The Crisis in Psychology

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All basic concepts and categories are interpreted in various ways. The crisis touches upon the very foundations of the science.

(2) The crisis is destructive, but wholesome. It reveals the growth of the science, its enrichment, its force, not its impotence or bankruptcy. The serious nature of the crisis is caused by the fact that the territory of psychology lies between sociology and biology, between whith Kant wanted to divide it.

(3) Not a single psychological work is possible without first establishing the basic principles of this science. One should lay the foundations before starting to build.

(4) Finally, the common goal is to elaborate a new theory—a “renewed system of the science.” However, Lange’s understanding of this goal is entirely incorrect. For him it is “the critical evaluation of all contemporary currents and the attempt to reconcile them” (Lange, 1914, p. 43). And he tried to reconcile what cannot be reconciled: Husserl and biological psychology; together with James he attacked Spencer and with Dilthey be renounced biology. For him the idea of a possible reconciliation followed from the idea that “a revolution took place” “against asso ciationism and physiological psychology” (ibid., p. 47) and that all new currents are connected by a common starting point and goal. That is why he gives a global characteristic of the crisis as an earthquake, a swampy area, etc. For him “a period of chaos has commenced” and the task is reduced to the “critique and logical elaboration” of the various opinions engendered by a common cause. This is a picture of the crisis as it was sketched by the participants in the struggle of the 1870s. Lange’s personal attempt is the best evidence for the struggle between the real operative forces which determine the crisis. He regards the combination of subjective and objective psychology as a necessary postulate of psychology, rather than as a topic of discussion and a problem. As a result he introduces this dualism into his whole system. By contrasting his realistic or biological understanding of the mind with Natorp’s48 [1904] idealistic conception, he in fact accepts the existence of two psychologies, as we will see below.

But the most curious thing is that Ebbinghaus, whom Lange considers to be an associationist, i.e., a pre-critical psychologist, defines the crisis more correctly. In his opinion the relative imperfection of psychology is evident from the fact that the debates concerning almost all of the most general of its questions have never come to a halt. In other sciences there is unanimity about all the ultimate principles or the basic views which must be at the basis of investigation, and if a change takes place it does not have the character of a crisis. Agreement is soon reestablished. In psychology things are entirely different, in Ebbinghaus’ [1902, p. 9] opinion. Here these basic views are constantly subjected to vivid doubt, are constantly being contested.

Ebbinghaus considers the disagreement to be a chronic phenomenon. Psychology lacks clear, reliable foundations. And in 1874 the same Brentano, with whose name Lange would have the crisis start, demanded that instead of the many psychologies, one psychology should be created. Obviously, already at that time there existed not only many currents instead of a single system, but many psychologies. Today as well this is a most accurate diagnosis of the crisis. Now, too, metbodologists claim that we are at the same point as Brentano was [Binswanger, 1922, p. 6]. This means that what takes place in psychology is not a struggle of views which may be reconciled and which are united by a common enemy and purpose. It is not even a struggle between currents or directions within a single science, but a struggle between different sciences. There arc many psychologies—this means that it is different, mutually exclusive and really existing types of science that are fighting. Psychoanalysis, intentional psychology,49 reflexology—all these are different types of science,