ABSTRACT
The collapse of logical positivism as received philosophy of science has left in conceptual disorder. The revolt against positivism often is part and parcel of a general rejection of science. Amadeo Giorgi has used the term human science in this interpretative, hermeneutic sense, in his case drawing on the phenomeno-logical-existentialist philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. The Geisteswissenschaften as interpretative, often historical, cultural disciplines provide a major avenue to scholarly knowledge especially relevant to humanistic psychology, but they are not sciences in the sense of abstractive, would-be progressive enterprise. In flagrant conflict with many previous philosophical dicta, psychology has indeed crossed an empirical bridge between the realms of cause and of meaning. The doctrines of self-actualization so central to the humanistic psychology movement should be set in a more caring context. Humanistic psychology needs an academic basis, if it is not to become one minor free-floating cult among many others.
