Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; German: [vʊnt];
16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German
physician, physiologist, philosopher, and
professor, known today as one of the founding
figures of modern psychology. Wundt, who noted
psychology as a science apart from philosophy
and biology, was the first person ever to
call himself a psychologist. He is widely
regarded as the "father of experimental psychology".
In 1879, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory
for psychological research at the University
of Leipzig. This marked psychology as an independent
field of study. By creating this laboratory
he was able to establish psychology as a separate
science from other disciplines. He also formed
the first academic journal for psychological
research, Philosophische Studien (from 1881
to 1902), set up to publish the Institute's
research.A survey published in American Psychologist
in 1991 ranked Wundt's reputation in first
place regarding "all-time eminence" based
on ratings provided by 29 American historians
of psychology. William James and Sigmund Freud
were ranked a distant second and third.
== Biography ==
Wundt was born at Neckarau, Baden (now part
of Mannheim) on the 16 of August 1832, the
fourth child to parents Maximilian Wundt (a
Lutheran minister), and his wife Marie Frederike,
née Arnold (1797–1868). Wundt's paternal
grandfather was Friedrich Peter Wundt (1742–1805),
Professor of Geography and pastor in Wieblingen.
When Wundt was about four years of age, his
family moved to Heidelsheim, then a small
medieval town in Baden-Württemberg.Born in
Germany which was considered very economically
stable, Wundt grew up during a period in which
the reinvestment of wealth into educational,
medical and technological development was
commonplace. An economic strive for the advancement
of knowledge catalyzed the development of
a new psychological study method, and facilitated
his development into the prominent psychological
figure he is today.Wundt studied from 1851
to 1856 at the University of Tübingen, at
the University of Heidelberg, and at the University
of Berlin. After graduating as a doctor of
medicine from Heidelberg (1856), doctoral
advisor Karl Ewald Hasse. Wundt studied briefly
with Johannes Peter Müller, before joining
the Heidelberg University's staff, becoming
an assistant to the physicist and physiologist
Hermann von Helmholtz in 1858 with responsibility
for teaching the laboratory course in physiology.
There he wrote Contributions to the Theory
of Sense Perception (1858–1862). In 1864,
he became Associate Professor for Anthropology
and Medical Psychology and published a textbook
about human physiology. However, his main
interest, according to his lectures and classes,
was not in the medical field – he was more
attracted by psychology and related subjects.
His lectures on psychology were published
as Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology
in 1863–1864. Wundt applied himself to writing
a work that came to be one of the most important
in the history of psychology, Principles of
physiological Psychology, in 1874. This was
the first textbook that was written pertaining
to the field of experimental psychology.In
1867, near Heidelberg, Wundt met Sophie Mau
(1844–1912). She was the eldest daughter
of the Kiel theology professor Heinrich August
Mau and his wife Louise, née von Rumohr,
and a sister of the archaeologist August Mau.
They married on 14 August 1872 in Kiel. The
couple had three children: Eleanor (*1876–1957),
who became an assistant to her father in many
ways, Louise, called Lilli, (*1880–1884)
and Max Wundt (*1879–1963), who became a
philosopher.
In 1875, Wundt was promoted to professor of
"Inductive Philosophy" in Zurich, and in 1875,
Wundt was made professor of philosophy at
the University of Leipzig where Ernst Heinrich
Weber (1795–1878) and Gustav Theodor Fechner
(1801–1887) had initiated research on sensory
psychology and psychophysics – and where
two centuries earlier Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
had developed his philosophy and theoretical
psychology, which strongly influenced Wundt's
intellectual path. Wundt’s admiration for
Ernst Heinrich Weber was clear from his memoirs
where he proclaimed that Weber should be regarded
as the father of experimental psychology.
. “I would rather call Weber the father
of experimental psychology…It was Weber’s
great contribution to think of measuring psychic
quantities and of showing the exact relationships
between them, to be the first to understand
this and carry it out.”In 1879, at the University
of Leipzig, Wundt opened the first laboratory
ever to be exclusively devoted to psychological
studies, and this event marked the official
birth of psychology as an independent field
of study. The new lab was full of graduate
students carrying out research on topics assigned
by Wundt, and it soon attracted young scholars
from all over the world who were eager to
learn about the new science that Wundt had
developed.
The University of Leipzig assigned Wundt a
lab in 1876 to store equipment he had brought
from Zurich. Located in the Konvikt building,
many of Wundt's demonstrations took place
in this laboratory due to the inconvenience
of transporting his equipment between the
lab and his classroom. Wundt arranged for
the construction of suitable instruments and
collected many pieces of equipment such as
tachistoscopes, chronoscopes, pendulums, electrical
devices, timers, and sensory mapping devices,
and was known to assign an instrument to various
graduate students with the task of developing
uses for future research in experimentation.
Between 1885 and 1909, there were 15 assistants.
In 1879, Wundt began conducting experiments
that were not part of his course work, and
he claimed that these independent experiments
solidified his lab's legitimacy as a formal
laboratory of psychology, though the University
did not officially recognize the building
as part of the campus until 1883. The laboratory
grew and encompassing a total of eleven rooms,
the Psychological Institute, as it became
known, eventually moved to a new building
that Wundt had designed specifically for psychological
research. The list of Wundt's lectures during
the winter terms of 1875-1879 shows a wide-ranging
programme, 6 days a week, on average 2 hours
daily, e.g. in the winter term of 1875: Psychology
of language, Anthropology, Logic and Epistemology;
and during the subsequent summer term: Psychology,
Brain and Nerves, as well as Physiology. Cosmology,
Historical and General Philosophy were included
in the following terms.AwardsHonorary doctorates
from the Universities of Leipzig and Göttingen;Pour
le Mérite for Science and Arts;
Honorary member in 12 Scientific Organizations
(Societies) and a corresponding member in
13 Academies in Germany and abroad.His name
was given to the Asteroid Vundtia (635).
Wundt was responsible for an extraordinary
number of doctoral dissertations between 1875
and 1919: 184 PhD students included 70 foreigners
(of which 23 were from Russia, Poland and
other east-European countries, 18 were American).
Several of Wundt's students became eminent
psychologists in their own right. They include:
the Germans Oswald Külpe (a professor at
the University of Würzburg), Ernst Meumann
(a professor in Leipzig and Hamburg and pioneer
in pedagogical psychology), Hugo Münsterberg
a professor in Freiburg and at Harvard University,
a pioneer in applied psychology), Willy Hellpach
(in Germany known for cultural psychology).
The Americans listed include James McKeen
Cattell (the first professor of psychology
in the United States), Granville Stanley Hall
(the father of the child psychology movement
and adolescent developmental theorist, head
of Clark University), Charles Hubbard Judd
(Director of the School of Education at the
University of Chicago), Walter Dill Scott
(who contributed to the development of industrial
psychology and taught at Harvard University),
Edward Bradford Titchener, Lightner Witmer
(founder of the first psychological clinic
in his country), Frank Angell, Edward Wheeler
Scripture. Wundt, thus, is present in the
academic "family tree" of the majority of
American Psychologists, first and second generation.
– Worth mentioning are the Englishman Charles
Spearman; the Romanian Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
(Personalist philosopher and head of the Philosophy
department at the University of Bucharest),
Hugo Eckener, the manager of the Luftschiffbau
Zeppelin – not to mention those students
who became philosophers (like Rudolf Eisler
or the Serbian Ljubomir Nedić). – Students
(or visitors) who were later to become well
known included Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev
(Bechterev), Franz Boas, Émile Durkheim,
Edmund Husserl, Bronisław Malinowski, George
Herbert Mead, Edward Sapir, Ferdinand Tönnies,
Benjamin Lee Whorf.
Much of Wundt's work was derided mid-century
in the United States because of a lack of
adequate translations, misrepresentations
by certain students, and behaviorism's polemic
with Wundt's program.
== Overview of Wundt's work ==
Wundt was initially a physician and a well-known
neurophysiologist before turning to sensory
physiology and psychophysics. He was convinced
that, for example, the process of spatial
perception could not solely be explained on
a physiological level, but also involved psychological
principles. Wundt founded experimental psychology
as a discipline and became a pioneer of cultural
psychology. He created a broad research programme
in empirical psychology and developed a system
of philosophy and ethics from the basic concepts
of his psychology – bringing together several
disciplines in one person.
Wundt's epistemological position – against
John Locke and English empiricism (sensualism)
– was made clear in his book Beiträge zur
Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (Contributions
on the Theory of Sensory Perception) published
in 1862, by his use of a quotation from Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz on the title page:
"Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in
sensu, nisi intellectu ipse." (Leibniz, Nouveaux
essais, 1765, Livre II, Des Idées, Chapitre
1, § 6).
– Nothing is in the intellect that was not
first in the senses, except the intellect
itself.
Principles that are not present in sensory
impressions can be recognised in human perception
and consciousness: logical inferences, categories
of thought, the principle of causality, the
principle of purpose (teleology), the principle
of emergence and other epistemological principles.
Wundt's most important books are:
Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen (Textbook
of Human Physiology) (1864/1865, 4th ed. 1878);
Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie
(Principles of Physiological Psychology),
(1874; 6th ed. 1908-1911, 3 Vols.);
System der Philosophie (System of Philosophy),
(1889; 4th ed. 1919, 2 Vols.);
Logik. Eine Untersuchung der Prinzipien der
Erkenntnis und der Methoden wissenschaftlicher
Forschung (Logic. An investigation into the
principles of knowledge and the methods of
scientific research), (1880-1883; 4th ed.
1919-1921, 3 Vols.);
Ethik (Ethics), (1886; 3rd ed. 1903, 2 Vols.);
Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der
Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythos und
Sitte (Cultural Psychology. An investigation
into developmental laws of language, myth,
and conduct), (1900-1920, 10 Vols.);
Grundriss der Psychologie (Outline of Psychology),
(1896; 14th ed. 1920).These 22 volumes cover
an immense variety of topics. On examination
of the complete works, however, a close relationship
between Wundt's theoretical psychology, epistemology
and methodology can be seen. English translations
are only available for the best-known works:
Principles of physiological Psychology (only
the single-volume 1st ed. of 1874) and Ethics
(also only 1st ed. of 1886). Wundt's work
remains largely inaccessible without advanced
knowledge of German. Its reception, therefore,
is still greatly hampered by misunderstandings,
stereotypes and superficial judgements.
== Central themes in Wundt's work ==
Process theoryPsychology is interested in
the current process, i.e. the mental changes
and functional relationships between perception,
cognition, emotion, and volition/ motivation.
Mental (psychological) phenomena are changing
processes of consciousness. They can only
be determined as an actuality, an "immediate
reality of an event in the psychological experience".
The relationships of consciousness, i.e. the
actively organising processes, are no longer
explained metaphysically by means of an immortal
‘soul’ or an abstract transcendental (spiritual)
principle.
The delineation of categories
Wundt considered that reference to the subject
(Subjektbezug), value assessment (Wertbestimmung),
the existence of purpose (Zwecksetzung), and
volitional acts (Willenstätigkeit) to be
specific and fundamental categories for psychology.
He frequently used the formulation "the human
as a motivated and thinking subject" in order
to characterise features held in common with
the humanities and the categorical difference
to the natural sciences.Psychophysical parallelismInfluenced
by Leibniz, Wundt introduced the term psychophysical
parallelism as follows: "… wherever there
are regular relationships between mental and
physical phenomena the two are neither identical
nor convertible into one another because they
are per se incomparable; but they are associated
with one another in the way that certain mental
processes regularly correspond to certain
physical processes or, figuratively expressed,
run 'parallel to one another'." Although the
inner experience is based on the functions
of the brain there are no physical causes
for mental changes.
Leibniz wrote: "Souls act according to the
laws of final causes, through aspirations,
ends and means. Bodies act according to the
laws of efficient causes, i.e. the laws of
motion. And these two realms, that of efficient
causes and that of final causes, harmonize
with one another." (Monadology, Paragraph
79).Wundt follows Leibniz and differentiates
between a physical causality (natural causality
of neurophysiology) and a mental (psychic)
causality of the consciousness process. Both
causalities, however, are not opposites in
a dualistic metaphysical sense, but depend
on the standpoint Causal explanations in psychology
must be content to seek the effects of the
antecedent causes without being able to derive
exact predictions. Using the example of volitional
acts, Wundt describes possible inversion in
considering cause and effect, ends and means,
and explains how causal and teleological explanations
can complement one another to establish a
co-ordinated consideration.
Wundt's position differed from contemporary
authors who also favoured parallelism. Instead
of being content with the postulate of parallelism,
he developed his principles of mental causality
in contrast to the natural causality of neurophysiology,
and a corresponding methodology. There are
two fundamentally different approaches of
the postulated psychophysical unit, not just
two points-of-view in the sense of Gustav
Theodor Fechner's identity hypothesis. Psychological
and physiological statements exist in two
categorically different reference systems;
the important categories are to be emphasised
in order to prevent category mistakes as discussed
by Nicolai Hartmann. In this regard, Wundt
created the first genuine epistemology and
methodology of empirical psychology (the term
philosophy of science did not yet exist).
Apperception
Apperception is Wundt's central theoretical
concept. Leibniz described apperception as
the process in which the elementary sensory
impressions pass into (self-)consciousness,
whereby individual aspirations (striving,
volitional acts) play an essential role. Wundt
developed psychological concepts, used experimental
psychological methods and put forward neuropsychological
modelling in the frontal cortex of the brain
system – in line with today's thinking.
Apperception exhibits a range of theoretical
assumptions on the integrative process of
consciousness. The selective control of attention
is an elementary example of such active cognitive,
emotional and motivational integration.
Development theory of the mind
The fundamental task is to work out a comprehensive
development theory of the mind – from animal
psychology to the highest cultural achievements
in language, religion and ethics. Unlike other
thinkers of his time, Wundt had no difficulty
connecting the development concepts of the
humanities (in the spirit of Friedrich Hegel
and Johann Gottfried Herder) with the biological
theory of evolution as expounded by Charles
Darwin.
Critical realism
Wundt determined that "psychology is an empirical
science co-ordinating natural science and
humanities, and that the considerations of
both complement one another in the sense that
only together can they create for us a potential
empirical knowledge." He claimed that his
views were free of metaphysics and were based
on certain epistemological presuppositions,
including the differentiation of subject and
object in the perception, and the principle
of causality. With his term critical realism,
Wundt distinguishes himself from other philosophical
positions.
Definition of psychology
Wundt set himself the task of redefining the
broad field of psychology between philosophy
and physiology, between the humanities and
the natural sciences. In place of the metaphysical
definition as a science of the soul came the
definition, based on scientific theory, of
empirical psychology as a psychology of consciousness
with its own categories and epistemological
principles. Psychology examines the "entire
experience in its immediately subjective reality."
The task of psychology is to precisely analyse
the processes of consciousness, to assess
the complex connections (psychische Verbindungen),
and to find the laws governing such relationships.
1. Psychology is not a science of the individual
soul. Life is a uniform mental and physical
process that can be considered in a variety
of ways in order to recognise general principles,
particularly the psychological-historical
and biological principles of development.
Wundt demanded an understanding of the emotional
and the volitional functions, in addition
to cognitive features, as equally important
aspects of the unitary (whole) psychophysical
process.
2. Psychology cannot be reduced to physiology.
The tools of physiology remain fundamentally
insufficient for the task of psychology. Such
a project is meaningless "because the interrelations
between mental processes would be incomprehensible
even if the interrelations between brain processes
were as clearly understood as the mechanism
of a pocket watch." 3. Psychology is concerned
with conscious processes. Wundt rejected making
subconscious mental processes a topic of scientific
psychology for epistemological and methodological
reasons. In his day there were, before Sigmund
Freud, influential authors such as the philosopher
Eduard von Hartmann (1901), who postulated
a metaphysics of the unconscious. Wundt had
two fundamental objections. He rejected all
primarily metaphysically founded psychology
and he saw no reliable methodological approach.
He also soon revised his initial assumptions
about unconscious judgements When Wundt rejects
the assumption of "the unconscious" he is
also showing his scepticism regarding Fechner's
theory of the unconscious and Wundt is perhaps
even more greatly influenced by the flood
of writing at the time on hypnotism and spiritualism
(Wundt, 1879, 1892). While Freud frequently
quoted from Wundt's work, Wundt remained sceptical
about all hypotheses that operated with the
concept of "the unconscious".For Wundt it
would be just as much a misunderstanding to
define psychology as a behavioural science
in the sense of the later concept of strict
behaviourism. Numerous behavioural and psychological
variables had already been observed or measured
at the Leipzig laboratory. Wundt stressed
that physiological effects, for example the
physiological changes accompanying feelings,
were only tools of psychology, as were the
physical measurements of stimulus intensity
in psychophysics. Further developing these
methodological approaches one-sidedly would
ultimately, however, lead to a behavioural
physiology, i.e. a scientific reductionism,
and not to a general psychology and cultural
psychology.
4. Psychology is an empirical humanities science.
Wundt was convinced of the triple status of
psychology:
as a science of the direct experience it contrasts
with the natural sciences that refer to the
indirect content of experience and abstract
from the subject;
as a science "of generally valid forms of
direct human experience it is the foundation
of the humanities";
among all the empirical sciences it was "the
one whose results most benefit the examination
of the general problems of epistemology and
ethics – the two fundamental areas of philosophy."
Wundt's concepts were developed during almost
60 years of research and teaching that led
him from neurophysiology to psychology and
philosophy. The interrelationships between
physiology, philosophy, logic, epistemology
and ethics are therefore essential for an
understanding of Wundt's psychology. The core
of Wundt's areas of interest and guiding ideas
can already be seen in his Vorlesungen über
die Menschen- und Tierseele (Lectures on Human
and Animal Psychology) of 1863: individual
psychology (now known as general psychology,
i.e. areas such as perception, attention,
apperception, volition, will, feelings and
emotions); cultural psychology (Wundt's Völkerpsychologie)
as development theory of the human mind);
animal psychology; and neuropsychology. The
initial conceptual outlines of the 30-year-old
Wundt (1862, 1863) led to a long research
programme, to the founding of the first Institute
and to the treatment of psychology as a discipline,
as well as to a range of fundamental textbooks
and numerous other publications.
== Physiology ==
During the Heidelberg years from 1853 to 1873,
Wundt published numerous essays on physiology,
particularly on experimental neurophysiology,
a textbook on human physiology (1865, 4th
ed. 1878) and a manual of medical physics
(1867). He wrote about 70 reviews of current
publications in the fields of neurophysiology
and neurology, physiology, anatomy and histology.
A second area of work was sensory physiology,
including spatial perception, visual perception
and optical illusions.
An optical illusion described by him is called
the Wundt illusion, a variant of the Hering
Illusion. It shows how straight lines appear
curved when seen against a set of radiating
lines.
== Psychology ==
=== Starting point ===
As a result of his medical training and his
work as an assistant to Hermann von Helmholtz,
Wundt knew the benchmarks of experimental
research, as well as the speculative nature
of psychology in the mid-19th century. Wundt's
aspiration for scientific research and the
necessary methodological critique were clear
when he wrote of the language of ordinary
people, who merely invoked their personal
experiences of life, criticised naive introspection,
or quoted the influence of uncritical amateur
("folk") psychology on psychological interpretation.His
Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung
(1862) shows Wundt's transition from a physiologist
to an experimental psychologist. "Why does
not psychology follow the example of the natural
sciences? It is an understanding that, from
every side of the history of the natural sciences,
informs us that the progress of every science
is closely connected with the progress made
regarding experimental methods." With this
statement, however, he will in no way treat
psychology as a pure natural science, though
psychologists should learn from the progress
of methods in the natural sciences: "There
are two sciences that must come to the aid
of general psychology in this regard: the
development history of the mind and comparative
psychology."
=== General psychology ===
The Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie
(Main Features of Physiological Psychology)
on general psychology is Wundt's best-known
textbook. He wanted to connect two sciences
with one another. "Physiology provides information
on all phenomena of life that can be perceived
using our external senses. In psychology humans
examine themselves, as it were, from within
and look for the connections between these
processes to explain which of them represent
this inner observation." "With sufficient
certainty the approach can indeed be seen
as well-founded – that nothing takes place
in our consciousness that does not have its
physical basis in certain physiological processes.".
Wundt believed that physiological psychology
had the following task: "firstly, to investigate
those life processes that are centrally located,
between external and internal experience,
which make it necessary to use both observation
methods simultaneously, external and internal,
and, secondly, to illuminate and, where possible,
determine a total view of human existence
from the points of view gained from this investigation."
"The attribute ‘physiological’ is not
saying that it … [physiological psychology]
… wants to reduce the psychology to physiology
– which I consider impossible – but that
it works with physiological, i.e. experimental,
tools and, indeed, more so than is usual in
other psychology, takes into account the relationship
between mental and physical processes." "If
one wants to treat the peculiarities of the
method as the most important factor then our
science – as experimental psychology – differs
from the usual science of the soul purely
based on self-observation."
After long chapters on the anatomy and physiology
of the nervous system, the Grundzüge (1874)
has five sections: the mental elements, mental
structure, interactions of the mental structure,
mental developments, the principles and laws
of mental causality. Through his insistence
that mental processes were analysed in their
elements, Wundt did not want to create a pure
element psychology because the elements should
simultaneously be related to one another.
He describes the sensory impression with the
simple sensory feelings, perceptions and volitional
acts connected with them, and he explains
dependencies and feedbacks.
Apperception theory
Wundt rejected the widespread association
theory, according to which mental connections
(learning) are mainly formed through the frequency
and intensity of particular processes. His
term apperception psychology means that he
considered the creative conscious activity
to be more important than elementary association.
Apperception is an emergent activity that
is both arbitrary and selective as well as
imaginative and comparative. In this process,
feelings and ideas are images apperceptively
connected with typical tones of feeling, selected
in a variety of ways, analysed, associated
and combined, as well as linked with motor
and autonomic functions – not simply processed
but also creatively synthesised (see below
on the Principle of creative synthesis). In
the integrative process of conscious activity,
Wundt sees an elementary activity of the subject,
i.e. an act of volition, to deliberately move
content into the conscious. Insofar that this
emergent activity is typical of all mental
processes, it is possible to describe his
point-of-view as voluntaristic.
Wundt describes apperceptive processes as
psychologically highly differentiated and,
in many regards, bases this on methods and
results from his experimental research. One
example is the wide-ranging series of experiments
on the mental chronometry of complex reaction
times. In research on feelings, certain effects
are provoked while pulse and breathing are
recorded using a kymograph. The observed differences
were intended to contribute towards supporting
Wundt's theory of emotions with its three
dimensions: pleasant – unpleasant, tense
– relaxed, excited – depressed.
=== Cultural psychology ===
Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung
der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus
und Sitte (Social Psychology. An Investigation
of the Laws of Evolution of Language, Myth,
and Custom, 1900-1920, 10 Vols.) which also
contains the evolution of Arts, Law, Society,
Culture and History, is a milestone project,
a monument of cultural psychology, of the
early 20th century. The dynamics of cultural
development were investigated according to
psychological and epistemological principles.
Psychological principles were derived from
Wundt's psychology of apperception (theory
of higher integrative processes, including
association, assimilation, semantic change)
and motivation (will), as presented in his
Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie
(1908-1910, 6th ed., 3 Vols.). In contrast
to individual psychology, cultural psychology
aims to illustrate general mental development
laws governing higher intellectual processes:
the development of thought, language, artistic
imagination, myths, religion, customs, the
relationship of individuals to society, the
intellectual environment and the creation
of intellectual works in a society. "Where
deliberate experimentation ends is where history
has experimented on the behalf of psychologists."
Those mental processes that "underpin the
general development of human societies and
the creation of joint intellectual results
that are of generally recognised value" are
to be examined.
Stimulated by the ideas of previous thinkers,
such as Herder, Herbart, Hegel and Wilhelm
von Humboldt (with his ideas about comparative
linguistics), the psychologist Moritz Lazarus
(1851) and the linguist Heymann Steinthal
founded the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie
und Sprachwissenschaft (Journal for Cultural
Psychology and Linguistics) in 1860, which
gave this field its name. Wundt (1888) critically
analysed the, in his view, still disorganised
intentions of Lazarus and Steinthal and limited
the scope of the issues by proposing a psychologically
constituted structure. The cultural psychology
of language, myth, and customs were to be
based on the three main areas of general psychology:
imagining and thought, feelings, and will
(motivation). The numerous mental interrelations
and principles were to be researched under
the perspective of cultural development. Apperception
theory applied equally for general psychology
and cultural psychology. Changes in meanings
and motives were examined in many lines of
development, and there are detailed interpretations
based on the emergence principle (creative
synthesis), the principle of unintended side-effects
(heterogony of ends) and the principle of
contrast (see section on Methodology and Strategies).
The ten volumes consist of: Language (Vols.
1 and 2), Art (Vol. 3), Myths and Religion
(Vols. 4 - 6), Society (Vols. 7 and 8), Law
(Vol. 9), as well as Culture and History (Vol.
10). The methodology of cultural psychology
was mainly described later, in Logik (1921).
Wundt worked on, psychologically linked, and
structured an immense amount of material.
The topics range from agriculture and trade,
crafts and property, through gods, myths and
Christianity, marriage and family, peoples
and nations to (self-)education and self-awareness,
science, the world and humanity.
Wundt recognized about 20 fundamental dynamic
motives in cultural development. Motives frequently
quoted in cultural development are: division
of labour, ensoulment, salvation, happiness,
production and imitation, child-raising, artistic
drive, welfare, arts and magic, adornment,
guilt, punishment, atonement, self-education,
play, and revenge. Other values and motives
emerge in the areas of freedom and justice,
war and peace, legal structures, state structures
and forms of government; also regarding the
development of a world view of culture, religion,
state, traffic, and a worldwide political
and social society. In religious considerations,
many of the values and motives (i.e. belief
in soul, immortality, belief in gods and demons,
ritualistic acts, witchcraft, animism and
totemism) are combined with the motives of
art, imagination, dance and ecstasy, as well
as with forms of family and power.
Wundt saw examples of human self-education
in walking upright, physical facilities and
"an interaction in part forced upon people
by external conditions and in part the result
of voluntary culture". He described the random
appearance and later conscious control of
fire as a similar interaction between two
motives. In the interaction of human activity
and the conditions of nature he saw a creative
principle of culture right from the start;
tools as cultural products of a second nature.
An interactive system of cause and effect,
a system of purposes and thus values (and
reflexively from standards of one's own activities)
is formed according to the principles of one's
own thinking.In the Elemente der Völkerpsychologie
(The Elements of Cultural Psychology, 1912)
Wundt sketched out four main levels of cultural
development: primitive man, the totemistic
age, the age of heroes and gods, and the development
of humanity. The delineations were unclear
and the depiction was greatly simplified.
Only this book was translated into English
Elements of folk-psychology ), thus providing
but a much abridged insight into Wundt's differentiated
cultural psychology. (The Folk Psychology
part of the title already demonstrates the
low level of understanding).
In retrospect, ‘Völkerpsychologie’ was
an unfortunate choice of title because it
is often misinterpreted as ethnology. Wundt
also considered calling it (Social) Anthropology,
Social Psychology and Community Psychology.
The term Kulturpsychologie would have been
more fitting though psychological development
theory of the mind would have expressed Wundt's
intentions even better. The intellectual potential
and heuristics of Wundt's Cultural Psychology
are by no means exhausted.
=== Neuropsychology ===
Wundt contributed to the state of neuropsychology
as it existed at the time in three ways: through
his criticism of the theory of localisation
(then widespread in neurology), through his
demand for research hypotheses founded on
both neurological and psychological thinking,
and through his neuropsychological concept
of an apperception centre in the frontal cortex.
Wundt considered attention and the control
of attention an excellent example of the desirable
combination of experimental psychological
and neurophysiological research. Wundt called
for experimentation to localise the higher
central nervous functions to be based on clear,
psychologically-based research hypotheses
because the questions could not be rendered
precisely enough on the anatomical and physiological
levels alone.
Wundt based his central theory of apperception
on neuropsychological modelling (from the
3rd edition of the Grundzüge onwards). According
to this, the hypothetical apperception centre
in the frontal cerebral cortex that he described
could interconnect sensory, motor, autonomic,
cognitive, emotional and motivational process
components Wundt thus provided the guiding
principle of a primarily psychologically-oriented
research programme on the highest integrative
processes. He is therefore a forerunner of
current research on cognitive and emotional
executive functions in the prefrontal cerebral
cortex, and on hypothetical multimodal convergence
zones in the network of cortical and limbic
functions. This concept of an interdisciplinary
neuroscience is now taken for granted, but
Wundt's contribution towards this development
has almost been forgotten. Sherrington repeatedly
quotes Wundt's research on the physiology
of the reflexes in his textbook, but not Wundt's
neuropsychological concepts
== 
Methodology and strategies ==
"Given its position between the natural sciences
and the humanities, psychology really does
have a great wealth of methodological tools.
While, on the one hand, there are the experimental
methods, on the other hand, objective works
and products in cultural development (Objektivationen
des menschlichen Geistes) also offer up abundant
material for comparative psychological analysis".Psychology
is an empirical science and must endeavour
to achieve a systematic procedure, examination
of results, and criticism of its methodology.
Thus self-observation must be trained and
is only permissible under strict experimental
control; Wundt decisively rejects naive introspection.
Wundt provided a standard definition of psychological
experiments. His dispute with Immanuel Kant
(Wundt, 1874) had a major influence. Kant
had argued against the assumption of the measurability
of conscious processes and made a well-founded,
if very short, criticism of the methods of
self-observation: regarding method-inherent
reactivity, observer error, distorting attitudes
of the subject, and the questionable influence
of independently thinking people, but Wundt
expressed himself optimistic that methodological
improvements could be of help here. He later
admitted that measurement and mathematics
were only applicable for very elementary conscious
processes. Statistical methods were also of
only limited value, for example in psychophysics
or in the evaluation of population statistics.Experimental
psychology in Leipzig mainly leant on four
methodological types of assessment: the impression
methods with their various measurement techniques
in psychophysics; the reaction methods for
chronometry in the psychology of apperception;
the reproduction methods in research on memory,
and the expression methods with observations
and psychophysiological measurement in research
on feelings. Wundt considered the methodology
of his linguistic psychological investigations
(Vols. 1 and 2 of Völkerpsychologie) to be
the most fruitful path to adequate psychological
research on the thought process.
The principles of his cultural psychological
methodology were only worked out later. These
involved the analytical and comparative observation
of objective existing materials, i.e. historical
writings, language, works, art, reports and
observations of human behaviour in earlier
cultures and, more rarely, direct ethnological
source material. Wundt differentiated between
two objectives of comparative methodology:
individual comparison collected all the important
features of the overall picture of an observation
material, while generic comparison formed
a picture of variations to obtain a typology.
Rules of generic comparison and critical interpretation
are essentially explained in his Logik "We
therefore generally describe the epitome of
the methods as interpretation that is intended
to provide us with an understanding of mental
processes and intellectual creation." Wundt
clearly referred to the tradition of humanistic
hermeneutics, but argued that the interpretation
process basically also followed psychological
principles. Interpretation only became the
characteristic process of the humanities through
criticism. It is a process that is set against
interpretation to dismantle the interaction
produced through psychological analysis. It
examines external or internal contradictions,
it should evaluate the reality of intellectual
products, and is also a criticism of values
and a criticism of opinions. The typical misconceptions
of the intellectualistic, individualistic
and unhistorical interpretation of intellectual
processes all have "their source in the habitually
coarse psychology based on subjective assessment."
=== Principles of mental causality ===
What is meant by these principles is the simple
prerequisites of the linking of psychological
facts that cannot be further extrapolated.
The system of principles has several repeatedly
reworked versions, with corresponding laws
of development for cultural psychology (Wundt,
1874, 1894, 1897, 1902–1903, 1920, 1921).
Wundt mainly differentiated between four principles
and explained them with examples that originate
from the physiology of perception, the psychology
of meaning, from apperception research, emotion
and motivation theory, and from cultural psychology
and ethics.
(1) The Principle of creative synthesis or
creative results (the emergence principle).
"Every perception can be broken down into
elemental impressions. But it is never just
the sum of these impressions, but from the
linkage of them that a new one is created
with individual features that were not contained
in the impressions themselves. We thus put
together the mental picture of a spatial form
from a multitude of impressions of light.
This principle proves itself in all mental
causality linkages and accompanies mental
development from its first to its consummate
stage." Wundt formulated this creative synthesis,
which today would also be described as the
principle of emergence in system theory, as
an essential epistemological principle of
empirical psychology – long before the phrase
the whole is more than the sum of its parts
or supra-summation was used in gestalt psychology.(2)
The Principle of relational analysis (context
principle). This principle says that "every
individual mental content receives its meaning
through the relationships in which it stands
to other mental content." (3) The Principle
of mental contrasts or reinforcement of opposites
or development in dichotomies. Typical contrast
effects are to be seen in sensory perceptions,
in the course of emotions and in volitional
processes. There is a general tendency to
order the subjective world according to opposites.
Thus many individual, historical, economic
and social processes exhibit highly contrasting
developments.(4) The Principle of the heterogony
of purpose (ends). The consequences of an
action extend beyond the original intended
purpose and give rise to new motives with
new effects. The intended purpose always induces
side-effects and knock-on effects that themselves
become purposes, i.e. an ever-growing organisation
through self-creation.In addition to these
four principles, Wundt explained the term
of intellectual community and other categories
and principles that have an important relational
and insightful function.Wundt demands co-ordinated
analysis of causal and teleological aspects;
he called for a methodologically versatile
psychology and did not demand that any decision
be made between experimental-statistical methods
and interpretative methods (qualitative methods).
Whenever appropriate, he referred to findings
from interpretation and experimental research
within a multimethod approach. Thus, for example,
the chapters on the development of language
or on enlargement of fantasy activity in cultural
psychology also contain experimental, statistical
and psychophysiological findings. He was very
familiar with these methods and used them
in extended research projects. This was without
precedent and has, since then, rarely been
achieved by another individual researcher.
== Philosophy ==
=== Wundt's philosophical orientation ===
In the introduction to his Grundzüge der
physiologischen Psychologie in 1874, Wundt
described Immanuel Kant and Johann Friedrich
Herbart as the philosophers who had the most
influence on the formation of his own views.
Those who follow up these references will
find that Wundt critically analysed both these
thinkers’ ideas. He distanced himself from
Herbart's science of the soul and, in particular,
from his "mechanism of mental representations"
and pseudo-mathematical speculations. While
Wundt praised Kant's critical work and his
rejection of a "rational" psychology deduced
from metaphysics, he argued against Kant's
epistemology in his publication Was soll uns
Kant nicht sein? (What Kant should we reject?)
1892 with regard to the forms of perception
and presuppositions, as well as Kant's category
theory and his position in the dispute on
causal and teleological explanations.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had a far greater
and more constructive influence on Wundt's
psychology, philosophy, epistemology and ethics.
This can be gleaned from Wundt's Leibniz publication
(1917) and from his central terms and principles,
but has since received almost no attention.
Wundt gave up his plans for a biography of
Leibniz, but praised Leibniz's thinking on
the two-hundredth anniversary of his death
in 1916. He did, however, disagree with Leibniz's
monadology as well as theories on the mathematisation
of the world by removing the domain of the
mind from this view. Leibniz developed a new
concept of the soul through his discussion
on substance and actuality, on dynamic spiritual
change, and on the correspondence between
body and soul (parallelism). Wundt secularised
such guiding principles and reformulated important
philosophical positions of Leibniz away from
belief in God as the creator and belief in
an immortal soul. Wundt gained important ideas
and exploited them in an original way in his
principles and methodology of empirical psychology:
the principle of actuality, psychophysical
parallelism, combination of causal and teleological
analysis, apperception theory, the psychology
of striving, i.e. volition and voluntary tendency,
principles of epistemology and the perspectivism
of thought. Wundt's differentiation between
the "natural causality" of neurophysiology
and the "mental causality" of psychology (the
intellect), is a direct rendering from Leibniz's
epistemology.Wundt devised the term psychophysical
parallelism and meant thereby two fundamentally
different ways of considering the postulated
psychophysical unit, not just two views in
the sense of Fechner's theory of identity.
Wundt derived the co-ordinated consideration
of natural causality and mental causality
from Leibniz's differentiation between causality
and teleology (principle of sufficient reason).
The psychological and physiological statements
exist in two categorically different reference
systems; the main categories are to be emphasised
in order to prevent category mistakes. With
his epistemology of mental causality, he differed
from contemporary authors who also advocated
the position of parallelism. Wundt had developed
the first genuine epistemology and methodology
of empirical psychology.
Wundt shaped the term apperception, introduced
by Leibniz, into an experimental psychologically
based apperception psychology that included
neuropsychological modelling. When Leibniz
differentiates between two fundamental functions,
perception and striving, this approach can
be recognised in Wundt's motivation theory.
The central theme of "unity in the manifold"
(unitas in multitudine) also originates from
Leibniz, who has influenced the current understanding
of perspectivism and viewpoint dependency.
Wundt characterised this style of thought
in a way that also applied for him: "…the
principle of the equality of viewpoints that
supplement one another" plays a significant
role in his thinking – viewpoints that "supplement
one another, while also being able to appear
as opposites that only resolve themselves
when considered more deeply." Unlike the great
majority of contemporary and current authors
in psychology, Wundt laid out the philosophical
and methodological positions of his work clearly.
Wundt was against the founding empirical psychology
on a (metaphysical or structural) principle
of soul as in Christian belief in an immortal
soul or in a philosophy that argues "substance"-ontologically.
Wundt's position was decisively rejected by
several Christianity-oriented psychologists
and philosophers as a psychology without soul,
although he did not use this formulation from
Friedrich Lange (1866), who was his predecessor
in Zürich from 1870 to 1872. Wundt's guiding
principle was the development theory of the
mind. Wundt's ethics also led to polemical
critiques due to his renunciation of an ultimate
transcendental basis of ethics (God, the Absolute).
Wundt's evolutionism was also criticised for
its claim that ethical norms had been culturally
changed in the course of human intellectual
development.Wundt's autobiography and his
inaugural lectures in Zurich and Leipzig as
well as his commemorative speeches for Fechner
and his Essay on Leibniz provide an insight
into the history of Wundt's education and
the contemporary flows and intellectual controversies
in the second half of the 19th century. Wundt
primarily refers to Leibniz and Kant, more
indirectly to Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm
Joseph Schelling and Arthur Schopenhauer;
and to Johann Friedrich Herbart, Gustav Theodor
Fechner and Hermann Lotze regarding psychology.
In addition to John Locke, George Berkeley,
David Hume and John Stuart Mill, one finds
Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin and Charles
Spencer, as well as French thinkers such as
Auguste Comte and Hippolyte Taine, all of
whom are more rarely quoted by Wundt.
=== Metaphysics ===
Wundt distanced himself from the metaphysical
term soul and from theories about its structure
and properties, as posited by Herbart, Lotze
and Fechner. Wundt followed Kant and warned
against a primarily metaphysically founded,
philosophically deduced psychology: "where
one notices the author's metaphysical point-of-view
in the treatment of every problem then an
unconditional empirical science is no longer
involved – but a metaphysical theory intended
to serve as an exemplification of experience."
He is, however, convinced that every single
science contains general prerequisites of
a philosophical nature. "All psychological
investigation extrapolates from metaphysical
presuppositions." Epistemology was to help
sciences find out about, clarify or supplement
their metaphysical aspects and as far as possible
free themselves of them. Psychology and the
other sciences always rely on the help of
philosophy here, and particularly on logic
and epistemology, otherwise only an immanent
philosophy, i.e. metaphysical assumptions
of an unsystematic nature, would form in the
individual sciences Wundt is decidedly against
the segregation of philosophy. He is concerned
about psychologists bringing their own personal
metaphysical convictions into psychology and
that these presumptions would no longer be
exposed to epistemological criticism. "Therefore
nobody would suffer more from such a segregation
than the psychologists themselves and, through
them, psychology." "Nothing would promote
the degeneration [of psychology] to a mere
craftsmanship more than its segregation from
philosophy."
=== 
System of philosophy ===
Wundt claims that philosophy as a general
science has the task of "uniting to become
a consistent system through the general knowledge
acquired via the individual sciences." Human
rationality strives for a uniform, i.e. non-contradictory,
explanatory principle for being and consciousness,
for an ultimate reasoning for ethics, and
for a philosophical world basis. "Metaphysics
is the same attempt to gain a binding world
view, as a component of individual knowledge,
on the basis of the entire scientific awareness
of an age or particularly prominent content."
Wundt was convinced that empirical psychology
also contributed fundamental knowledge on
the understanding of humans – for anthropology
and ethics – beyond its narrow scientific
field. Starting from the active and creative-synthetic
apperception processes of consciousness, Wundt
considered that the unifying function was
to be found in volitional processes and the
conscious setting of objectives and subsequent
activities. "There is simply nothing more
to a man that he can entirely call his own
– except for his will." One can detect a
"voluntaristic tendency" in Wundt's theory
of motivation, in contrast to the currently
widespread cognitivism (intellectualism).
Wundt extrapolated this empirically founded
volitional]] psychology to a metaphysical
voluntarism. He demands, however, that the
empirical-psychological and derived metaphysical
voluntarism are kept apart from one another
and firmly maintained that his empirical psychology
was created independently of the various teachings
of metaphysics.Wundt interpreted intellectual-cultural
progress and biological evolution as a general
process of development whereby, however, he
did not want to follow the abstract ideas
of entelechy, vitalism, animism, and by no
means Schopenhauer's volitional metaphysics.
He believed that the source of dynamic development
was to be found in the most elementary expressions
of life, in reflexive and instinctive behaviour,
and constructed a continuum of attentive and
apperceptive processes, volitional or selective
acts, up to social activities and ethical
decisions. At the end of this rational idea
he recognised a practical ideal: the idea
of humanity as the highest yardstick of our
actions and that the overall course of human
history can be understood with regard to the
ideal of humanity.
=== Ethics ===
Parallel to Wundt's work on cultural psychology
he wrote his much-read Ethik (1886, 3rd ed.
in 2 Vols., 1903), whose introduction stressed
how important development considerations are
in order to grasp religion, customs and morality.
Wundt considered the questions of ethics to
be closely linked with the empirical psychology
of motivated acts "Psychology has been such
an important introduction for me, and such
an indispensable aid for the investigation
of ethics, that I do not understand how one
could do without it." Wundt sees two paths:
the anthropological examination of the facts
of a moral life (in the sense of cultural
psychology) and the scientific reflection
on the concepts of morals. The derived principles
are to be examined in a variety of areas:
the family, society, the state, education,
etc. In his discussion on free will (as an
attempt to mediate between determinism and
indeterminism) he categorically distinguishes
between two perspectives: there is indeed
a natural causality of brain processes, though
conscious processes are not determined by
an intelligible, but by the empirical character
of humans – volitional acts are subject
to the principles of mental causality. "When
a man only follows inner causality he acts
freely in an ethical sense, which is partly
determined by his original disposition and
partly by the development of his character."On
the one hand, Ethics is a normative discipline
while, on the other hand, these ‘rules’
change, as can be seen from the empirical
examination of culture-related morality. Wundt's
ethics can, put simply, be interpreted as
an attempt to mediate between Kant's apriorism
and empiricism. Moral rules are the legislative
results of a universal intellectual development,
but are neither rigidly defined nor do they
simply follow changing life conditions. Individualism
and utilitarianism are strictly rejected.
In his view, only the universal intellectual
life can be considered to be an end in itself.
Wundt also spoke on the idea of humanity in
ethics, on human rights and human duties in
his speech as Rector of Leipzig University
in 1889 on the centenary of the French Revolution.
=== Logic, epistemology and the scientific
theory of psychology ===
Wundt divided up his three-volume Logik into
General logic and epistemology, Logic of the
exact sciences, and Logic of the humanities.
While logic, the doctrine of categories, and
other principles were discussed by Wundt in
a traditional manner, they were also considered
from the point of view of development theory
of the human intellect, i.e. in accordance
with the psychology of thought. The subsequent
equitable description of the special principles
of the natural sciences and the humanities
enabled Wundt to create a new epistemology.
The ideas that remain current include epistemology
and the methodology of psychology: the tasks
and directions of psychology, the methods
of interpretation and comparison, as well
as psychological experimentation.
== Complete works and legacy ==
=== Publications, libraries and letters ===
The list of works at the Max Planck Institute
for the History of Science includes a total
of 589 German and foreign-language editions
for the period from 1853 to 1950 MPI für
Wissenschaftsgeschichte: Werkverzeichnis Wilhelm
Wundt.The American psychologist Edwin Boring
counted 494 publications by Wundt (excluding
pure reprints but with revised editions) that
are, on average, 110 pages long and amount
to a total of 53,735 pages. Thus Wundt published
an average of seven works per year over a
period of 68 years and wrote or revised an
average of 2.2 pages per day. There is as
yet no annotated edition of the essential
writings, nor does a complete edition of Wundt's
major works exist, apart from more-or-less
suitable scans or digitalisations.
Apart from his library and his correspondence,
Wundt's extraordinarily extensive written
inheritance also includes many extracts, manuscripts,
lecture notes and other materials Wundt's
written inheritance in Leipzig consists of
5,576 documents, mainly letters, and was digitalised
by the Leipzig University Library. The catalogue
is available at the Kalliope online portal.
One-third of Wundt's own library was left
to his children Eleonore and Max Wundt; most
of the works were sold during the times of
need after the First World War to Tohoku University
in Sendai, Japan. The University's stock consists
of 6,762 volumes in western languages (including
bound periodicals) as well as 9,098 special
print runs and brochures from the original
Wundt Library. The list in the Max Planck
Institute for the History of Science only
mentions 575 of these entries. Tübingen University
Archive's stock includes copies of 613 letters,
Wundt's will, lists from Wundt's original
library, and other materials and ‘Wundtiana’:
The German Historical Museum in Berlin has
a 1918 shellac disk on which Wundt repeats
the closing words of his inaugural lecture
(given in Zürich on 31 October 1874 and re-read
in 1918 for documentation purposes): "On the
task of philosophy in the present"
=== Biographies ===
The last Wundt biography which tried to represent
both Wundt's psychology and his philosophy
was by Eisler (1902). One can also get an
idea of Wundt's thoughts from his autobiography
Erlebtes und Erkanntes (1920). Later biographies
by Nef (1923) and Petersen (1925) up to Arnold
in 1980 restrict themselves primarily to the
psychology or the philosophy. Eleonore Wundt's
(1928) knowledgeable but short biography of
her father exceeds many others’ efforts.
=== Political attitude ===
At the start of the First World War Wundt,
like Edmund Husserl and Max Planck, signed
the patriotic call to arms as did about 4,000
professors and lecturers in Germany, and during
the following years he wrote several political
speeches and essays that were also characterised
by the feeling of a superiority of German
science and culture. Wundt was a Liberal during
his early Heidelberg time, affiliated with
a Workers’ Education Union (Arbeiterbildungsverein),
and as a politician in the Baden State Parliament
(see also his speech as Rector of Leipzig
University in 1889).In old age he appeared
to become more conservative (see Wundt, 1920;
Wundt's correspondence), then – also in
response to the war, the subsequent social
unrest and the severe revolutionary events
of the post-war period – adopted an attitude
that was patriotic and leant towards nationalism.
Wilhelm Wundt's son, philosopher Max Wundt,
had an even more clearly intense, somewhat
nationalist, stance. While he was not a member
of the Nazi party (NSDAP), he wrote about
national traditions and race in philosophical
thinking.
=== Wundt Societies ===
Four Wilhelm Wundt Societies or Associations
have been founded:
1925 to 1968: Wilhelm Wundt Stiftung und Verband
Freunde des Psychologischen Instituts der
Universität Leipzig, founded by former assistants
and friends of Wundts.
1979: Wilhelm Wundt Gesellschaft (based in
Heidelberg), "a scientific association with
a limited number of members set up with the
aim of promoting fundamental psychological
research and further developing it through
its efforts."
1992 to 1996: Wundt-Stiftung e.V. und Förderverein
Wundt-Stiftung e.V. (based in Bonn/Leipzig).
2016: Förderverein Wilhelm-Wundt-Haus in
Grossbothen.. The purpose of the association
is "the maintenance and restoration of the
Wundt home in keeping with its listed building
status, as well as its appropriate use". The
association was founded on the initiative
of Jüttemann (2014).Die Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Psychologie German Society for Psychology
grants a Wilhelm-Wundt-Medaille.
== 
Reception of Wundt's work ==
=== Reception by his contemporaries ===
The psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin described
the pioneering spirit at the new Leipzig Institute
in this fashion: "We felt that we were trailblazers
entering virgin territory, like creators of
a science with undreamt-of prospects. Wundt
spent several afternoons every week in his
adjacent modest Professorial office, came
to see us, advised us and often got involved
in the experiments; he was also available
to us at any time." The philosopher Rudolf
Eisler considered Wundt's approach as follows:
"A major advantage of Wundt's philosophy is
that it neither consciously nor unconsciously
takes metaphysics back to its beginnings,
but strictly distinguishes between empirical-scientific
and epistemological-metaphysical approaches,
and considers each point-of-view in isolation
in its relative legitimacy before finally
producing a uniform world view. Wundt always
differentiates between the physical-physiological
and the purely psychological, and then again
from the philosophical point-of-view. As a
result, apparent ‘contradictions’ are
created for those who do not observe more
precisely and who constantly forget that the
differences in results are only due to the
approach and not the laws of reality …" Traugott
Oesterreich (1923/1951) wrote an unusually
detailed description of Wundt's work in his
Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Foundations
of the History of Philosophy). This knowledgeable
representation examines Wundt's main topics,
views and scientific activities and exceeds
the generally much briefer Wundt reception
within the field of psychology, in which many
of the important prerequisites and references
are ignored right from the start.
The internal consistency of Wundt's work from
1862 to 1920, between the main works and within
the reworked editions, has repeatedly been
discussed and been subject to differing assessments
in parts. One could not say that the scientific
conception of psychology underwent a fundamental
revision of principal ideas and central postulates,
though there was gradual development and a
change in emphasis. One could consider Wundt's
gradual concurrence with Kant's position,
that conscious processes are not measurable
on the basis of self-observation and cannot
be mathematically formulated, to be a major
divergence. Wundt, however, never claimed
that psychology could be advanced through
experiment and measurement alone, but had
already stressed in 1862 that the development
history of the mind and comparative psychology
should provide some assistance.Wundt attempted
to redefine and restructure the fields of
psychology and philosophy.
"Experimental psychology in the narrower sense
and child psychology form individual psychology,
while cultural and animal psychology are both
parts of a general and comparative psychology"
). None of his Leipzig assistants and hardly
any textbook authors in the subsequent two
generations have adopted Wundt's broad theoretical
horizon, his demanding scientific theory or
the multi-method approach. Oswald Külpe had
already ruled cultural and animal psychology
out.While the Principles of physiological
Psychology met with worldwide resonance, Wundt's
cultural psychology (ethno-psychology) appeared
to have had a less widespread impact. But
there are indications that George Herbert
Mead and Franz Boas, among others, were influenced
by it. In his Totem and Taboo, Sigmund Freud
frequently quoted Wundt's cultural psychology.
In its time, Wundt's Ethik received more reviews
than almost any of his other main works. Most
of the objections were ranged against his
renouncing any ultimate transcendental ethical
basis (God, the Absolute), as well as against
his ideas regarding evolution, i.e. that ethical
standards changed culturally in the course
of human intellectual development. As Wundt
did not describe any concrete ethical conflicts
on the basis of examples and did not describe
any social ethics in particular, his teachings
with the general idea of humanism appear rather
too abstract.
The XXII International Congress for Psychology
in Leipzig in 1980, i.e. on the hundredth
jubilee of the initial founding of the Institute
in 1879, stimulated a number of publications
about Wundt, also in the US Very little productive
research work has been carried out since then.
While Wundt was occasionally mentioned in
the centenary review of the founding of the
German Society for Experimental Psychology
1904/2004, it was without the principal ideas
of his psychology and philosophy of science.
=== Research on reception of his work ===
Leipzig was a world-famous centre for the
new psychology after 1874. There are various
interpretations regarding why Wundt's influence
after the turn of the century, i.e. during
his lifetime, rapidly waned and from his position
as founding father Wundt became almost an
outsider. A survey was conducted on the basis
of more than 200 contemporary and later sources:
reviews and critiques of his publications
(since 1858), references to Wundt's work in
textbooks on psychology and the history of
psychology (from 1883 to 2010), biographies,
congress reports, praise on his decadal birthdays,
obituaries and other texts. A range of scientific
controversies were presented in detail. Reasons
for the distancing of Wundt and why some of
his concepts have fallen into oblivion can
be seen in his scientific work, in his philosophical
orientation, in his didactics or in the person
of Wundt himself:
Possibly the most important reason for Wundt's
relatively low influence might lie in his
highly ambitious epistemologically founded
conception of psychology, in his theory of
science and in the level of difficulty involved
in his wide-ranging methodology.
Most psychologies in the subsequent generation
appear to have a considerably simpler, less
demanding, philosophical point-of-view instead
of co-ordinated causal and teleological considerations
embedded in multiple reference systems that
consequently also demanded a multi-method
approach. Thus instead of perspectivism and
a change in perspective an apparently straightforward
approach is preferred, i.e. research oriented
upon either the natural sciences or the humanities.
Wundt's assistants and colleagues, many of
whom were also personally close, did not take
on the role of students and certainly not
the role of interpreters. Oswald Külpe, Ernst
Meumann, Hugo Münsterberg or Felix Krueger
did not want to, or could not, adequately
reference Wundt's comprehensive scientific
conception of psychology in their books, for
example they almost entirely ignored Wundt's
categories and epistemological principles,
his strategies in comparison and interpretation,
the discussions regarding Kant's in-depth
criticism of methodology, and Wundt's neuropsychology.
Nobody in this circle developed a creative
continuation of Wundt's concepts. Krueger's
inner distance to a scientific concept and
the entire work of his predecessor cannot
be overlooked.
Through his definition of "soul" as an actual
process, Wundt gave up the metaphysical idea
of a "substantial carrier"; his psychology
without a soul was heavily criticised by several
contemporary and later psychologists and philosophers.
Wundt exposed himself to criticism with his
theoretical and experimental psychologically
differentiated apperception psychology as
opposed to elemental association psychology,
and with his comprehensive research programme
on a development theory of the human intellect,
now seen as an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary
project.
=== Misunderstandings of basic terms and principles
===
Wundt's terminology also created difficulties
because he had – from today's point-of-view
– given some of his most important ideas
unfortunate names so that there were constant
misunderstandings. Examples include:
physiological psychology – specifically
not a scientific physiological psychology,
because by writing the adjective with a small
letter Wundt wanted to avoid this misunderstanding
that still exists today; for him it was the
use of physiological aids in experimental
general psychology that mattered.
Self-observation – not naive introspection,
but with training and experimental control
of conditions.
Experiment – this was meant with reference
to Francis Bacon – general, i.e. far beyond
the scientific rules of the empirical sciences,
so not necessarily a statistically evaluated
laboratory experiment. For Wundt psychological
experimentation primarily served as a check
of trained self-observation.
Element – not in the sense of the smallest
structure, but as a smallest unit of the intended
level under consideration, so that, for example,
even the central nervous system could be an
"element".
Völkerpsychologie – cultural psychology
– not ethnology.
Apperception – not just an increase in attention,
but a central and multimodal synthesis.
Voluntaristic tendency, voluntarism – not
an absolute metaphysical postulate, but a
primary empirically-psychologically based
accentuation of motivated action against the
intellectualism and cognitivism of other psychologists.A
representation of Wundt's psychology as ‘natural
science’, ‘element psychology’ or ‘dualistic’
conceptions is evidence of enduring misunderstandings.
It is therefore necessary to remember Wundt's
expressly stated desire for uniformity and
lack of contradiction, for the mutual supplementation
of psychological perspectives. Wundt's more
demanding, sometimes more complicated and
relativizing, then again very precise style
can also be difficult – even for today's
German readers; a high level of linguistic
competence is required. There are only English
translations for very few of Wundt's work.
In particular, the Grundzüge der physiologischen
Psychologie expanded into three volumes and
the ten volumes of Völkerpsychologie, all
the books on philosophy and important essays
on the theory of science remain untranslated.
Such shortcomings may explain many of the
fundamental deficits and lasting misunderstandings
in the Anglo-American reception of Wundt's
work. Massive misconceptions about Wundt's
work have been demonstrated by William James,
Granville Stanley Hall, Edward Boring and
Edward Titchener as well as among many later
authors. Titchener, a two-year resident of
Wundt's lab and one of Wundt's most vocal
advocates in the United States, is responsible
for several English translations and mistranslations
of Wundt's works that supported his own views
and approach, which he termed "structuralism"
and claimed was wholly consistent with Wundt's
position.
As Wundt's three-volume Logik und Wissenschaftslehre,
i.e. his theory of science, also remains untranslated
the close interrelationships between Wundt's
empirical psychology and his epistemology
and methodology, philosophy and ethics are
also regularly missing, even if later collections
describe individual facets of them. Blumenthal's
assessment that "American textbook accounts
of Wundt now present highly inaccurate and
mythological caricatures of the man and his
work" still appears to be true of most publications
about Wundt.
A highly contradictory picture emerges from
any systematic research on his reception.
On the one hand, the pioneer of experimental
psychology and founder of modern psychology
as a discipline is praised, on the other hand,
his work is insufficiently tapped and appears
to have had little influence. Misunderstandings
and stereotypical evaluations continue into
the present, even in some representations
of the history of psychology and in textbooks.
Wundt's entire work is investigated in a more
focused manner in more recent assessments
regarding the reception of Wundt, and his
theory of science and his philosophy is included
(Araujo, 2016; Danziger, 1983, 1990, 2001;
Fahrenberg, 2011, 2015, 2016; Jüttemann,
2006; Kim, 2016; van Rappard, 1980).
=== Scientific controversies and criticisms
===
Like other important psychologists and philosophers,
Wundt was subject to ideological criticism,
for example by authors of a more Christianity-based
psychology, by authors with materialistic
and positivistic scientific opinions, or from
the point-of-view of Marxist-Leninist philosophy
and social theory, as in Leipzig, German Democratic
Republic, up to 1990.
Wundt was involved in a number of scientific
controversies or was responsible for triggering
them:
the Wundt-Zeller controversy about the measurability
of awareness processes,
the Wundt-Meumann controversy about the necessary
scope of the scientific principles of applied
psychology,
the Wundt-Bühler controversy about the methodology
of the psychology of thought,
the controversy about the psychology of elemental
(passive-mechanic) association and integrative
(self-active) apperception,
the controversy about empirio-criticism, positivism
and critical realism, and
the controversy about psychologism.There are
many forms of criticism of Wundt's psychology,
of his apperception psychology, of his motivation
theory, of his version of psychophysical parallelism
with its concept of "mental causality", his
refutation of psychoanalytic speculation about
the unconscious, or of his critical realism.
A recurring criticism is that Wundt largely
ignored the areas of psychology that he found
less interesting, such as differential psychology,
child psychology and educational psychology.
In his cultural psychology there is no empirical
social psychology because there were still
no methods for investigating it at the time.
Among his postgraduate students, assistants
and other colleagues, however, were several
important pioneers: differential rpsychology,
"mental measurement" and intelligence testing
(James McKeen Cattell, Charles Spearman),
social psychology of group pocesses and the
psychology of work (Walther Moede), applied
psychology (Ernst Meumann, Hugo Münsterberg),
psychopathology, psychopharmacology and clinical
diagnosis (Emil Kraepelin).
== Wundt's excellence ==
Wundt developed the first comprehensive and
uniform theory of the science of psychology.
The special epistemological and methodological
status of psychology is postulated in this
wide-ranging conceptualisation, characterised
by his neurophysiological, psychological and
philosophical work. The human as a thinking
and motivated subject is not to be captured
in the terms of the natural sciences. Psychology
requires special categories and autonomous
epistemological principles. It is, on the
one hand, an empirical humanity but should
not, on the other hand, ignore its physiological
basis and philosophical assumptions. Thus
a varied, multi-method approach is necessary:
self-observation, experimentation, generic
comparison and interpretation. Wundt demanded
the ability and readiness to distinguish between
perspectives and reference systems, and to
understand the necessary supplementation of
these reference systems in changes of perspective.
He defined the field of psychology very widely
and as interdisciplinary, and also explained
just how indispensable is the epistemological-philosophical
criticism of psychological theories and their
philosophical prerequisites. Psychology should
remain connected with philosophy in order
to promote this critique of knowledge of the
metaphysical presuppositions so widespread
among psychologists.
The conceptual relationships within the complete
works created over decades and continuously
reworked have hardly been systematically investigated.
The most important theoretical basis is the
empirical-psychological theory of apperception,
based on Leibniz's philosophical position,
that Wundt, on the one hand, based on experimental
psychology and his neuropsychological modelling
and, on the other hand, extrapolated into
a development theory for culture. The fundamental
reconstruction of Wundt's main ideas is a
task that cannot be achieved by any one person
today due to the complexity of the complete
works. He tried to connect the fundamental
controversies of the research directions epistemologically
and methodologically by means of a co-ordinated
concept – in a confident handling of the
categorically basically different ways of
considering the interrelations. Here, during
the founding phase of university psychology,
he already argued for a highly demanding meta-science
meta-scientific reflection – and this potential
to stimulate interdisciplinarity und perspectivism
(complementary approaches) has by no means
been exhausted.
== Selected works ==
=== Books and articles ===
Lehre von der Muskelbewegung (The Patterns
of Muscular Movement), (Vieweg, Braunschweig
1858).
Die Geschwindigkeit des Gedankens (The Velocity
of Thought), (Die Gartenlaube 1862, Vol 17,
p. 263).
Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung
(Contributions on the Theory of Sensory Perception),
(Winter, Leipzig 1862).
Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Tierseele
(Lectures about Human and Animal Psychology),
(Voss, Leipzig Part 1 and 2, 1863/1864; 4th
revised ed. 1906).
Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen (Textbook
of Human Physiology), (Enke, Erlangen 1864/1865,
4th ed. 1878).
Die physikalischen Axiome und ihre Beziehung
zum Causalprincip (Physical Axioms and their
Bearing upon Causality Principles), (Enke,
Erlangen 1866).
Handbuch der medicinischen Physik (Handbook
of Medical Physics), (Enke, Erlangen 1867).
(Digitalisat und Volltext im Deutschen Textarchiv)
Untersuchungen zur Mechanik der Nerven und
Nervenzentren (Investigations upon the Mechanisms
of Nerves and Nerve-Centres), (Enke, Erlangen
1871-1876).
Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie
(Principles of physiological Psychology),
(Engelmann, Leipzig 1874; 5th ed. 1903-1903;
6th ed. 1908-1911, 3 Vols).
Über die Aufgabe der Philosophie in der Gegenwart.
Rede gehalten zum Antritt des öffentlichen
Lehramts der Philosophie an der Hochschule
in Zürich am 31. Oktober 1874. (On the Task
of Philosophy in the present), (Philosophische
Monatshefte. 1874, Vol 11, pp. 65–68).
Über den Einfluss der Philosophie auf die
Erfahrungswissenschaften. Akademische Antrittsrede
gehalten in Leipzig am 20. November 1875.
(On the Impact of Philosophy on the empirical
Sciences), (Engelmann, Leipzig 1876).
Der Spiritismus – eine sogenannte wissenschaftliche
Frage. (Spiritism – a so-called scientific
Issue), (Engelmann: Leipzig 1879).
Logik. Eine Untersuchung der Principien der
Erkenntnis und der Methoden Wissenschaftlicher
Forschung. (Logic. An investigation into the
principles of knowledge and the methods of
scientific research), (Enke, Stuttgart 1880-1883;
4th ed. 1919-1921, 3 Vols.).
Ueber die Messung psychischer Vorgänge. (On
the measurement of mental events). (Philosophische
Studien. 1883, Vol 1, pp. 251–260, pp. 463–471).
Ueber psychologische Methoden. (On psychological
Methods). (Philosophische Studien. 1883, Vol
1, pp. 1–38).
Essays (Engelmann, Leipzig 1885).
Ethik. Eine Untersuchung der Tatsachen und
Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens. (Ethics), (Enke,
Stuttgart 1886; 3rd ed. 1903, 2 Vols.).
Über Ziele und Wege der Völkerpsychologie.
(On Aims and Methods of Cultural Psychology).
(Philosophische Studien. 1888, Vol 4, pp.
1–27).
System der Philosophie (System of Philosophy),
(Engelmann, Leipzig 1889: 4th ed. 1919, 2
Vols.).
Grundriss der Psychologie (Outline of Psychology),
(Engelmann, Leipzig 1896; 14th ed. 1920).
Über den Zusammenhang der Philosophie mit
der Zeitgeschichte. Eine Centenarbetrachtung.
(On the Relation between Philosophy and contemporary
History). Rede des antretenden Rectors Dr.
phil., jur. et med. Wilhelm Wundt. F. Häuser
(Hrsg.): Die Leipziger Rektoratsreden 1871–1933.
Vol I: Die Jahre 1871–1905 (pp. 479–498).
Berlin: (de Gruyter (1889/2009).
Hypnotismus und Suggestion. (Hypnotism and
Suggestion). (Engelmann: Leipzig 1892).
Ueber psychische Causalität und das Princip
des psycho-physischen Parallelismus. (On mental
Causality and the Principle of psycho-physical
Parallelism). (Philosophische Studien. 1894,
Vol 10, pp. 1–124).
Ueber die Definition der Psychologie (On the
Definition of Psychology). (Philosophische
Studien. 1896, Vol 12, pp. 9–66).
Über naiven und kritischen Realismus I–III.
(On naive and critical Realism). (Philosophische
Studien. 1896–1898, Vol 12, pp. 307–408;
Vol 13, pp. 1–105, pp. 323–433).
Völkerpsychologie (Cultural Psychology),
10 Volumes, Vol. 1, 2. Die Sprache (Language);
Vol. 3. Die Kunst (Art); Vol 4, 5, 6. Mythos
und Religion (Myth and Religion); Vol 7, 8.
Die Gesellschaft (Society); Vol 9. Das Recht
(Right); Vol 10. Kultur und Geschichte (Culture
and History). (Engelmann, Leipzig 1900 to
1920; some vol. revised or reprinted, 3rd
ed.1919 ff; 4th ed. 1926).
Einleitung in die Philosophie (Introduction
to Philosophy), (Engelmann, Leipzig 1909;
8th ed. 1920).
Gustav Theodor Fechner. Rede zur Feier seines
hundertjährigen Geburtstags. (Engelmann,
Leipzig 1901).
Über empirische und metaphysische Psychologie
(On empirical and metaphysical Psychology).
(Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie. 1904,
Vol 2, pp. 333–361).
Über Ausfrageexperimente und über die Methoden
zur Psychologie des Denkens. (Psychologische
Studien. 1907, Vol 3, pp. 301–360).
Kritische Nachlese zur Ausfragemethode. (Archiv
für die gesamte Psychologie. 1908, Vol 11,
pp. 445–459).
Über reine und angewandte Psychologie (On
pure and applied Psychology). (Psychologische
Studien. 1909, Vol 5, pp. 1–47).
Das Institut für experimentelle Psychologie.
In: Festschrift zur Feier des 500 jährigen
Bestehens der Universität Leipzig, ed. by
Rektor und Senat der Universität Leipzig,
1909, 118-133. (S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1909).
Psychologismus und Logizismus (Psychologism
and Logizism). Kleine Schriften. Vol 1 (pp.
511–634). (Engelmann, Leipzig 1910).
Kleine Schriften (Shorter Writings), 3 Volumes,
(Engelmann, Leipzig 1910-1911).
Einführung in die Psychologie. (Dürr, Leipzig
1911).
Probleme der Völkerpsychologie (Problems
in Cultural Psychology). (Wiegandt, Leipzig
1911).
Elemente der Völkerpsychologie. Grundlinien
einer psychologischen Entwicklungsgeschichte
der Menschheit. (Elements of Cultural Psychology),
(Kröner, Leipzig 1912).
Die Psychologie im Kampf ums Dasein (Psychology's
Struggle for Existence). (Kröner, Leipzig
1913).
Reden und Aufsätze. (Addresses and Extracts).
(Kröner, Leipzig 1913).
Sinnliche und übersinnliche Welt (The Sensory
and Supersensory World), (Kröner, Leipzig
1914).
Über den wahrhaften Krieg (About the Real
War), (Kröner, Leipzig 1914).
Die Nationen und ihre Philosophie (Nations
and Their Philosophies), (Kröner, Leipzig
1915).
Völkerpsychologie und Entwicklungspsychologie
(Cultural Psychology and Developmental Psychology).
. (Psychologische Studien. 1916, 10, 189-238).
Leibniz. Zu seinem zweihundertjährigen Todestag.
14. November 1916. (Kröner Verlag, Leipzig
1917).
Die Weltkatastrophe und die deutsche Philosophie
. (Keysersche Buchhandlung, Erfurt 1920).
Erlebtes und Erkanntes. (Experience and Realization).
(Kröner, Stuttgart 1920).
Kleine Schriften. Vol 3. (Kröner, Stuttgart
1921).
=== Wundt's works in English ===
References given by Alan Kim [2]
1974 The Language of Gestures. Ed. Blumenthal,
A.L. Berlin: De Gruyter
1973 An Introduction to Psychology. New York:
Arno Press
1969? Outlines of Psychology. 1897. Tr. Judd,
C.H. St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press
1916 Elements of folk-psychology. Tr. Schaub,
E.L. London: Allen
1901 The Principles of Morality and the Departments
of the Moral Life. Trans. Washburn, M.F. London:
Swan Sonnenschein; New York: Macmillan
1896 (2nd ed.) Lectures on human and animal
psychology. Creighton, J.G., Titchener, E.B.,
trans. London: Allen. Translation of Wundt,
1863
1893 (3rd ed.) Principles of physiological
psychology. Titchener, E.B., trans. London:
Allen. Translation of Wundt, 1874. [New York,
1904]
== See also ==
Psychologism dispute
== References ==
Rieber, R. ed., 2013. Wilhelm Wundt and the
making of a scientific psychology. Springer
Science & Business Media.
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Wolfgang G. Bringmann, W. D. Balance, R. B.
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(Völkerpsychologie): Eine Psychologische
Entwicklungstheorie des Geistes (Wilhelm Wundt's
cultural psychology: A psychological theory
on the development of mind). (2016b) PsyDok
[8]
Jochen Fahrenberg: Wundt-Nachlass (2016c).
PsyDok ZPID [9]
Jochen Fahrenberg: Wilhelm Wundt (1832 – 1920).
Gesamtwerk: Einführung, Zitate, Rezeption,
Kommentare, Rekonstruktionsversuche. Pabst
Science Publishers, Lengerich 2018.
Carl F. Graumann: Experiment, Statistik, Geschichte.
Wundts erstes Heidelberger Programm einer
Psychologie. Psychologische Rundschau, 1980,
Volume 31, pp. 73–83.
Carl F. Graumann: Die Verbindung und Wechselwirkung
der Individuen im Gemeinschaftsleben. In:
Gerd Jüttemann (Ed.): Wilhelm Wundts anderes
Erbe. Ein Missverständnis löst sich auf.
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, pp.
52–68.
Hildebrandt, H. (1989). Psychophysischer Parallelismus.
In: J. Ritte, K. Gründer (Hrsg.). Historisches
Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1989, Volume 7,
pp. 101–107.
Willem Van Hoorn, T. Verhave: Wilhelm Wundts‟s
conception of his multiple foundations of
scientific psychology. In W. Meischner, A.
Metge (Hrsg.). Wilhelm Wundt – progressives
Erbe, Wissenschaftsentwicklung und Gegenwart.
Protokoll des internationalen Symposiums.
Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig, 1979. Pahl-Rugenstein,
Köln 1980, pp. 107–117.
Jürgen Jahnke: Wilhelm Wundts akademische
Psychologie 1886/87. Die Vorlesungsnachschriften
von Albert Thumb Freiburg. In: Jürgen Jahnke,
Jochen Fahrenberg, Reiner Stegie, Eberhard
Bauer (Hrsg.): Psychologiegeschichte – Beziehungen
zu Philosophie und Grenzgebieten. Profil,
München 1998, ISBN 3-89019-461-3, pp. 151–168.
Gerd Jüttemann (Ed.): Wilhelm Wundts anderes
Erbe. Ein Missverständnis löst sich auf.
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2006,
ISBN 3-525-49087-9.
Alan Kim: "Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt". The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall
2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)[10]
Friedrich A. Lange: Geschichte des Materialismus
und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart.
(8. erw. Aufl. 1908, hrsg. und bearbeitet
von Hermann Cohen). Baedeker, Iserlohn 1866.
Wolfram Meischner, Annerose Metge: Wilhelm
Wundt – progressives Erbe, Wissenschaftsentwicklung
und Gegenwart. Protokoll des internationalen
Symposiums. Karl-Marx-Universität, Leipzig
1979. Pahl-Rugenstein, Köln 1980.
Annerose Meischner-Metge: Wilhelm Wundt und
seine Schüler. In: Horst-Peter Brauns (Ed.):
Zentenarbetrachtungen. Historische Entwicklungen
in der neueren Psychologie bis zum Ende des
20. Jahrhunderts. Peter Lang, Frankfurt a.M.
2003, pp. 156–166.
Annerose Meischner-Metge: Die Methode der
Forschung. In: G. Jüttemann (Hrsg.): Wilhelm
Wundts anderes Erbe. Ein Missverständnis
löst sich auf. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen
2006, pp. 131–143.
Till Meyer: Das DFG-Projekt "Erschließung
und Digitalisierung des Nachlasses von Wilhelm
Wundt" an der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig.
In: Leipziger Jahrbuch für Buchgeschichte,
2015, Volume 23, pp. 347–357.
Hans v. Rappard: A monistic interpretation
of Wundt's psychology. Psychological Research,
1980, 42, 123-134.
Robert W. Rieber, David K. Robinson (Eds.):
Wilhelm Wundt in history: The making of a
scientific psychology. Kluwer-Academic, New
York 1980 (2nd ed. 2001).
Eckhard Scheerer: Psychologie. In: J. Ritter,
K. Gründer (Hrsg.). Historisches Wörterbuch
der Philosophie. Schwabe & Co., Basel 1989,
Volume 7 (pp. 1599–1654).
Gustav A. Ungerer: Wilhelm Wundt als Psychologe
und Politiker. Psychologische Rundschau, 1980,
Volume 31, pp. 99–110.
Gustav A. Ungerer: Forschungen zur Biographie
Wilhelm Wundts und zur Regionalgeschichte.
Gesammelte Aufsätze 1978-1997. Ein Logbuch.
Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher 2016.
ISBN 978-3-89735-851-5
Wan-chi Wong: Retracing the footsteps of Wilhelm
Wundt: Explorations in the Disciplinary Frontiers
of Psychology and in Völkerpsychologie. History
of Psychology, 2010, Volume 12, (4), pp. 229–265.
Maximilian Wontorra: Frühe apparative Psychologie.
Der Andere Verlag, Leipzig 2009.
Maximilian Wontorra, Ingrid Kästner, Erich
Schröger (Hrsg.): Wilhelm Wundts Briefwechsel.
Institut für Psychologie. Leipzig 2011.
Maximilian Wontorra, Annerose Meischner-Metge,
Erich Schröger (Hrsg.): Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920)
und die Anfänge der experimentellen Psychologie.
Institut für Psychologie. Leipzig 2004. ISBN
3-00-013477-8.
Paul Ziche: Neuroscience in its context. Neuroscience
and psychology in the work of Wilhelm Wundt.
In: Physis rivista internazionale di storia
della scienza, 1999, Volume 36 (2), pp. 407–429.
PMID 11640242.
Paul Ziche: Wissenschaftslandschaften um 1900:
Philosophie, die Wissenschaften und der nichtreduktive
Szientismus. Chronos, Zürich 2008.
== External links ==
Works related to Wilhelm Wundt at Wikisource
Literature by and about Wilhelm Wundt in the
German National Library catalogue
Works by and about Wilhelm Wundt in the Deutsche
Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library)
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science:
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt.
Biography and bibliography in the Virtual
Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for
the History of Science
Wilhelm Wundt Bibliography 589 entries
Nachlass von Wilhelm Wundt im Kalliope-Verbund
Universität Leipzig: Wilhelm Wundt
Universität Leipzig: Wilhelm Wundt und die
Anfänge der experimentellen Psychologie.
Universität Heidelberg: Wilhelm Wundt und
die Institutionalisierung der Psychologie.
Wundt's Lectures at the University of Zürich
1874-1875
Wundt's Lectures at the University of Leipzig
Alan Kim: Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt.
=== Works online ===
Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie.
Grundriss der Psychologie.
Wilhelm Wundt: Erlebtes und Erkanntes
Works by Wilhelm Wundt at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Wilhelm Wundt at Internet
Archive
[11]
=== Earlier translations online ===
Caution: Earlier translations of Wundt's publications
are of a highly questionable reliability.
Principles of Physiological Psychology
Outlines of Psychology
Ethics: An Investigation of the Facts and
Laws of the Moral Life. Volume 1. (Tr. Edward
B. Titchener et al..) Second Edition, 1902.
University of Michigan.
Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology. (Trs.
Edward B. Titchener and James E. Creighton.)
Second Edition, 1896. Harvard.Fourth Edition,
1907. Stanford; UCLA; University of Illinois.
Outlines of Psychology. (Tr. Charles Hubbard
Judd.) Second Edition, 1902. Stanford.
Principles of Physiological Psychology. Volume
1. (Tr. Edward B. Titchener.)First Edition,
1904. Harvard; Lane; University of Michigan;
HTML. Second Edition, 1910. UCLA.
