Joan asked:

Does Husserl succeed in refuting psychologism?

============

What is psychologism, and why should anyone be bothered to refute it?

Edmund Husserl was concerned with psychologism in the account of logic, and logical inference. If
you ask an ordinary person what 'logic' is, they will reply that it is something to do with the way we
think. To think logically is to think rationally, to think illogically is to think irrationally.

So what are the lawsof logic? A person thinks irrationally when their power of reasoning is impaired
in some way. For example, people think and act irrationally under the influence of strong emotions, or
strong liquor. It seems a natural inference to draw that the laws of logic describe the way people think
when their thinking is not impaired.

============

If that is true, then it follows that the laws of logic are very general laws of psychology. In a similar
way, opthalmology is concerned with the way people see when their sight is not impaired. There are
tests that determine whether or not a person is colour blind, or whether they are long sighted or short
sighted. 20-20 vision is the norm. The fact that our eyes cannot detect ultra-violet radiation, or that we
lack the acuity of vision of an eagle, is not an impairment. It is just a natural fact about the way human
beings are constructed.

What I have just described is psychologismabout logic. In his book Logical InvestigationsHusserl
gave a powerful argument against psychologism, which according to many philosophers laid the
ghost of psychologism to rest forever. In order to grasp the point of his argument, we need to take
things slowly. Consider the following statement:

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Say you have a delicious portion of Sacher torte.You can either eat it now, or you can keep it for
later. I can spend all my money on a holiday, or I can save it up for a rainy day. This is a kind of
choice we face many times in life. Parents are all-too aware that young children can't always see this.
They want it both ways. The situation has to be patiently explained to them.

Now the saying, 'You can't have your cake and eat it,' is one familiar consequence of the logical law
of non-contradiction:

It is not the case that (P and not-P)

Husserl argued that the scope of a logical law, like the one I have just quoted, is unrestrictedin a way
that could not be explained if the laws of logic were mere laws of psychology. The law applies to all
objects, all places, all times. If the law of non-contradiction were merely a psychological law
describing the way human beings think when their thinking is unimpaired, then it would be perfectly
possible that we might one day encounter aliens (from the planet Hegel) whose thinking, when
unimpaired according to theirnorms, did not obey the law of non-contradiction. Instead, on the planet
Hegel,it is a law of logic that:

It is not the case that (P or not-P)

'Isn't that absurd!' you might think. Well, I'm not entirely convinced by that argument. The problem is,
that every attempt to justifyour belief that the so-called laws of logic are valid for all objects, all
places, all times turns out to be blatantly circular. It would never convince a determined sceptic. The
bottom line is that we cannot conceive of what it would be to possess the mind of an alien from the
planet Hegel.And the reason is that conceiving is thinking, and we can only think the way we think.
Round and round you go.

In other words, the situation is exactly as it would be if the laws of logic weremerely psychological
laws describing the way human beings feel impelled to think.

I don't think it is fair to say that Husserl failedto refute psychologism. He succeeded (with some
prompting, some would argue, from the mathematician Gottlob Frege) in the lesser task of laying the
foundations for an autonomous discipline of logic, uncontaminated by psychology. And for that he is
rightly remembered.

Geoffrey Klempner