descriptive psychology

From the first decades of the 20th century, the crisis of Logicism and its inappropriate propositions for the general basis of the analysis of all the facts is among the most problematic epistemological issues. By studying the specific mental functions of primitive societies from a new angle, Lévy-Bruhl shows that if we want to have an appropriate analysis of their fundamentally different mind and life, it would be necessary to introduce a mentality other than our scientific-logical one. He calls it “mystic mentality”; a mentality which, instead of logic, is based on “prelogic”. The prelogical system is indifferent to the law of non-contradiction and is formed based on the law of “participation”. He claims that these two distinct and independent types of mentality coexist. Hjelmslev basically accepts Lévy-Bruhl's proposal and takes advantage of the epistemological consequences of his ideas as a support for dealing with the general problem of structural analysis. Taking the most general concept of language (or semiotic) as the object of his special immanent theory, he introduces the “sublogical system” as a ground from which the logic and prelogic can be derived. He refers to the law of participation and claims that the basic opposition in a semiotic is that between A and A+(non-A), and not, as logic assumes, the one between A and non-A (contradiction). Regarding this hypothesis, Hjelmslev establishes a formal sublogical calculus in the procedure of his Glossematics while treating the analysis of systems (or the articulation of categories concerning oppositions). It should be considered as an alternative to the logical proposal which is established as the basis of the analysis in many theories such as those of Jakobson, Lévi-Strauss, Chomsky, and so on. In the present study, we intended to explain Lévy-Bruhl’s prelogic and Hjelmslev’s sublogic and their relations, and to cast light on an important possible response to the epistemological problem of the inadequacy of logicism.

In the history of thinking, especially in the field of the humanities, the idea of ​​Wilhelm Dilthey is a turning point. The era of Dilthey coincided with full-fledged science. Those who were scientific did not differ significantly between the method of the natural sciences and the humanities. Dilthey confronted this group and believed that in order to solve the problem the relation of the humanities by recognizing nature, we should pay attention to the similarity of the subject and the content of each science by the method of research in that science; otherwise, we would not achieve sufficient knowledge.. Dilthey considers the subject of the humanities to be social-historical reality and the method of research into it is an introspection and inner experience. The inner experience in his view is more certainty than the outer experience. Hence, humanities can achieve more certainty with respect to natural sciences. The basic principle of Dilthey's thought in this way is the principle phenomena. This principle states that objects are given as human feelings, as consciousness acts, and are subject to conditions of consciousness.