Husserl, Logical Psychologism and the Theory of Knowledge

Abstract

It is often claimed that Frege was the one to have steered the “early” Husserl away from his presumed psychologism: Frege according to a widespread opinion was the one who prompted Husserl’s criticism of psychologism in the Logical Investigations (cf. Bell 1994; Follesdal 2001). It is clear that there were intellectual connections between Husserl and Frege at the time Husserl was first coming to grips with the issue in the early 1890s (see for instance the Frege-Husserl correpondence, in Bernet et al. 2005, 20–31). But in light of Husserl’s 1896 lectures on logic, it is much clearer that the real impetus behind Husserl’s criticism was Bolzano’s Theory of Science. Husserl’s antipsychologistic position rests on a meta-epistemological reflection that has two aims. The task is to fix the respective domains of the sub-disciplines that belong to the theory of knowledge in order to explain how these sub-disciplines are connected. In this regard, Husserl considerably diverges from Frege whose treatment of metaphilosophical questions of this type is insubstantial. Directly and indirectly — “indirectly” because Twardowski played an important role in Husserl’s rediscovery of Bolzano around 1894 — Husserl is indebted to Bolzano for many of his views on the nature of logic, its relation to psychology and their respective role within the theory of knowledge.