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The Crisis in Psychology
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Binswanger [1922, p. 22] divides all problems of methodology into those due to a natural scientific and those due to a non-natural scientific concept of the mind. He openly and clearly explains that there are two radically different psyehologies. Referring to Sigwart he calls the struggle against natural psychology the source of the split. This leads us to the phenomenology of experiencing, the basis of Husserl’s pure logic and empirical, but non-natural scientific psychology (Pfander,54 Jaspers55).
Bleuler defends the opposite position. He rejects Wundt’s opinion that psychology is not a natural science and, following Rickert, he calls it a generalizing psychology, although he has in mind what Dilthey called explanatory or constructive psychology.
We will not thoroughly examine the question as to how psychology as a natural science is possible and the concepts by means of which it is constructed—all this belongs to the debate within one psychology and it forms the subject of the positive exposition in the next part of our work. What is more, we also leave open another question—whether psychology really is a natural science in the exact sense of the word. Following the European authors we use this word to desiguate the materialistic nature of this kind of knowledge as clearly as possible. Insofar as Western European psychology did not know or hardly knew the problems of social psychology, this kind of knowledge was thought to coincide with natural science. But to demonstrate that psychology is possible as a materialistic science is still a special and very deep problem, which does not, however, belong to the problem of the meaning of the crisis as a whole.
Almost all Russian authors who have written anything of importance about psychology accept the division—from hearsay, of course—which shows the extent to which these ideas are generally accepted in European psychology. Lange (1914), who mentions the disagreement between Windelband and Rickert on the one hand (who regard psychology as a natural science) and Wundt and Dilthey on the other, is inclined with the latter authors to distinguish two sciences. It is remarkable that he criticizes Natorp as an exponent of the idealistic conception of psychology and contrasts him with a realistic or biological understanding. However, according to Munsterberg, Natorp has from the very beginning demanded the same thing he did, i.e., a subjectivating and an objectivating science of the mind, i.e., two sciences.
Lange merged both viewpoints into a single postulate and expounded both irreconcilable tendencies in his book, considering that the meaning of the crisis resides in the struggle with associationism. He explains Dilthey and MUnsterberg with real sympathy and states that “two different psychologies resulted.” Like Janus, psychology showed two different faces: one turned to physiology and natural science, the other to the sciences of the spirit, history, sociology; one science about causal effects, the other about values (ibid., p. 63). It would seem that what remains is to opt for one of the two, but Lange unites them.
Chelpanov proceeded in the same way. In his current polemics he implores us to believe him that psychology is a materialistic science, refers to James as his witness and does not with a single word mention that in the Russian literature the idea of two sciences belongs to him. This deserves further reflection.
Following Dilthey, Stout, Meinong, and Husserl he explains the idea of the analytic method. Whereas the inductive method is distinctive of natural scientific psychology, descriptive psychology is characterized by the analytic method which leads to the knowledge of a priori ideas. Analytic psychology is the basic psychology. It must precede the development of child psychology, zoopsychology, and objective experimental psychology and provide the foundation for all types of psychological

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