Heinrich Rickert on psychologism and the historical sciences

Katherina Kinzel
University of Vienna
1. The debate over science classification

2. The problem of psychologism

3. Psychology and historical method

4. Connecting the debates

Contents
1. The debate over science classification

2. The problem of psychologism

3. Psychology and historical method

4. Connecting the debates

Contents
Wilhelm Dilthey (1883): Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften

- The natural sciences and the Geisteswissenschaften are based on different kinds of experience
“As a first step towards the independent constitution of the Geisteswissenschaften, it suffices to
distinguish between those processes which have as their material what is given in the senses …
and processes that concern a range of facts which are given originally in inner experience.”

- Psychology is a foundational discipline for the Geisteswissenschaften.

- Explanatory psychology ought to be replaced by a descriptive psychology, Ideen über

beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie (1894).

1. The debate over science classification

Wilhelm Windelband (1894): Geschichte und Naturwissenschaften

- The facts of the so-called Geisteswissenschaften are not given in inner experience, psychology
proceeds by natural scientific methods.

- Dilthey‘s material distinction ought to be replaced by a formal one: idiographic and

nomothetic sciences.

Dilthey (1895/96): Über vergleichende Psychologie. Beiträge zum Studium der

Individualität.

- Geisteswissenschaften seek to connect the general and the particular, contain both knowledge
of regularities and of individualities.

- Science classification needs to follow the contents.

1. The debate over science classification

Heinrich Rickert (1896): Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung. Erste
Hälfte

- The distinction between Natur and Geist is not a useful starting point for science
classification.

- Formal distinction between individualizing and generalizing concept formation.

- Psychology is a generalizing science.

- Inner experience does not provide immediacy and unity that would escape generalizing
concepts.

1. The debate over science classification

What was at stake?

- How should we label the non-natural sciences?

- What should the classification be based on?: types of experience, goals and methods.

- Is psychology a natural science, is psychology relevant for historical method?

1. The debate over science classification

What was at stake?

- How should we label the non-natural sciences?

- What should the classification be based on?: types of experience, goals and methods.

- Is psychology a natural science, is psychology relevant for historical method?

Connection to psychologism (in epistemology and logic)?

1. The debate over science classification

1. The debate over science classification

2. Psychologism in epistemology

3. Psychology and historical method

4. Connecting the debates

Contents
Heinrich Rickert

- Against psychologism in epistemology.

(1904): Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der philosophischen
Transzendenz. 2nd ed.
(1909): „Zwei Wege der Erkenntnistheorie. Transzendentalpsychologie und
Transzendentallogik“.

- Against psychologism concerning historical method.

(1929): Die Grenzen der Naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung. Eine logische Einleitung in die
historischen Wissenschaften. 5th ed.
(1926): Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft. 6th and 7th ed.

2. Psychologism in epistemology
The value-conception of truth

- True knowledge is thinking corresponding to the “object of knowledge”.

- This object does not consist in reality, but rather in “theoretical values.” Values do not exist,
they are valid.

- Thinking becomes true knowledge if its forms correspond to unreal, unconditionally valid
“theoretical” values.

2. Psychologism in epistemology
Transcendental logic and transcendental psychology

- Transcendental logic: a “science of theoretical values” proceeding from purely formal

considerations.

- Transcendental psychology: presupposes objective values but starts from actual judgments.

- Truth not in the contents of judgments but in acts of affirmation and negation, in which an
autonomous subject relates to an “ought” (not identical to transcendental value).

- “Immanent meaning”: the transcendental object (values) becomes “immanent” in psychology.

2. Psychologism in epistemology
Psychologism in epistemology

- Takes truth to be a psychological fact and denies the existence of transcendental values.

- By denying the objective values that constitute truth, psychologism destroys the very
possibility of truth.

- Relativism and nihilism.

2. Psychologism in epistemology
1. The debate over science classification

2. Psychologism in epistemology

3. Psychology and historical method

4. Connecting the debates

Contents
Psychologism in the theory of history

1. Geist is understood as a psychological reality.

2. The material fixes the formal: distinction between the psychological and physiological is
taken as a basis for science classification and methodology.

3. Psychology is central for the methods of the Geisteswissenschaften, including history.

3. Psychology and historical method

Naturwissenschaften and Geisteswissenschaften: a misguided distinction

- Yes, history predominantly deals with psychological material.

- But this should not be taken as the starting point for science classification and methodology.

1. The proper starting point is a formal investigation into different types of concept formation.

2. The formal fixes the material: once we have determined the non-natural-scientific type of
concept formation, we can also provide an account of its object.

3. This object is non-psychological.

3. Psychology and historical method

Generalizing concept formation

- Scientific concepts do not provide an Abbild: they simplify and organize a given material,
distinguish relevant and irrelevant on the basis of a principle.

- The goal and principle of natural sciences is to arrive at generalized concepts of nature:
„…where one seeks to integrate reality into a system of concepts which expresses the lawlike
and general conceptual structure.“

3. Psychology and historical method

Individualizing or “historical” concept formation

- The concepts of natural science cannot capture the reality of concrete, unique individuals.

- History as the science of real and unique individuals: its concepts seek represent reality in its
individual development.

- Purely formal: all empirical reality becomes nature if regarded with respect to the general,
and history, if regarded with respect to the individual.

- But history needs, like any science, a principle to distinguish relevant from irrelevant.

3. Psychology and historical method

History’s value-relating method

- The relevance and unity of an individual object is constituted by relating material to a value.

- Not arbitrary: universally accepted values, or “normatively universal values”.

- Not practical: “history is not an evaluative, but a value-relating science.”

- Empirical objectivity: Values as facts, they are attached to the historical material itself.

3. Psychology and historical method

The object: culture

- Values guide concept formation and are also constitutive of the object.
„The guiding principles of each historical account must be normatively universal values, and
these realize themselves in the goods, to which they are attached, only in a historical
develeopment.“

- „Cultural values“: normatively universal values (family, state, law, religion, science, art, etc.)
that are unreal.

- „Cultural goods“: the real historical (physical and psychological) states and processes, which
are meaningful because values are attached to them.

- Culture as „realm of meaning“ constituted by this relation.

3. Psychology and historical method

Psychology and history

- The goals of psychology make it a natural science:

„the objectified reality of the psychological is studied in its entirety, and subjected at least to a
generalized description…and possibly to a natural-scientific explanation, which is valid for all
psychological realities.“

- Against Dilthey: psychological knowledge is not more immediate than knowledge of the
physical world, psychological experience does not provide a unity that would require
individualizing concept formation.

- Psychology is not methodologically relevant for history.

3. Psychology and historical method

Psychology and history

- History deals with psychological material.

- The guiding values are those of the historical actors. Characterizing them involves reference
to psychological beings – „historical centers“.

- But this requires no psychological science.

3. Psychology and historical method

1. The debate over science classification

2. Psychologism in epistemology

3. Psychology and historical method

4. Connecting the debates

Contents
A structural analogy

- Transcendental psychology: Transcendental values are experienced by the psychological

subject in a sphere of “immanent meaning”.

- Historical science: Cultural values attach themselves to psychological and physiological states
to create a sphere of “historical meaning”.

- What is the relation between cultural values and transcendental values?

4. Connecting the debates

History and philosophy

- Historiography can only claim empirical objectivity, if it is assumed that cultural values stand
in some relation of closeness to transcendental values.

- Historiography presupposes the object of philosophy: transcendental, objective,

unconditionally valid values.

- Universal history, historical progress: presupposes specific known objective, transcendental

values.

- When accounting for the system of transcendental values, philosophy can reveal the meaning
of history.

3. Psychology and historical method

Connection to psychologism?

- Precisely that thing which makes culture non-psychological is also the thing that demands an
independent realm of philosophical theorizing: values.

- Philosophy “above” the sciences is secured by anti-psychologistic explication of scientific

methodology.

- Both anti-psychologism in epistemology and in history are means of defending the autonomy
and superiority of philosophy, specifically with respect to questions of “meaning”, and
Weltanschauung.

4. Connecting the debates

Thank you