by Franz Brentano.

Franz Clemens Brentano (January 16, 1838 ¨C March 17, 1917) was a German philosopher, psychologist and founder of psychology, born in Maryland, Zurich.

On January 16, 1838, Brentano was born in Marynburg on the Rhine, Germany. His grandfather was an Italian businessman who emigrated to Germany. Brentano's family had many famous figures, his uncle and uncle were German romantic writers, and his brother won the Nobel Prize for his achievements in the history of thought. Brentano showed talent in music, painting and sports from a young age, and was loved by family members.

At the age of 17, Brentano began his education as a priest, who studied philosophy at the University of Munich, the University of Würzburg, the University of Berlin and the University of Minsk.

In 1864, Brentano obtained a doctorate in philosophy at DuPing University, and was appointed a priest in Würzburg the same year.

In 1866 he was a lecturer at the University of Würzburg, teaching and writing Aristotle philosophy.

In 1865¨C1866 Brentano began speaking at the University of Würzburg, where his students included Karl Stumff and Anton Marty.

In 1969, Brentano wrote an opposition to the Church¡¯s claim that the Pope was not guilty.In 1972, the Church adopted the above doctrine, so Brentano gave up his opportunity to be promoted to teaching, resigned from the priesthood and converted to Christianity.

In 1974, Brentano published his book Psychology from the perspective of experience.

From 1874 to 1895, Brentano taught at the University of Vienna. In 1882, Brentano fell in love with a Catholic woman, but resigned because of the provisions that Austria was unable to marry a priest. After marriage, Brentano returned to Vienna to teach until 1895. His students included renowned psychologists Edmund Husserl, Alexis Meynon, Christian von Erzberger, Rudolf Steiner, Sigmund Freud and others.

In 1894, Brentano's wife died, and he also suffered from eye diseases, then resigned to Florence, Italy, and moved to Zurich after the outbreak of the First World War.

He died in Zurich in 1917.

Brentano claims that psychology is an experiential science. He argues that experience is an experience about experience, and psychologists should use an experiential approach to study experiences about psychological phenomena. This experience is linked to the inner world of a person and obtained through internal perception.

At the same time, Brentano pointed out that psychology is both a theoretical science and an applied science. Psychology is the scientific basis for the theory of individual and social education. Psychological knowledge can provide the ideological basis for individual activities and also indicate the direction for social education.

Brentano's mental psychology focuses on mental activity, the relationship of consciousness with its object, and the temporality of existence. Therefore, on the subject of psychology, Brentano considers the task of psychology to be the analysis of psychological elements and the determination of the principles and laws of the psychological complex constituted by psychological elements.

The nature of psychological phenomena or consciousness is intentional, and all consciousness is about the consciousness of the object. Brentano believes that psychology is not to study the psychological content of feelings, judgments, emotions, and so on, but to study the psychological activity of feelings, judgments, emotions and so on. Intentions and content are different. For example, I see a color, color is the content, seeing is the intention; listening to a song is the content, listening is the intention.

Brentano divides intentions into three categories:

intentions of expressions, including feelings, imaginative speech movements, etc.;

Judgment intentions, including perception, recognition, memory activities, such as I perceive, I admit, I remember, etc.

Devotional intentions, including emotions, will, desire activities, determination, and so on.

The intention of the representation is the most basic, and the other two categories of intentions are formed on its basis.

Brentano believes that there are two main methods of research in psychology.

The first is internal perception or reflection, which is the primary source of experience and is the main method of psychological research. But in psychological research, internal perception is practically impossible. Because when the researcher focuses attention on internal psychological activity, this internal psychological activity has actually changed. For example, when a person observes an inner state of anger under anger, if the subject has already known that he is angry, his anger will disappear, and the researcher will not observe. However, Brentano notes that the researcher can reflect on the psychological state through internal perception, thus further research.

The second is observation, i.e. observation of other people¡¯s reporting or autobiography, behavior and other manifestations. In addition, Brentano also advocates the study of children, animals, people with psychological disorders and different cultures. Brentano believes that the decisive experiment depends on thinking and helps determine the two opposing concepts, and psychologists should attempt to establish a system of psychology, undoubtedly to adopt this method; and the systematic experiment is limited to a few detailed experiments, too emphasizing the method itself, its effect is opposite.