Introduction: Mind, Meaning and Reality

This introductory chapter spells out the basic assumption, arguably shared by Franz Brentano and all the Brentanians, that a philosophical analysis of meaning is inseparable from considerations about what goes on in the mind and what there is in the world. Section 1 offers some preliminary thoughts about the ‘invisibility’ of Brentano’s philosophy of language in contemporary literature. Section 2 gives a first pass at Brentano’s approach to language. Section 3 briefly addresses the transformation of his views in the Brentano School and Section 4 points at some often-neglected connections with analytic philosophy. Eventually, Section 5 gives a brief overview of the content of the book.