Husserl’s Theory of Judgment: A Critique of Brentano and Frege

Abstract

A significant portion of Husserl’s Fifth Logical Investigation is devoted to a discussion of the relationship within judgments between their assertive and predicative components. Husserl takes Brentano’s account of this relationship as his point of departure. I propose to consider Husserl’s commentary on Brentano’s theory as a criticism not only of Brentano but also by implication of Frege. Both of these authors consistently construe judgment as the taking of a stand with regard to some propositional content. Husserl criticizes this position on the premise that our judgments are in fact directed primarily upon perceived things and situations in the world and only secondarily upon the propositions framed in our judgments. He also traces this misplaced priority on propositional content to the modern tendency to disassociate predication from pre-predicative intuitions. I shall develop the thesis that Husserl’s account of judgment is in effect an updated version of Aristotle’s theory. There is no evidence that Husserl was significantly influenced by a reading of the relevant texts of Aristotle. Moreover, several themes that come into play in his discussion of judgment have a distinctly modern flavor and import. Husserl speaks from a perspective shaped by modern epistemological and logical concerns. Nevertheless, his theory of judgment succeeds in integrating what is best in modern thought within a revitalized appreciation of the Aristotelian understanding of judgment.