{"id":2813,"date":"2020-11-22T12:09:41","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T12:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/11\/22\/another-thought-on-psychologism\/"},"modified":"2020-11-22T12:09:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T12:09:41","slug":"another-thought-on-psychologism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/11\/22\/another-thought-on-psychologism\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Thought on Psychologism in Logic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Logic is prescriptive and proscriptive.  Logic prescribes how we ought to think if we would arrive at truth. It also proscribes those ways of thinking that lead to error.  But 'ought' implies 'can.' How we ought to think must be really possible, indeed really possible for us, where what is really possible for us is grounded in how we actually<\/em> and contingently<\/em> are. A real possibility of thinking this way or that must be based in actual abilities, actual abilities of real minds in the real order.  The logically normative must be psychologically implementable.  The ideal patterns residing in the \u1f51\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2<\/span><\/strong> of Plato must be realizable in enmattered minds.
<\/span><\/p>\n

There look to be the makings here of an argument for a defensible psychologism.  (Logic cannot be a part of empirical psychology, but how could it have nothing to do with the latter?)
<\/span><\/p>\n

The above train of thought is from a couple of years ago.  (Journal<\/em> vol. XXXIII, pp. 22-23, entry of 4 January 2019) Now I find the following in the Martin Kusch SEP article on psychologism, referenced in the immediately preceding entry:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1. Normative-prescriptive disciplines \u2014 disciplines that tell us what we ought to do \u2014 must be based upon descriptive-explanatory sciences.
2. Logic is a normative-prescriptive discipline concerning human thinking.
3. There is only one science which qualifies as constituting the descriptive-explanatory foundation for logic: empirical psychology.
Ergo<\/em>, logic must be based upon psychology.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The above is the second of five patterns of psychologistic reasoning that Kusch distinguishes.  He attributes it to Wilhelm Wundt<\/a>.  My thought above runs along parallel rails.<\/span><\/p>\n

Logic, prescribing as it does how we OUGHT to think, by the same stroke prescribes how we ought to THINK. The abstract patterns definitive of the oughts<\/em> and ought nots<\/em> of inference may reside in Plato's timeless heaven, but thinking and thus judging is in time and takes time.  Inference, in particular, takes time. Its analog up yonder is implication. And so the abstractly logical must touch ground in the matter of minds in time.  An abstract entity can't think.<\/span><\/p>\n

But a concrete hunk of intracranial meat can't think either. And meat can't mean. Minds mean. If we were just meatheads we couldn't think or mean. Thinking is a psychic function.  Arguably, though, it is not the psyche as objectified and manifest to inner sense that thinks but the psyche as subject<\/em>, the psyche as pre-objective, pre-mundane, and thus transcendental.  But from Descartes on it has proven to be a bear of a task to get a good solid grip on the transcendental. Husserl struggled with it life-long and  yet couldn't drag it out of the dreck into the clear light of day. And where the great Husserl failed we lesser luminaries and flickering lights are even less likely to succeed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Must we regress to the spiritual? But how can we get a grip on it without objectifying it?  We cannot help but reify, but the Cogitans<\/em> is not a res<\/em>, not  spiritual substance.
<\/span><\/p>\n

The noetic as such embraces the logical, the psychological, the transcendental and the spiritual.  <\/span><\/p>\n

On that gnomic note I end this meditation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related: Martin Kusch, Psychologism <\/a><\/span>(from Ralph Dumain's<\/span> Autodidact Project<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logic is prescriptive and proscriptive.  Logic prescribes how we ought to think if we would arrive at truth. It also proscribes those ways of thinking that lead to error.  But 'ought' implies 'can.' How we ought to think must be really possible, indeed really possible for us, where what is really possible for us is … Continue reading “Another Thought on Psychologism in Logic”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-logica-docens","category-psychologism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}