A Brentanian Look at the History of Philosophy: The Theory o the Four Phases Theoretically Reconsidered

“The four phases of philosophy and its current state” has been generally considered as one of the most original theories of Franz Brentano and, concomitantly, one of the most deeply rooted in the spirit of the time. It is well-known that in this respect Brentano owes a debt to Auguste Comte’s leading idea of a scientific development that allows a general reassessment of the history of philosophy, although Brentano’s view opts for a scheme of repeated cycles through a movement of ascending and declining phases. By complementing the historiographical approaches that have been largely developed in recent literature (D. Fisette, D. Münch, R. Schmit), we would like to sketch a theoretical reconsideration of the Brentanian “four phases of philosophy”. A theoretical reconsideration that interprets Brentano’s theory from a psychological standpoint as an alternative to other dominant interpretations (Mayer-Hillebrand, Mezei and Smith): the declining phases of philosophy should be thus understood, more precisely, as the improper representations of what philosophy, psychologically grounded, properly is.