Taking into consideration the negative meaning of the term “empirical” at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the title of the two great Latin treatises written by Wolff on Empirical Psychology and Rational Psychology is a challenge in itself, since it stresses the importance of the marriage between experience and reason in each and every field of our knowledge. It is no coincidence that the reference to “experimental philosophy” seems key, it being part of an epistemological model in which the search of the possible materialises in the mutual exchange between a posteriori and a priori, following occurrences in the field of astronomy involving Galilei, one of the authors that Kant mentioned in the Preface to the second edition of the Critique (Kant, 1787/1911, p. 10). Differently to Kant, however, Wolff’s epistemological model seems to favour a comparison with concrete experience, which serves as the cornerstone for all later developments. This does not, however, signifies that everything can limit itself to pure empiricism, due to the existing relationship between sensations and reflection, and between empirical content and rational elaboration.
Empirical Psychology: Between Reason and Experience
Ferdinando Luigi Marcolungo
2021-01-01
Abstract
Taking into consideration the negative meaning of the term “empirical” at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the title of the two great Latin treatises written by Wolff on Empirical Psychology and Rational Psychology is a challenge in itself, since it stresses the importance of the marriage between experience and reason in each and every field of our knowledge. It is no coincidence that the reference to “experimental philosophy” seems key, it being part of an epistemological model in which the search of the possible materialises in the mutual exchange between a posteriori and a priori, following occurrences in the field of astronomy involving Galilei, one of the authors that Kant mentioned in the Preface to the second edition of the Critique (Kant, 1787/1911, p. 10). Differently to Kant, however, Wolff’s epistemological model seems to favour a comparison with concrete experience, which serves as the cornerstone for all later developments. This does not, however, signifies that everything can limit itself to pure empiricism, due to the existing relationship between sensations and reflection, and between empirical content and rational elaboration.
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