Psychologism is a
philosophical position, according to which
psychology plays a central role in grounding or explaining some other, non-psychological type of fact or law. The
Oxford English Dictionary defines
psychologism as: "The view or doctrine that a theory of psychology or ideas forms the basis of an account of metaphysics, epistemology, or meaning; (sometimes) spec. the explanation or derivation of mathematical or logical laws in terms of psychological facts." Psychologism in
epistemology, the idea that its problems "can be solved satisfactorily by the psychological study of the development of mental processes", was argued in
John Locke's
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).