1.1 Wundt and the Rise of Scientific Psychology
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, psychology was still regarded as the branch of philosophy studying the soul. However, the situation changed rapidly as the development of experimental physiology resulted more and more in the adoption of scientific methods for the study of phenomena that seemed only classifiable as psychical.
Over the course of a century, Europe—and Germany in particular—experienced breathtaking advances in the knowledge of living organisms. Johannes Müller (1801–1858) trained a whole generation of experimental physiologists. Mathias Schleiden (1804–1881), Theodor Schwann (1810–1882), and Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) put to good use the recent improvement of microscope optic and developed the first cellular theories. Justus von Liebig (1803–1873) made a great contribution to the development of organic chemistry. But the list goes on.
This scientific renewal led to the unfolding of a grand research program, aiming at questioning the assumptions of the so-called Naturphilosophie, i.e., the speculative biology that was based on the assumption of a teleological living force animating organic matter. In its place, this new trend affirmed the possibility and necessity of a mechanistic explanation of living beings.
As soon as the perceptual apparatus and the nervous system became the objects of research, the advances in the field of physiology impacted significantly on psychology too. The focus was increasingly on the organism’s reaction to stimuli. Ernst Weber (1795–1878) and Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–1887) formulated the law that mathematically described the relationship between the change in a physical stimulus and the change in perception. Charles Bell (1774–1842), François Magendie (1783–1855), Marshall Hall (1790–1857), and Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) outlined the phenomenon of reflex arc, according to which peripherical signals travel toward the central nervous system through sensory nerves, from where a response departs, that proceeds centrifugally down the motor nerves.
As a result, from the field of pure physiology, a new science originated, named psychophysics by Fechner . He defined it as the “exact science of the functional or dependency relations between body and mind.” An “ancient task,” indeed. Nonetheless, what was new was how this discipline intended to tackle such a task: by building on “experience and mathematical connections of empirical facts ” (Fechner 1860, V).
Although all these studies on the physiology of sensations and nervous system had already started to change the understanding of human mind, none had yet proposed a complete remake of the old psychology on these new bases. It was Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) who first took this further step. For this reason, “even though he cannot be credited with a single significant scientific discovery, any genuine methodological innovation or any influential theoretical generalization,” it is generally recognized that he “played the crucial role in constituting the field” of scientific psychology (Danziger 1990, 396).
Indeed, it was Wundt’s merit if psychology became aware of itself, of what it had become. In his magnum opus Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (Principles of Physiological Psychology 1874), he brought together in a coherent fashion the psychophysiological findings that had been accumulating for over a century. Secondly, but even more important, in this book he explicitly conceived psychology as an autonomous science, defining its object, method, and aim, as well as its relations with other disciplines, such as philosophy and physiology .
The book began with this declaration of intent:
The work which I here present to the public is an attempt to mark out a new domain of science. I am well aware that the question may be raised, whether the time is yet ripe for such an undertaking. The new discipline rests upon anatomical and physiological foundations which, in certain respects, are themselves very far from solid; while the experimental treatment of psychological problems must be pronounced, from every point of view, to be still in its first beginnings . At the same time, [a general survey of the present status of a developing science is the best mean of discovering the blanks that our ignorance has left in its subject matter] (Wundt 1874, III, trans. Wundt 1904, V, translation modified)
In spite of the somewhat rhetorical cautiousness of this statement, the book turned out to be anything but too ahead of its time. On the contrary, it met the widespread need for orientation in the vast but chaotic world of the physiological study of psychological phenomena. The immense success of the work made Wundt the preeminent figure in the world of psychology, even though his scientific value was probably not comparable to that of other scientists from that era.1
The subsequent foundation of the Leipzig Institute for Experimental Psychology (1879) further consolidated Wundt’s role as the “pope” of the new discipline.2 Here again, the importance of his laboratory lies not in the number of discoveries that were made in those rooms,3 rather in its impact and meaning for the culture of the time. A continuous flow of students from all over the world came to the Leipzig Institute, eager to learn the rudiments of the new science from the man that was regarded as its highest representative.4
1.2 The Historiography of Wundtism
In 1929 Edward Boring wrote what can be considered the first history of psychology. His partition of scholars into several different schools and trends, as well as his reconstruction of their ideas, became a historiographical canon.
Boring saw in Wundt the origin of scientific psychology, “the first man who without reservation [was] properly called a psychologist” (Boring 1929, 310). Of course, there were other leading scholars of psychology, such as Franz Brentano (1838–1917), Carl Stumpf (1848–1936), and George Elias Müller (1850–1934), who had different conceptions of this science. However, their positions were minority ones, therefore, at that time, “orthodox experimental psychology [was] the psychology of Wundt” (Boring 1929, 377).
Still, at the end of the nineteenth century, this orthodoxy was increasingly questioned. The emerging trend was addressed by Boring under the heading “The ‘New’ Psychology.” He used this label to indicate the Wundtian psychologists that progressively embraced anti-Wundtian positions, among whom he included Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), Oswald Külpe (1862–1915), and Edward B. Titchener (1867–1927). In the same chapter, Boring also discussed the “new epistemology of Mach and Avenarius,” since they “affected, on the systematic side, the new psychology” (Boring 1929, 389).
Around 1979 the centennial of the foundation of the Leipzig Institute for Experimental Psychology breathed new life into the dormant field of Wundt studies. The anniversary was an opportunity to bring up to date the historiographical canon that had aged over five decades.5 The result was a rediscovery of the true Wundt, opposed to the common but distorted depiction inherited from Boring , whose misinterpretations—as the new research found out—were affected by Boring’s master Edward B. Titchener . As an English man, the latter viewed Wundt through the distorting lens of British empiricism, thus placing the German psychologist in the same line of descent with Locke, Mill, and Hume. Moreover, despite having the merit of introducing Wundt in the United States by translating his works, Titchener amended the texts, blue-penciling the parts that did not fit with the narrative of Wundt as the founding father of experimental psychology .6
The renewal of Wundt studies that began in 1979 was also the occasion for revisiting the history of the so-called “new psychology.” Kurt Danziger’s well-known paper The positivist repudiation of Wundt presented a more accurate account of the disavowal of Wundtian ideas by younger psychologists like Külpe , Titchener , and Ebbinghaus . Namely, Danziger focused on the role played by the “positivist” Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius, whose conceptions influ...