Abstract

On 7 January 1903, Brentano wrote to Anton Marty that by now he thinks it to be “impossible that factuality (Tatsächlichkeit) should belong to an irreale except in dependence on something real” as “concomitantly” occurring (Brentano 1966a: 106). For instance, when someone is thinking of a reale, or thing (Ding) A, say the sun or a centaur, there exists concomitantly to the A-thinker (who is a thing) also an irreale, viz., a thought-of-thing (Gedankending) which is the thought-of-A (Brentano 1930: 31, 48). Thus, when writing this letter Brentano still held the view that the realm of beings comprises besides entia realia or things also entia irrealia. But then on 10 September 1903 he tells Marty that now he “is making a new attempt to understand all entia rationis [i.e. irrealia] as fictions, viz., to deny that they are” (1966a: 108). So it was in the time between these two letters that there occurred what has been dubbed the “reistic turn” in Brentano’s ontological thinking. In the following, we will, first, give a rough outline of the scope of the entia realia; secondly, what we may call Brentano’s master argument for reism will be discussed; and thirdly, we will attempt to sketch a way out Brentano might have taken in the face of the difficulties inherent in his brand of reism.