The deadlock of Husserl’s life-world: From a critique of psychologism to psychologization

Abstract

Edmund Husserl’s seminal work The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy deals extensively with psychology. He even titled his Prague lecture of November 1935—which served as the basis of the book—The Crisis of European Sciences and Psychology. Husserl’s work is undoubtedly one of the most important critical assessments of psychology. Husserl criticized not only psychology’s methods (i.e., for mimicking the hard sciences), but also the very place of the discipline. His argument can be condensed as follows: the objectivization of science engendered a problematic subjectivity which, in turn, created a need for a psychology. The very paradox of this, viewed from the perspective of the interwar period, led Husserl to declare a crisis of the sciences and, especially, of psychology. Surprisingly, until now Husserl’s critique and defiance have been rarely discussed within the psy-sciences. This paper aims to reopen the debate, beginning with the concept of the life-world, the main concept developed in Crisis. However, as will be argued, that very concept is also the place where Husserl refrains from a radical critique of psychology and where his supposed phenomenological vantage point eventually facilitates the transition from psychologism to psychologization.