The psychology of Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773-1843): its context, nature, and historical significance.

Most German philosophers in the early nineteenth century were devoted, to the idealistic « completion » of Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy. A few independent philosophers, however , were preoccupied with the elaboration of a non-idealistic, and less speculative, conclusion to Kant's thought. Among the earliest opponents of the speculativ~ idealists was Jakob Frie-d~ich Fries (1773-1843), a philosopher of wide-ranging interests who might have had a much greater impact upon the course of German philosophy had his liberal political affiliations not curtailed his academic career. As it was, his influence was considerable anyway. One aspect of this influence is of particular interest: in his reaction against idealism, and in his own « completion » of Kant, Fries laid the foundation for the development and acceptance of psychology as an independent science. Like the idealists, Fries acknowledged Kant as his most important predecessor. In fact, he claimed that he alone was the true follower of Kant since he alone had developed the ,critical basis rather than the speculative implications of Kant's philosophy. Maintaining that knowledge of the transcendent is impossible , Fries rejected the attempts of the idealists to reduce reality to a system of absolute truths. Instead he concentrated, as did Kant, upon the discovery of the critical bases of knowledge. Methodologically, he relied upon analitical, descriptive, and deductive procedures rather than the constructive metaphysical reasoning of the idealists. In the course of his efforts, he contributed new procedures and distinctions to the critical philosophy , and he came to the conclusion that psychology is the 217 funclamehtal science and ihe foundation of philosophy. Having established. the critical foundation of khowledge by means of psychology~ he' proceeded, as Kant had intended, to develop a system of metaphysics which, he claimed, remained within the limits of human understanding. He also developed the « psychic anthropology » by which he hoped to establish psychology upon a steady and lasting foundation. Through all these endeavors, he brought to the fore the conceptual possibility of. a scientific psychology. Fries began his philosophical ruminations while a student at the Moravian Academy-in Herrenhut 1 • From 1792 to 1795, he was taught Kantian philosophy as interpreted by Karl Leon-hard Reinhold. Reinhold (1971) stressed the p,rinciple of consciousness as the immediate and irreducible fact of philosophy. He also emphasized that the goal of philosophy was to give a descriptive accouht of consciousness, or a «phenomenology». That wh1ch is …