One of the most important and most discussed problems of contemporary philosophy is that of determining how psychology should be characterized in the theory of science. This problem, overflowing the limits of epistemological analysis and leading to heated controversy in metaphysics itself, is brought to a focus by this familiar disjunction: “Is psychology a natural science, or is it one of the sciences of mind and culture (Geisteswissenchaften)?”

The present article attempts to sketch the general lines of a new analysis of psychology, one which makes use of rigorous logical tools and which has made possible decisive advances toward the solution of the above problem. This analysis was successfully undertaken by the Vienna Circle (Wiener Kreis), the members of which (M. Schlick, R. Carnap, Phillipp Frank, o. Neurath, F. Waismann, H. Feigl, etc.) have, during the past ten years, developed an extremely fruitful method for the epistemological examination and critique of the various sciences, based in part on the work of L. Wittgenstein. We shall limit ourselves essentially to the examination of psychology as carried out by Carnap and Neurath.

The method characteristic of the studies of the Vienna Circle can be briefly defined as a logical analysis of the language of science. This method became possible only with the development of an extremely subtle logical apparatus which makes use, in particular, of all the formal procedures of modern logistics.