The True and the Evident

by Franz Brentano

First published in English in1966, The True and The Evident is a translation of Franz Brentano's posthumous Wahrheit und Evidenz, edited by Oscsar Kraus. The book includes Brentano's influential lecture "On the Concept of Truth", read before the Vienna Philosophical Society, a variety of essays, drawn from the immense wealth of Brentano's unpublished material, and letters written by him to Marty, Kraus Hillebrand, and Husserl.



Brentano rejects the familiar versions of the "correspondence theory of truth" and proposes to define the true in terms of the evident. In criticising the metaphysical assumptions presupposed by the correspondence theory, he sets forth a conception of language and reality that has subsequently become known as "reism".

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano (/brɛnˈtɑːnoʊ/; German: [bʀɛnˈtaːno]) was a philosopher, psychologist, and priest whose work strongly influenced not only students Edmund Husserl, Sigmund Freud, Tomáš Masaryk, Rudolf Steiner, Alexius Meinong, Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Kazimierz Twardowski, and Christian von Ehrenfels, but many others whose work would follow and make use of his original ideas and concepts.