psychology from an empirical standpoint () (1874; second edition 1924) is an 1874 book by the austrian philosopher franz brentano, in which the author argues that the goal of psychology should be to establish exact laws. brentano's best known book, it established his reputation as a philosopher, helped to establish psychology as a scientific discipline, and influenced developments such as husserlian phenomenology, analytic philosophy, gestalt psychology, and alexius meinong's theory of objects. it has been called brentano's greatest work, and compared to wilhelm wundt's "grundzüge der physiologischen psychologie" and sigmund freud's "project for a scientific psychology". however, the results that brentano produces from his method in "psychology from an empirical standpoint" have been described as "deadly dull and nearly vacuous."