Psychologism and Cognitive Intuition

Abstract

Husserl’s critique of psychologism is more decisive and more complete than that of Frege and his followers, because it is founded upon a convincing rehabilitation of cognitive intuition. His extensive comments on psychologism in the Prolegomena to the Logical Investigations put forward essentially the same arguments that Frege had already made about psychologism’s self-refuting relativism. However, his more original contributions on the topic are to be found in subsequent passages from the Investigations, which develop a powerful criticism of British empiricism, and offer a positive account of how cognitive intuition founds the differentiation of sense from reference. Before considering Husserl’s texts, let us first sketch the philosophic developments leading up to the modem denigration of intuitive rationality.