The Analogies of the Soul. Aristotle, Brentano and the Project of a Scientific Psychology

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the ambition for a scientific psychology drives Franz Brentano’s project. His 1874 work, Psychology from an empirical standpoint, was meant to give the foundation for the whole field of science on empirical basis, thereby, in some way, reactivating the legacy from ancient metaphysics. Brentano, as Heidegger suggests, would thus hold the sources of Greek, especially Aristotelian, and modern philosophy together. But can Brentano be considered as an Aristotelian in light of his empirical psychology? The question is well known and apparently, as Franco Volpi argues, the epistemological scope of Brentanian psychology would no longer find in Aristotle its true guiding inspiration. In our opinion, an alternative reading is however possible if we consider that Brentano at no time intends to make psychology a way back to Aristotle. Our research hypothesis therefore leads to a careful scrutiny of the 1867 treatise, The psychology of Aristotle. The recourse to Aristotle remains necessary for understanding Brentano’s project, to wit, an empirical psychology that does not ultimately abandon the etaphysical framework from whence it originates.