Brentano: Strange “psychology”!

In spite of its apparently promising title, the book Franz Brentano published in 1874, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, can hardly be considered the starting point of any of the forms of what we now call “psychology.” The notion of intentionality, which Brentano adopted from mediaeval scholasticism, no longer plays a prominent part in psychology today. Rejecting the notion of the unconscious, Brentano does not seriously discuss the various forms this notion took in the works of prominent authors at the time. As for psychoanalysis, it took almost nothing from Brentano, even though Freud attended Brentano’s lectures at the university of Vienna, and despite the fact that the two authors were personally acquainted and shared family ties.