Psychological Roots of Neo-Kantian Anti-Psychologism. Critical Reception of B. Russell

Abstract

The present text is a continuation of the article “Psychological Roots of Neo-Kantian Anti-Psychologism. Problem Statement” published in Voprosy Filosofii (No. 4, 2024). The named article examined the theoretical and conceptual inte­gration of early Neo-Kantianism (represented by H. Cohen) with the psychologi­cal program of philosophy. The subject of the present article is the critical recep­tion of Cohen’s conclusions by B. Russell. An important historical-philosophical basis for such an analysis appears to be §2 of “The Method of the Principle of Infinitesimals”, as well as the reaction to these conclusions expressed by B. Russell in “The Principles of Mathematics”. We believe that his critique is important not only because it shows the essential relationship between the posi­tions of Cohen and Fechner, but also because it offers an independent philoso­phical alternative. Thus, important for the present topic, the difference be­tween the concepts of “stretch” and “distance” has direct relevance to Fechner’s dichotomy of stimulus and sensation and precedes a productive transition to sets (stretches) from simple scalar quantities. The elegant solution contained in the works of A. Meinong becomes an important intermediary for understand­ing Russell’s position on the “reality” of the infinitesimal without regard to whether this reality is expressed by means of psychophysics or Cohenian tran­scendentalism. The insensitivity of Cohen’s epistemology to important aspects of mathematical theory, as well as the study of these aspects, is an undeservedly neglected circumstance, the recourse to which will enrich our understanding of the psychological program of philosophy and the evolution of scientific dis­course at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.