Overcoming Psychologism. Twardowski on Actions and Products

This paper is about the topic of psychologism in the work of Kazimierz Twardowski and my aim is to revisit this important issue in light of recent publications from, and on Twardowski’s works. I will first examine the genesis of psychologism in the young Twardowski’s work; secondly, I will examine Twardowski’s picture theory of meaning and Husserl’s criticism in Logical Investigations; the third part is about Twardowski’s recognition and criticism of his psychologism in his lectures on the psychology of thinking; the fourth and fifth parts provide an overview of Twardowski’s paper “Actions and Products” while the sixth part addresses the psychologism issue in the last part of this paper through the delineation of psychology and the humanities. I shall conclude this study with a brief assessment of Twardowski’s solution to psychologism

Husserl, Dummett, and the linguistic turn

Michael Dummett famously holds that the “philosophy of thought” must proceed via the philosophy of language, since that is the only way to preserve the objectivity of thoughts while avoiding commitments to “mythological,” Platonic entities. Central to Dummett’s case is his thesis that all thought contents are linguistically expressible. In this paper, I will (a) argue that making the linguistic turn is neither necessary nor sufficient to avoid the problems of psychologism, (b) discuss Wayne Martin’s argument that not all thought-contents are linguistically communicable, and (c) present another, stronger argument, derived from Husserl’s early account of fulfillment, that establishes the same conclusion

The logical anti-psychologism of Frege and Husserl

Frege and Husserl are both recognized for their significant contributions to the overthrowing of logical psychologism, at least in its 19th century forms. Between Frege's profound impact on modern logic that extended the influence of his anti-psychologism and Husserl's extensive attempts at the refutation of logical psychologism in the Prolegomena to Logical Investigations, these arguments are generally understood as successful. This paper attempts to account for the development of these two anti-psychologistic conceptions of logical objects and for some of the basic differences between them. It identifies some problems that are common to strongly anti-psychologistic conceptions of logic and compares the extent to which Frege's and Husserl's views are open to these problems. Accordingly, this paper is divided into two parts. Part I develops a conception of the problems of logical psychologism as they are distinctively understood by each philosopher, out of the explicit arguments and criticisms made against the view in the texts. This conception is in each case informed by the overall historical trajectories of each philosopher's philosophical development. Part II examines the two views in light of common problems of anti-psychologism

Evidentialism, Knowledge, and Evidence Possession

Evidentialism has shown itself to be an important research program in contemporary epistemology, with evidentialists giving theories of virtually every important topic in epistemology. Nevertheless, at the heart of evidentialism is a handful of concepts, namely evidence, evidence possession, and evidential fit. If evidentialists cannot give us a plausible account of these concepts, then their research program, with all its various theories, will be in serious trouble. In this paper, I argue that evidentialists has yet to give a plausible account of evidence possession and the prospects for doing so are dim

Teaching Peirce to Undergraduates

Fourteen philosophers share their experience teaching Peirce to undergraduates in a variety of settings and a variety of courses. The latter include introductory philosophy courses as well as upper-level courses in American philosophy, philosophy of religion, logic, philosophy of science, medieval philosophy, semiotics, metaphysics, etc., and even an upper-level course devoted entirely to Peirce. The project originates in a session devoted to teaching Peirce held at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. The session, organized by James Campbell and Richard Hart, was co-sponsored by the American Association of Philosophy Teachers

Reassessing Neo-Kantianism. Another Look at Hermann Cohen’s Kant Interpretation

This article is a novel assessment of Hermann Cohen’s theoretical philosophy, starting out from his Kant interpretation. Hermann Cohen was the head and founder of the Marburg School of Neo- Kantianism. In the beginning, hence, I will commence with some initial reflections on the makeup and importance of this school, before I move on to Cohen’s revolutionary Kant interpretation and its ramification for the Marburg School in general

Pushing the bounds of rationality: Argumentation and extended cognition

One of the central tasks of a theory of argumentation is to supply a theory of appraisal: a set of standards and norms according to which argumentation, and the reasoning involved in it, is properly evaluated. In their most general form, these can be understood as rational norms, where the core idea of rationality is that we rightly respond to reasons by according the credence we attach to our doxastic and conversational commitments with the probative strength of the reasons we have for them. Certain kinds of rational failings are so because they are manifestly illogical – for example, maintaining overtly contradictory commitments, violating deductive closure by refusing to accept the logical consequences of one’s present commitments, or failing to track basing relations by not updating one’s commitments in view of new, defeating information. Yet, according to the internal and empirical critiques, logic and probability theory fail to supply a fit set of norms for human reasoning and argument. Particularly, theories of bounded rationality have put pressure on argumentation theory to lower the normative standards of rationality for reasoners and arguers on the grounds that we are bounded, finite, and fallible agents incapable of meeting idealized standards. This paper explores the idea that argumentation, as a set of practices, together with the procedures and technologies of argumentation theory, is able to extend cognition such that we are better able to meet these idealized logical standards, thereby extending our responsibilities to adhere to idealized rational norms

Psychologism and neopsychologism in philosophy of logic

Thesis focuses on psychologism – a philosophical theory according to which the ontological and epistemological foundations of logic and mathematics are our mental states. Neopsychologism is a new set of psychologistic ideas that appeared already in the XXth century and are influenced by new psychology including cognitive science and artificial intelligence. Its central idea is that the main problem of the early psychologism in logic criticized by Husserl and Frege (Willard 1980) is resolved in the contemporary neopsychologistic research.https://www.ester.ee/record=b517884