Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology

Volume II

Gregory A. Kimble,C. Alan Boneau,Michael Wertheimer

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135691059
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

A major aim of the books in this series is to promote psychology's appreciation of the neglected giants in its history. The chapters document the significance of these early contributions, many of them made more than a century ago. Most of the chapters are revisions of invited addresses delivered at psychological conventions. Several of the authors are students, colleagues, or offspring of their pioneers and all of them are intrigued by the life and work of the psychologists about whom they have written. All of the portraits are informal; on occasion, even humorous. Some are "impersonations"--telling stories in what were or might have been the pioneer's own words. This book provides source materials for teachers of undergraduate courses in psychology--particularly the history of psychology--who want to add a personal view in their lectures and offer interesting readings for their students. Each of the five volumes in this series contains different profiles thereby bringing more than 100 of the pioneers in psychology more vividly to life.

Chapter 1

Gustav Theodor Fechner: A German Gelehrter

Helmut E. Adler

Although psychologists know Gustav Fechner primarily as the originator of psychophysics (a name that he himself coined), an examination of his life reveals an individual of versatility and achievement in many fields. His contribution to psychological measurement was fundamental. In addition, he wrote satire, made important contributions to the physics of electricity, and experimented with the chemistry of bromine. Fechner gained additional fame as the founder of experimental esthetics. In his old age he became interested in the study of mediums and psychic phenomena. And throughout his long life he was occupied by the problem of the relationship of mind and body, and of the spiritual and the material world. In other words, he was a typical German Gelehrter, a learned individual with a broad spectrum of interests and a unique philosophy of life.

EARLY YEARS

Gustav Theodor Fechner was born on April 19, 1801 in the parsonage of the village of Gross-Sarchen, where his father was a minister, near the eastern border of the Kingdom of Saxony. It has been said that his father was a progressive pastor who preached without a wig “because Jesus did not wear a wig.” He installed a lightning rod on his church, whereas his parishioners were of the opinion that God would protect it. Fechner’s mother was a minister’s daughter, and his mother’s brother was also a minister. For the son of a minister, he was rebellious and not inclined to follow his family’s tradition: He became a follower of Lorenz Oken’s nature philosophy, although Fechner himself admitted that he did not really understand it. He fell in with a group of students who roamed the countryside, camped out, and, at least once, got into conflict with the law.

Education

When Gustav was 5 years old, his father died. He and his brother Eduard moved to the uncle’s home and his mother took care of his three sisters. He returned to his mother when he was 13 to attend the Gymnasium (German secondary school). Then in 1815 he and his family moved to Dresden, where he attended the famous Kreuzschule for a year and a half. At age 16, after a short stay at the Medical-Surgical Academy in Dresden, he enrolled at Leipzig University to begin his medical studies as soon as he was old enough to be admitted.

At the university, Fechner was not interested in his studies. Only Ernst Heinrich Weber’s course in physiology and Karl Brandan Mollweide’s course on algebra seemed worthwhile to him. Although he had passed the exams for the doctoral title, he did not complete the practical parts. As he put it, “The title of Doctor would have bestowed on me authority to practice internal medicine and surgery and obstetrics, when I had not learned to tie an artery, to apply the simplest bandage, or to perform the simplest operation connected with childbirth” (quoted by Kuntze, 1892). Eventually he was given honorary doctorates by the medical faculties of Leipzig and Breslau Universities.

Because Fechner was aiming at an academic career, he took a master’s degree in February 1823 and completed the requirements for a habilitation thesis in the same year with an essay (in Latin) titled “Premises Toward a General Theory of Organisms” (translated by Marilyn Marshall, 1974). (The German university system required that such a major paper be completed if a Gelehrter wished to be permitted to teach.) Fechner’s paper contained nine theses, which Fechner was willing to defend. The second of these, that “a strict parallelism exists between mind and body in such a way that from one, properly understood, the other can be constructed” (Parallelismus strictus existet inter animam et corpus, ita ut ex uno, rite cognito, alterum construi possit), plainly foreshadows not only psychophysics, but Fechner’s lifelong preoccupation with the relationship of body and mind.

Popular and Other Writing

While completing his medical studies, Fechner began to write, mainly to earn some money. On the popular side, he brought out a “Housewife’s Encyclopedia,” a text on logic, and another on human physiology. He had also begun a series of satires under the pseudonym of Dr. Mises. The first of them, “Proof That the Moon is Made of Iodine,” was a spoof of a then current medical theory that iodine is a kind of panacea. It is not known where the name Dr. Mises came from, but it is known that the Royal Saxon Secret Police had Fechner’s name in their files as Dr. Mises.

At about the same time, Fechner also started a series of scientific translations from the French. In 1824 he brought out a translation of Leon Rostand’s research on softening of the brain. In the same year, he translated and published volumes I and II of the physics text of Jean-Baptiste Biot (1774-1862), a leading physicist of the day.

Also in the same year, Fechner started to teach physics as docent at Leipzig University, taking over the lectures of Professor Gilbert who had just died, and holding this position until the appointment of Professor Brandes. Had there not been an opening in the physics department, Fechner might just as well have been appointed to teach chemistry. In 1825 he translated and published not only the two remaining Biot volumes, but also the first of a three-volume work on theoretical and practical chemistry by Louis Jacques Thénard (1777-1857).

During the next year Fechner continued at the same furious pace. He completed his translation of Thénard and brought out another chemistry volume (Repertorium der Organischen Chemie), a summary of the latest advances in organic chemistry. He complemented it in 1827 with a companion volume on inorganic chemistry plus three chemical research papers. In 1828, he published his first original physics research (on polarity reversal in electrical circuits) plus three physics papers, four chemistry papers (one on the newly discovered bromine), and volume 1 of Biot’s second edition.

Because a docent was only paid by the students he attracted, Fechner supported himself by means of his translations. His income was mainly used to support his research. He did, however, receive a travel grant of 300 thalers to visit Biot, Thénard, and Ampère in Paris in 1827. On this trip, he took the opportunity to visit his brother Eduard, the painter, who also lived in Paris. Incidentally, Fechner loved the Reichenbach Falls, which he passed on the trip. The falls were made famous later by Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel, The Final Problem.

On his return, after 3 months, Fechner completed his work on Biot’s second edition. This was not just a translation but a reworking of the text, including Fechner’s own experiments. About one third of the manuscript was Fechner’s own contributions. As he himself wrote in the foreword, “Since no new edition of the French original has appeared since the first German edition of this work, I have had the task of making additions and partially reworking those sections where progress in physics has made this necessary.” Fechner’s material, based on his own research, included chapters on wave motion, magnetism, subjective color phenomena, Goethe’s color theories, the chemical action of light, dew formation, and heat. Volume 3, on galvanism and electrochemical phenomena, was wholly Fechner’s. The inclusion of the results of his own observations delayed publication, so that Volume 4 appeared before volume 3. Volume 4 included many experiments of interest to psychologists, such as those on complementary colors, contrast colors and colored shadows, visual aftereffects, subjective light experience (such as when the eyeball is mechanically stimulated), and color blindness.

FECHNER, THE PHYSICIST

In 1829 Fechner translated Antoine César Becquerel’s (1788–1878) “Thermo-Electricity” and published one paper in chemistry and three in physics. Obviously, he still had spare time. In 1830 he started a pharmacological journal, published a text on electromagnetism taken mostly from a French original, and published two volumes of chemistry. The next year (1831) saw the publication of his most important physics monograph on the galvanic circuit (Galvanische Kette), which was inspired by Biot and based on 135 separate experiments. It gave an empirical basis for Georg Simon Ohm’s (1787–1854) intuitions. As Fechner put it, “The current of the galvanic circuit is directly proportional to the electromotive force in the circuit and inversely proportional to the total resistance of the circuit, or, to put it in another way, it is proportional to the total electromotive force divided by the total resistance.” This is now called Ohm’s Law. Had history taken a slightly different twist, it would be known today as Fechner’s Law. He was appointed associate professor (ausserordentlicher Professor) on the strength of his findings.

Fechner republished his work on the galvanic circuit in a text in 1832, a summary of recent findings in physics. Interestingly, he mentioned that he had proposed to use galvanic currents as a telegraph, a proposal realized by Karl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber in Gottingen in 1833.

Fechner was appointed full professor (Ordinarius) of physics in 1834, succeeding professor Brandes upon his death. A German Ordinarius was an important, well-paid position with lifetime tenure and a state pension. He was in charge of a department with a number of assistants. His duties were to lecture once a week and to supervise dissertations of doctoral candidates. Fechner had been married the previous year to Clara Marie Volkmann, sister of the physiologist and later collaborator on psychological experiments, A. W. Volkmann, a professor first at Dorpat, then later at Halle nearby. Although his marriage remained childless, his sister Frau Kuntze with her six children moved into the Fechner household. The oldest nephew, Johannes, later a professor of law and royal counselor (Geheimer Hofrath), became Fechner’s biographer (1892).

FECHNER’S SOCIAL WORLD

In those years, Fechner was a member of the elite intellectual society in Leipzig. The center of this group was the musical world, where Felix Mendelssohn was the permanent conductor of the Gewandhaus, the famous symphony orchestra. Robert and Clara Schumann were part of the circle. Clara was the stepdaughter of Fechner’s sister, Clementine Wieck. Härtel, the publisher, was a relative of Fechner’s wife and a center of social activity.

Although this period was a high point in the career of the 33-year-old Fechner, it was not destined to last. In 1837 he became involved on the losing side of a scientific controversy on the contact theory of the voltaic cell versus a chemical action theory. Biot supported Volta, and Fechner naturally took Biot’s side. Losing this heated intellectual battle may well have disturbed him profoundly. He published his last four physics papers in 1835, plus his well-known papers on Fechner colors and on complementary colors, which necessitated extended viewing of the sun. In 1839 he fell ill, and in 1840 resigned his chair of physics.

ILLNESS AND RECOVERY

It started with photophobia. Light hurt Fechner’s eyes so much that he spent most of his days in a darkened room, venturing out only when he was wearing self-constructed metal cups over his eyes. He communicated with the family through a funnel-shaped opening in the door. His digestive system presented another problem. Fechner could not eat or drink and he was in danger of dying of starvation. Doctors tried animal magnetism, homeopathy, and moxibustion (the burning of herbs on the skin) without avail. About the only food he was able to keep down was a mixture of chopped raw ham with spices, soaked in Rhine wine and lemon juice. The recipe for this concoction had appeared to a lady acquaintance in a dream.

Fechner’s worst problem was his mind. He suffered from a flight of ideas; he was unable to concentrate, to speak coherently, or to tame his wild thoughts. In January 1843 he was “magnetized” with a high-tension electric current, but the only therapy that really helped him, according to Fechner himself, was “to chew more carefully.” In October he started to speak; he was able to do so “because he paused between sentences.” He learned to see again “by allowing sudden brief exposures to normal light, instead of trying gradual increases in illumination.” Fechner kept notes on his illness, which he passed on to his nephew and eventual biographer, who inserted them verbatim in his biography (Kuntze, 1892).

Following his illness, Fechner did not resume his academic responsibilities, petitioning that the state of his health would not permit it. He did, however, ask to be allowed to give lectures on topics of his interest, and was granted the right to do so. In the meantime his chair in physics was occupied by Wilhelm Weber, brother of Ernst Heinrich Weber, Fechner’s professor of physiology. Wilhelm Weber had just resigned his position at Gottingen over a dispute with the King of Hanover, who had abridged academic freedom, resulting in the resignation of seven professors (the “Göttingen Seven”) in protest.

After his recovery, Fechner turned from physics to metaphysics, psychophysics, experimental esthetics, and parapsychology. His first publication, On the Highest Good and the Human Will, was followed by Nanna or the Mental Life of Plants. Nanna gave expression to an important aspect of Fechner’s philosophy, namely that plants are analogous to animals and should be granted a mind. Eventually this idea was extended to the earth itself, somewhat parallel to the current Gaia Hypothesis. Fechner’s panpsychism inspired much of his later metaphysical writings. The inspiration for Nanna occurred when he was first able to tolerate light again and viewed the flowers of his garden.

THE ROAD TO PSYCHOPHYSICS

In 1851 Fechner published his important two-volume Zend-Avesta. The title refers to the ancient Persian literature, where it is the title of the chief work of Zoroaster. This work not only expressed Fechner’s philosophy—essentially that life involves a struggle between the spiritual and the material forces—but in an appendix laid out the program for psychophysics. Although this may seem odd, it happens to fit right into Fechner’s philosophy. He defined psychophysics 10 years later, in his Elements of Psychophysics, as the “functionally dependent r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Portraits of the Authors and Editors
• 1 Gustav Theodor Fechner: A German Gelehrter
• 2 Dorothea Dix: An Intellectual Conscience for Psychology
• 3 Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov: Pioneer in Russian Reflexology
• 4 John Dewey: Psychologist, Philosopher, and Reformer
• 5 Lightner Witmer: Father of Clinical Psychology
• 6 William Stern: More Than “The IQ Guy”
• 7 Robert M. Yerkes: A Psychobiologist With a Plan
• 8 Lillian Gilbreth: Tireless Advocate for a General Psychology
• 9 Harry Hollingworth: Portrait of a Generalist
• 10 Edwin Ray Guthrie: Pioneer Learning Theorist
• 11 Carl Murchison: Psychologist, Editor, and Entrepreneur
• 12 Edgar A. Doll: A Career of Research and Application
• 13 Joseph Banks Rhine: A Daughter’s Perspective
• 14 William Emet Blatz: A Canadian Pioneer
• 15 Barbara Stoddard Burks: Pioneer Behavioral Geneticist and Humanitarian
• 16 Donald Olding Hebb: Returning the Nervous System to Psychology
• 17 James J. Gibson: Pioneer and Iconoclast
• 18 Clarence Graham: A Reminiscence
• 19 Paul Harkai Schiller: The Influence of His Brief Career
• 20 Silvan S. Tomkins: The Heart of the Matter
• 21 Stanley Milgram: A Life of Inventiveness and Controversy
• Index