PSYCHOLOGISM. — In general, it indicates “the tendency to make the psychological point of view (i.e., the empirical analysis and scientific observation of facts and their ‘causal laws’) prevail over the specific point of view of other studies (in particular, the theory of knowledge and logic)” (A. Lalande, *Psychologisme*, in *Vocab. de la philos.*, 5th ed., Paris 1947, pp. 836–37). The term was clarified only through the controversies that, at the beginning of this century, opposed, in Germany, certain forms of neo-Kantianism (Rickert, Natorp) and Husserl’s (v.) attempt to establish a “pure” logic and phenomenology (v.), both against classical English psychology (Hume, Mill, Spencer) and against certain tendencies in logic (Erdmann, Sigwart) and conceptions of psychology (Wundt, Stumpf, Lipps, Brentano). Although it does not, in itself, carry a pejorative or systematic sense (E. Husserl, *Logische Unters.*, cited in bibliography, I, p. 52), the use made of it by its critics—first and foremost Husserl—gives psychologism the organic unity of a doctrine, not always in conformity with the letter (if not the spirit) of the cited authors.
According to Wundt (*Psychologismus und Logizismus*, in *Kleine Schriften*, cited in bibliography, I, pp. 511–34), psychologism and its opposite, logicism, represent the ancient antithesis between empiricism (v.) and rationalism (v.): on both sides, the same totalitarian claim; psychologism transforms logic into psychology, logicism transforms psychology into logic (ibid., p. 156 ff.). In its rigorous expression, psychologism would reduce philosophy altogether to psychology: “Aesthetics is the psychology of the beautiful and of art, ethics is the psychology of moral will, logic is the psychology of the formation of concepts and reasoning” (ibid., p. 515).
According to Husserl, psychologism can be considered both on the level of pure logic and on that of pure phenomenology. On the logical level, it can be summarized in the following propositions: 1) “The normative laws of knowledge must be founded on the psychology of knowledge itself” (*Logische Unters.*, I, ch. 8, p. 154). Hence the reduction of logical laws to empirical laws of association or opposition, and, in general, of “normative laws” to “laws of efficacy” (ibid., pp. 66–69, 78 ff., with citations of Mill and Spencer). 2) The very content of logic falls within psychic phenomena: representations, judgments, inferences, truth, probability, possibility, necessity are nothing but psychic acts and their modalities; logic is therefore a function of psychology (ibid., p. 167 ff.; p. 52). 3) Truth belongs to judgment (v.); but since a judgment is true insofar as it is evident, and evidence (v.) is a value of a psychological-subjective order, logic thereby falls within psychology (ibid., p. 180 ff.). On the phenomenological level, psychologism can be characterized by three main motifs: 1) the reduction of the “object or essence” to the empirical object and, consequently, of all knowledge (v.) to experience (v.), and of every science—even “pure” ones, such as mathematics—to positive science (*Ideen*, cited in bibliography, I, sect. 1, ch. 1, p. 17 ff.). 2) The confusion of the act with the object of knowing and, consequently, the reduction of objects to psychic facts (*Zustände*: cf. ibid., ch. 2, p. 40 ff.; *Log. Unters.*, I, ch. 8, pp. 170–173). 3) The confusion of problems of “genesis” with problems of “structure”: since, for example, “mathematical essences” originate in experience (as does all knowledge; cf. ibid., I, p. 75), it is concluded that the meaning and value of such knowledge do not transcend their empirical origin (*Ideen*, cited in bibliography, I, sect. 1, ch. 2, p. 45).
In conclusion, according to Husserl, psychologism resolves itself into an integral empiricism and, consequently, into absolute skepticism and relativism (ibid., p. 37 and *Log. Unters.*, ch. 7).
Apart from all controversy, it is appropriate to distinguish psychologism as a doctrine, as a tendency, and as a method. 1) As a doctrine (inasmuch as it actually exists; outside the English school, it seems necessary, with Wundt, to consider it historically rather as a “compromise”), it in fact incurs some of the fundamental criticisms leveled by Husserl. The distinction between act and its content, between “causal” and “normative,” the analysis of consciousness as an intentional structure (v. INTENTIONALITY) represent a decisive contribution of phenomenology (v.). 2) As a tendency, psychologism is nothing but the exaggeration (mostly professional and therefore not always conscious) of a legitimate attitude connected with the “subjective-anthropological unity of knowledge” (Husserl, *Logische Unters.*, I, pp. 173–74) and of every other activity (art, logic, ethics, etc.). In this sense, psychology universally concerns all sciences of the object from the point of view of subjective activity (cf. id., *Formale, transzendentale Logik*, pp. 34–35, where psychology is called *Wissenschaft von allen Subjektiven*). In the opposite direction, logicism is equally the exaggeration of the objective tendency, which in itself is legitimate. The conflict between the two orientations helps to contain the interpretations of each. 3) Methodological psychologism recognizes the inevitable partiality of both psychologism and logicism. In reality, science is neither a psychic flow of *cogitationes* nor a mere abstract agglomeration of *cogitata* or a system of norms. Yet in this totality, the psychologist intends to delimit, through methodological abstraction, a field of observation or reflection that, by the very principle of method, he does not intend to exceed. This intention, according to the adage *abstrattamente non est mendacium*, must be recognized as legitimate in itself.