Brentano, Franz (1838-1917)

Sometimes considered the ‘grandfather’ of phenomenology, Franz Brentano is a unique figure who approaches philosophical questions from both a phenomenological and an analytic perspective. This entry briefly explains what this means. It gives a super-short overview of Brentano’s life (§1), his intentionality thesis (§2), his project of descriptive phenomenology (§3) and his view of philosophical knowledge (§4). It closes with some examples of his phenomenological-cum-analytic approach to metaphysical and evaluative statements (§5).