Repository | Book | Chapter

What features of the Logical Investigations insure their cohesion and unity? Is there such a thing as a programme to which the exceptionally diverse investigations of this monumental work contributes? This question is important for anyone who acknowledges that there is a tension between the logical theme, which concerns namely the objective and ideal character of meaning and reference, and the psychological theme which touches upon the subjective dimension of mental acts. The case of logical psychologism is paradigmatic of this tension. In the Prolegomena, the arguments against this form of psychologism concern the practical and normative conception of logic as well as the foundational claims of empirical psychology. This tension thus bears witness to Husserl's double exertion. On the one hand, the logical struggle he leads opposes him to the tenants of the practico-normative logic, and thus to the empiricists as well as to the Kantians, and what is at stake in this struggle is the idea of a pure logic as it is sketched in the last part of the Prolegomeana. On the other hand, Husserl develops a theory of knowledge whose central theme is the justification of knowledge. This part of the struggle sets him up against philosophical naturalism, that is, against the psychologistic doctrines of John Stuart Mill and Ernst Mach which have this in common that they seek on ground logic on natural sciences such as psychology or biology.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-0207-2_4

Full citation: