PSYCHOLOGISM AS А HISTORICO-PHILOSOPHICAL PHENOMENON

Abstract

Introduction. The end of the XX^th – the beginning of the XXI^th century brought a brand new essence to the problem of psychologism. The studies in logic, philosophy of consciousness, cognitive sciences came to focus on “new psychologism”, “metapsychologism”, and other similar trends which seem to overcome the so-called insuperable barrier between logic and psychology, drawn by antipsychologism on the edge of the ХІХ-ХХ^th centuries. Purpose. The aim of the research is establishing the conceptual unity and the variety of historical forms of psychologism in the European philosophy of the XIX^th – the beginning of the XX^th centuries. Methods. The research is based on the systemic, historical, phenomenological, dialectic, hermeneutical methods as well as on the comparative method, providing the comparison of different forms of psychologism and the XIXth and XXth century philosophers’ points of view on the problem. Results. Philosophical psychologism appears a broader phenomenon than “psychologism in logic”, related to the general tendencies in the development of philosophy and having general philosophical basis. Its development in the XIXth century correlates with the processes of empirical psychology development and psychology becoming a separate science along with sometimes painful and sharp parting from philosophy. From this perspective, philosophical psychologism can be regarded as the tendency for grounding all the philosophical problems as well as other Humanities with the help of notions and methods of psychology as a positive science. Originality. The scientific novelty of the research lies in an attempt to represent philosophical psychologism as complex multisided historical-philosophical and cultural-historical phenomenon, playing an ambivalent role in the XIXth century philosophy, having the features of some kind of “one-side – illness” as well as of possible grounding for new philosophical trends. Conclusion. Speaking about the historical-philosophical context of the problem of psychologism that emerged in the European (and home) philosophy of the XIX^th – the beginning of the XX^th centuries, we should emphasize that psychologism had various, sometimes rather different forms, which cannot receive definite estimation from the perspective of the further experience of the philosophical development. Having emerged on the edge of philosophy and psychology, psychologism could be referred to as both a painful reduction of philosophy to psychology and a creative enrichment of philosophy with the achievements of psychology. We claim that such a multidimentional image of psychologism reflects the historico-philosohical realia of the time under study more adequately, and thus it should help to approach, without superstitions, the modern fluctuations of psychologism that emerged on the edge of philosophy, psychology and cognitive-information sciences.