Husserl’s Philosophical-Historical Narration of the Origin of Psychologism and the Necessity of Transcendental Turn

In the Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl has tried to disclose the origin of psychologism in the history of modern philosophy. Phenomenological psychology not only provides a basis for empirical psychology but can also function as an introduction to transcendental phenomenology. In his philosophical narration of the historical development of the concept of psychologism, Husserl refers to John Locke and states that Barkley and Hume advocated Locke’s views. Locke’s psychological studies come at the service of transcendental concept, which had been formulated by Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy for the first time. In his view, metaphysics can show that the whole reality of the world and everything that exists is nothing more than our cognitive acts. It is at this point that it is necessary to pay attention to transcendental affairs. Descartes’ methodological skepticism was the first method used for posing the transcendental subject, and his description of cogito ergo (I think) provided the first conceptual formulation for it. John Locke replaced the pure transcendental mind of Descartes with the human mind. Nevertheless, he continued his study of the human mind through intrinsic experience because of an unconscious transcendental-philosophical concern. However, knowingly or unknowingly, he fell in the trap of psychologism. Following a historical and, in a way, completely philosophical approach, Husserl showed how the rays of attention to transcendental affairs emerged for the first time in Cartesian philosophy and, then, in the conflict between rationalism and empiricism. He also demonstrated how, after the growth of this attention in Kantian transcendental philosophy, it came to fruition in Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy.