Abstract
Both Frege and Husserl are well-known to have campaigned against a philosophical position known as psychologism. In this essay, I will begin by focusing upon the nature of psychologism in general, and then on the specific sort or sorts of psychologism Frege and Husserl were up against, before looking at the arguments they pressed against that position. Finally, I will ask if a radical anti-psychologistic position is a defensible one.
Originally appeared in: Philosophy and Rhetoric, 30, 1997, 271–290.
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Notes
Frank Kirkland, in: D.P. Chattopadhyaya and Frank Kirkland, Phenomenology East and West. Essays in Honor off.N. Mohanty. The Hague: Kluwer, 1993.
G. Frege, “Rezension von E. Husserl”, Philosophie der Arithmetik, Zeitschrift fir Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 103, 1894, pp. 313–332.
M. Dummett, Frege and other Philosophers, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, p. 80.
G. Frege, Nachgelassene Schriften, ed. H. Hermes, F. Kambartel, F. Karlbad. Hamburg: 1969, p. 115
G. Frege, Kleine Schriften, ed. I. Angeleli. Hildesheim: G.Olms, 1967, p. 359.
See esp. Th. De Boer, The Development of Husserl’s Thought, tr. Th. Plantiga, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1978, esp. pp. 116–7; Th. Seebohm, “Psychologism Revisited,” in: Seebohm, Follesdal, and Mohanty, eds. Phenomenology and the Formal Sciences, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991, pp. 149182; Adrian Cussins, “Varieties of Psychologism,” Synthese, 70, 1987.
Cp. E. Husserl, Formal and Transcendental Logic, tr. D. Cairns, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969, pp. 254–5.
Cp. E. Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen,Bd. 1 (Prolegomena zur reinen Logik),2nd. edition, Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1928, secs. 28 and 38. (This book will be henceforth referred to as Prolegomena.)
E. Levinas, The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology. tr. Andre Orianne, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973, pp. xxxvi, 14–5, 97.
Cp. J. Margolis, Historied Thought, Constructed World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 88–9.
R. Hanna, “Logical Cognition: Husserl’s Prolegomena and the Truth in Psychologism”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53, 1993, pp. 251–76.
For this, see D. Fellesdal, “Husserl and Frege: A Contribution to Elucidating the Origins of Phenomenological Philosophy” (tr. Claire Hill, in: Leila Haaparata (ed.), Mind, Meaning and Mathematics. Essays on the Philosophical Views of Husserl and Frege (Synthese Library). Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994.
E. Husserl, Prolegomena pp.129–132.
P. Kitcher, “Frege’s Epistemology,” Philosophical Review,lxxxviii, 1979, pp.235–262.
E. Levinas, loc. cit., p. 15.
Published in Philosophische Monatshefte,23, 1887.
Logische Untersuchungen,Bd. 2, Inv. 1, sec. 29.
Ibid, sec. 29.
Prolegomena, sec. 24.
Ibid, sec. 24
Ibid, sec. 20.
Cp. G. Frege, The Basic Laws of Arithmetic Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964, p. xvi.
Prolegomena, Ch. IV, sec. 24.
Prolegomena, sec.35
P. Adler, “Prolegomena to Phenomenology: Intuition or Argument?” in Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Vol. 16, 1993, no. 1, pp. 3–76.
Martin Kusch gives a wideranging survey of responses to Husserl on this issue in his “The Criticism of Husserl’s Arguments against Psychologism in German Philosophy 1901–1920” in Mind, Meaning and Mathematics,pp.51–83.
I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft,B 78.
I. Kant, Logik. Ein Handbuch zu Vorlesungen, herausg. von Jäsche (Kantwerke, herausg. E. Cassirer, Bd. VIII ), p. 334.
J. Herbert, Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 4 Langensalza: Hermann Beyer and Söhne, 1891, p. 68
E. Husserl, “Entwurf einer Vorrede zu den Log. Unt,1913,” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 1,1939, pp.128ff.
For Brentano’s alleged psychologism, cp. R. Chisholm, “Brentano’s Descriptive Psychology” in Linda McAlister (ed.), The Philosophy of Brentano Atlantic Heights, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1977, pp.91–100, esp., p.98.
W. Schuppe, Grundriss der Erkenntnistheorie und Logik,1st. edition, Berlin: Weidenmannsche Buchhandlung, 1878; 2nd edn. 1910, pp. l-3.
B. Erdmann, Logik Bd. l, 2nd edition, 1907, Halle: M. Niemeyer, p.532–3 fn.
W. Wundt, “Psychologismus und Logizismus” in Kleine Schriften, Bd. 1, Leipzig: Verlag von W. Engelmann, 1910.
Ibid, p.569.
Ibid, p.579.
Ibid, p.608
C. Sigwart, Logik, Bd.l, 4th edition, Tübingen, 1911.
Ibid, p.24 fn.
Ibid, pp.24–5.
Ibid, p.25.
P. Natorp, “On the Question of Logical Method in relation to Edmund Huserl’s Prolegomena to Pure Logic” tr. J.N. Mohanty, in: J.N. Mohanty (ed), Readings on Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1977, pp. 55–66.
Ibid, p.65.
Ibid, p.66.
D. Willard, “The Paradox of Logical Psychologism: Husserl’s Way out,” in: Readings on Husserl’s Logical Investigations
D. Willard, “The Integrity of the Mental Act: Husserlian Reflection on a Fregean Problem,” in Haaparanta (ed), loc. cit., pp,235–262, esp. p.256.
B. Smith, “Husserl’s Theory of Meaning and Reference,” in Haaparanta (ed), loc. cit., pp.169183.
M. Dummett, Frege and Other Philosophers
Ibid, p.253.
Ibid, p.256.
Prolegomena, sec. 51.
Ibid, sec.50.
Logische Untersuchungen,Inv.5, sec.27.
Ibid, Vorwort, Bd.II, II Teil.
Logische Untersuchungen, Inv.VI, sec.64.
Formale und transzendentale Logik, sec.56.
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Mohanty, J.N. (1999). The Concept of ‘Psychologism’ in Frege and Husserl. In: Logic, Truth and the Modalities. Synthese Library, vol 278. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2113-4_2
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