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Wilhelm Wundt Resurrected

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Roger Smith
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster

Abstract

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Type
Essay Reviews
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1982

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References

1 E.g. Joynson, R. B., Psychology and common sense. London, 1974.Google Scholar

2 Centenary celebrations included The 22nd International Congress of Psychology at Leipzig: Wetmore, K., ‘A note on the twenty-second International Congress of Psychology’, Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences, 1981, 17, 232–53.0.CO;2-F>CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the 1979 meeting of the American Psychological Association at New York: D. E. Leary, ‘One hundred years of experimental psychology: an American perspective’, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 175–89.Google Scholar See also, the 1977 conference of the New York Academy of Sciences, papers published as R. W. Rieber and K. Salzinger (eds), ‘The roots of American psychology: historical influences and implications for the future’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1977, 291Google Scholar; also published (with new chapters) as Rieber, R. W. and Salzinger, K. (eds.), Psychology: theoretical-historical perspectives. New York, 1980.Google Scholar Cf. Brožek, J., ‘Centennial activities’Google Scholar, in Brožek, J. and Pongratz, L. J. (eds.), Historiography of modern psychology. Toronto, 1980, 326–30.Google Scholar

3 Psychologists have taken up this point in Buss, A. R. (ed.), Psychology in social context. New York, 1979Google Scholar; especially Danziger, K., ‘The social origins of modern psychology’, pp. 2745.Google Scholar

4 Bringmann, W. G., Bringmann, N. J. and Ungerer, G. A., ‘The establishment of Wundt's laboratory: an archival and documentary study’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 123–57Google Scholar; cf. Bringmann, W. G. and Ungerer, G. A., ‘The foundation of the Institute for Experimental Psychology at Leipzig University’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 518Google Scholar, and (same article) ‘The establishment of Wilhelm Wundt's Leipzig laboratory’, Storia e critica della psicologia, 1980, 1, 1128.Google Scholar See also: Bringmann, W. G., Bringmann, N. J. and Balance, W. D. G., ‘Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt 1832–1875: the formative years’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 1332Google Scholar; Bringmann, W. G., Ungerer, G. A. and Ganzer, H., ‘Illustrations from the life and work of Wilhelm Wundt’Google Scholar, ibid., 329–59. It is reported that W. G. Bringmann is writing a biography. Materials from the Leipzig archive are used in the general biographical introduction, written in the DDR: Meischner, W. and Eschler, E., Wilhelm Wundt. Köln, 1979.Google Scholar The standard Wundt bibliography is Wundt, E. (ed.), Wilhelm Wundts Werk: ein Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen Schriften. München, 1927.Google Scholar See also Bringmann, W. G. and Ungerer, G. A., ‘An archival journey in search of Wilhelm Wundt’, in Brožek, J. and Pongratz, L. J. (eds.), Historiography of modern psychology. Toronto, 1980, 201–40.Google Scholar

5 Diamond, S., ‘Wundt before Leipzig’Google Scholar, in Rieber, (ed.), 370.Google Scholar

6 Boring, E. G., A history of experimental psychology. 2nd edn., New York, 1950, p. 344.Google Scholar

7 Marshall, M. E. and Wendt, R. A., ‘Wilhelm Wundt, spiritism, and the assumptions of science’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 158–75.Google Scholar

8 With little excuse: C. H. Judd translated Wundt's Grundriss der Psychologie (1896)Google Scholar in an edition approved by Wundt and printed by his publisher (and subsequently reprinted): Outlines of psychology. Leipzig, 1897.Google Scholar Wundt makes clear his grandiose but challenging philosophical project in ch. 1. Theodore Mischel pioneered serious reconsideration in, ‘Wundt and the conceptual foundations of psychology’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1970, 31, 126.Google Scholar

9 Richards, R. J., ‘Wundt's early theories of unconscious inference and cognitive evolution in their relation to Darwinian biopsychology’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 4270Google Scholar; van Hoorn, W. and Verhave, T., ‘Wundt's changing conceptions of a general and theoretical psychology’Google Scholar, ibid., 71–113; Danziger, K., ‘Wundt's theory of behavior and volition’Google Scholar, in Rieber, (ed.), 89115.Google Scholar Cf. Scheerer, E., ‘Wilhelm Wundt's psychology of memory’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 135–55.Google Scholar

10 Diamond, S. (trans., with commentary notes), ‘Selected texts from writings of Wilhelm Wundt’Google Scholar, in Rieber, (ed.), 155–77.Google Scholar

11 As Danziger, K., ‘Wundt and the two traditions in psychology’Google Scholar, in Rieber, (ed.), 7387 (75–82)Google Scholar, points out, Wundt's discussion of ‘mental mechanism’ was a response to Herbart; the English ‘influence’ was on Titchener rather than Wundt. Inattention to this distinction confuses Boring's discussion of Wundt: op. cit. note 6, esp. pp. 329, 336. Boring's account is discussed in Blumenthal, A. L., ‘Wilhelm Wundt problems of interpretation’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 435–45.Google Scholar

12 Rappard, H. V., Psychology as self-knowledge: the development of the concept of the mind in German rationalistic psychology and its relevance today. Trans. L. Faili, Assen, 1979, eh. 4Google Scholar; reworked as, ‘A monistic interpretation of Wundt's psychology’, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 123–34.Google Scholar

13 Cf. van Hoorn, and Verhave, , op. cit. note 9, pp. 92, 94Google Scholar; Danziger, K., ‘Wundt's psychological experiment in the light of his philosophy of science’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds.), 109–22 (esp. 115)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The history of introspection reconsidered’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1980, 16, 241–62Google Scholar; Sokal, , Cottell, 10.Google Scholar

14 Haeberlin, H. K., ‘The theoretical foundations of Wundt's folk psychology’ (1916)Google Scholar, in Rieber, (ed.), 229–49Google Scholar; reprinting such reviews, without discussing their context, limits their use.

15 van Hoorn, and Verhave, , op. cit. note 9, pp. 100–5.Google Scholar Dilthey's major discussion of psychology (1894) has recently been translated: Dilthey, W., Descriptive psychology and historical understanding. Trans. Zaner, R. M. and Heiges, K. L., The Hague, 1977Google Scholar, ‘Ideas concerning a descriptive and analytic psychology’, pp. 21120.Google Scholar

16 Ash, M. G., ‘Wilhelm Wundt and Oswald Külpe on the institutional status of psychology: an academic controversy in historical context’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds.), 396421Google Scholar; idem, ‘Experimental psychology in Germany before 1914: aspects of an academic identity problem’, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 7586.Google Scholar Cf. Danziger, K., ‘The positivist repudiation of Wundt’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1979, 15, 205–303.0.CO;2-P>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Bringmann, W. G. and Ungerer, G. A., ‘Experimental vs. educational psychology: Wilhelm Wundt's letters to Ernst Meumann’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 5773.Google Scholar

17 In particular, the often cited study of role hybridisation, Ben-David, J. and Collins, R., ‘Social factors in the origins of a new science: the case of psychology’, American Sociological Review, 1966, 31, 451–65CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, should be buried.

18 Blumenthal, A. L., ‘Wilhelm Wundt and early American psychology: a clash of two cultures’Google Scholar, in Rieber, (ed.), 117–35Google Scholar; same article in Rieber, and Salzinger, , op. cit. note 2, pp. 2542.Google Scholar Cf. Danziger, , op. cit. note 11Google Scholar; idem, op. cit. note 3.

19 Cf. Dolby, R. G. A., ‘The transmission of two new scientific disciplines from Europe to North America in the late nineteenth century’, Annals of Science, 1977, 34, 287310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

20 Titchener's much quoted 1921 obituary of Wundt is reprinted in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds.), 309–25.Google Scholar Cf. Dazzi, N. and Ferruccio, F., ‘Wundt, Titchener e la psicologia americana’, Storia e critica della psicologia, 1980, 1, 2952Google Scholar; Tweney, R. D. and Yachanin, S. A., ‘Titchener's Wundt’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds.), 380–95Google Scholar; also, note 18, and Danziger, , op. cit. note 16.Google Scholar

21 On American experiences of Wundt: Sokal, M. M., ‘Graduate study with Wundt: two eyewitness accounts’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (ed), 210–25 (on J. McKeen Cattell and G. M. Stratton)Google Scholar; Bringmann, N. J. and Bringmann, W. G., ‘Wilhelm Wundt and his first American student’Google Scholar, ibid., 176–92 (on G. Stanley Hall); Sexton, V. S., ‘Edward Aloysius Pace’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 3947Google Scholar (Pace introduced Wundt to American catholics, through the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC). The 1921 memorial collection from Wundt's American students is hopelessly anecdotal: Baldwin, B. T. (ed.), ‘In memory of Wilhelm Wundt’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 280308.Google Scholar

22 Sokal, , Cattell, 218313.Google Scholar Cf. Hearnshaw, L. S., A short history of British psychology, 1840–1940. London, 1964Google Scholar; Daston, L. J., ‘British responses to psycho-physiology, 1860–1900’, Isis, 1978, 69, 192208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Hillix, W. A. and Broyles, J. W., ‘The family trees of American psychologists’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds.), 422–34 (424, 425).Google Scholar

24 This relationship does emphasise new historical materials: Wundt, W., The language of gestures.Google Scholar Intro, by A. L. Blumenthal, and additional essays by Mead, G. H. and Bühler, K., The Hague, 1973.Google Scholar Cf. Popplestone, J. A. and McPherson, M. W., ‘The vitality of the Leipzig model of 1880–1910 in the United States in 1950–1980’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 226–57Google Scholar; Marks, L. E., ‘Psychophysical judgement: Wundt's theory revisited’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 157–64Google Scholar; Pfaffmann, C., ‘Wundt's schema of sensory affect in the light of research on gustatory preferences’Google Scholar, ibid., 165–74; Leahey, T. H., ‘Something old, something new: attention in Wundt and modern cognitive psychology’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1979, 15, 242–52.3.0.CO;2-O>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

25 Nilsson, A., ‘Alfred Lehmann and psychology as a physical science’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 258–68Google Scholar; Misiak, H., ‘Leipzig and Louvain University in Belgium’Google Scholar, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds), 4956.Google Scholar M. A. Tinker's 1932 list of Wundt's doctoral students and their theses is reprinted in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), 269–79.Google Scholar For Wundt's first ‘psychological’ thesis: Behrens, P. J., ‘The first dissertation in experimental psychology: Max Friedrich's study of apperception’Google Scholar, ibid., 193–209; idem, ‘An edited translation of the first dissertation in experimental psychology by Max Friedrich at Leipzig University in Germany’, in Bringmann, and Scheerer, (eds.), 1938.Google Scholar

26 ‘Preface’ in Bringmann, and Tweney, (eds), p. 5.Google Scholar