Any explanation of intellectual developments in terms of historical causes will have to give an account of the connection between the historical and the intellectual.

It is not sufficient to note a contiguity between intellectual and historical developments -- i.e. this is like that, this follows that. The tumult of the 20th century is not sufficient to explain the thoughts of those who lived at that time; and even if it there exists a superficial correlation between the two, historical developments do not necessitate that a line of thought progress in one way and not another. This is not to say that intellectual developments are not grounded in the historical, but to argue that New Criticism developed out of certain historical conditions requires that one first give an account of the connection between the historical and the intellectual.

What is required is a psychological epistemology -- a theory of knowledge which posits that knowledge is a response to certain psychological conditions which are themselves somehow conditioned by the outside world.

Such a position would have to overcome several problems.

First, it would have to give an account of itself, and how it would be possible for it to obtain such an awareness. That is, if knowledge is constructed on the basis of fulfilling certain psychological needs, then how would it be possible to formulate an objective meta-knowledge (so to speak) of these psychological processes that was not itself produced by certain psychological conditions, and what psychological conditions would be likely to produce this meta-knowledge?

Next, it would have to account for how different people who were the product of similar conditions could come to disagree with each other, since presumably they would have the same psychological needs, which would posit the same intellectual responses. On one level, of course, such a psychological epistemology indeed claims everyone who is the product of similar conditions shares similar intellectual preoccupations; on another, what is required is an account of the relationship between intellectual content and intellectual method -- how one comes to have certain beliefs and how one argues them.

If the position in question could prove that intellectual content and intellectual method are similarly the result of historical conditions, then it would succeed in casting suspicion on the very processes of intellectual discourse.

If, however, it can only prove that our assumptions are the result of conditions, but not our methods, then the intellect retains some autonomy as a substance (so to speak) that not only is acted upon, but itself acts.