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The Science of the Soul and the Unyielding Architectonic: Kant Versus Wolff on the Foundations of Psychology

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The Force of an Idea

Part of the book series: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ((AUST,volume 50))

Abstract

Thorough comparison of Immanuel Kant’s and Christian Wolff’s divergent appraisals of the science of psychology reveals various ways in which Kant fundamentally altered the Wolffian philosophical apparatus that he inherited. Wolff conceived of a thoroughgoing interplay between empirical and rational psychology, of combining different sorts of cognition in psychology, and of a mathematical science of the soul, or psychometrics. Kant however rejected each of these particular theses and deemed psychology to be no natural science, “properly so-called.” This chapter details these departures from Wolff, explains their basis, and concretizes an underlying contrast in Kant’s and Wolff’s respective philosophical approaches. Namely, whereas Wolff’s philosophical system is malleable, allowing for the combination of various kinds of cognition and methods, in Kant’s Critical philosophy, everything has its proper, preordained niche. At bottom, it is the unyielding rigor of Kant’s system that results in his pessimistic evaluation of the prospects for psychology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For helpful overviews of the relevant history, see Hatfield (1995) and Vidal (2011).

  2. 2.

    Recently, Hatfield (2018) interrogates this standard prioritization of the Wolffian tradition in the history of psychology, emphasizing the importance of Descartes’ physiological-mechanical study of the nervous system.

  3. 3.

    For overviews of Wolff’s account of psychology, see Richards (1980), Hatfield (1995, pp. 197–200), Dyck (2014, pp. 19–42), Kim (1994, pp. 35–52), Hinske (1999), Sturm (2009, pp. 56–68), Vidal (2011, pp. 89–95), Goubet (2018), and Rumore (2018).

  4. 4.

    Translation from Richards (1980, p. 230).

  5. 5.

    Translation from Richards (1980, p. 231).

  6. 6.

    See also Richards (1980, p. 228) and Rumore (2018, pp. 182–184).

  7. 7.

    Also noted by Dyck (2014, p. 28).

  8. 8.

    Translation from Richards (1980, p. 234).

  9. 9.

    Translation from Richards (1980, pp. 234–235).

  10. 10.

    Wolff (1738/1968, §.6) even generally claims that historical cognitions confirm philosophical ones.

  11. 11.

    See also Dyck (2014, pp. 19–42) and Rumore (2018, pp. 180–182).

  12. 12.

    See also Wolff (1751/1983b, §.382), Vidal (2011, pp. 94–95), Dyck (2014, pp. 39–40), and Rumore (2018, p. 180).

  13. 13.

    See also Wolff (1751/1983b, §.372) and Kim (1994, pp. 23–26).

  14. 14.

    Indeed, only pure mathematics is a priori in the strict sense, for Wolff (1751/1983b, §.372).

  15. 15.

    Translation from Richards (1980, pp. 232–233).

  16. 16.

    Baumgarten and Meier follow Wolff in many regards, including distinguishing these two sorts of psychology (Baumgarten, 1739/2013, §.503; Meier, 1755–1759, 3:§.474). Baumgarten, however, is apparently not as sanguine as Wolff about the confirmatory role of experience vis-à-vis rational principles (Fugate & Hymers, 2013, p. 22; Mensch, 2019, p. 196).

  17. 17.

    For discussions of Wolff’s mathematical method from a variety of perspectives, see Frängsmyr (1975), Dunlop (2013), and Frketich (2019).

  18. 18.

    For more on using the mathematical method in natural science, see Wolff’s (1754/1965, §.25) example of mathematically demonstrating that air has elastic force and the commentaries on it in van den Berg (2014, pp. 31–32) and Frketich (2019, pp. 340–342).

  19. 19.

    For more on the history of psychometrics in the eighteenth century, see Ramul (1960) and Feuerhahn (2004, 2010).

  20. 20.

    See also Feuerhahn (2004, p. 299) and Kim (1994, pp. 26–27).

  21. 21.

    Baumgarten and Meier echo both Wolff’s endorsement of psychometrics and his justification of its possibility (Baumgarten, 1739/2013, §§.249, 743, and 747; Meier, 1755–1759, Vol. 1, §.191, Vol. 3, §§.739, 752). Baumgarten even goes a bit further than Wolff by developing a comprehensive account of the first principles of the mathematics of intensive—non-extended—quantities (Baumgarten, 1739/2013, §§.165–190; see Fugate & Hymers, 2013, p. 22).

  22. 22.

    Later researchers, especially the so-called rational physicians [Vernünftige Ärzte] of Halle (such as Johann Gottlob Krüger and Johann August Unzer), more profitably developed this mathematical science of the mind (see Ramul, 1960; Nowitzki, 2003, pp. 33–162; Sturm, 2009, pp. 53–126; Feuerhahn, 2010).

  23. 23.

    For a more comprehensive treatment of Kant’s views on historical cognition in relation to Wolff’s, see Albrecht (1982).

  24. 24.

    Translation from Kant (1781/1998, p. 637).

  25. 25.

    Kant (1786/1911b, p. 468) uses “empirical” and “applied” interchangeably in the context of doctrines of nature.

  26. 26.

    Precisely this way of dividing up the doctrines of nature is repeated throughout Kant’s lectures on metaphysics (see Kant, 1970a, pp. 656, 670; b, pp. 221–223; c, pp. 364–365; 1983, pp. 875–876).

  27. 27.

    These are described as the fundamental methods of philosophical cognition in the Discipline (see Kant, 1787/1911a, pp. 470–472, 474, 480–481).

  28. 28.

    In this regard, Kant follows Crusius, who also constructs a firewall between empirical and rational doctrines. Crusius criticizes Wolff’s account of psychology on precisely these grounds of illegitimately violating the segregation of the two sorts of doctrines (1745, §§.4–5, 424; see also Dyck, 2014, p. 52).

  29. 29.

    See also Kant (1970b, p. 221; c, pp. 366–367).

  30. 30.

    Translation from Kant (1786/2002, p. 184). See also Kant (1787/1911a, p. 40n.; 1784/1911c, p. 295).

  31. 31.

    Translation from Kant (1786/2002, p. 233).

  32. 32.

    Kant disagrees with Wolff, however, regarding whether historical cognitions can be certain—Kant rejects this (Kant, 1787/1911a, p. 478; 1786/1911b, p. 468; 1966a, p. 229).

  33. 33.

    The broad literature on Kant’s conception of the mathematical method in contrast to Wolff’s includes Hinske (1998, pp. 108–111), Shabel (1998), Sutherland (2010), Dunlop (2014), Heis (2014), Gava (2018), and Frketich (2019).

  34. 34.

    Translation from Kant (1781/1998, p. 630).

  35. 35.

    Translation from Kant (1781/1998, p. 640). See also Kant (1784/1911c, p. 327; 1966a, p. 229; b, p. 747; c, pp. 857–858).

  36. 36.

    Translation from Kant (1781/1998, p. 637).

  37. 37.

    See also Kant (1966a, p. 272).

  38. 38.

    Thus, Feuerhahn’s (2004, p. 299n.7) reading—according to which the Wolffians accept, whereas Kant rejects, the universal applicability of mathematics—is too simplistic. See also Dunlop (2014).

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Acknowledgments

I thank the members of a reading group on Wolff’s German Metaphysics—namely, Katerina Mihaylova, Hirohito Mita, and Emanuel Stobbe—at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg for our fruitful discussions as well as Michael Walschots and John Walsh for their feedback on an earlier draft. I also appreciate the thorough comments of the Research Group in Classical German Philosophy at KU Leuven, especially those of Henny Blomme, Karin de Boer, Stephen Howard, and Kwangchul Kim.

This work was supported by a Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

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  1. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Michael Bennett McNulty

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Saulo de Freitas Araujo

  2. Department of Psychology, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Volta Redonda, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Thiago Constâncio Ribeiro Pereira

  3. Department of Philosophy, ICREA & Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain

    Thomas Sturm

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McNulty, M.B. (2021). The Science of the Soul and the Unyielding Architectonic: Kant Versus Wolff on the Foundations of Psychology. In: Araujo, S.d.F., Pereira, T.C.R., Sturm, T. (eds) The Force of an Idea. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74435-9_15

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