Response: Philosophy and Psychology

That is precisely the point of the chapters we read in the Order of Things, that the human sciences, being so new, employing normative methods, and also being purely empirical, have yet to plant themselves on any firm footing. They claim to make some definitive statements about man in his essence, but really have only provided analysis of him as he is constituted, and not a bit of information as to how he has been constituted. Philosophy, in this case, being derived from primarily rational grounds, along with empirical justification, can be viewed as self-sustaining. Its questions are questions which Psychology cannot fully address. Granted, in retrospect, dealing with my mapping of interpreter and grammarian onto philosopher and psychologist, I am not sure that I was correct, but it was a purely preliminary reading, and after reading the Order of Things, my knowledge of the subject is somewhat fuller. But, as regards philosophy and psychology, that is precisely what is at issue. Psychology cannot legitimate itself, and neither can any of the Human Sciences. The question of legitimization may be a dubious one at best anyway, and perhaps not relevant, but the point is that Philosophy and Psychology are placed, by nature, in some sort of dichotomy, one proceeding from principles and the other as purely empirical.