Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Husserl’s Arguments for Psychologism

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Axiomathes Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The question of the psychologism of the theory of number developed by Husserl in his Philosophy of Arithmetic has long been debated, but it cannot be considered fully resolved. In this paper, I address the issue from a new point of view. My claim is that in the Philosophy of Arithmetic, Husserl made, albeit indirectly, a series of arguments that are worth reconstructing and clarifying since they are useful in shedding some light on the psychologism issue. More specifically, I maintain that the clarification of these arguments, along with other arguments that Husserl presented against alternative theories of number as well as with some contemporary distinctions concerning the notion of ontological dependence, allows us to determine that Husserl’s theory of number is psychologistic in a minimal and precise sense: it entails a generic ontological dependence of numbers upon the mind.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For a long time, literature has been dominated by what has been called a true “historiographical myth” (Rosado Haddock 2000b, p. 199) which was started by Føllesdal (1958). According to this myth, it was Frege’s harsh review that led Husserl to radically change his position, which would shift from the extreme psychologism of the PA to the anti-psychologism of the Prolegomena. The challenging of this interpretation is generally traced back to Mohanty’s work (starting from Mohanty 1974, 1982). At any rate, there are several studies that have shown that the anti-psychologistic turn was not influenced by Frege’s review. In addition to the writings of Mohanty, see in particular those of G.E Rosado Haddock (1973, 2000a) and those of C. Ortiz Hill (1991, 2000a [1994a], 2000b [1994b], 2000c [1995]).

  2. Some scholars have suggested that the anti-psychologistic turn is located in 1891 (see for instance Mohanty 1974). Recently, however, C. Ierna has provided compelling arguments for backdating this turn in WS 1989/90 (see Ierna 2005, 2006).

  3. In recent times, this thesis has been supported by B. Hopkins (see Hopkins 2006 and Hopkins 2011, pp. 112–117). However, as Hopkins himself has noted (Hopkins 2011, p. 114, n. 15), some scholars had already called attention to this shift, in particular Biemel (1959), Willard (1980) and Miller (1982).

  4. For the overall strategy of PA and the influence that authors like Weierstrass, Stumpf and Cantor have had on it, see Ierna (2005, 2006). For the issue of conceptual analysis understood as an investigation into the content, the genesis and the extension of a concept, see Casari (1991) (in the case of number, Husserl sets aside the issue of extension because it is not problematic, cf. Husserl (2003), p.16; Husserl (1970) p. 15).

  5. Another concept of whole – based on the concept of foundation (Fundierung) rather than on the concept of abstraction—will be developed by Husserl in the third Logical Investigation.

  6. Husserl (2003), p. 19–20; Husserl (1970), p. 18–19.

  7. In PA Husserl is not interested in the difference between (i) the relationships between the parts of a whole and (ii) the relationship between the parts of a whole and the whole itself. This difference will become central in the third Logical Investigation, as in the distinction between the wholes of the first and second order (cf. Sect. 21 of the third Logical Investigations), for example. However, in my opinion, in PA when Husserl refers to “the combination of the particular parts into the whole,” he does not have this distinction in mind.

  8. Notice that in PA the term “object” is used in a very broad sense to include any kind of content.

  9. An alternative schematic presentation is given by S. Centrone (Centrone 2010, p. 10), who maintains that Husserl deals with six different theories, each of them identifies CC respectively as: (i) the simultaneous presence of contents in consciousness; (ii) the temporal succession of contents in consciousness; (iii) the intuitive form of time; (iv) the intuitive form of space; (v) the relation of identity of every content with itself; (vi) the relation of difference of every content from all others. I am not convinced by this presentation for textual and conceptual reasons. From a textual point of view, Centrone’s presentation seems hard to square with the partition of the text used by Husserl in Philosophy of Arithmetic as in On the Concept of Numbers. From a conceptual point of view, there are three main reasons bolstering my presentation. First of all, even if the elimination of the theory of simple presence could be justified by the fact that it is absorbed by the theory of simultaneous presence because all the objections to the first are also objections to the latter, I still think it is useful to keep the distinction since the opposite is not true: not all the objections to the latter are objections to the first. Secondly, in my opinion the distinctions made between the intuitive form of time, the simultaneous presence and the successive presence theories are too fine-grained: Husserl thinks that these two latter theories are the ways in which the first can be formulated. The only section that might be interpreted as the explanation of the isolated intuitive form of time theory is a short reference to Kant (Husserl 2003, pp. 33–35; Husserl 1970 pp. 32–34), which does not seem to be broad enough (e.g. Husserl does not raise any objection here). Finally, I do not see any reason to divide the difference and identity theories. The last theory considered by Husserl identifies the source of the concept of multiplicity in the difference between parts, but this feature of the parts entails another one: the identity of every part with itself. Both these features (identity with itself and difference from others) are necessary to the theory, and therefore I do not think it is the case to divide it. Perhaps it might be divided if the identity theory is understood as the theory that considers CC as the identity between the parts (and not just as the identity of every part with itself). Husserl does mention this possible interpretation of CC in the second paragraph of the third chapter and grapples with it in the eighth chapter, but he does not analyze it in the critical examination of the second chapter (and it is not in this sense that Centrone interpreted the identity theory).

  10. This distinction is noteworthy on one hand because Husserl himself brings it up in Section 124 of Ideas, pointing out that PA’s psychologism in not naïve and, on the other hand, because scholars usually cite it as evidence of the shortcomings of the charges of psychologism addressed to PA (see, for instance, Hill (1991), pp. 70–71). As we shall see (Sect. 6), however, this distinction is not sufficient to discharge PA’s theory of number from any kind of psychologism, yet it allows us to specify in what senses it is not psychologistic.

  11. The final sections of Husserl’s treatment of FST are dedicated respectively to the rejection of J.J. Baumann’s e W. Brix’s positions. Given that, compared to the dealing with Lange, such rejections do not present original elements, I do not consider them here.

  12. Husserl is aware that this objection would not alarm Lange because he boldly holds that every object—even psychical objects—is in some way localized. Even if the issue is not scrutinized, it seems that in Husserl’s view the objection maintains its validity (cf. Husserl 2003, p. 37; Husserl 1970, p. 36).

  13. I will return to this notion in the next section. For the time being, it can be understood as the connection in which the relation is a part of the content, and it is not a result of a psychical act. In this context, Husserl’s examples are the relation between color and extension, the relation of distance and the relation of direction (Husserl 2003, p. 40; Husserl 1970, p. 39).

  14. In order to display Lange’s concept of synthesis, Husserl refers to the Kantian one, from which Lange’s is derived. Husserl thinks that Kant has merged two concepts of synthesis: (i) synthesis as unity of the parts of a whole, and so synthesis as result of connecting and (ii) synthesis as the mental activity of connecting, and so synthesis as act of connecting. Merging these concepts, Kant would have come to the conclusion that every relation is the result of an act of consciousness: he would not have accepted cases in which there is only one of the two kind of synthesis. According to Husserl, Lange too overlooks that there are composed representations in which there is no content connection, namely cases in which there is only the second concept of synthesis. But Lange—unlike Kant—would have realized that there are cases—those of primary relations—in which there is only the first concept of synthesis, cases which make possible composed representations in which the connection is not realized by the mind. Nonetheless, Lange, in order to keep the Kantian idea that every synthesis is realized by the mind, came to argue that in these cases there is still a connecting activity, though it must be unconscious.

  15. This last objection—and in particular the passage in which Husserl settles on the idea that “our mental activity does not make the relations” (Husserl 2003, p. 43; Husserl 1970 p. 42)—has been used by Hill (Hill 2000 [1994a], p. 102) in order to argue the PA’s number theory is by no means psychologistic. At first glance, the passage cited by Hill clearly seems at odds with a psychologistic theory of number since CC—the origin of numbers in Husserl’s theory—is a relation, and relations here are described as not made by the mind. Nonetheless, if we consider the context of the passage, this impression fades away: here Husserl is not referring to all the relations, but to what he calls primary or material relations and CC—as we shall see—is not a primary relation.

  16. This articulation of the concept of difference and, more specifically, the relation between DAR on one hand and DNS and DBS on the other hand is a key issue in the debate with Frege about the concept of abstraction. The core of Frege’s critique of Husserl’s theory of number is an objection to the concept of abstraction that, as we shall see, in PA is identified as the origin of numbers. Without going into the details here, while Husserl thinks that at the base of numbers there are unities that are different in the sense of DAR, Frege denies the possibility of something like a difference in the sense of DAR. Indeed, according to Frege, in order to think of any kind of difference, it is necessary that between the different entities there is at least a different property, whereas DAR can be noted previously and independently by any content difference, entailing the violation of the identity of the indiscernibles principle. Though I think that Husserl’s position is stronger than it might seem, this issue goes beyond the aims of this paper. My point here is just to clarify Husserl’s argument against RDT. For a discussion of the debate and a defense of Husserl’s position, see Hill (1991) (in particular chapters 4 and 5) and Hill (2000 [1994a]).

  17. Here Husserl seems to include in the notion of content two things which are traditionally distinguished: (a) the individuals or individual substances involved in relation and (b) the properties of relations, each of which belong to an individual.

  18. For an examination of the role of Brentano and Stumpf as the sources of this distinction, see Ierna (2006), pp. 66–73.

  19. Husserl (2003), p. 76; Husserl (1970), p. 73.

  20. I am not arguing that the following implication is absolutely valid: if a conception of multiplicity excludes some possible multiplicities, then it identifies CC with a primary relation. It is not absolutely valid (unlike the opposite). But it is valid if, following Husserl, we accept two assumptions: (i) that the multiplicity is based on a relation (since the common element retained by the abstraction that constitutes the origin of the whole “multiplicity” is a relation) and (ii) that relations can be classified without residues as primary and psychic (understood in the sense set out above).

  21. Cf. Husserl (2003), p. 68; Husserl (1970), p. 65. Here Husserl does not explicitly say that temporal and difference relations are psychic, but he seems to imply this thesis or, at least, to not exclude it: referring to relations that intuitively cannot be identified with CC (since their range of applicability is “restricted by the nature of specific contents”), he pinpoints “once temporal relations and relation of distinction are excluded.” One could ask if Husserl’s need to specify these exclusions depends on the fact that he thinks that such relations, despite appearances, are primary or on the fact that he thinks that such relations, despite their psychic nature, have to be rejected (for the reasons we have already seen). For the sake of argument, I do not consider the first alternative here.

  22. Husserl (2003), pp. 72–73; Husserl (1970), p. 69.

  23. It might be worth remembering that Husserl distinguishes between identity and equality: two entities are identical when they are the same in every way, i.e. when they have all the properties in common; they are equal when they are the same in a partial way, i.e. when they have some properties in common, but at least one different property (see Husserl 2003 p. 102; Husserl 1970, p. 97).

  24. For example, see the previously cited Willard (1980), Mohanty (1982), pp.18–42, 1985, Miller (1982), pp.19–23, Hopkins (2006), Hill (1991, 2000a [1994a]).

  25. For an overview on the notion of psychologism, see Kush (1995) and (2007).

  26. I have borrowed this terminology from Mugnai (2009), p. 243.

  27. I have borrowed this distinction from Thako, Lowe (2005), Sect. 1.

  28. Husserl, as it is well known, in PA (in particular in the fourth section) distinguishes material and formal concepts: the material concepts are content determined and can be referred only to objects which have certain characteristics (for example the concept “red” can be referred only to red objects); the formal concepts – including number concepts – are content undetermined and can be referred to any objects (for example the concept “something” can be referred to any object). In his subsequent works, this distinction – although formulated in a quite different way – will become central since the notions of formal and material ontology are based on it. For a presentation of these notions see Smith (1989), Poli (1993) and Albertazzi (1996).

  29. Husserl (2003), p. 315; Husserl (1970), p. 299.

  30. Sure, if we accept this second option, we have to say that, already in PA, Husserl had something in mind like the idea of eidetic singularity that he would develop in his subsequent works. For a presentation of this notion see Mohanty (1997), pp. 3–7 and Majolino (2017).

  31. It is true that the concept of material abstraction described above is quite clearly an empiricist notion of abstraction, a notion of abstraction which assumes that experience is made up by unrelated data that are unified by the mind. But it is also true that there are at least three passages in PA—the fourth objection to FST (the theory that identifies CC in the form of space), the discussion of primary relations and the description of the notion of figural moment—in which Husserl identifies synthetic connections in the perceptive experience, and thus seeming to admit connections that are not made up by the mind.

  32. The anti-psychologistic Husserl will not reject the idea of a formal dimension of knowledge—formal concepts that can be referred to every object—but he will reject the idea that the only way to conceive this cognitive dimension is to bring it back to the mind. With reference to the concept of multiplicity, the anti-psychologistic Husserl will continue to uphold P3 of CCA and CCA(RELATIONS) and P4 of CCA(DNS), but he would reject P4 of CCA and CCA(RELATIONS) and P5 of CCA(DNS): the fact that the concept of multiplicity allows unlimited variation of its objects will no longer entail that these properties cannot be inscribed in experience. To put it differently, Husserl’s attempt will be to bring the formal properties back to the experience, thus reversing the origin of the form.

References

  • Albertazzi L (1996) Formal and material ontology. In: Poli R, Simons P (eds) Formal ontology. Springer, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Biemel W (1959) Die entscheidenden Phasen der Entfaltung von Husserls Philosophie. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 13(2):187–213

    Google Scholar 

  • Casari E (1991) Anche la Filosofia dell’aritmetica compie cent’anni. In: Atti del Convegno: Peano e i fondamenti della matematica. Mucchi, Modena.

  • Centrone S (2010) Logic and philosophy of mathematics in the early husserl. Springer, Dordrecht

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Føllesdal D (1958) Husserl und Frege. Ein Beitrag zur Beleuchtung der Entstehung der Phänomenologischen Philosophie, Aschehoug, Oslo

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill CO (1991) Word and object in husserl, frege and russell. University of Ohio Press, Athens

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill CO (2000a) [1994a] Frege’s attack on Husserl and Cantor. In: Hill CO, Rosado Haddock GE (eds) Husserl or Frege? Meaning objectivity and mathematics. Open Court, Chicago

  • Hill CO (2000b) [1994b] Husserl and Frege on substitutivity. In: Hill CO, Rosado Haddock GE (eds) Husserl or Frege? Meaning, objectivity and mathematics. Open Court, Chicago

  • Hill CO (2000c) [1995] Husserl and Hilbert on completeness. In: Hill CO, Rosado Haddock GE (eds) Husserl or Frege? Meaning, objectivity and mathematics. Open Court, Chicago

  • Hopkins BC (2006) Husserl’s psychologism, and critique of psychologism. Revisit Husserl Stud 22(2):91–119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hopkins BC (2011) The origin of the logic of symbolic mathematics. Indiana University Press, Bloomington

    Google Scholar 

  • Husserl E (1970) Philosophie der Arithmetik. Mit ergänzenden Texten (1890–1901). Eley L (ed). Martin Nijhoff, Den Haag.

  • Husserl E (2003) Philosophy of arithmetic: psychological and logical investigations with supplementary texts from 1887–1901. Kluwer, Dordrecht ((Trans. Willard D))

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ierna C (2005) The beginnings of Husserl’s philosophy part 1: from Über den Begriff der Zahl to Philosophie der Arithmetik. New Yearb Phenomenol Phenomenol Philos 5(1):1–56

    Google Scholar 

  • Ierna C (2006) The beginnings of Husserl’s philosophy part 2: philosophical and mathematical background. New Yearb Phenomenol Phenomenol Philos 6(1):33–81

    Google Scholar 

  • Kusch M (2007) Psychologism. In: Zalta EN (ed) The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/psychologism/>.

  • Kush M (1995) Psychologism: a case study in the sociology of philosophical knowledge. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Majolino C (2017) Individuum and region of being: on the unifying principle of Husserl’s “headless” ontology. In: Staiti A (ed) Commentary on Husserl’s ideas I. The Gruyter, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller JP (1982) Numbers in presence and absence. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague

    Google Scholar 

  • Mohanty JN (1974) Husserl and Frege: a new look at their relationship. Res Phenomenol 4(1):51–62

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mohanty JN (1982) Husserl and Frege. Indiana University Press, Bloomington

    Google Scholar 

  • Mohanty JN (1985) Husserl, Frege and the overcoming of psychologism. In: Mohanty JN (ed) The possibility of transcendental philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mohanty JN (1997) Phenomenology: between essentialism and transcendental philosophy. Northwestern University Press, Evanston

    Google Scholar 

  • Mugnai M (2009) Rota’s philosophical insights. In: Damiani E (ed) From combinatorics to philosophy. The legacy of G. C. Rota. Springer, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Poli R (1993) Husserl’s conception of formal ontology. Hist Philos Logic 4(1):1–14

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosado Haddock GE (1973) Edmund Husserls Philosophie der Logik und Mathematik im Lichte der gegenwärtigen Logik und Grundlagenforschung. Dissertation, University of Bonn.

  • Rosado Haddock GE (2000a) [1982] Remarks on sense and reference in Frege and Husserl. In: Hill CO, Rosado Haddock GE (eds) Husserl or Frege? Meaning, objectivity and mathematics. Open Court, Chicago

  • Rosado Haddock GE (2000b) [1999] To be a Fregean or to be a Husserlian: that is the question for platonists. In: Hill CO, Rosado Haddock GE (eds) Husserl or Frege? Meaning, objectivity and mathematics. Open Court, Chicago

  • Smith B (1989) Logic and formal ontology. In: Mohanty JN, McKenna W (eds) Husserl’s phenomenology: a textbook. University Press of America, Lanham

    Google Scholar 

  • Tahko TE, Lowe EJ (2005) Ontological Dependence. In: Zalta EN (ed) The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/dependence-ontological/>.

  • Willard D (1980) Husserl on a logic that failed. Philos Rev 89(1):46–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Filippo Piovesan

Authors
  1. Filippo Piovesan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Filippo Piovesan.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author declares that no conflicts of interest or competing interests exist.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Piovesan, F. Husserl’s Arguments for Psychologism. Axiomathes 32, 659–685 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-021-09547-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-021-09547-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation