On the Analysis of Brentano’s Intentional Inexistence in Light of the Historical Background

Brentano spoke of things in the mind as having “intentional inexistence,” and he said he was following the medieval Scholastics in speaking this way. Thomas Aquinas spoke of things in the mind as having “intentional being,” and what he meant by this is based on what he took over from Aristotle. In the present essay, this older idea of intentional being is explored and developed, with specific reference to questions about perception. The answer turns out to be that a living being can function as a unified whole to receive and manipulate structures of information from its environment. This answer is illustrated by contrasting veridical perceptions with hallucinations, and also by contrasting persons with computing machines. This answer is then applied to explain why perceptual impressions seem to refer to objects. It is also applied to explain in what way perception is direct, and in what ways it is not. Finally, two contrasts of what Aquinas said with modern ideas are considered.