Psychologism

PSYCHOLOGISM. - It indicates, in general, «the tendency to let the psychological point of view (that is, the empirical analysis and scientific observation of facts and their «causal laws») predominate over the specific point of view of other studies (in particular of the theory of knowledge and of logic)» (A. Lalande,

Psychologische, in Vocab. de la philos., 5th ed., Paris 1947, pp. 836-37). The term was defined only through the controversies that at the beginning of this century set certain forms of neo-Kantianism (Rickert, Natorp) and the attempt, on the part of Husserl (v.), to constitute a «pure» logic and phenomenology (v.), against both classical English psychology (Hume, Mill, Spencer) and certain tendencies of logic (Erdmann, Sigwart) and conceptions of psychology (Wundt, Stumpf, Lipps, Brentano). Although it does not in itself include a pejorative sense (E. Husserl, Logische Unters., cited in bibl., I, p. 52) nor a systematic one, the use made of it by its critics, above all Husserl, confers on psychologism the organic unity of a doctrine, not always conforming to the letter (if not to the spirit) of the authors cited.

According to Wundt (Psychologismus und Logizismus, in Kleine Schriften, cited in bibl., I, pp. 511-34) psychologism and its opposite, logicism, re-present 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 resolve philosophy outright into psychology: «Aesthetics is the psychology of the beautiful and of art, ethics the psychology of the moral will, logic the psychology of the formation of concepts and of reasoning» (ibid., p. 515).

According to Husserl psychologism can be considered both on the plane of pure logic and on that of pure phenomenology. On the logical plane it can be summed up 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 the empirical laws of association or opposition and, in general, of «normative laws» to «laws of efficiency» (ibid., pp. 66-69, 78 ff., with quotations from Mill and Spencer). 2) The very content of logic falls within psychic phenomena: representations, judgments, conclusions, 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 falls by this path within psychology (ibid., p. 180 ff.). On the phenomenological plane psychologism can be characterized by three principal motifs: 1) reduction of the «object or essence» to the empirical object and therefore of all knowledge (v.) to experience (v.), of every science, even a «pure» one such as mathematics, to positive science (Ideen, cited in bibl., I, 1st section, ch. 1, p. 17 ff.). 2) Confusion of the act with the object of knowing and therefore reduction of objects to psychic facts (Zustände; cf. ibid., ch. 2, p. 40 ff.; Log. Unters., I, ch. 8, pp. 170-173). 3) Confusion of problems of «genesis» with problems of «structure»: since, for example, «mathematical essences» have their origin in experience (as indeed does all knowledge; cf. ibid., I, p. 75), one concludes that the meaning and value of such knowledge does not transcend their empirical origin (Ideen, cited in bibl. I, 1st section, ch. 2, p. 45). In conclusion, according to Husserl psychologism resolves itself into an integral empiricism and, therefore, into skepticism and absolute relativism (ibid., p. 37 and Log. Unters., ch. 7).

Apart from any controversy, it is appropriate to distinguish psychologism as doctrine, as tendency, as method. 1) Doctrinal psychologism (granting that it actually occurs; outside the English school, it seems one must hold, with Wundt, that historically what is involved is rather a «compromise») in fact incurs some of the fundamental criticisms raised by Husserl. The distinction between act and its content, between «causal» and «normative», the analysis of consciousness as intentional structure (v. INTENZIONALITÀ) represent a decisive contribution of phenomenology (v.). 2) Psychologism as tendency is nothing but the exaggeration (for the most part professional and therefore not always conscious) of a legitimate attitude that is connected to the «subjective-anthropological unity of knowledge» (Husserl, Log.

Unters., I, pp. 173-74) and of every other activity (art, logic, ethics, etc.). In this sense psychology is universally relevant, but from the point of view of subjective activity, to all the sciences of the object (cf. id., Formale u. Transzend. 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, in itself legitimate. The conflict between the two orientations helps to restrain the excesses of the one and the other. 3) Methodological psychologism takes account of the inevitable partiality of psychologism and of logicism. In reality «science» is neither a psychic flux of «cogitationes», nor a simple abstract agglomerate of «cogitata» or a system of norms. But within this undivided totality the psychologist intends to delimit, by a methodological abstraction, a field of observation or reflection which he, precisely by principle of method, does not intend to overstep. Such an intent, according to the adage «abstrahentium non est mendacium», must be recognized as legitimate in itself.

Stanislao Breton