The genuine spiritual struggles of European humanity as such take the form of struggles between the philosophies, that is, between the skeptical philosophies � or non-philosophies, which retain the word but not the task � and the actual and still vital philosophies.  But the vitality of the latter consists in the fact that they are struggling for their own true and genuine and thus for the meaning of genuine humanity.

 Edmund Husserl, �The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology�

I. INTRODUCTION

            At the dawn of the 20^th century two books of German authors were published:  the The Interpretation of Dreams of Sigmund Freud, which marked the birth of psychoanalysis, and the Logical Investigations of Edmund Husserl, which also marked the birth of phenomenology.  The former is under the discipline of psychology or pyschologism while the latter criticizes the discipline of psychology.

          Husserl�s work, Logical Investigations, was published in order �clarify his own position and defend himself against Frege�s accusations�[i].  Frege criticized the previous work of Husserl, Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891).  Frege labeled the work of Husserl as �psychologism, because of the derivation of mathematical notion from psychological laws�[ii].  In Logical Investigation, particularly in the first volume, Prolegomena to Pure Logic, Husserl rejected �any notion of logical rationality that could be explained by individual, contingently subjective processes, a view which he asserted should rightly be censured as blatant psychologism�[iii]. 

          In Logical Investigations Husserl analyzed and criticized the errors and limitations of psychology as the foundation of logic and of all sciences.  Because of these errors and limitations, psychology as the foundation of logic and of the sciences cannot achieve exact and true knowledge.  In other words, the discipline and method of psychology, for Husserl, cannot provide the Ideal or the Truth, which was the primary concern of Husserl.  That is why he introduced �pure logic� in order to know the ideal and true knowledge.  Later on, he revised his �pure logic� and called it, �transcendental phenomenology� or simply �phenomenology� (literally �the study of phenomena�).  He described this as the �science of essence� or �eidetic science� because it is a discipline, which inquires into the essence of things themselves.  And for Husserl, the human person can only arrive at truth and certitude if he/she will know the essence of things themselves.

          This study deals with the Husserl�s criticism of psychologism in the first volume of his Logical Investigations.  Aside from that this research work also looks into the nature of psychologism and the motives of Husserl why he denounced psychologism as the foundation of logic and of all sciences, an idea that he embraced briefly because of the influence of his great teacher Franz Brentano.  Husserl�s criticism of psychologism is significant to understand Husserl�s phenomenology.  As what the researcher said, Husserl�s criticism of psychology led to the birth of his phenomenology. 

II.  HUSSERL�S CRITICISM OF PSYCHOLOGISM 

��psychology, because of its naturalism, had to miss entirely the accomplishment, the radical and genuine problem, of the life of the spirit��

Edmund Husserl, The Vienna Lecture

            Before the research discusses Husserl�s criticism of psychologism, he will discuss first the nature of psychologism.  Aside from that the researcher will discuss the motives why Husserl embraced psychologism for a short period of time and why he denounced it later on.       

A. Psychologism

The term �psychologism� was first use in �Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century to designate the philosophical trend defended by Jakob Friedrich Fries and by Friedrich Eduard Beneke against the dominant Hegelianism�[iv].  For Fries and Beneke, the different branches of philosophy should be based entirely on psychology.  Hence, psychology becomes the �fundamental philosophical discipline� of logic, ethics, metaphysics, legal, social and political philosophies, and philosophies of religion and education.

The rise of psychologism during the 19^th century marked also the influence of the �leading scientific ideas� to philosophy.  And one of these �scientific ideas� was the science of psychology.  According to Farber,

�In the period under consideration the rising science of psychology had a twofold significance for German philosophy: it suggested a sure way of solving perplexing problems of logic and the theory of knowledge, and it afforded either a substitute or supplement to the idealistic standpoint in philosophy�[v].

Psychology offered a method and a solution in order to answer philosophical questions and to develop and solidify idealism in philosophy.  According to Fries and Beneke, the only instrument used in philosophical inquiry is �self-observation� or �introspection�.  This philosophical instrument is not enough in order to arrive at the truth, which is being achieved by philosophers by �reducing it to the subjective elements of self-observation�.  For Beneke, the laws of psychology supplement this limitation of philosophical inquiry.  That is why for Beneke if these laws are understood �with certainty and clarity, then a certain and clear knowledge of those disciplines (branches of philosophy) is likewise achieved�[vi].

Psychologism is close to empiricism.  For psychologism, like the social and natural sciences, truth and knowledge can only be achieved through experience.  It is impossible to gain knowledge without experience.  For the pro-psychologism, like the empiricists, experience is not only the �instrument of control� and the �criterion of the truth of knowledge�.  It is also the �psychological origin of knowledge itself�[vii].

B. Husserl and Psychologism

The intellectual life of Husserl can be divided into two periods: the period of psychology and the period of transcendental phenomenology.  These two periods in the intellectual life of Husserl show his intellectual progress or development.  And the �landmark� of his intellectual growth is his work, the Logical Investigations.  It is a �breakthrough� work of Husserl[viii].

  Franz Brentano converted Husserl to philosophy.  Brentano was an empiricist and pro-psychologism.  Husserl attended the different lectures of Brentano.  Brentano became the mentor of the new convert, Husserl.  According to Velarde-Mayol, through Brentano, Husserl realized that philosophy is a science, and a �rigorous science that was the basis of the rest of the sciences�[ix]. But it was Brentano�s �intentionality of mental acts� that interested Husserl so much.  Because of intentionality, Husserl was involved with psychologism for quiet some time.  According to Farber,

�Husserl was indebted to Brentano for his interest in the concept of intentionality and the descriptive investigation of inner perception, and the undoubtedly learned how to become a philosophical investigator by being shown concrete examples of descriptive analysis and how to recognize problems�[x].

          For Brentano, the �method of the natural sciences� is the �true method of philosophy�.  That is why for Brentano, philosophy is �scientific in character�.  And for him, �basing knowledge upon immediate evidence� would lead to a �presuppositionless beginning in philosophy�[xi].  The philosophy of Brentano can be summarized into these five propositions:

�(1) The basic structure of human existence or of subjectivity is intentionality. (2) Every intentional act refers to something real, �real� meaning everything that comes from concrete intuition, or that can be presented. (3) Every cognition refers to an existing thing. (4) Every existent is a single of individual thing.  (5) Every cognition apprehends the existent as something general�[xii].

       Intentionality is the bond the united Husserl and Brentano.  It is also the reason why the student parted ways with his teacher and eventually denounced psychologism.  Husserl, in his analysis of meaning, concluded that �to mean, signifies to intend and that, therefore, a meaning is an intention of the mind�[xiii].  In other words, intention is a �term� which signifies the operation of the mind when the �mind is related in one way or another to some object�[xiv].  Furthermore, Husserl�s intentionality refers �not only to the mind�s relationship but also to the term of that relationship, which is as intramental as is the operation itself�[xv].  At this point Husserl�s idea is less closer to Brentano because, Brentano�s idea of intentionality signifies little �more than the relationship which the mind has to some extramental reality�[xvi]. 

          The �meaning� intended by the mind is absolutely different from the �physical configuration�, which means that it belongs to an �entirely different world�[xvii].  For Husserl, the �world of the physical configuration� is the �world of fact� while the �world of meaning� is the �world of consciousness� or the world of �intentions�.  In other words, the human person can write or speak a word by physical operation, but it is only through the �operation of consciousness� can one give meaning or meanings to a word[xviii].  Again at this point, Husserl�s idea of meaning is different from Brentano�s.  Because for Brentano, the meaning intended by the mind belongs to the real or factual world.

             Intentionality for Husserl is the essence of consciousness.  That is why for Husserl consciousness is �consciousness of something�.  Husserl was interested with psychology or pyschologism because of consciousness.  And consciousness is the second reason why Husserl became an anti-psychologism.  He was not simply satisfied with psycholgism�s explanation of consciousness.  As what he said, �psychology is concerned with �empirical consciousness�, with consciousness from the empirical point of view, as an empirical being in the ensemble of nature�[xix].  Aside from that, for psychologism, consciousness is a �describable function�, and as such it belongs to a �class of objects, which can all be gathered under the heading of things or facts�[xx]. 

          Since consciousness, for psychologism, is based on empirical experience, things or facts, the product of consciousness, which is idea, is also a thing or a fact.  Husserl did not agree with this because this leads to skepticism, which �wipes out� the very possibility of knowledge[xxi].  He claimed that consciousness would be a �seat of knowledge� if this is separated from the empirical reality.  The consciousness must be purified first (pure consciousness) in order for its �content can truly be called knowledge, then the object of this kind of consciousness will be a necessary object, which is to say it will be being in the only completely true sense of the term�[xxii].   

          In short, Husserl abandoned psychologism simply because he was not satisfied, and eventually disagreed, with the discipline�s concept and explanation of intentionality and consciousness, which was influenced a lot by empiricism.  For Husserl, such concepts will not lead to the knowledge and understanding of essence and being of things.  And such concepts will not lead to the achievement of apodictic and indubitable knowledge.  As what he said,  

��the history of philosophy, seen from within, takes on the character of a struggle for existence, i.e., a struggle between the philosophy which lives in the straightforward pursuit of its task � the philosophy of na�ve faith in reason � and the skepticism which negates or repudiates it in empiricist fashion�skepticism insists on the validity of the factual experienced [erlebte] world, that of actual experience [erfahrung], and finds in it nothing of reason and ideas�[xxiii]. 

 John Stuart Mill, one of the proponents and defenders of psychologism, said that logic is a �science� and as a science it cannot be separated from, and is coordinate with, psychology.  He further said,

�To the extent that it is science at all, it is a part or branch of psychology, distinguished from it n the one hand as the part is from the whole, and on the other hand as the art is from the science.  It owes all its theoretical foundations to psychology, and includes as much of that science as is necessary to establish the rule of the art�[xxiv].

Logic is a �technology�.  It is a �technology of thinking, judging, inferring, knowing, proving, of courses followed by the understanding in the pursuit of truth, in evaluation of grounds of proof, etc.�[xxv].  Psychology provides all �theoretical basis for constructing a logical technology, and more particularly, the psychology of cognition�[xxvi].

          Husserl did not agree with the idea that psychology is the theoretical foundation of logic and it is a branch of psychology simply because these two disciplines are distinct, and they are incompatible. The combination of these disciplines will only lead to skepticism because �psychologism is unable to ground the absolute necessity of logical laws�.  Hence, what Husserl did first was to analyze and expose the difference between logic and psychology in order to prove their difference and incompatibility. 

          The first difference between logic and psychology is the former deals with �thinking as it should be� (normative laws of thinking) while the latter deals �with thinking as it is� (natural laws of thinking)[xxvii].

 Psychology, which deals with natural laws of thinking, �investigate the laws governing the real connections of mental events with one another, as well as with related mental dispositions and corresponding events in the bodily organism�[xxviii].  Psychological laws are concerned more with �comprehensive formula covering coexistent and successive connections that are without exception and necessary�[xxix].  �Connection�, for Husserl, means �causal� relationship�.

On the other hand, logic, which deals with normative laws of thinking, �does not inquire into the causal origins or consequences of intellectual activities, but into their truth-content: it enquires what such activities should be like, or how they should proceed, in order that the resultant judgments should be true�[xxx].  Husserl further said,

�Correct judgments and false ones, evident ones and blind ones, come and go according to natural laws, they have causal antecedents and consequences like all mental phenomena.  Such natural connections do not, however, interest the logician; he looks rather for ideal connections that he does not always find realized��[xxxi].

Since psychology is concerned with �causal connections�, the primary aim of a psychologist is �physics�[xxxii].  On the other hand, a logician is concerned with the �ethics of thinking�.

Another difference between the two disciplines is that psychology is a �science of psychic phenomena, of the facts of consciousness, of the facts of internal experience, of experiences in their dependence on the experiencing individual�[xxxiii].  Hence, psychology is a �factual� and �empirical science�.      

          On the other hand, logic is �a priori�.  And as an �a priori� science, its laws do not imply any �factual reality or any matter of fact whatever, none presupposes the existence of any imaginations, judgments, or any thought processes in its content�[xxxiv].  Since logic is �a priori�, logical truth is not a �truth about facts�; it has �no actuality�[xxxv].  Likewise, its laws are �atemporal in their content�[xxxvi].  

          Because of the influence of science and scientific and empiricism to psychology, metaphysics, the study of the being of being and of the essence of being, suffered.  As what he said in his essay, �Philosophy as Rigorous Science�, 

�What has constantly confused empirical psychology since its beginnings in the eighteenth century is thus the deceptive image of a scientific method modeled on that of the physiochemical method�.If metaphysics suffered so long a time from a false imitation � whether of the geometrical or of the physical method � the same procedure is now being repeated in psychology.  It is not without significance that the fathers of experimentally exact psychology were physiologists and physicists�[xxxvii]. 

In his book, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, he said that the �positivistic concept of science in our time is�a residual concept.  It has dropped all the questions which had been considered under the now narrower, now broader concepts of metaphysics, including all questions vaguely termed �ultimate and highest��[xxxviii].

          In short, because of the scientific and empirical characteristics of psychology, it failed to understand the essence of things and to reach apodictic knowledge.  It was only concern with doxa, not episteme.  Only logic, which is �a priori�, and whose laws are �atemporal� and not actual, has the means to know the Truth based on reason.

          The laws of psychology, because of the influenced of science and empiricism, are natural laws.  And since it is a natural law, it cannot be �a priori�.  Husserl futher said,

�No natural laws can be known a priori, nor established by sheer insight.  The only way in which a natural law can be established and justified, is by induction from the singular facts of experience�[xxxix].

On the other hand, the laws of logic are �a priori�, they have �a priori validity�[xl].  These �a priori� laws of logic are �established and justified, not by induction, but, by apodeictic inner evidence�[xli].  And �insight justifies no mere probabilities of their holding, but their holding or truth itself�[xlii].

            The problem with inductive method used by psychology is that it only established the �holding of law� by �greater or lesser probability�.  As such, psychology does not have the means to known the truth because �probability cannot wrestle with truth�.  Only logic can through its �a priori laws�.  Husserl concludes that,

�Psychology certainly does not yield more, and cannot for this reason yield the apodiectically evident, and so metempirical and absolutely exact laws which form the core of all logic�[xliii].

          Lastly, Husserl pointed out that the laws of psychology are not exact and genuine laws while the laws of logic are absolutely exact.  Psychological laws lacked exactness and genuineness because they are �vague generalizations from experience�[xliv].  On the other hand, logical laws have �absolute exactness�.

For Husserl, these disciplines cannot be combined because it would only lead to confusion.  Psychologism �confuses logic (logical laws) with regulative natural laws.  In this confusion, psychologism talks about logic as �laws of thought� in such a way that a logical law is a natural law that regulates our thoughts�[xlv].  Velarde-Mayo further explained,

�The main confusion that psychologism commits is a �metabasis eis allo genus� (Greek expression meaning a change of genus)�. The metabasis of psychology consists of: (1) transforming an ideal law in to a real law (a physical/psychical law); (2) a normative regulation into a causal regulation; (3) a logical necessity into a real necessity�[xlvi].

According to Husserl, the ancient forms of skepticism means there is �no truth, no knowledge, no justification of knowledge�[xlvii].  In ordinary sense, skepticism means �doubt about the possibility of penetrating to a �true reality� behind mere appearance�[xlviii].  Another meaning of skepticism, the �purely epistemic skepticism�, it means the �limit of knowledge to mental existence, and would deny the existence or knowability of things in themselves�[xlix].  Or, skepticism is a �doctrine whose very formulation denies what is subjectively or objectively a condition of its own validity�[l].

          Skepticism, which denies the possibility of knowledge beyond the physical things and limits knowledge to the locus of the mind, had a tremendous effect on philosophy, particularly to metaphysics.  It also had a tremendous effect on the possibility of �absolute reason� and �truth-in-itself�.  Husserl further said,

�Skepticism about the possibility of metaphysics, the collapse of the belief in a universal philosophy as the guide for the new man, actually represents a collapse of the belief in reason which ultimately gives meaning to everything that is thought to be, all things, values, and ends � their meaning understood as their normative relatedness to what, since the beginnings of philosophy, is meant by the word truth � truth-in-itself � and correlatively the term �what is��. Along with this falls in the meaning of history, of humanity, the faith in man�s freedom, that is, his capacity to secure rational meaning for his individual and common human existence�[li].

          Relativism, according to Husserl, is based on the Protagorean formula that �man is the measure of all things�[lii].  For relativism, the human person, or the subject, is the measure of all truth, judgment, and propositions.  Hence, truth is relative, �relative to the contingently judging subject�, which means that �for each man that is true which seems to him true, one thing to one man and the opposite to another, if that is how he sees it�[liii]. 

          There are two types of relativism: individual relativism and specific relativism or anthropologism.  Husserl described individual relativism as,

�My theory expresses my standpoint, what is true for me, and need to be true for no one else.  Even the subjective fact of his thinking, he will treat as true for himself, and not as true in itself�[liv].

The other type of relativism is specific relativism.  For this type of relativism, �truth for a given species of judging being, by their constitution and laws of thought, must count as true�[lv].  The constitution of a species is nothing but a fact, and from this fact, only from this fact, is possible to derive other facts.  Or, to put it more concretely, only from these facts the human person can derived truth and arrived at truth.  Hence, the source of truth is the �human constitution�.  And if there is no �human constitution� there is no truth.  Husserl further said,

�The relativity of truth means that, what we call truth, depends on the constitution of the species homo and the laws which govern this species.  Such dependence will and can only be taught of as causal�[lvi].

          Husserl criticized the theses of specific relativism.  First, he called it absurd for truth to be based on the species of judging beings or species homo.  It is absurd for the same proposition and judgment content to be true for a subject and false for another subject.  According to Husserl,

�The same content of judgment cannot, however, be both true and false: this follows from the mere sense of �true� and �false�.  If the relativist gives these words their appropriate meaning, his thesis is in conflict with its own sense�. What is true is absolutely, intrinsically true: truth is one and the same, whether men or non-men, angels or gods apprehend and judge it�[lvii].

Hence, for Husserl, in relativism, individual and specific, no one can achieve �ideal unity�.  Only logical laws can achieved this �ideal unity�.  According to Husserl, there is �only a single truth, in an equivocal sense there are naturally as many truths as there are equivocal uses�[lviii]. 

          Secondly, facts are �contingent� and they are �individually and therefore temporally determinate�[lix].  Because of this, it is impossible to arrive at truth based on facts.  Truth about facts is the only possible thing, but not truth as such or the �truth-in-itself�.  Husserl did not also believe that facts are the causes of truth because facts are temporal, and they changed.

          Relativism is a form of skepticism because it denies the validity of objectivity.  It limits knowledge on the individual subject alone.  It is also a form of skeptcism because it denies the possibility of truth, objectivity truth, which can be realized beyond the given facts.  Relativism limits only truth and knowledge on the given facts, or on empirical experience and not on something that is ideal. 

          Psychologism is skeptic relativism simply because it denies the possibility of knowledge beyond the real and factual world.  It limited knowledge only on the material and physical world.  As what he said, ��as a psychologist I set myself the task of knowing myself as the ego already made part of the world, objectified with a particular real meaning, mundanized�[lx]�  It is also skeptic relativism because it emphasized the individual subject as the source of truth, the ideal truth or the truth-in-itself.  And beyond the individual subject truth and knowledge is impossible.  Husserl had this to say, �the science of bodies has nothing to say; it abstracts from everything subjective�[lxi]. And psychologism is skeptic relativism because it belongs to the �realm of what is prescientifically pregiven�[lxii], which limits knowledge and truth to the psychic. 

E.  The Prejudices of Psychologism: The Third Criticism

In order to understand better Husserl�s criticism of psychologism as skeptical relativism, the last and the third criticism, which are the prejudices of psychologism, will be discussed.  These prejudices of psychologism, for Husserl, are the essence of psychologism. 

The first prejudice of psychologism is that it �confuses laws serving as norms of cognitive activity and laws that themselves contain the idea of such norm�[lxiii].  According to Husserl, �one must always distinguish between laws that serve as norms for our knowledge activities, and laws which include normativity in their thought content, and assert its universal obligations�[lxiv].  The laws of logic are used as the norms in thinking at the same time they are mistaken to contain psychological content simply because they are used as norms.  Husserl pointed out that the laws of logic are not norms per se; but they can only be used normatively. 

Husserl also pointed out that psychologism ignore the difference between the �norms of pure logic� and the �technical rules of a specifically human art of thought�.  The former is used normatively in cognitive activity while the latter served as norms for our knowledge activities.  The laws of logic are �ideal�; �spring from immediately evident axioms�; and �purely theoretical�[lxv].  The latter is �real�; �spring from the empirical facts�; and purely practical. 

The second prejudice of psychologism �appeals to the factual content of logic�[lxvi].  Husserl clarified that the laws of logic do not have any factual content or �empirical extension�.  He further said,

�We deny that the theoretical discipline of pure logic, in the independent separateness proper to it, has any concern with with mental facts, or with laws that might be styled �psychological�.  We saw that the laws of pure logic�totally lose their basic sense, if one tries to interpret them as psychological.  It is therefore clear from the start that the concepts which constitute these and similar laws have no empirical range.  They cannot, in other words, have the character of those mere universal notions whose range is that of individual singulars, but they must be notions truly generic, whose range is exclusively one ideal singulars, genuine species�[lxvii].

          Husserl also pointed out that it is impossible for logic to have factual content simply because logic belongs to the �ideal science� while psychology belongs to the �real science�.  The �ideal science� is a prior and its ultimate objects are �ideal species�.  It also set �forth ideal general laws, grounded with intuitive certainty in certain general concepts�[lxviii].  On the other hand, the �real science� is empirical and its ultimate objects are empirical facts.  It also established �real general laws, relating to a sphere of fact, with probabilities into which we have insight�[lxix].

          The third and the last prejudice of psychologism is its �theory of evident givenness�[lxx].  �Evident givenness� is a �peculiar mental character, well-known to everyone through his inner experience, a peculiar feeling, which guarantees the truth of the judgment to which it attaches.�  �Evident givenness� is a �psychological fact�.  But for Husserl it is not only a psychological  or real fact.  It is also an �ideal conditions�.  It can only be achieved if and only if it fulfills the �conditions laid down by logical laws�[lxxi].  Husserl said, �every law of pure logic permits of an (inwardly evident) transformation, possible a priori, which allows one to read off certain propositions about inward evidence, certain conditions of inward evidence, from it�[lxxii].  Husserl further said,

�The pure laws of logic say absolutely nothing about inner evidence (evident givenness) or its conditions.  We can show, we hold, that they only achieve this relation through a process of application or transformation, the same sort of process, in fact, through which every purely conceptual law permits application to a generally conceived realm of empirical cases.  The propostions about inner evidence which arise in this manner keep their a priori character, and the conditions of inner evidence that they assert bear no trace of the psychological or the real.  They are purely conceptual propositions, transformable, as in every like case, into statements about ideal incompatibilities or possibilities�[lxxiii].

III.  CONCLUDING REMARKS

Husserl denounced psychologism because it is purely based on experience and on the factual, real world.  It is not based of Reason itself because it adopted techniques used by the objective sciences, which are purely empirical.  Hence, psychologism cannot achieve truth-in-itself.  It cannot achieve certitude simply because it is purely based on facts.  Facts are temporal and they changed.  For Husserl, truth cannot be based on facts.  It is an absolute impossibility because truth is atemporal, and truth is truth it cannot be changed.

          The idea produced by psychologism is a factual thing because it is based on facts.  Idea for Husserl belongs not to the factual world, but to the ideal world, and this ideal world is in the consciousness of every human person.  The same also with meaning intended by consciousness.  It also belongs to the world of the ideals or to the world of consciousnesses. 

          Any human person can reach true knowledge or the truth as such if its methods and laws are �a priori�.  �A priori� laws are genuine and exact laws.  They are universal and ideal laws, not abstracted from the particulars and from the real.  These are the laws of pure logic, which was transformed later on to transcendental phenomenology.  And only through pure logic and transcendental phenomenology can Truth be achieved or realized.

          These are the arguments of Husserl against psychologism.  And these are the reasons why Husserl developed his transcendental phenomenology, the science of essence, the science of truth as truth.