Which Brentano is Our Brentano? Editorial Reception of Psychologie Vom Empirischen Standpunkt

Authors

  • Catriel Fierro Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata; CONICET

Abstract

There is consensus in recognizing Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkt as Franz Brentano’s masterpiece, at least in the field of psychology. However, the history of this volume is complex, due to the diversity of editions and translations available, to the difference between them, and to the large time lags between each of them. With the aim of providing data on the reception of this work in Spanish-speaking countries, and within the framework of social history of knowledge and science, which emphasizes editorial operations in the dynamics of scientific knowledge, this work surveys, analyzes and contextualizes the various editions of Psychologie. Firstly, the origin and context of the Spanish, French and English editions is detailed. Secondly, we present the results of a textual content analysis. The data suggests that the Spanish version of Psicología has between 40% and 45% of the original material present in the first edition of the monograph. We conclude that the reception and editorial adaptation into Spanish, in addition to being relatively late, was partial and incomplete. Future works should characterize the theoretical, methodological and epistemological proposal of Brentano outlined and laid out in Psychologie, in order to be able to determine which parts and claims did not impact Argentinian psychology.

Keywords:

Franz Brentano, editorial reception, social history of science, Argentinian psychology