Country Austria Media type Print Originally published 1894 Subject Philosophy | ISBN 978-9024719266 Editor Kazimierz Twardowski | |
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Original title Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen Philosophy books Content and object, Logical Investigations, On Prejudices - Judgment, The Poetic Imagination in Heideg | ||
On the Content and Object of Presentations (German: Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen) is an 1894 book by the Polish philosopher Kazimierz Twardowski, a student of Franz Brentano.
Contents
Summary
Twardowski argues that the object of a mental act is not "immanent" in the act, meaning that it is not part of the act. He distinguishes between the individual mental act, its content, and its object, and also argues that the question of whether or not an act has an object must be distinguished from the question of whether or not the object exists. Twardowski holds that even though every mental act has an object or intention, many of those objects do not exist at all.
Scholarly reception
Reinhardt Grossmann has observed that Twardowski's book greatly influenced the course of philosophy. Alexius Meinong adopted Twardowski's distinction between the individual mental act, its content and its object, and his contention that there are many objects of acts that do not exist. This helped Meinong to clearly separate presentations from the objects which they intend.