Franz Brentano’s intentionality thesis

Brentano’s thesis of intentionality has been traditionally interpreted as a theory of the “intentional relation”, i.e., of the (ordinary binary) relation between the mental act and its intentional or “immanent” object. This object is immanent in the sense that it is in fact contained in the mind, and with an ontological status that is distinct from that of the transcendent, existent or non-existent object. On the basis of Brentano’s Aristotelian-Scholastic sources, especially Aristotle’s perception theory and his theory of relativa, the author rejects the view of the immanent object as a consciousness-immanent, ontologically diminished entity and highlights the continuity which exists between Brentano’s earlier and later (the so-called reistic) view of intentionality.