Hanna - Husserls Arguments Against Logical Psycho Log Ism 17-63 of LI

8/4/2019 Hanna - Husserls Arguments Against Logical Psycho Log Ism 17-63 of LI

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/hanna-husserls-arguments-against-logical-psycho-log-ism-17-63-of-li 1/16

3

Robert Hanna

Husserl’s Arguments against

Logical Psychologism

(Prolegomena, §§ 17–61)

3.1. Introduction

According to Edmund Husserl in the Prolegomena to Pure Logic , which

constitutes the preliminary rational oundation or – and also the entirerst volume o – his Logical Investigations , pure logic is the a priori theoreti-cal, nomological science o „demonstration“ (LI 1, 57; Hua XVIII, 23).1

For him, demonstration includes both consequence and provability. Conse-quence is the dening property o all and only ormally valid arguments,i. e., arguments that cannot lead rom true premises to alse conclusions.

And provability (a. k. a. „completeness“) is the property o a logical systemsuch that, or every truth o logic in that system, there is, at least in prin-

ciple, a rigorous step-by-step logically valid procedure demonstrating its validity according to strictly universal, ideal, and necessary logical laws. Inthis way, the laws o pure logic completely determine its internal structure. Moreover, these laws and these proos are all knowable a priori, with sel-evident insight (LI 1, 196; Hua XVIII, 185–195).

So not only is pure logic independent o any other theoretical science,in that it requires no other science in order to ground its core notion o

demonstration, it also provides both epistemic and semantic oundationsor every other theoretical science, as well as every practical discipline or„technology.“ To the extent that pure logic is the oundation o every other

1 Citations o Husserl include an abbreviation o the English title, volume number, and page

number, ollowed by the corresponding volume number o the Husserliana, and correspond-ing page number. The English edition used is Findlay’s translation o the Logical Investigations

(1970, = LI). I generally ollow the English translation, but have occasionally modied it where

appropriate.



28 Robert Hanna

theoretical science, it is the „theory o science“ (Wissenschatslehre) in

Bolzano’s sense o that term (LI 1, 60; Hua XVIII, 27), the „science which

deals with the ideal essence o science as such“ (LI 1, 236; Hua XVIII, 244),and thus the science o science.

Logical Psychologism, or LP, is a particularly strong version o the denialthat pure logic is an independent and absolutely oundational science. LP was a widely held view in the second hal o the 19 th century, grew out o theneo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian traditions alike, and is closely associated

with the origins o empirical psychology as an autonomous discipline (Kusch1995). Husserl’s arguments against LP in chapters 1–8 o the Prologemena,oten reerred to simply as Husserl’s „reutation“ o LP, constitute one o

the most amous and broadly infuential critical set pieces in 20th century philosophy, comparable in these respects to W. V. O. Quine’s attack on theanalytic-synthetic distinction in Two Dogmas o Empiricism published almost

exactly ty years ater the Prolegomena. In this connection, it is surely by nomeans a historical or philosophical accident that the original working titleo another one o Quine’s amous and closely-related essays rom the same

period was Epistemology Naturalized: Or, the Case or Psychologism (Kusch1995, 11). By the 1950s, psychologism was making a serious comeback inepistemology, i not in the philosophy o logic. But radically unlike Quine’s

seminal papers (Quine 1961, Quine 1969, Quine 1976a, Quine 1976b), which are still widely read, studied, and taught in contemporary North American and European departments o philosophy, Husserl’s Prolegomena nowadays is rarely read or studied, and even more rarely taught. To the

extent that the debate between LP and anti-psychologism is still an issue, itis the logico-philosophical writings o Gottlob Frege that are taken as theseminal texts on anti-psycholgism.

It is obvious that Husserl’s conception o pure logic shares much withFrege’s conception o pure logic in his 1879 Begrisschrit and other manu-scripts he was working on in the 1880s and 90s (Frege 1979), even allow-

ing or dierences in the ormal details o their logical theories. It is alsoobvious that Husserl’s critique o LP shares much with Frege’s critique o

LP in his 1884 Foundations o Arithmetic and the Foreword o his 1893 Basic Laws o Arithmetic , and that there is a direct, important, infuential rela-tionship between Frege’s devastating 1894 review o Husserl’s Philosophy o Arithmetic (Frege 1984) and Husserl’s lengthy and passionate deense o his

conception o pure logic against LP. Indeed, this is all explicitly concededby Husserl in the second hal o an unintentionally ironic ootnote buriedaway almost exactly in the middle o the Prolegomena (LI 1, 179, n. 2; Hua XVIII, 172, n. 2).



29Husserl’s Arguments against Logical Psychologism

But whatever the precise nature o Frege’s infuence on Husserl himsel,

and whatever the contemporary status o Frege’s anti-psychologistic writ-

ings, Husserl’s arguments against LP in chapters 3–8 o the Prolegomena areindependently philosophically interesting, and in act they had a massively

greater intellectual and proessional impact on the development o Germanand European philosophy in the rst hal o the 20th century, than Frege’sarguments did (Kusch 1995, chs. 1, 3, 4). Moreover, and perhaps mostimportantly, as we shall see in section IV, one o the deepest problems in

the philosophy o logic arises directly rom Husserl’s arguments againstLP. Husserl’s two-part response to this deep problem oers a prima aciecompelling line o argument to which contemporary philosophers o logic

and philosophical logicians should pay close attention.

3.2. What LP is, and its Three Cardinal Sins

According to Husserl, LP is the thesis that

„the essential theoretical oundations o logic lie in psychology,in whose eld those propositions belong – as ar as their theoreti-cal content is concerned – which give logic its specic character(Gepräge).“ (LI 1, 90; Hua XVIII, 63)

In this way, LP is the thesis that logic is explanatorily reducible to empiricalpsychology (Hanna 2006, ch. 1), in the strong, dual sense that

(i) a complete knowledge o the empirical, natural acts and causallaws with which empirical psychology deals would yield a complete a

priori knowledge o the existence and specic character o logic, and

(ii) the empirical, natural acts and causal laws with which empiricalpsychology deals strictly determine the existence and specic charac-ter o logic.

Or in other words, according to LP, logic is nothing over and above empiri-

cal psychology. This does not entail that empirical psychologists o logicare themselves logicians, but instead only that whatever it is that logiciansknow about logic, can in principle be known by empirical psychologists wholly and solely by virtue o their knowing all the empirical, natural actsand causal laws that are relevant to logical thinking.

Husserl’s presentation o LP proceeds by means o a lengthy and some-times repetitive critical exposition o the views o the leading recent andexponents o LP, including Mill, Bain, Spencer, Wundt, Sigwart, Erdmann,



30 Robert Hanna

Lange, Lipps, Mach, and Avenarius. Against the „psychologicists,“ Husserl

explicitly aligns himsel with Leibniz, Kant, Herbart, Bolzano, Lotze, and

(somewhat more covertly, as I noted above) Frege. In the crucial case o Kant, however, there is some apparent equivocation, when in a ootnote

Husserl asserts that „even transcendental psychology also is psychology“ (LI1, 122, n.1; Hua XVIII, 102, n. 3). This apparent equivocation on Husserl’spart can perhaps be explained away by distinguishing between Kant’s theory o logic, which is explicitly and strongly anti-psychologistic (Hanna 2001,

71–76), and neo-Kantian theories o logic, which are arguably psychologis-tic. I this is correct, then Husserl is not really equivocating; instead, he isattributing psychologism to the mere ollowers (a. k. a. „epigones“) o Kant,

but not to Kant himsel, who would on the contrary be historically andrhetorically aligned with Husserl’s own anti-psychologism.

Quite apart rom the historical and rhetorical vehicle o Husserl’s critique

o LP, however, its underlying content and structure involve, rst, a pair-wisecontrastive characterization o LP’s conception o logic over and againstHusserl’s own conception o pure logic, and then second, a set o critical

arguments showing how LP either ails by external rational standards orinternally reutes itsel. The pair-wise contrastive characterization o logicaccording to LP versus pure logic according to Husserl can be summarized

as ollows:

Logic according to LP is: Pure Logic according to Husserl is:

contingent necessary

based on particulars based on real universals

based on empirical acts based on non-empirical essencesconcretely real abstractly idealgoverned by causal laws governed by strictly universal laws

conditional unconditionalbelie-based truth-basedbased on relativized, subjective truth based on absolute, objective truth

known by sense experience known by sel-evident insight

a posteriori a prioriempirical non-empirical

instrumentally normative categorically normative

It should be especially noticed that the items on the let-hand side all dier

rom the corresponding items on the right hand side not in degree butrather in kind . In each pairing, some extra non-natural or ideal property has been added by Husserl to the right-hand item o that pair in order to




distinguish it in kind rom the corresponding item on the let-hand side.

The extra properties attributed by Husserl to pure logic are „non-natural“

or „ideal“ in two senses. First, none o the extra properties is to be ound inthe physical, spatiotemporal world. Second, none o the extra properties is

knowable by experiential, experimental methods. So according to Husserl,pure logic is uniquely characterizable in terms o a set o special non-natu-ral or ideal kinds to which LP has no ontological access (since LP has accessonly to the physical, spatiotemporal world) or explanatory access (since LP

has access only to concepts and belies that are generated by experiential,experimental methods). This catalogue o sharply opposed conceptions o logic is then strategically exploited by Husserl in his three basic charges

against LP – as it were, the three „cardinal sins“ o LP.Husserl’s rst basic charge against LP is that LP is committed to what I

will call Modal Reductionism about Logic or MRL, which says logical laws and

logical truths are explanatorily reducible to merely causal laws and merely contingent, probabilistic truths:

„The task o psychology is to investigate the laws governing thereal connections o mental events with one another, as well as withrelated mental dispositions and corresponding events in the bodily

organism […]. Such connections are causal. The task o logic isquite dierent. It does not inquire into the causal origins or conse-quences o intellectual activities, but into their truth-content.“ (LI

1, 93–94; Hua XVIII, 67)„Laws o thought, as causal laws governing acts o knowledge in

their mental interweaving, could only be stated in the orm o prob-abilities.“ (LI 1, 101; Hua XVIII, 76)

Logical laws according to Husserl are necessary rules, and logical truth

according to Husserl is necessary truth. On the classical Leibnizian account,a rule or proposition is logically necessary i and only i it is true in every „possible world,“ i. e., in every total set o „compossible“ or essentially mutually consistent substances, insoar as this compossibility is completely

envisioned by God. Sometimes this Leibnizian, or theocentric, type o logical necessity is also called metaphysical necessity. By contrast, on the clas-sical Kantian account, a rule or proposition is logically necessary i and only

i it is „strictly universal“ and also „analytic,“ i. e., it is true in a completeclass o humanly conceivable variants on the actual experienced world,there is no humanly conceivable variant on the actual experienced world

which is an admissible counterexample to it, and its denial would entaila contradiction (Hanna 2001, chs. 3 and 5). Sometimes this Kantian, or



32 Robert Hanna

anthropocentric, type o logical necessity is also called conceptual necessity.

Otherwise put now , and regardless o whether the necessity is construed

as metaphysical necessity (Leibnizian or theocentric logical necessity) or asconceptual necessity (Kantian or anthropocentric logical necessity), logical

laws and logical truths, as necessary, are always absolutely or unrestrictedlytrue. By sharp contrast, merely causal laws and merely probabilistic lawsare inherently restricted by brute acts about the actual world. As Humepointed out, there is no absolute guarantee that any causal law, no matter

how generally it holds in the actual world o sensory experiences, will always hold. And mere probabilities, no matter how probable, are always less than1. So Husserl’s rst basic charge against LP, or MRL, says that by explana-

torily reducing logical laws and logical truths to merely causal laws andmerely contingent, probabilistic truths, LP radically restricts the scope o pure logical truth.

Husserl’s second basic charge against LP is that LP is committed to whatI will call Epistemic Empiricism about Logic or EEL, which says that logicalknowledge is explanatorily reducible to merely a posteriori knowledge:

„[According to LP] no natural laws can be known a priori , nor estab-lished by sheer insight. The only way in which a natural law can be

established and justied, is by induction rom the singular acts o experience.“ (LI 1, 99; Hua XVIII, 73 .)„On this basis [o LP], no assertion could be certainly judged correct,

since probabilities, taken as the standard o all certainty, mustimpress a merely probabilistic stamp on all knowledge.“ (LI 1, 101;

Hua XVIII, 76)

Logical knowledge according to Husserl is a priori knowledge and also certainknowledge. A priori knowledge, in turn, is belie that is suciently justied

by evidence which is underdetermined by all sets and sorts o sensory expe-riences, possibly also including evidence that includes no sensory experi-ence whatsoever and is rationally „pure.“ Certain knowledge is indubitablebelie, i. e., belie that is not open to reutation by actual or possible coun-

terexamples, and more particularly not open to reutation by sensory expe-riences or actual statistics. So Husserl’s second basic charge against LP,or EEL, says that LP radically underestimates the epistemic orce o pure

logical knowledge.Husserl’s third basic charge against LP is that it is committed to what I

will call Skeptical Relativism about Logic , or SRL, which says that logical laws,

logical necessary truth, and logical knowedge are explanatorily reducible




to either individually-held belies (individual relativism) or species-specic

belies (specic relativism):

„In order to criticize psychologism we have […] to discuss the

concept o subjectivism or relativism, which is also part o the above-mentioned [skeptical] theory. One o its original orms is caughtin the Protagorean ormula: ‚man is the measure o all things,‘

provided this last is interpreted as saying ‚The individual man isthe measure o all truth.‘ For each man that is true which seems tohim true, one thing to one man and the opposite to another, i that

is how he sees it. We can thereore opt or the ormula ‚All truth(and knowledge) is relative‘ – relative to the contingently judgingsubject. I, however, instead o such a subject, we make some contin-gent species o judging beings the pivot o our relations, we achieve a

new orm o relativism. Man as such is then the measure o all truth.Every judgment whose roots are to be ound in what is specifc toman, in the constitutive laws o man as species – is a true judgment,

or us human beings. To the extent that such judgments belong tothe orm o common human subjectivity, the term ‚subjectivism‘ isin place here too (in talk o the subjectas the ultimate source o

knowledge, etc.). It is best to employ the term ‚relativism‘, and todistinguish individual rom specifc relativism. The restriction o thelatter to the human species, stamps it as anthropologism.“ (LI 1, 138;

Hua XVIII, 122)

Relativism – or more precisely, cognitive relativism, which is about theoreti-

cal belies and truth, as opposed to moral relativism, which is about ethicalbelies and principles o conduct – says that truth is determined by belie or opinion. There are two distinct types o cognitive relativism. On the

one hand, individual cognitive relativism says that truth is determined by individual belies or opinions (= subjective truth); and on the other hand, specifc cognitive relativism or anthropologism says that truth is determinedby belies or opinions that are either the result o human agreement (=

truth by mutual contract, or truth by general convention) or are innately biologically specied in all human beings (= truth by instinct). According toHusserl, logical truth is objective truth, hence mind-independent truth, hence

truth that is inherently resistant to determination by any merely subjec-tive, contractual, conventional, or biological acts. So Husserl’s third basiccharge against LP, or SRL, says that LP implies a mistaken and indeed

ultimately skeptical theory o the determination o truth.



34 Robert Hanna

3.3. Husserl’s Three Basic Arguments against LP

Corresponding to the three „cardinal sins“ o LP, Husserl develops threebasic arguments against it. It is possible to spell out Husserl’s arguments instep-by-step detail (Hanna 1993; Kusch 1995, ch. 3). But or our purposes

here, it is necessary only to cite Husserl’s ormulations o the arguments,describe their general orm, and then oer a brie exposition o Husserl’sunderlying rationale or each argument.

3.3.1. Husserl’s Argument against LP rom its Modal Reductionism

about Logic (MRL)

Here is what Husserl says about MRL:

„[According to LP] logical laws, must accordingly, without excep-

tion rank as mere probabilities. Nothing, however, seems plainerthan that the laws o ‚pure logic‘ all have a priori validity.“ (LI 1, 99;

Hua XVIII, 74)„The psychologistic logicians ignore the undamental, essential,never-to-be bridged gul between ideal and real laws, between norma-tive and causal regulation, between logical and real necessity, between

logical and real grounds. No conceivable gradation could mediatebetween the ideal and the real.“ (LI 1, 104; Hua XVIII, 80)

Here is the general orm o Husserl’s anti-MRL argument:

(1) LP entails MRL.

(2) MRL is inconsistent with the existence and specically modal char-

acter o pure logic – in particular, MRL is inconsistent with theabsolute necessity o pure logical laws and pure logical truths.

(3) Thereore, LP is alse.

And here is the underlying rationale or Husserl’s anti-MRL argument.

Given Husserl’s characterization o the modal character o pure logic,it ollows that pure logical laws and pure logical truths are absolutely or

unrestrictedly true, regardless o whether this absolute truth is construed,Leibniz-wise, as metaphysical necessity, or else construed, Kant-wise,as conceptual necessity. Now i LP is correct, then MRL is correct, andthen logical laws and logical truths are non-absolutely or restrictedly true

precisely because they are restricted to the actual world . But logical laws andlogical truths are absolutely or unrestrictedly true. So LP must be alse.




3.3.2. Husserl’s Argument against LP

rom its Epistemic Empiricism about Logic (EEL)

Here is what Husserl says about EEL:

„[The laws o pure logic] are established and justied, not by induc-

tion, but by apodeictic inner sel-evidence. Insight justies no mereprobabilities o their holding, but their holding or truth itsel.“ (LI1, 99; Hua XVIII, 74)

„The justied possibility o [the exact actual sciences] becomes

the absurdity o [pure logic]. We have insight into, not merely theprobability, but the truth o logical laws. Against the truth that isitsel grasped with insight, the strongest psychologistic argument

cannot prevail; probability cannot wrestle with truth, nor surmise with insight.“ (LI 1, 100; Hua XVIII, 75)„How plausible the ready suggestions o psychologistic refection

sound. Logical laws are laws or validation, proos. What are vali-dations but perculiar human trains o thought, in which, in normal

circumstances, the nally emergent judgments seem endowed with anecessarily consequential character. This character is itsel a mentalone, a peculiar mode o mindedness and no more […]. How couldanything beyond empirical generalities result in such circumstances?

Where has psychology yielded more? We reply: Psychology certainly does not yield more, and cannot or this reason yield the apodeic-tically evident and so metempirical and absolutely exact laws which

orm the core o all logic.“ (LI 1,100–101; Hua XVIII, 75 .)Here is the general orm o Husserl’s anti-EEL argument:

(1) LP entails EEL.

(2) EEL is inconsistent with the existence and specically epistemic character o pure logic – in particular, EEL is inconsistent with the

sel-evident insights o pure logical knowledge, which are both apriori and certain.


And here is the underlying rationale or Husserl’s anti-EEL argument.Given Husserl’s characterization o the epistemic character o pure logic, itollows that logical belies are suciently justied by sel-evident insights,

i. e., rational intuitions. Sel-evident insights, or rational intuitions, are apriori or non-empirical, and i not strictly inallible, then at least certainand indubitable. Now i LP is correct, then EEL is correct, and then even



36 Robert Hanna

suciently justied logical belies are all a posteriori or empirical, alli-

ble, and dubitable. But suciently justied logical belies are a priori and

certain or indubitable. So LP must be alse.

3.3.3. Husserl’s Argument against LP rom its Skeptical Relativism

about Logic (SRL)

Here is what Husserl says about SRL:

„[The individual relativist] will naturally reply: My theory expressesmy standpoint, what is true or me, and need be true or no oneelse. Even the subjective act o his thinking he will treat as true or

himsel and not as true in itsel […] The content o such assertionsrejects what is part o the sense or content o every assertion and what accordingly cannot be signicantly separated rom any asser-

tion.“ (LI, 1, 139; Hua XVIII, 123)„Specic relativism makes the assertion: Anything is true or a

given species o judging beings that, by their constitution and lawso thought, must count as true. This doctrine is absurd. For it is

part o its sense that the same proposition or content o judgmentcan be true or a subject o the same species […], but may be alseor another subject o a dierently constituted species. The same

content o judgment cannot, however, be both true and alse: thisollows rom the mere sense o ‚true‘ and ‚alse‘. I the relativist givesthese words their appropriate meaning, this thesis is in confict with

its own sense […]. ‚Truth or this or that species,‘ e. g., or the humanspecies, is, as here meant, an absurd mode o speech. It can no doubtbe used in good sense, but then it means something wholly dierent,

i. e., the circle o truths to which man as such has access. What is trueabsolutely, intrinsically true: truth is one and the same, whether menor non-men, angels or gods apprehend it. Logical laws speak o this

ideal unity, set over against the real multiplicity o races, individuals,

and experiences, and it is o this ideal unity that we all speak when weare not conused by relativism.“ (LI 1, 140; Hua XVIII, 125)

Here is the general orm o Husserl’s anti-SRL argument:

(1) LP entails SRL.

(2) SRL is sel-reuting, given the act o the existence and specically

alethic (i. e., truth-based) character o pure logic – in particular,

SRL is inconsistent with the objectivity o the truths o pure logic.





And here is the underlying rational or Husserl’s anti-SRL argument. GivenHusserl’s characterization o the alethic character o pure logic, it ollows

that logical truth is objective, or mind-independent, and inherently resis-tant to determination by merely subjective, contractual, conventional, orbiological acts. Now i LP is correct, then SRL is correct, and then truth is

either individually relativized or specically relativized. Suppose that truthis individually relativized. Then whatever anyone believes or opines is true,is true. This includes the person who believes or opines that LP is alse. So i

truth is individually relativized, then LP is both true (relative to the deendero LP) and alse (relative to the critic o LP) and thus sel-contradictory.Suppose, alternatively, that truth is specically relativized. Then there canbe other communities, or other species, that say radically dierent and

opposing things about the nature o truth. This is the possibility o concep-tual, semantic, and theoretical incommensurability. But given the possibility o conceptual, semantic, and theoretical incommensurability, it ollows that

these other communities or other species are really talking about somethingother than what we mean by „truth“ – instead, they are really talking about schmuth, or whatever. But truth, ater all, is objective or mind-independent.

So i truth is specically relativized, then these other communities or otherspecies are not actually disagreeing with us about truth, since they are talk-ing about something other than truth. To summarize: I LP is correct, then

SRL is correct, and i SRL is correct, then it is either sel-contradictory ortalking about something other than truth. So LP must be alse.

3.3.4. Has Husserl Begged the Question against LP? The Logocen-

tric Predicament, and a Husserlian Way Out

It should be very clear rom the previous section that Husserl’s three basic

arguments against LP all have the same general orm, and that they alldirectly invoke non-natural or ideal acts about the specic character o

pure logic, whether modal, epistemic, or alethic. But it can be objectedthat Husserl only ever asserts that pure logic exists and also has the severalnon-natural or ideal specic characters he attributes to it, and that he neveractually justifes this assertion. In this way, on the ace o it, Husserl seems

to have merely begged the question against LP.2

2 The question-begging objection was rst made in 1901 by Paul Natorp. See Natorp 1977,

57. See also Hanna 2006, ch. 1; and Kusch 1995, ch. 4.



38 Robert Hanna

But has he? It is equally clear that Husserl would reply to this charge by

saying that he has not begged the question against LP. Instead, and on the

contrary, what he has done is to show that and also precisely how the exis-tence and specic character o pure logic is covertly presupposed and used,

even by the deenders o LP:

„Logic […] can as little rest on psychology as on any other science;

since each science is only a science in virtue o its harmony with logi-cal rules, it presupposes the validity o these rules. It would there-ore be circular to try to give logic a rst oundation in psychology.“

(LI 1, 95; Hua XVIII, 69)

In other words, since LP is a theory, it all under logical constraints,e. g., laws o logical consistency, laws o logical consequence, and theinerential justication o its theses and belies. So LP covertly invokes pure logic, just as every other theory and every science explicitly orimplicitly invokes pure logic.

But given this line o argument, as Husserl himsel anticipates, the

deenders o LP have one last arrow in their quiver, and it is a very sharpone indeed:

„The opposition will reply: That this argument cannot be right, isshown by the act that it would prove the impossibility o all logic.

Since logic itsel must proceed logically, it would itsel commit thesame circle, would itsel have to establish the validity o rules that itpresupposes.“ (LI 1, 95; Hua XVIII, 69)

In other words, the deenders o LP will retreat to the charge that in hisshowing pure logic to be what is covertly presupposed and used by the

deenders o LP, Husserl has himsel run up against one o the deepestproblems in the philosophy o logic, namely, the explanatory and justifcatorycircularity o logic – or what the Harvard logician Harry Sheer later very

aptly called the „logocentric predicament“:

„The attempt to ormulate the oundations o logic is rendered

arduous by a […] ‚logocentric‘ predicament. In order to give anaccount o logic, we must presuppose and employ logic.“(Sheer1926, 228)

A specic version o the Logocentric Predicament is Lewis Carroll’s amousskeptical argument, published in Mind in 1895 – and which Husserl may

well have read, or at least have read about – which says that that any attemptto generate the total list o premises required to deduce the conclusion




o a valid argument leads to a vicious regress (Carroll 1895). But or our

purposes here, the Logocentric Predicament is just this:

How can pure logic in Husserl’s sense ever be explained or justied,

i every explanation or justication whatsoever both presupposesand uses pure logic in Husserl’s sense?

How will Husserl respond to the Logocentric Predicament? One possi-ble way out o the Logocentric Predicament would be or Husserl just to

concede that pure logic is explanatorily and justicationally groundless , inthe manner o the imaginary mock-logician invented by Carroll, Twee-

dledee:

„I it was so, it might be; and i it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t,it ain’t. That’s logic.“ (Carroll 1988)

But then Husserl would have no rational deense against LP and no rational response to the Logocentric Predicament. And it would clearly be sel-

stultiying or Husserl to deend anti-psychologism and to respond to theLogocentric Predicament by lapsing into a non-rational , or as it were fdeist, approach to the oundations o pure logic, which by Husserl’s own reckon-

ing – not to mention by an historical and rhetorical appeal to the authority o Kant’s theory o logic – is supposed to provide categorically normativelaws o rationality. It made good sense or Kant to claim in the Preace to

the Critique o Pure Reason that in order to make room or moral aith inreedom o the will, he had to „deny“ or limit our scientic knowledge o universal natural determinism; but it would make no sense or Husserl to

say that in order to make room or pure logic, he had to deny rationality.Husserl’s actual strategy o response to the Logocentric Predicament has

two parts. First, he distinguishes careully between reasoning according tological rules, and reasoning rom logical rules:

„Let us, however, consider more closely what such a circle would

consist in. Could it mean that psychology presupposes the validity o logical laws? Here one must notice the equivocation in the notion

o ‚presupposing‘. That a science presupposes the validity o certainrules may mean that they serve as premises in its proos: it may alsomean that they are rules in accordance with which the science mustproceed in order to be a science at all. Both are conounded in ourargument or which reasoning according to logical rules, and reason-

ing rom logical rules, count as identical. There would be a circleonly i the reasoning were rom such rules. But, as many an artist works without the slightest knowledge o aesthetics, so an investi-



40 Robert Hanna

gation may construct proos without ever having recourse to logic.

Logical laws cannot thereore have been premises in such proos.

And what is true o single proos is likewise true o whole sciences.“(LI 1, 95; Hua XVIII, 69 .)

What Husserl is saying is that it is only i one mistakenly conuses reason-ing according to logical rules and reasoning rom logical rules that one

will also cite those logical rules as axiomatic premises in one’s argument,and thereby encounter the circularity problem. But logical rules can beperectly legitimately used in proos without also citing or mentioning them

as premises in those very proos. Indeed, the very idea o natural deduction systems , later discovered by Gerhard Gentzen, is based on this act (Gent-zen 1969). Furthermore, that Husserlian observation seems to be precisely

the right reply to make to Carroll’s vicious regress version o the Predica-ment (Hanna 2006).

But I think that Husserl is also making an even deeper point than this

one. His deeper point is that it is not only possible but necessary, given ourcommitment to human rationality, to conceive o the laws o pure logic as supreme constructive categorically normative logical meta-principles , telling ushow we unconditionally ought to go about constructing all possible lower-

order logical principles or rules, all possible lower-order logical proos, allpossible lower-order logical systems, all possible lower-order exact scien-tic principles or rules, all possible lower-order exact scientic proos,

and all possible lower-order exact sciences themselves. It is to be particu-larly emphasized that this does not mean that the lower-order sciences are

supposed to be deduced rom these supreme meta-principles, construed asaxiomatic premises. Instead and on the contrary, the lower-order sciencesare all simply constructed and operated according to these supreme constructivecategorically normative meta-principles. This deeper point, in turn, leads

directly to the second step o Husserl’s response to the Predicament.Second, then, Husserl explicitly addresses the issue o how to character-

ize the explanatory and justicatory status o pure logic, when we assume we must always reason according to (i. e., not rom) the laws o pure logic

conceived as supreme constructive (i. e., not deductive) categorically norma-tive (i. e., not instrumental, causal, or merely descriptive) meta-principles(i. e., not lower-order principles) that tell us how we unconditionally ought

to construct rst-order exact sciences, including all rst-order logicalsystems. Here is what he says:

„[The uniying aim or purpose o pure logic] is the ideal o a perva-sive, all-embracing rationality. I all matters o act obey laws, there




must be some minimum set o laws, o the highest generality […].3 These ‚basic laws‘ are, accordingly, laws o supreme coverage and

ecacy, whose knowledge yields the maximum o insight in someeld, which permits the explanation o all that is in any way expli-cable in that eld. […] This goal or principle o maximum rational-ity we recognize with insight to be the supreme goal o the rational

sciences. It is sel-evident that we would be better or us to knowlaws more general than those which, at a given time, we already possess, or such laws would lead us back to grounds deeper and

more embracing. Plainly, however, our principle is no mere biologi-cal principle, or principle o thought-economy: it is a purely ideal principle, an eminently normative one […]. The ideal drit o logi-cal thinking is as such towards rationality.“ (LI 1, 208; Hua XVIII,

209 .)

In other words, Husserl is arguing that insoar as we must always reasonaccording to pure logic, and insoar as the laws o pure logic are conceivedas supreme constructive categorically normative meta-principles orconstructing all lower-order exact sciences, then it ollows that pure logic

is the necessary a priori condition o the possibility o any explanationor justication whatsoever, in the sense that it is innately constitutive o

human rationality.

This argument assumes, as a „transcendental act,“ that we are rationalhuman animals, and that as a consequence our maniest capacity or gener-ating and using pure logic in the cognitive or practical construction o any

explanation or justication whatsoever belongs innately to our cognitiveand practical rational human nature. Thereore pure logic exists and alsohas the specic character attributed to it by Husserl. In turn, rom this

„transcendental argument rom rationality“ it would also directly ollowthat Husserl’s arguments against LP are sound.

Whether or not one ultimately accepts a Husserl-style transcendental

rationalist solution to the Logocentric Predicament (Hanna 2006, chs 3,7),and whether or not one ultimately accepts Husserl’s correspondingly robustreinorcement o his arguments against LP, which might otherwise seem tobe question-begging, nevertheless Husserl’s response to the Logocentric

Predicament is at least prima acie compelling. It thereore provides an

3 In the elided passage, Husserl seems to be asserting precisely what he himsel had earlierrejected in his response to the circularity objection – namely, that the laws o pure logic are

themselves axiomatic premises in deductive proos. But charitably interpreted, this must be a

mere slip. Even Husserl nods.



42 Robert Hanna

independently sucient reason or contemporary philosophers o logic and

philosophical logicians to re-read and seriously reconsider Husserl’s Prole-

gomena to Pure Logic . Husserl’s Prolegomena §§ 17–61 provides a classic, andarguably independently deensible, deense o anti-psychologism. One can

oresee a day when every History o Twentieth Century Philosophy courseeverywhere will begin its list o Required Readings with selections romthe Prolegomena, alongside the amiliar selections rom Frege, and whenQuine’s so-called „reutation“ o the analytic-synthetic distinction will also

be compelled to ace up to the Logocentric Predicament.

Literature

Carroll, L. 1895: „What the Tortoise Said to Achilles,“ in: Mind 4, 278–280.

Carroll, L. 1988: Through the Looking-Glass, New York.

Frege, G. 1979: „Logic [1897]“, in: Frege, G: Posthumous Writings, trans. P. Long et al.,Chicago, 127–151.

Frege, G. 1984: „Review o E. G. Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik I,“ in: Frege, G:

Collected Papers in Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy, trans. M. Black et al., Oxord,195–209.

Gentzen, G. 1969: „Investigations into Logical Deduction,“ in: Gentzen, G.: The CollectedPapers o Gerhard Gentzen, trans. M. Szabo, Amsterdam, 68–131.

Hanna, R. 1993: „Logical Cognition: Husserl’s Prolegomena and the Truth in Psychologism,“in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53, 251–275.

Hanna, R. 2001 Kant and the Foundations o Analytic Philosophy, Oxord.

Hanna, R. 2006: Rationality and Logic, Cambridge, MA.

Husserl, E. 1970: Logical Investigations, trans. J. N. Findlay, 2 vols., London.

Kusch, M. 1995: Psychologism, London.Natorp, P. 1977: „On the Question o Logical Method in Relation to Edmund Husserl’s Prole-

gomena to Pure Logic,“ in: Mohanty, J. N (ed.): Readings on Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations , The Hague, 55–66.

Quine, W. V. O. 1961: „Two Dogmas o Empiricism,“ in: Quine, W. V. O.: From a LogicalPoint o View, 2nd edn., New York, 20–46.

Quine, W. V. O. 1969: „Epistemology Naturalized,“ in: Quine, W. W. O.: Ontological Relativ-ity, New York, 69–90.

Quine, W. V. O. 1976a: „Truth by Convention,“ in: Quine, W.V.O.: The Ways o Paradox, 2nd

edn., Cambridge, MA, 77–106.Quine, W. V. O. 1976b: „Carnap and Logical Truth,“ in: Quine, W.V.O. : The Ways o Para-

dox, 2nd edn., Cambridge, MA, 107–132.

Sheer, H. M. 1926: „Review o Principia Mathematica, Volume I, second edition,“ in: Isis 8,226–231.

Hanna - Husserls Arguments Against Logical Psycho Log Ism 17-63 of LI

Documents

Transcript of Hanna - Husserls Arguments Against Logical Psycho Log Ism 17-63 of LI