The debate on the method of philosophy at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries

Abstract

The starting point of the analysis provided in this paper is a discussion of how philosophical method is understood by Leonard Nelson who draws upon the lines of Jakob Friedrich Fries. From this perspective Nelson points out two ways of argumentation, two methods or standpoints: metaphysical and anthropological, objective one and subjective one, critical and genetic, epistemological and psychological or transcendental and psychological. These distinctions find their justification in concepts by philosophers with which Nelson polimicizes defending Fries’ standpoint: Kuno Fischer, Paul Natorp, Wilhelm Windelband, Carl Stumpf and Max Scheler. On the ground of analysis of their conceptions Nelson argues that admittedly they follow Kant, yet Kant — unlike Fries — has not included the psychological aspect of cognition.