Aron Gurwitsch and the history of psychology: the rise of a knowledge from an excuse from the spirit towards reason

Abstract

This article aims to draw attention to the historical theses present in the work of Aron Gurwitsch, as well as to discuss their importance for the field of the History of Psychology. For this, his initial historical-epistemological writings - from 1934, 1935 and 1936 - will be analyzed in order to expose, mainly, the role that the historical process plays in his argumentation and the historical narrative that the author establishes about the emergence of psychology. To discuss the importance of such production for the field of the History of Psychology, we will recover other historical narratives that - with direct inheritance or not - are to some degree similar with the theses proposed by Gurwitsch, with special interest in the displacements operated and in the periodization used. In this sense, the connections with the works of Georges Canguilhem (who explicitly refer his hypothesis to the work of Gurwitsch), Luís Cláudio Figueiredo, Michel Foucault and Bruno Latour will be discussed. Finally, the general meaning of the hypothesis presented by Gurwitsch and the other authors will be discussed, including a discussion on the periodization of these conditions for the emergence of Psychology.