Psychologism

2.2.1. The beginnings (1800–70)

The Psychologismusstreit emerges almost simultaneously with the psychological method, having its first chapter in the controversy of Fries (1803) with German idealism. The echoes of this last until 1860 and acquire their paradigmatic summary in the work of Fischer (1862) and the reaction of Meyer (1870), who offers the first great synthesis of the issue and establishes the main axes of its subsequent treatment. Parallel to this, two other important chapters of the Psychologismusstreit take place, one, given within the psychological method own tradition between Fries (1840: 514) and Beneke regarding the distinction of a priori and innate; another between Beneke and the main concurrent of the psychological method at the moment, namely, Herbartianism, with its proposal of philosophy as an analysis of concepts, its emphasis on formal logic and its thesis of the dependence of psychology on metaphysics (Herbart, 1830: 44; Drobisch, 1834: 36; 1842: 7). Bolzano (1837), a seminal figure to establish the basis of anti-psychologism, also belongs to this period.