While such studies of the economists and
of the philosophers are chiefly meant to serve theoretical
understanding, it might seem easy to deduce from them technical
practical prescriptions as well. If we know that under particular
conditions certain demands will be satisfied, we draw the conclusion
that we must realize those conditions whenever such demands are to be
satisfied. The theoretical views of the economists and of the
philosophers of value might thus be directly translated into
psychotechnical advice.
As soon as we look deeper into the situation, we must recognize that
this surface impression is entirely misleading. Certainly whenever
the philosophers or political economists discuss the problems of value
and of the satisfaction of human demands, they are using psychological
terms, but the whole meaning which they attach to these terms,
feeling, emotion, will, desire, pleasure, displeasure, joy, and pain,
is essentially different from that which controls the causal
explanations of scientific psychology. We cannot enter into the real
fundamental questions here, which are too often carelessly ignored
even in scientific quarters. Too often psychology is treated, even by
psychologists, as if it covered every possible systematic treatment of
inner experience, and correspondingly outsiders like the economists
fancy that they are on psychological ground and are handling
psychological conceptions as soon as they make any statements
concerning the inner life.
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