Psychologism

Philosophical position regarding the role of psychology

This article is about the family of philosophical positions. For the subfield of philosophical study, see Philosophy of psychology.

Psychologism is a family of philosophical positions, according to which certain psychological facts, laws, or entities play a central role in grounding or explaining certain non-psychological facts, laws, or entities. The word was coined by Johann Eduard Erdmann as Psychologismus, being translated into English as psychologism.[1][2]

## Definition

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines psychologism as: "The view or doctrine that a theory of psychology or ideas forms the basis of an account of metaphysics, epistemology, or meaning; (sometimes) spec. the explanation or derivation of mathematical or logical laws in terms of psychological facts."[3] Psychologism in epistemology, the idea that its problems "can be solved satisfactorily by the psychological study of the development of mental processes", was argued in John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).[4]

Other forms of psychologism are logical psychologism and mathematical psychologism. Logical psychologism is a position in logic (or the philosophy of logic) according to which logical laws and mathematical laws are grounded in, derived from, explained or exhausted by psychological facts or laws. Psychologism in the philosophy of mathematics is the position that mathematical concepts and/or truths are grounded in, derived from or explained by psychological facts or laws.[5]

## Viewpoints

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John Stuart Mill was accused by Edmund Husserl of being an advocate of a type of logical psychologism, although this may not have been the case.[6] So were many nineteenth-century German philosophers such as Christoph von Sigwart, Benno Erdmann, Theodor Lipps, Gerardus Heymans, Wilhelm Jerusalem, and Theodor Elsenhans,[7] as well as a number of psychologists, past and present (e.g., Wilhelm Wundt[7] and Gustave Le Bon).[8]

Psychologism was notably criticized by Gottlob Frege in his anti-psychologistic work The Foundations of Arithmetic, and many of his works and essays, including his review of Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic.[9] Husserl, in the first volume of his Logical Investigations, called "The Prolegomena of Pure Logic", criticized psychologism thoroughly and sought to distance himself from it. Frege's arguments were largely ignored, while Husserl's were widely discussed.[1]

In "Psychologism and Behaviorism", Ned Block describes psychologism in the philosophy of mind as the view that "whether behavior is intelligent behavior depends on the character of the internal information processing that produces it." This is in contrast to a behavioral view which would state that intelligence can be ascribed to a being solely via observing its behavior. This latter type of behavioral view is strongly associated with the Turing test.[10][11]

## See also

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* Philosophy portal
* Psychology portal

* Antipsychologism
* Blockhead argument
* Naturalized epistemology

## References

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1. ^ a b Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Psychologism.
2. ^ Kusch, M., Psychologism: The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge (London & New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 101.
3. ^ Oxford English Dictionary.
4. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, Psychologism.
5. ^ Gallagher, S., Phenomenology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 20.
6. ^ Skorupski, J. M., Mill (Arguments of the Philosophers), Routledge, 2010, pp. 127-128.
7. ^ a b Kusch, Martin (Winter 2015). "'3. Examples of Psychologistic Reasoning' in Psychologism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
8. ^ Szacki, J., History of Sociological Thought, Greenwood Press, 1979, p. 252.
9. ^ Haddock, G. E. R., A Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Gottlob Frege (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 110.
10. ^ Block, Ned (1981), "Psychologism and Behaviorism", The Philosophical Review, 90 (1): 5–43, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.4.5828, doi:10.2307/2184371, JSTOR 2184371
11. ^ Moor, J. H., ed., The Turing Test: The Elusive Standard of Artificial Intelligence (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003).

## External links

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Look up psychologism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

* Husserl's Criticism of Psychologism. Link broken, page preserved most recently from October 22, 2009 at Internet Archive: Eprint. From Diwatao, (apparently former) online journal of the philosophy department of San Beda College, Manila, the Philippines.
* Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "The Turing test". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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