a real part of judging A (act cum content) doesn’t imply that the presentation content
is identical to the judgment content. On the contrary: since presenting A is one-sidedly detachable
from judging A, and since both acts are two numerically distinct acts, they must have different
contents: if the content and the object of a presentation amounts to the same thing, then the
content and the object of the judgment must be different.

                                                                                                               
16
Twardowski (1894, 29f./1977, 27f.).
17
Brentano (1982, 12/1995, 15).

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Another feature of Brentano’s conception of judgment that plays a role in this distinction is the
concept of existence he is working with. According to him, the concept of existence, as any other
concept, is obtained by reflecting upon concrete acts of judgments. It is through analysis of
judgment acts that we obtain the concept18:

Some philosophers have held that [the concept of experience] cannot be derived from experience.
Therefore we shall have to go over this aspect of it in connection with our study of so-called innate
ideas. And when we do, we will find that this concept undoubtedly is derived from experience, but
from inner experience, and we acquire it only with reference to judgement. So the concept of
existence could not have been the predicate of our first judgement any more than the concept of
judgement could have been. Thus, in this way, too, we come to recognize that at least the first
perception, the one which was present in the first mental phenomenon, could not possibly have
consisted of such a predication19.

In order to distinguish different parts of an act of judgment, we have to use inner perception
(what Brentano here calls inner experience). It is from the point of view of inner perception that
we obtain the concept of existence. In other words, the analysis proposed by Brentano goes from
the judgment to the concept of existence, and not the other way round, as we see in most of the
propositional theories of judgment.

4. True negative existential judgments

Talking of judgments and existence in the way Brentano does leads of course to the important
problem of negative existential judgments. Following my version of Brentano’s account, true
negative existential judgments (like the one communicated by “there is no golden mountain”)
would have both a content and an object. What would these be? Is Brentano bound to accept the
existence of round squares, golden mountains and centaurs? Not exactly. Recall that for Brentano,
the question of the existence or non-existence of some objects of presentation (centaurs or round
squares for instance) is dismissed when we see the problem exclusively on the level of
presentations. From that perspective, there is simply no way of asking about the existence of
objects of presentations. In other words, an agent without any judicative abilities wouldn’t be

                                                                                                               
18
Many of Brentano’s students shared this conception of existence: see for instance Brentano (1930, 45); Marty
(1884, 171f.); Hillebrand (1890, 27). The same idea is also presented in his logic lectures from the Vienna period,
see Brentano (1956).
19
Brentano (2008, 233/1973, 163).

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able to discriminate between presentations of objects and objectless presentations.20 But this
thesis brings an important complication: The category of object only becomes equivocal when
considered in the context of a judgment: if judgments are acceptances or denials (of the existence
of) the presented object, then there must be something which is rejected in a negative existential
judgment. This is the classical problem of true negative existential judgments, to which Brentano
never really offered a satisfying solution, although he proposed different strategies to address the
issue: in some writings, he suggested to see negative existential judgments as a rejection of some
entia rationis (the presented-centaur) or as the rejection of negative states of affairs (the non-
existence of the centaur).21 In 1911, a true negative existential judgment like the one voiced by
the assertion “there are no centaurs” is best rendered by the following assertion: “someone who
judges that there are non-centaurs judges correctly”. The negative entities supposed here are then
simply fictions, comparable to Aristotle’s strategy concerning the indefinite names (onoma
aoriston).22 Brentano wasn’t very clear about the right solution to adopt concerning negative
existential judgments. In 1885, in a logic lecture, he preferred to say that they simply don’t have
any object.23
If Brentano was never really satisfied with the solutions he developed concerning negative
existential judgments, I believe that the way these judgments are treated remains an exceptional
case in his theory, and not a paradigmatic case, as it is often considered to be.24 In order to
simplify what I have said until now, let me schematize the distinction I am proposing in the
following way:

acts contents objects

presentations cP oP
pudgments cJ oJ

                                                                                                               
20
On the problem of objectless presentations and on other Austrian strategies for dealing with them, see Fréchette
(2010).
21
See Brentano (1930, 133). See also Srednicki (1965, 79).
22
See Brentano (2008, 417/1973, 231). Even if his conception would have allowed him to overcome this problem,
Bolzano too left a place in his theory for purely negative presentations (rein verneinende Vorstellungen), a
subcategory of objectless presentations expressed by indefinite terms (onoma aoriston). See Bolzano (1837, 416f.
and 421 (volume 1)); Bolzano (1837, 48 (volume 2)); Bolzano (1837, 220f. (volume 4)).
23
See Brentano (EL81, 13550): “one has to distinguish 1) between the object of the presentation and the presentation
[…] and 2) between the object of the judgment and the judgment […] the formers are often missing (like in the case
of the true negative judgment)” “([m]an muss unterscheiden 1) zw[ischen] dem Object d[er] Vorstell[un]g u[nd] der
Vorstell[un]g […] 2) ebenso zw[ischen] d[em] Object d[es] Urtheils u[nd] dem Urtheil […] Die ersteren fehlen
oft.([wie] beim wahren negativen Urtheil)”.
24
For a different interpretation of Brentano’s theory of judgment contents, see Mayer-Hillebrand (1959, 320f.).

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 Final Version to appear in
G. Bonino, J. Cumpa, G. Jesson (eds),
Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

In principle, distinctions between contents and objects may be made both vertically and
horizontally. Husserl, for example, fills all 4 blanks with 4 distinct entities: the content cP is a
meaning which is distinct from his object (oP), the content of the judgment is a proposition (cJ)
which is distinct from the state of affairs which makes it true (oJ). Twardowski (1894) makes the
horizontal distinctions, but only makes one vertical distinction, the content distinction.25
As for Brentano, the horizontal distinction is made concerning judgments, but there is no
distinction concerning presentations. In other words, cP and oP are not distinguished. If I am
right to say that cP and oP are not distinguished, then I only have to show that cJ is distinct from
cP in order to show that cJ is distinct from oJ, but also to show that oP is distinct from oJ. This is
why I first tried to show that the content and the object of a presentation are one and the same
thing according to Brentano. This is also why I tried to show that the content of the judgment that
A exists and the content of the presentation of A are distinct. It follows from this that the object
of a presentation can’t be the same thing as the object of a judgment. The interpretation I am
proposing here of the distinction between oP and oJ is to say that oP is distinct from oJ in all
cases except in the case of true existential judgments.26 In other words, in every true existential
negative judgment, cP takes the place of oJ, but in any other case, oJ is different from oP.

5. Objective vs. Real

So far I have insisted on the fact that Brentano does indeed distinguish between the content of the
judgment that A exists and the content of the presentation of A (the contents are constituted
differently, the first is generally expressible by “the existence of A”, the second by “A”). I also
underlined the fact that the specification of the content of judgment as distinct from the content of
representation is motivated on a psychological basis, and its justification is mostly psychological.
This is why I have some doubts about Morscher’s diagnosis, according to which the introduction
of states of affairs in Austrian philosophy follows a realist worry: to insure the objectivity of
logical properties and the objectivity of truth and falsity. Since the contents of judgment of
Brentano and some of his students don’t have a propositional form and since they are not

                                                                                                               
25
The vertical distinction concerning objects is made in Twardowski (1996, 164/1999, 103f.). According to Betti
(2005), Twardowski would have already introduced it in 1895.
26
I insist here on true negative existential judgments, since according to Brentano, someone who judges that there
are no lions is judging without evidence, which implies that the object which is presented in the judgment is not the
one whose existence is rejected.

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 Final Version to appear in
G. Bonino, J. Cumpa, G. Jesson (eds),
Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

ontologically independent of the acts of which they are the contents, Morscher’s diagnosis only
seems to give a partial account of the origins of states of affairs in Austrian philosophy. But even
if the Brentanian states of affairs don’t seem to be the right candidates for the realist tasks
identified by Morscher, we still have to give an explanation for the ontological distinction
between contents and acts, since the descriptive analysis conducted by Brentano supports this
distinction. Here, the distinction at play is inspired by the medieval distinction between reality
and objectivity. The ontological independence of propositions (and of other meaning units)
towards concrete acts of thinking doesn’t play a role here.
Very early in his career, Brentano was preoccupied by a defense of a homonomical conception of
being. In Brentano (1862), his point of view is metaphysical and he is focusing on being
according to the categories.27 From this point of view, the categories are complete according to
Brentano. But at the same time, he sees the domains of metaphysics and epistemology (basically
empirical psychology) as concerned with two domains of being: metaphysics deals with the being
according to the categories, while epistemology is concerned with the being as being-true (das
Sein als Wahre). 28 From this distinction stems another distinction between real concepts
(concepts following the categories) and objective concepts (objective meaning here that the
reality involved here is a reality in the mind).29
What about the being of predication? The ‘is’ of predication, involved in judgments, concerns the
being according to the true:

[…][E]very object of thought, i.e. everything which in our mind can objectively become the subject
of a trueaffirmative assertion, will belong [the being as the true]. Nothing we can form in our mind
is so denuded of all reality that is altogether excluded from the domain of the on hos alethes [being
as true].30

This distinction between the real and the objective is a forerunner of the distinction between the
real and the intentional, which is the terminology used by Brentano in the seventies and later. The
idea behind this distinction is to isolate the realm of metaphysics from the realm of epistemology:
in his metaphysics lectures from the sixties and the seventies, he really presses this distinction:

First of all, it is clear that we have to distinguish two beings (Seiendes), from which Aristotle

                                                                                                               
27
See Brentano (1862/1975).
28
Brentano (1862,14/1975, 9f).
29
Brentano (1862, 82/1975, 56).
30
Brentano (1862, 37/1975, 26). Translation slightly modified.

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 Final Version to appear in
G. Bonino, J. Cumpa, G. Jesson (eds),
Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

specified the meanings in distinguishing between ‘on es alethes’ and ‘on eo tes dianoias’. Being is
first employed in the sense of true (as a characterization of the acknowledgement, as the expression
of the affirmation, as a way to characterize that something is true) and then in the sense of concrete
being, in its logical and real meaning. [Vor allem ist klar, dass wire in zweifaches Seiendes
unterscheiden müssen, dessen Bedeutung schon Aristoteles gesondert hat, indem er das on es
alethes von dem on exo tes dianoias schied. Das Seiende wird gebraucht einmal in Sinne des
Wahren, dann im Sinne des Sachlichen Seienden, also in einer logischen und realen Bedeutung]31

The same distinction is also present in his habilitation on Aristotle in 1867:

Here and in the following, we use the expression ‘objective’ not in the sense which has been usual
in the recent times, but rather in the sense which the Aristotelians of the Middle Ages used to
associate with it (the Aristotelian objective). It allows for a very short and precise characterization
of the Aristotelian doctrine. Materially, as a physical property, coldness is in what is cold; as object,
i.e. as something that is felt, coldness is in the one who feels the cold. [Wir gebrauchen den
Ausdruck ‘objectiv’ hier und im Folgenden nicht in dem Sinne, der in neuerer Zeit der übliche ist,
sondern in jenem, den die Aristoteliker des Mittelalters damit (mit dem Aristotelischen objective) zu
verbinden pflegten, und der eine sehr kurze und präcise Bezeichnung der Aristotelischen Lehre
ermöglicht. Materiell, als physische Beschaffenheit, ist die Kälte in dem Kalten; als Object, d.h. als
Empfundenes, ist sie in dem Kältefühlenden].32

In other words, the cold is materially in what is cold: it is in the ice block; but objectively, the
cold is in the one who experiences coldness. The distinction between being materially/objectively
in something (Brentano also speaks of the distinction between real and objective elsewhere, and
later between real and intentional) also has its bearings on relations: the structural resemblance
between ‘…is materially in_’ and ‘…is objectively in_’ is misleading, because the inclusion
relation in the first case is a real relation, and in the second it is a ‘modified’, or objective
relation.33
In his later years, his idea about this didn’t really change:

Especially in connection with the mental act of making judgements, there has been talk of a content
of judgement as well as an object. If I judge, “A centaur does not exist,” it is said that the object is a
centaur, but that the content of the judgement is that a centaur does not exist, or the non-existence of
a centaur. If it said that this content has its being in the active subject, then once again “to be” is
being used in a loose and improper sense and means exactly the same thing as is expressed by the
use of “to be,” in its proper sense, in the words, “A mentally active subject is denying a centaur in
the modus praesens.34

                                                                                                               
31
Brentano (n.d., M96, 31948).
32
Brentano (1867, 80/1977, 54, fn. 6). Original translation (GF).
33
We also find similar comments in his Metaphysics lectures from the seventies, see for instance Brentano M96, p.
31948. See Antonelli (2001, 254f.) for relevant quotations from that manuscript.
34
Brentano (2008, 410/1974, 227).

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 Final Version to appear in
G. Bonino, J. Cumpa, G. Jesson (eds),
Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

Hence we are certain that one cannot make the being or non-being of a centaur an object as one can
a centaur; one can only make the person affirming or denying the centaur an object, in which case
the centaur, to be sure, becomes an object in a special modus obliquus at the same time.35

Independently of the reistic turn, the distinction between being in the sense of the true and real
being is still observed. What does change after this turn is that judgments like the one voiced by
‘Pegasus doesn’t exist’ are no longer said to involve the non-existence of Pegasus as judgment
content: After the reistic turn, Brentano holds that assertions like Ann’s, ‘Pegasus doesn’t exist’
actually give voice to a judgment that would better be communicated by such an assertion: “Ann
is presently denying Pegasus”. The being of contents is always considered as an improper being,
or being in a modified sense, which represents a kind of being inasmuch as painted fish stand for
a kind of fish. Despite the reistic turn of his later philosophy, Brentano therefore kept the
distinction between real and intentional being. However, this distinction is not the same as the
one between concrete acts of thinking and the meaning units that are ontologically independent of
them: acts always belong to the subclass of entities which are temporally extended. It is the
accident of a substance (the thinking subject), while the content is a non-real part of this accident.

6. Final Remarks
My proposal is an addition to Morscher’s diagnosis on states of affairs in Austrian philosophy. I
wanted to show that Brentano’s concept of state of affairs, which he labels as ‘content of
judgment’, played an influential role in the development of this idea in Austrian philosophy.
However, in contrast with Morscher’s diagnosis, this concept was not introduced by Brentano to
give an account of the objectivity of logical properties. His reasons are grounded in his
conception of the judgment, and more particularly, they are directly dependent upon his
empiricist thesis regarding the origins of concepts. When considered as such, these elements tend
to show that there is more to the introduction of states of affairs in Austrian philosophy than a
worry about the objectivity of logical properties.
In the second part of the paper, I wanted to stress that the main features of Brentano’s strategy of
dealing with judgment contents are best seen through his tendency to reformulate true existential
negative judgments in statements about subjects who think thus and so. It is quite unusual to find
such a strategy among realist philosophers. On the contrary, such solutions are more often seen
among paraphrase nominalists. Therefore, it would be a mistake in my opinion to see the

                                                                                                               
35
Brentano (2008, 412/1995, 229).

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G. Bonino, J. Cumpa, G. Jesson (eds),
Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

introduction of states of affairs in Austrian philosophy as a purely realist matter. Many different
concerns were at stake in Brentano’s time and the objectivity of logical properties was only one
among many others. Concerning Brentano’s judgment contents more specifically, I tried to show
that his treatment of true negative existential judgments should be taken as an exceptional
treatment of judgment contents, and not a paradigmatic one. In fact, looking back at the different
stages of his philosophy, it is remarkable that they are all closely connected to different strategies
of dealing with true negative existential judgments, each time offering a different account of the
kind of entities, if any, that judgment contents are. This connection shows that Brentano was not
particularly keen to generalize the case of contents of true negative existential judgments to all
judgments, which would have been an essential move towards a strong realist account of
judgment contents or states of affairs.36

                                                                                                               
36
An earlier version of this paper (Fréchette, 2011) was published in French in a volume on Kevin Mulligan’s work.
I thank the audiences in Montreal and Urbino for their fruitful questions and comments, especially Kevin Mulligan,
Claude Panaccio, Denis Fisette, Dale Jacquette, Ingvar Johansson and Erwin Tegtmeier. I gratefully acknowledge the
financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

15
 Final Version to appear in
G. Bonino, J. Cumpa, G. Jesson (eds),
Penultimate Version Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations,
(March 2012, Comments welcome) Proceedings of the International Conference, Frankfurt, Ontos Verlag.

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