The Phenomenology of Mentality

Intentionalism about mentality is the view that all and only mental phenomena are intentional. Experientialism about mentality is the view that mental phenomena are experienced by, or given to, the subject in a way physical phenomena are not. Put differently, the idea advocated by experientialists is this: there is a distinctive way mental phenomena manifest themselves in subjective experience—there is a distinctive ‘phenomenology’ of mentality. It is usually held that Brentano is intentionalist across the board rather than experientialist. In this paper I argue for two claims: (i) the idea of several, mutually reinforcing ‘marks of the mental’ is central to Brentano’s conception of mentality, and (ii) inner perception, which is one of Brentano’s marks, is best understood as a distinctive way mental phenomena appear to the subject or are given to her, viz. in experientialist rather than intentionalist terms. The upshot is that Brentano’s conception of mentality is much more subtle than usually believed.