Psychological Themes in Blaustein’s Philosophy

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

AbstractIn his works, Blaustein used a complex analytical method to describe psychic life. He explicitly called this approach “descriptive psychology” (psychologia deskryptywna), and he noted on many occasions that he did research “on the borderline of psychology.” This should come as no surprise, as he was trained in philosophy by Twardowski, a direct student of Brentano. The presence of Brentano’s thought in the school of Twardowski is well described by, for instance, Liliana Albertazzi, Arianna Betti, Jan Woleński, and others. Indeed, after his arrival in Lvov in 1895, in his early writings, Twardowski developed—as I attempt to show in this chapter—a Brentanian notion of philosophy based on psychology and focused on “mental phenomena.” By claiming that philosophy examines mental phenomena, Twardowski set the psychological trend of the Lvov–Warsaw School, which included, in addition to Blaustein, Władysław Witwicki (1878–1948), Bronisław Bandrowski (1879–1914), Ludwik Jaxa-Bykowski (1881–1948), Stefan Baley (1885–1952), Stefan Błachowski (1889–1962), Salomon Igel (1889–1942), Mieczysław Kreutz (1893–1971), and Walter Auerbach (1900–1942 [?]). In this chapter, I discuss Teresa Rzepa’s idea that Blaustein can be considered a part of this group of scholars. Psychology was still a popular field of research in Lvov during Blaustein’s studies in the 1920s. Following Twardowski, Blaustein indeed used a variety of descriptive-psychological tools in his investigations. Nonetheless, his view of psychology cannot be reduced only to the Brentano–Twardowski legacy. After all, he referred to Gestalt psychology or to the conception of psychology put forward by Dilthey, not to mention Husserl’s phenomenological psychology. Whereas I will discuss Blaustein’s polemic against Husserl’s method in Chap. 5, here I attempt to show that he combined a variety of detailed ideas and procedures that had been developed by, for instance, Brentano, Twardowski, Stumpf or Dilthey. By claiming this, I will argue against Krzysztof Wieczorek, who holds that Blaustein overcame Brentano’s heritage by adapting Husserl’s phenomenology. If Wieczorek was right, Blaustein’s descriptive psychology was a mere introduction to his phenomenology. Accordingly, the latter can be understood in Blaustein’s writings without the former, which—as I will show in this chapter—is false. In this regard, I will argue that philosophical psychology is one of the cornerstones of Blaustein’s method; as such, it cannot be excluded from Blaustein’s writings or reduced to his account of phenomenology.