Kant, Brentano and Stumpf on Psychology and Anti-Psychologism 747

1 theory of knowledge], but is rather a fundamental damage [caused by] the

2 Kantian philosophy. (PE, 495)
3 The theses of Stumpf and of the Brentanians must however be tempered
4 when we take into account the true intentions of Kant beyond the rep-
5
utation he has been attributed by Alois Riehl and Johann Eduard Erd-
6
mann in the nineteenth century. Precisely the Kant-interpretations of
7
Riehl and Erdmann played an important role in the reception of Kant
8
among Brentano’s students.10 In particular, it is important to relativize
9
the charge issued by Stumpf on the marginalization of psychology or at
10
least to restrict it to the psychology that Kant was confronted with at
11
the time.
12
Against the anti-psychologistic interpretation of Kant, one can ask if
13
the view that psychology should not be confused with logic is really a the-
14
sis concerning the fact that there cannot be any psychological knowledge
15
16
or concerning the fact that psychology cannot become a science. As
17
Sturm puts it, we have to distinguish between the impossibility of empir-
18
ical psychology of becoming a science, and the more radical thesis, not
19
advocated by Kant, that there is no psychological knowledge as such.11
20 Some of Stumpf ’s arguments are clearly based on the latter thesis. Be-
21 sides, one must remember that the empirical psychology criticized by
22 Kant is the psychology advocated by Wolff and Baumgarten, a psychol-
23 ogy that investigates, in its empirical part, the ‘thinking nature’ by the ex-
24 clusive means of the inner sense.12
25 Furthermore, it should be noted that this conception is based on a
26 radical conception of introspection. It was precisely in the context of
27 this instrospective psychology advocated by Wolff that Kant pronounces
28 the impossibility of empirical psychology becoming an experimental sci-
29 ence.13 He does so for two reasons. First, the observation of our own
30
31 10 See Riehl, Alois: Der philosophische Kriticismus und seine Bedeutung fr die positive
32 Wissenschaft. In three volumes, Leipzig 1876, 1879, 1887; Erdmann, Johann
Eduard: Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung der Geschichte der neuern Phi-
33 losophie. Leipzig 1842/1853 (volumes 2 and 3).
34 11 See Sturm, Thomas: “Kant on Empirical Psychology”. In: Kant and the Sciences.
35 Ed. E. Watkins. Oxford 2001, 165 – 181.
36 12 On Baumgarten’s influence on the early Kant concerning his conception of psy-
37 chology and metaphysics, see Neue Anmerkungen zur Erluterung der Theorie der
Winde, TW, AA 01: 503; Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem
38 Winterhalbenjahre von 1765 – 1766, NEV, AA 02: 308 f.; MSI, AA 02: 397; SF,
39 AA 07: 141.
40 13 See MAN, AA 04: 471.
 748 Guillaume Frchette

1 mental states through inner sense can not be subject to repeatable experi-
2 ments. Second, if the objects and psychological states were considered ac-
3 cessible only through the inner sense, the differentiations we operate on
4 them would be done only by thought.14 Therefore, the experiments real-
5 ized in this introspective psychology are only thought experiments. On
6 this point, Kant and the Brentanians would agree in their rejection of
7 the introspective method in psychology.15 Their positions, nevertheless,
8 remain irreconcilable as to the distinction between the matter and form
9 of our presentations.16
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12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37 14 See Sturm, Thomas: op. cit, 178.
15 See Brentano, Franz: Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, 99 f. German orig-
38 inal in Brentano, Franz: Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, 168 f.
39 16 Thanks to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
40 (SSHRC) for its financial support.