Between Psychologism and Logicism: from Wilhelm Wundt to Logical Investigations of Autism

Abstract

Due to some recent researches the problem of the reciprocity of logic and psychology got back into the philosophy of logic. Logicians and psychologists reconsider the relations between the logical laws and the human reasoning and deny the idea expressed by antipsychologists that exploration of the human reasoning is non- informative for logical theory. In the course of the controversy over psychologism at the turn of the XXth century some thinkers claimed that these disciplines were strongly connected. Some current researchers united under the name “Neopsychologism”. The article covers the problem of the reciprocity between logic and psychology in terms of Wilhelm Wundt’s theory and the Keith Stenning and Michiel van Lambalgen’s case research of reasoning peculiar to children with autism. Wundt was not a typical psychologist. He argued that the laws of logic and the laws of thought should be strongly separated. His idea of the correlation between the thought process and the other cognitive functions is “heuretic” as well. Despite that - or thanks to that - his theory is prolific. Its analysis and comparison with the recent logical researches show the difference between the classical psychologism and the neopsychologism. The article also reveals which of Wundt’s ideas are still important for philosophy of logic and psychology today.