More on formal feeling/form-feeling in language sciences. Heinrich Gomperz’s concept of “formal logical feeling” (logisches Formalgefühl) revisited

Abstract

My aim is to revisit the psycholinguistic concept of “formal logical feeling” (logisches Formalgefühl), as it was elaborated by the Austrian philosopher Heinrich Gomperz in the early 20th century. This article is the continuation of some recent studies that have helped to reevaluate the place of “formal feeling” or “form-feeling” in language sciences. By “formal logical feelings”, Gomperz referred to affective processes by which means one apprehends the “form” of language, that is, its morphosyntactic properties. Here I propose a detailed analysis of his conception of the nature, function, origin, and taxonomy of this category of feelings, while placing his developments in their intellectual context and in a genealogical perspective.