Image, meaning, truth. Austro-german Denkpsychologie. Facing the challenge.

How is it possible to rely on experience and to transcend it at the same time? This is not only a deep and fundamental question for metaphysical argumentation, but also a daily task for human communication, both in ordinary and in scientific language. In this talk, I wish to consider Anton Marty’s semantic theory concerning the Humboldtian notion of inner linguistic form: expressed images are appreciated as auxiliary figurative means working in order to suggest thoughts and to support the enacting of psychic process. In addition, such images differ in different languages, testifying to the creativity of their respective communities and are unable, as yet, to be identified with the proper meanings of the expressions in which they are used. The gap between observable phenomena and their related images on one hand, and the upper psychic activities on the other hand has been studied extensively by the school of experimental psychology, beginning in the same town where Brentano had conceived his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint: Würzburg. We will consider two Viennese contributions stemming from this tradition: Karl Bühler’s 1934 work, Theory of language concerning inner linguistic form from a “sematological” perspective and Karl Popper’s 1928 thesis (supervised by Bühler himself): On the Problem of Method in the Psychology of Thought. We will argue the validity of such a theoretical proposal in the present debate.