Abstract

The paper emphasizes the topical interest of the old controversy between psychologism and antipsychologism and points out some aspects of the views on thinking and mental life elaborated by Frege, Brentano and the Würzburg School, in particular by Oswald Külpe. The antipsychologistic arguments against identitism, representationalism and internalism are focused in the first part of the article. In the second part the Brentanian descriptivistic approach to the mental and the distinction of thoughts and representations which Frege shared with Külpe's doctrine of the "imageless thought" are critically confronted. Some tacit presuppositions (or "prejudices") which invalidate the antipsychologistic account of intentionality and mental content are examined in the final part of the paper.