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Review Essay: Husserl’s Transcendental Solution to the Problem of Psychologism in Psychology

In: Journal of Phenomenological Psychology
Author:
Frederick J. Wertz Fordham University

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Abstract

This essay is a review and critical analysis of Larry Davidson’s volume, Overcoming Psychologism: Husserl and the Transcendental Reform of Psychology, which was originally the authors 1989 dissertation and was published by Springer in 2021. Davidson’s important work is focused on Husserl’s writings on the problem of psychologism from his first major publication in 1900–1901 – the Logical Investigations to his posthumously published Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. This meticulous account, drawn from Husserl’s published writings, recounts the great philosopher’s mighty struggles, progress, and mature resolution with unique emphasis on the significance of the transcendental solution for the science of psychology. Davidson argues compellingly that psychology must reform itself by incorporating transcendental phenomenology if it is to properly contextualize its contributions, incorporate biological and socio-cultural insights into its phenomena, and humbly acknowledge the partiality and incompleteness of its knowledge. The final chapter documents the inadequacies of previous existential-phenomenological psychology, which failed to utilize the transcendental perspective and committed the error of psychologism. Davidson illustrates his thesis in clinical psychology and spells out how transcendental phenomenological analysis may be incorporated in Giorgi’s psychological research method. This review essay closely summarizes Davidson’s eight chapters and epilogue, distills the most important fruits of Husserl’s struggles, focuses on contemporary relevance, and finishes with a critique. Overall, the essay critically affirms Davidson’s thesis concerning the importance of both a transcendental philosophical foundation for psychology and the incorporation of transcendental phenomenological attitude and analyses of all psychological phenomena. However, it is suggested that prior existential-phenomenological psychology can be defended against the accusation of psychologism, given its implicit though unacknowledged inclusion of a transcendental perspective, which is already operative in Giogi’s method when properly practiced. An argument is made for a fuller, more explicit, and self-conscious employment of transcendental phenomenology in the science of psychology.

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