The phenomenology-psychology dialogue has been taking place for over 100 years now and it is still not clear how the two disciplines relate to each other. Part of the problem is that both disciplines have developed complexly with competing, not easily integratable perspectives. In this article the Husserlian phenomenological perspective is adopted and Husserl’s understanding of how phenomenology can help psychology is clarified. Then the usage of phenomenology within the historical scientific tradition of psychology is examined to see the senses (...) of phenomenology that were employed in that tradition. The German literature of psychology between the founding of the discipline and the beginning of the Nazi regime indicates quite clearly that the phenomenological perspective was part of the mainstream psychology of that era. The article ends by listing four difficult challenges that have to be met if a viable psychology based upon Husserlian phenomenology is to be possible. (shrink)

Phenomenology, currently the most active philosophical movement on the European scene, has shown persistent concern for psychological problems and principles, and for the science of psychology in general. This concern has taken the form of various attempts to amend psychology according to phenomenological precepts and methods with the intent of providing it with a new metaphysical basis. Recent examples of this trend are the textbook of Snygg and Combs and the two books published in France by the philosopher, Merleau-Ponty.

The fact that psychic life is not merely given externally and as mutual externality, but is given in its nexus, given by self-knowledge, by internal experience, constitutes the basic difference between psychological knowledge and knowledge of nature.