Brentano, Franz Clemens (1838–1917)

8. Historiography of philosophy

Brentano published five monographs on Aristotle, and several of his works on the history of philosophy have been published posthumously. His most characteristic view is that philosophy goes through cycles of advance and decline in four phases: a constructive theoretical phase, then in successively greater decline a practical phase, a sceptical phase and finally a mystical phase. The cycle then repeats itself. Brentano discerned three such cycles from the pre-Socratics to the German idealists, one each in ancient, medieval and modern philosophy. He clearly saw himself as ushering in a fourth constructive phase, a view to which one may give assent. Despite its obvious simplifications, the model is better than most others in accommodating philosophy’s uncertain progress.