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Hermeneutics and Its Problems pp 141–151Cite as

The Contemporary Situation

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Part of the book series: Contributions To Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 98))

Abstract

Shpet in this chapter presents his view that philosophical problems of knowledge as elucidated particularly in neo-Kantian tracts are not just incomplete and one-sided, but simply wrong. They are ignorant of the independent foundations of historical knowledge. From this thesis, Shpet explores the views of Swoboda, Erdmann, Finnbogason, and others.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    An analysis of all these theories is the subject of the second volume of my Investigations. [This second volume of his Istorija kak problema logiki has been published posthumously. See Shpet 2002: 547–1131.]

  2. 2.

    Swoboda 1903: 131 – “‘Verstehen’ und ‘Begreifen’ sind keine wissenschaftlichen Termini.” [“Understanding and “apprehension” are not scientific terms.”]

  3. 3.

    Finnbogason 1911.

  4. 4.

    Elsenhans 1904. As the author himself notes in another place in this paper he, at certain points, comes close to Dilthey. Elsenhans 1906: 83 f.

  5. 5.

    Elsenhans 1904: 7, 5. Cf. also Elsenhans 1912: 342–344.

  6. 6.

    Elsenhans 1904: 8, 10–11.

  7. 7.

    Elsenhans 1904: 11.

  8. 8.

    Elsenhans 1904: 20; Elsenhans 1912: 344.

  9. 9.

    Erdmann 1912a: 1240–1241.

  10. 10.

    Erdmann 1912a: 1241–1242.

  11. 11.

    Erdmann 1912a: 1243–58, 1261, 1280.

  12. 12.

    Erdmann 1912a: 1265–66, 1268.

  13. 13.

    Erdmann 1912a: 1258–59.

  14. 14.

    Erdmann 1912a: 1265.

  15. 15.

    The most important works of this direction, which are of immediate interest to us, are: Marbe 1901; Taylor 1905; Messer 1906, 1908; Bühler 1907; Koffka 1912; Selz 1913.

  16. 16.

    Therefore Husserl was incorrect in reprimanding experimental psychology for its tendency to assume the place of the fundamental philosophical science. If it displayed such tendencies, it is precisely because it ceased to be psychology. However, Messer was even more incorrect, in thinking to prove that a “pure” psychology, which does not study its object in a natural-science setting, is philosophy. Messer 1911. See Messer 1908: 11 and cf. Messer 1908: 33, 56, 147, 158, 164ff, 171. This is the “logicism” in psychology that was so fiercely contested by Wundt. In general, Wundt and the psychologists contest the very technique of the new experimental psychology. See Kornilov 1916. Here, neither force nor credibility are on their side, but their criticism, apparently, is evidently motivated by a correct sense of the loss of psychology itself and its methodology. Introspection and experiment, in essence and not just on account of the setting, are fundamentally different from reflection and analysis.

  17. 17.

    Regarding the literature, see Paul 1909: 74–75 f.

  18. 18.

    Martinak 1901. Frege’s article “On Sense and Reference” pursues different goals and stands apart from all the literature. See Frege 1980. In general, the introduction of semasiological problems and their psychological, logical, and philosophical elaboration within the general scope of philosophy is primarily the contribution of Austrian psychologists and philosophers. I explain this, above all, in terms of the powerful influence exerted on Austrian psychology and logic by English logic (in particular Mill’s logic), which did not sever the connection between logic and the theory of terms and propositions or the connection between the psychological theory of thinking with the theory of language in contrast to Kantian and post-Kantian formalism in logic. The influence of a re-discovered Bolzano was secondary and fell on receptive but already prepared ground.

  19. 19.

    Stöhr 1889. See his more recent book, Stöhr 1910.

  20. 20.

    Husserl 1970. See, in particular, the “First Investigation”: Husserl 1970: 269–333.

  21. 21.

    Lotze 1880: 507, 521.

  22. 22.

    Meinong 1902. Meinong 1910.

  23. 23.

    Marty 1908; Gomperz 1908.

  24. 24.

    [Shpet here is referring to a planned third volume of his History as a Problem of Logic that never was written. He had already mentioned this intention in the “Preface” above.]

  25. 25.

    I made several remarks in my book Appearance and Sense, and I expressed several ideas more explicitly in my article “Wisdom or Reason?” in 1917. [See Appendix 2 below; Shpet 2006.]

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  1. Manchester, NJ, USA

    Thomas Nemeth

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  1. Gustav Shpet
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    Thomas Nemeth

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Shpet, G., Nemeth, T. (2019). The Contemporary Situation. In: Nemeth, T. (eds) Hermeneutics and Its Problems. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 98. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98941-9_9

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