The Psychology of Thinking Versus the Logic of the Concept

Abstract

The concept is both a logical category and a psychological reality.  If the concept was not a type of mental content, it could never be thought by living individuals.  Nevertheless, if the concept were just a mental content, logic proper would be precluded, robbing philosophical psychology of any possible truth.  The essay explores how the concept can play this double role, enabling logic and the psychology of thought to be related yet distinct.  In so doing, the essay shows how the dual thinking of thinking in logic and philosophical psychology allows conceptualization to retain the autonomy on which philosophy depends.