Wilhelm Wundt
Wundt held that consciousness can be studied experimentally with the methods of physiology, while the higher products of communal life – language, myth and custom – need a historical method of their own.
Placement
Founder of experimental psychology in Leipzig: his laboratory of 1879 is usually counted as the first for psychology, and in the Völkerpsychologie he studied language, myth and custom; Husserl heard him, Durkheim visited him, and both criticised him.
Key ideas
- Experimental psychology of consciousness
- Völkerpsychologie: language, myth and custom as products of communal life
Students: Edmund Husserl
Influence
Influenced 1
George Herbert Mead
influenced ✓
During his study in Germany (1888–91) Mead immersed himself in Wundt’s research and took over his account of the gesture. SEP “George Herbert Mead” (M. Aboulafia, S. Taylor), §1 and §2
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
George Herbert Mead › 1863–1931
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Émile Durkheim influenced
influenced ✓
During his study year in Germany (1885–86) Durkheim visited Wundt in Leipzig and took the project of an empirical science of morals from the German tradition he found there. Durkheim, “La science positive de la morale en Allemagne”, Revue philosophique 24 (1887), Wundt section; secondary reports on the study year (Berlin, Marburg, Leipzig)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
criticised by
In his 1887 survey Durkheim criticised the position Wundt takes in the Ethik. Durkheim 1887 (Wundt section, Gallica scan of the Revue philosophique, seen in part); R. T. Hall (tr.), Durkheim, Ethics and the Sociology of Morals (1993)
Evidence: AI draft
Émile Durkheim › 1858–1917
Edmund Husserl taught
taught ✓
Husserl heard Wundt among his philosophy teachers in Leipzig in 1876–78. SEP “Edmund Husserl” (D. Zahavi), §1
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
criticised by
In the Logical Investigations Husserl charged Wundt’s logic with an extreme psychologism. SEP “Wilhelm Wundt” (A. Kim), §7.2 (Husserl 1901)
Evidence: AI draft
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
Works
Programme of an experimental psychology of consciousness drawing on physiology; it appeared in 1873–74, shortly before Wundt’s call to Leipzig.
- 1900Folk Psychology
Ten-volume work (1900–20) on the collective mental life of peoples as shown in language, myth and custom; Wundt designed it as a method complementary to the experimental one.
Position
Wundt is on the map as the founder of experimental psychology. In the Principles of Physiological Psychology (1873–74) he set out a psychology of immediate conscious experience that uses experimental methods and self-observation; consciousness is for him an active process, apperception an act of will (voluntarism), and psychic and physical explanations are irreducible perspectives on one experience. In the ten-volume Völkerpsychologie (1900–20) he studied language, myth and custom as products of communal life with a method complementary to the experimental one. He also wrote on logic, ethics and a System of Philosophy (1889). Husserl studied with him in Leipzig and in the Logical Investigations (1901) charged his logic with an extreme psychologism; Durkheim visited Leipzig during his study year of 1885–86 and criticised the position of Wundt’s Ethics in his survey of 1887, while taking over from the German tradition the project of an empirical science of morals; Mead immersed himself in Wundt’s research during his studies in Germany (1888–91) and took over his account of the gesture. For pragmatism, phenomenology and neo-Kantianism, Wundt’s influence was largely one of opposition.
Life & context
Wilhelm Wundt was born on 16 August 1832 in Neckarau near Mannheim. He studied medicine in Tübingen and Heidelberg, took his medical doctorate in Heidelberg in 1856 and was assistant to Hermann von Helmholtz from 1858 to 1865. In 1874 he took a chair of inductive philosophy in Zurich and in 1875 a chair of philosophy in Leipzig, where in 1879 his equipment room was recognised as a laboratory, usually counted as the first devoted to psychology. He supervised 186 doctoral dissertations. He died on 31 August 1920 in Großbothen near Leipzig.
Further main works
- Logic (Logik, 1880–83)
- Ethics (Ethik, 1886)
- System of Philosophy (System der Philosophie, 1889)
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