Some Difficulties with Brentano’s Classification of Mental Phenomena

In this paper I critically discuss Franz Brentano’s tripartite classification of mental phenomena into presentations, judgments and love-and-hate phenomena. While I contend that Brentano is right in adopting intentional modes or attitudes as phenomenological division principle, I argue that a further criterion is needed when it comes to demonstrating that two mental states exhibit a fundamentally different intentional mode or attitude, hence belong to two distinct ‘fundamental classes.’ I then review some candidate criteria before concluding that Brentano’s overall classification is inconsistent with them and presumably is motivated in part by historical, non-phenomenological rationales.