Epilogue

the end of a conceptual history?

Herbert Spiegelberg

pp. 233-238

in: Jens Cavallin, Content and object, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

This study started out from the issue of "psychologism" in philosophy. That issue may at first hand look like a problem concerning the content of presentations or other mental phenomena. Nevertheless, the concept in focus soon turned out rather to be "what is presented" in another sense, or more generally the object of "intentional acts", frequently referred to simply as the "intentional object". Twardowski made an effort to dispose entirely of that notion, together with the notion of immanent object, by way of his strict distinction between content and object of presentations and his classification of the notion of "intentional" as a modifier. The concept of object was to a certain extent found to be only indirectly connected with the discussion on psychologism, and rather touched another topic, namely the discussion on Twardowski's "phenomenalism", raised by Ingarden. Nevertheless tendencies towards psychologism could be found in Twardowski at some interpretations and uses of the notion of content, specifically when the "double function" of content of presentations was including the meaning of names.