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Anti-psychologism

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Inlogic,anti-psychologism(alsological objectivism[1]orlogical realism[2][3]) is atheoryabout the nature oflogical truth,that it does not depend upon the contents of human ideas but exists independent of human ideas.

Overview[edit]

The anti-psychologistic treatment of logic originated in the works ofImmanuel KantandBernard Bolzano.[4]

The concept of logical objectivism or anti-psychologism was further developed byJohannes Rehmke(founder ofGreifswald objectivism)[5]andGottlob Frege(founder oflogicismthe most famous anti-psychologist in thephilosophy of mathematics), and has been the center of an important debate in earlyphenomenologyandanalytical philosophy.Frege's work was influenced by Bolzano.[6]

Elements of anti-psychologism in thehistoriography of philosophycan be found in the work of the members of the 1830sspeculative theistmovement[7]and the late work ofHermann Lotze.[8]

Thepsychologism dispute(German:Psychologismusstreit)[9]in 19th-century German-speaking philosophy is closely related to the contemporaryinternalism and externalismdebate inepistemology;psychologismis often construed as a kind of internalism (the thesis that no fact about the world can provide reasons for action independently of desires and beliefs) and anti-psychologism as a kind of externalism (the thesis that reasons are to be identified with objective features of the world).[10]

Psychologism was defended byTheodor Lipps,Gerardus Heymans,Wilhelm Wundt,Wilhelm Jerusalem,Christoph von Sigwart,Theodor Elsenhans,andBenno Erdmann.[11]

Edmund Husserlwas another important proponent of anti-psychologism, and this trait passed on to other phenomenologists, such asMartin Heidegger,whose doctoral thesis was meant to be a refutation of psychologism. They shared the argument that, because the proposition "no-p is a not-p" is notlogically equivalentto "It is thought that 'no-p is a not-p'", psychologism does not logically stand.

Charles Sanders Peirce—whose fields included logic, philosophy, and experimental psychology[12]—could also be considered a critic of psychologism in logic.[13]

The return of psychologism[edit]

See also:Cognitive scienceandNaturalized epistemology

Psychologism is not widely held amongst logicians today, but something like it has some high-profile defenders especially among those who do research at the intersection of logic andcognitive science,for exampleDov GabbayandJohn Woods,who concluded that "whereas mathematical logic must eschew psychologism, the new logic cannot do without it".[14]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^Dermot Moran, Rodney K. B. Parker (eds.),Studia Phaenomenologica: Vol. XV / 2015 – Early Phenomenology,Zeta Books, 2016, p. 75: "Husserl was an exponent of logical objectivism and an opponent of logical psychologism".
  2. ^Edgar Morscher[de](1972), "Von Bolzano zu Meinong: Zur Geschichte des logischen Realismus." In: Rudolf Haller (ed.),Jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein: Beiträge zur Meinong-Forschung,Graz, pp. 69–102.
  3. ^Penelope Rush, "Logical Realism", in: Penelope Rush (ed.),The Metaphysics of Logic,Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 13–31.
  4. ^Bernard Bolzano (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy);Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy(1998): "Ryle, Gilbert (1900-76)."
  5. ^Nikolay Milkov,Early Analytic Philosophy and the German Philosophical Tradition,London: Bloomsbury, 2020, p. 157.
  6. ^Sundholm, B. G.,"When, and why, did Frege read Bolzano?",LOGICA Yearbook 1999, 164–174 (2000).
  7. ^William R. Woodward,Hermann Lotze: An Intellectual Biography,Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 74–5.
  8. ^Sullivan, David."Hermann Lotze".InZalta, Edward N.(ed.).Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  9. ^Matthias Rath,Der Psychologismusstreit in der deutschen Philosophie,1994
  10. ^Giuseppina D'Oro,"Collingwood, psychologism and internalism,"European Journal of Philosophy12(2):163–177 (2004): "internalism is often associated with psychologism".
  11. ^Psychologism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): "Examples of Psychologistic Reasoning"
  12. ^Peirce (sometimes withJoseph Jastrow) investigated theprobability judgmentsof experimental subjects, pioneeringdecision analysis.He and Jastrow wrote "On Small Differences in Sensation",Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences(1885), 3, 73–83, presented 17 October 1884, reprinted inCollected Papersv. 7, paragraphs 21–35.Classics in the History of Psychology.Eprint.
  13. ^Peirce attacked the idea, held by some logicians at that time, that rationality rests on a feeling of logicality, rather than on fact. See the first of Peirce's 1903Lowell Institute Lectures"What Makes a Reasoning Sound?",Essential Peircev. 2, pp. 242–257. See also the portion of Peirce's 1902Minute Logicpublished inCollected Papersv. 2 (1931), paragraphs 18–19 and 39–43. Peirce held that mathematical and philosophical logicsprecedepsychology as a special science and that they do not depend on it for principles.
  14. ^Gabbay, Dov M.;Woods, John(March 2001)."The New Logic"(PDF).Logic Journal of the IGPL.9(2): 141–174.CiteSeerX10.1.1.5.9046.doi:10.1093/jigpal/9.2.141.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2005-05-16.See also:Gabbay, Dov M.; Woods, John (2005) [2003].A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems.Amsterdam; Boston: North-Holland.doi:10.1016/s1874-5075(03)x8001-8.ISBN044451385X.OCLC52127672.

Further reading[edit]

  • Vladimir Bryushinkin.Metapsychologism in the Philosophy of Logic.Proc. Logic and Philosophy of Logic,20th World Congress in Philosophy, 2000.
  • Martin Kusch.Psychologism: A Case Study in the Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge.London and New York: Routledge, 1995.
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