nomenology. Husserl himself prefers to confine himself to an adjective in order to preserve the purity of his science and he talks about “eidetic psychology.” But Binswanger [1922, p. 135] openly writes: we must distinguish “between pure phenomenology and . . . empirical phenomenology (= descriptive psychology)” and bases this on the adjective “pure” introduced by Husserl himself. The sign of equality is written down in a highly mathematical fashion. If we recall that Lotze called psychology applied mathematics; that Bergson in his definition almost identified empirical metaphysics with psychology; that Husserl wishes to regard pure phenomenology as a metaphysical theory about essences (Binswanger, 1922), then we will understand that idealistic psychology itself has both a tradition and a tendency to abandon a decrepit and compromised name. And Dilthey explains that explanatory psychology goes back to Wolff’s rational psychology, and descriptive psychology, to empirical psychology.

It is true, some idealists are against attaching this name to natural scientific psychology. Thus, Frank [1917/1964, pp. 15-16] uses harsh words to point out that two different sciences are living under a single name, writing that

It is not at all a matter of the more or less scientific nature of two different methods of a single science, but of simply supplanting one science by a totally different one, which though it has retained some weak traces of kinship with the first, has essentially a totally different subject . . . Present-day psychology declares itself to be a natural science . . .. This means that contemporary so-called psychology is not at all psycho-logy, but physio-logy . . . The excellent term ‘~‘sychology”—theory of the soul—was simply illegally stolen and used as a title for a completely different scientific field. It has been stolen so thoroughly that when you now think about the nature of the soul. . .you are doing something which is destined to remain nameless or for which one must invent some new term.

But even the current distorted name “psychology” does not correspond to its essence for three quarters of it—it is psychophysics and psychophysiology. And the new science he wants to call philosophical psychology in order to “revive the real meaning of the term ‘psychology’ and give it back to its legitimate owner after the theft mentioned before, which already cannot be redeemed directly” [ibid., p. 36].

We see the remarkable fact that reflexology, which strives to break with “alchemy,” and philosophy, which wishes to contribute to the resurrection of the rights of psychology in the old, literal and precise meaning of this word, are both looking for a new term and remain nameless. What is even more remarkable is that their motives are identical. Some fear the traces of its materialistic origin in this name, others fear that it lost its old, literal and precise meaning. Can we find a—stylistically—better manifestation of the dualism of contemporary psychology? However, Frank also agrees that natural scientific psychology has stolen the name irredeemably and thoroughly. And we propose that it is the materialistic branch which must call itself psychology. There are two important considerations which speak in favor of this and against the radicalism of the reflexologists. Firstly, it is exactly the materialistic branch which forms the crown of all genuinely scientific tendencies, eras, currents, and authors which are represented in the histozy of our science, i.e., it is indeed psychology according to its very essence. Secondly, by accepting this name, the new psychology does not at all ‘steal’ it, does not distort its meaning, nor does it commit itself to the mythological traces which are preserved in it, but, on the contrary, it retains a vivid historical reminder of its whole development from the very starting point.

Let us start with the second consideration.

Psychology as a science of the soul, in Frank’s sense, in the precise and old sense of the word, does not exist. He himself is forced to ascertain this after he convinced himself with amazement and almost despair that such literature is vir