Mechanism, Organization, Mind: A Kantian Legacy in Nineteenth Century Psychology

In this paper I examine a series of interconnected accounts of the limits of mechanical explanations in psychology that were developed from Kant’s late writings to classic late nineteenth century psychology textbooks. The connection among these different accounts is established by a number of originally Kantian doctrines that were worked through and significantly reformulated in the nineteenth century. These doctrines can be summarized as follows: (1) metaphysical hypothe- ses are ruled out; (2) mechanical laws and explanations can contribute to the analy- sis of mental processes, but (3) they turn out to be intrinsically limited in this regard, hence “psychology” (in different senses) cannot be grounded on mechanical prin- ciples. I will examine elements of this Kantian legacy in Emil du Bois-Reymond, Hermann von Helmholtz, Friedrich Albert Lange and Wilhelm Wundt, and focus on the progressive transformation of the Kantian insights until the early twentieth century.