The mistaken mirror: On Wundt'S and Titchener'S psychologies

Most psychologists believe that Structuralism, the psychology of E. B. Titchener, was a faithful copy of Wilhelm Wundt's original psychology. This belief is fostered by textbooks for history and systems and introductory psychology courses. The present paper argues that this belief is false. Titchener rejected many of Wundt's goals and concepts, and should be viewed as a traditional British associationist and positivist rather than as a follower of Wundt. Similarities of Wundt's system and Titchener's system to current psychological thinking are noted.     

Wilhelm Wundt's contribution to John Dewey's functional psychology

John Dewey's functionalism and instrumentalism arose from his defense of a teleological understanding of human activity and intelligence. E. B. Titchener's counterdefense of structuralism in the late 1890s placed Wundt's psychological methodology in opposition to functionalism. However, investigations that convincingly re-interpret Wundt instead permit the disclosure of much fundamental agreement. Examination of Dewey's earliest work shows that his commitment to teleology, with its attendant organicist and voluntarist orientation, arose from an early allegiance to G. S. Morris's Aristotelianized neo-Hegelianism and an inspirational debt to Wundt's psychology and philosophy. William James's influence on Dewey's development toward instrumentalism must be accordingly de-emphasized.     

BACK TO THE ORIGINS OF THE REPUDIATION OF WUNDT: OSWALD KÜLPE AND RICHARD AVENARIUS

This essay provides a fresh account of the break between Oswald Külpe and his master Wilhelm Wundt. Kurt Danziger's reconstruction of the “repudiation” of Wundt, which has become the canon for this significant episode of history of psychology, focused on the supposed influence of Ernst Mach on this set of events, overshadowing the other exponent of Empiriocriticism: Richard Avenarius. Analyzing archival documents and examining anew the primary sources, the paper shows that Avenarius was himself a member of Wundt's circle, and that his “repudiation” of the master paved the way for Külpe. The essay points out the original anti‐Wundtian aspects of Avenarius' notion of psychology, thus showing how they were then adopted by Külpe.     

V. M. BEKHTEREV IN RUSSIAN CHILD SCIENCE, 1900S–1920S: “OBJECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY”/“REFLEXOLOGY” AS A SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT

In the early 20^th century the child population became a major focus of scientific, professional and public interest. This led to the crystallization of a dynamic field of child science, encompassing developmental and educational psychology, child psychiatry and special education, school hygiene and mental testing, juvenile criminology and the anthropology of childhood. This article discusses the role played in child science by the eminent Russian neurologist and psychiatrist Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. The latter's name is associated with a distinctive program for transforming the human sciences in general and psychology in particular that he in the 1900s labelled “objective psychology” and from the 1910s renamed “reflexology.” The article examines the equivocal place that Bekhterev's “objective psychology” and “reflexology” occupied in Russian/Soviet child science in the first three decades of the 20^th century. While Bekhterev's prominence in this field is beyond doubt, analysis shows that “objective psychology” and “reflexology” had much less success in mobilizing support within it than certain other movements in this arena (for example, “experimental pedagogy” in the pre‐revolutionary era); it also found it difficult to compete with the variety of rival programs that arose within Soviet “pedology” during the 1920s. However, this article also demonstrates that the study of child development played a pivotal role in Bekhterev's program for the transformation of the human sciences: it was especially important to his efforts to ground in empirical phenomena and in concrete research practices a new ontology of the psychological, which, the article argues, underpinned “objective psychology”/“reflexology” as a transformative scientific movement.     

The Wundt Myths

Three myths about Wundt have been perpetuated in English language accounts of his work. First, he is said to have founded a Psychologisches Institut (a formally recognized psychological research laboratory) in 1879. Second, he is said to be the first psychologist, as distinct from the first contributor to psychology. Third, he is said to have formulated an elementarist psychology of mental content or experience. The first and second are trivial myths which in isolation would be scarcely worth a comment. The third is a gross misrepresentation which ignores the purposivist-voluntarist underlay of his experimental cognitive psychology and the humanistic, cultural concern of his Völkerpsychofogie.     

Edward Aloysius Pace

Summary Edward Aloysius Pace, pioneer of experimental psychology among American Catholics, was the first American Catholic and the first Catholic priest to study with Wilhelm Wundt. Upon his return from Leipzig, where he received his PhD in 1891, he established a psychological laboratory and department of psychology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. This department became the model for most of the early departments of psychology at Catholic colleges and universities as well as the training center of many teachers who staffed the new departments at these Catholic colleges and universities. From Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, the experimental psychology of Wundt radiated to Catholic circles throughout the United States.The best account of Pace's life is to be found in Hart C (ed), Aspects of the New Scholastic Philosophy (New York: Benziger 1932, pp 1–9); a series of philosophical essays dedicated to Pace by the American Philosophical Association on the occasion of his seventieth birthday     

A tale of two psychologies: The Høffding–Lehmann controversy and the establishment of experimental psychology at the University of Copenhagen

Alfred Lehmann (1858–1921) was the pioneer of experimental psychology in Denmark. He established a laboratory of psychophysics in Copenhagen in 1886 after spending a winter in Wundt's laboratory. Philosophical psychology had been taught for the better part of the nineteenth century at the University of Copenhagen and had enjoyed a positivistic turn with the philosophers Harald Høffding (1843–1931) and Kristian Kroman (1846–1925). Shortly after establishing his laboratory, Lehmann criticized Høffding's theory of “unmediated recognition,” which led to a sharp dispute between them on the nature of recognition. It has been claimed that this was a direct cause of Lehmann's slow advance at the University of Copenhagen. Archival sources show that Høffding, though having a very different conception of psychology from Lehmann, was on most occasions supportive of Lehmann and thus played an important role in establishing experimental psychology at the University of Copenhagen. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Wundt,Völkerpsychologie,and experimental social psychology

Wilhelm Wundt distinguished between "experimental psychology" and Volkerpsychologie. It is often claimed that Wundt maintained that social psychological phenomena, the subject matter of V?lkerpsychologie, could not be investigated experimentally but must be explored via comparative-historical methods. In this article it is argued that it is doubtful if many of the passages usually cited as evidence that Wundt held such a view actually such such a view. It is also argued that if Wundt did hold such a view, it was inconsistent with his own general theoretical position and methodological practice. It is suggested that it is anachronistic to attribute such a view to Wundt, because he appears to have had little interest in the experimental analysis of the synchronic social dynamics of psychological processes. Most of Wundt's arguments about the inappropriateness of experimentation were directed against the introspective analysis of diachronic historical processes.     

Völkerpsychologie as a field science: José Miguel de Barandiarán and Basque ethnology

José Miguel de Barandiarán considered the central figure of Basque anthropology, played a prominent role in the Basque people's cultural rescue (material and spiritual). His dual status as an ethnologist and priest prepared him to study collective mentalities and rural societies. However, the scientific approach of the Völkerpsychologie (roughly translated as ethnic psychology), as proposed by Wilhelm Wundt, greatly influenced him and aroused broad interests of ethnological and sociological–religious concerns. This essay examines the scope and depth of Wundt's influence on Barandiarán, and suggests that, by combining the techniques of folklore with those of ethnography, Barandiarán stamped Basque anthropology with a unique defining quality in Europe.     

Psychology in the Czech lands: Bohemia,Czechoslovakia, and the Czech Republic

The article provides a comprehensive review of Czech psychology—its history and its current state. It enumerates significant psychologists who were Czech, born in Bohemia or who were instrumental for the development of psychology in the region. The article also enumerates Czech psychological associations along with their main representatives, journals, and academic facilities involved in education and research in psychology. It is pointed out that the origins of psychology as a science are in the Central Europe—the first laboratory of W. Wundt was in Leipzig, Germany; S. Freud was born in Bohemia, in the Moravian city of Příbor and he practiced in Vienna, Austria. The Czech capital Prague will also become the capital of the psychological science in 2020 when it will be hosting the 32nd International Congress of Psychology (ICP 2020).     

THE BIOLOGIST AS PSYCHOLOGIST: HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN'S EARLY MENTAL ABILITY INVESTIGATIONS

In the early 1880s, biologist Henry Fairfield Osborn conducted some of the first questionnaire research in American psychology. This article details how he came to distribute Francis Galton's questionnaire on mental imagery in the United States, as well as how he altered it to suit his own burgeoning psychological research interests. The development and circulation of questionnaires at the very beginning of American scientific psychology, first by Osborn and later by G. Stanley Hall, is discussed in terms of the new psychology's often‐overlooked methodological plurality. Further, Osborn's late nineteenth century interest in individual variation and group differences in mental imagery ability are discussed in relation to his pervasive educational and social concerns, as well as his eventual status as a prominent eugenicist in the twentieth century United States. This research into mental imagery ability foreshadows the eugenic‐oriented intelligence testing that developed in the early twentieth century.     

荆其诚的国际心理学思想与实践

荆其诚先生是当代中国著名的心理学家, 是改革开放后中国心理学界在国际上的代言人。他视野开阔, 是颇具造诣的实验心理学家, 也是功底深厚的理论心理学家。文章没有涉及他在认知与发展心理学方面所做的贡献, 只从理论方面分析他的国际心理学思想及实践, 找寻他对心理学研究所持的基本态度与价值追求。文章认为荆其诚在宏观把握心理学的发展逻辑后, 以“两个阵营的心理学”来界定心理学的现状, 坚信心理学的未来是一种国际的心理学。为了达成这一学术理想, 荆其诚不仅撰文将国外心理学介绍到中国、将中国心理学推介到国外, 还积极投身于国际心理学组织与实践, 长期担任国际心联的领导职务, 组织并主持召开了2004年第28届国际心理学大会。荆其诚的一生为彰显心理学的国际维度、促进国际心理学交流、将中国心理学推上世界舞台作出了巨大贡献。     

Leipzig and Louvain University in Belgium

Summary Experimental psychology was introduced at the University of Louvain in 1891 under the influence of Désiré J. Mercier, a philosopher, who wanted to bridge the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas with experimental psychology. As the head of the philosophy program at the Louvain University, Mercier sent Armand Thiéry, his collaborator, to Leipzig in order to acquaint him with Wundt's physiological psychology and laboratory. Upon his return from Germany Thiéry organized a psychological laboratory at the Louvain University and offered a course in psychophysiology. Thiéry headed the experimental program at Louvain for over ten years but he was more interested in philosophical and theoretical problems than in laboratory investigations. His successor, Albert Michotte, was wholeheartedly committed to laboratory experimentation and research. He also studied in Leipzig but was more influenced by Külpe than by Wundt. Under Michotte's leadership, which lasted over 50 years, Louvain laboratory became one of the most active and original research centers in Europe.     

Methodological concerns in the psychology of religion: Continuities,losses and transforming perspectives

This article seeks solutions to what has recently been called the ‘crisis' in the psychology of religion by returning to the programs of its founding fathers. It explores some of the methodological debates that followed the translation of William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience into German. More was at stake than the commonly drawn distinction between empirical and hermeneutical approaches to religion, or between quantitative and qualitative methods. What was at stake was the need for another kind of psychology in general. This article pays special attention to Wilhelm Wundt's fundamental criticism of James and of others in the psychology of religion. Despite the problems inherent in both James' and Wundt's aborted general psychology programs, each nonetheless contains approaches that may yet serve as an impetus to contemporary research on religion. Contemporary developments in cultural psychology in particular complement current research in the psychology of religion.     

Rediscovering James' Principles of Psychology

This paper is an introduction to a special issue celebrating the 125^th anniversary of William James' Principles of Psychology. The special issue demonstrates the continued relevance and insight offered by James. It reviews the articles in this issue and delineates three main themes: (1) he recognition of the inherent relationality of psychological phenomena, (2) a science of psychology ought to include biology and sociocultural phenomena (e.g. language); and (3) human consciousness is addressed as the flow of experience from the perspective one living it. It discusses each theme and briefly touches on how they continue to be developed in James' later work, which also provides innovative new directions for psychologists. Undergirding each of these contributions is James' admonition that psychological research is especially difficulty due to the complexity of psychological phenomena. As such, this paper also discusses challenges to doing psychological research that James raises and his ideas that can inform future endeavors.     

服部宇之吉的《心理学讲义》

日本学者服部宇之吉的《心理学讲义》（中文版）形成于他自1902年在中国京师大学堂开始的心理学教学活动,出版于1905年11月。该书在日本发行而在中国发售,它是面向中国学生的心理学教材。服部宇之吉将中国传统文化融入了科学心理学教材,肯定了中国传统文化的心理学意义。《心理学讲义》具有明显的进化论取向以及为教育服务的倾向。服部宇之吉的心理学教学是现代科学心理学在中国高等教育体系中传播的开端。《心理学讲义》是以知、情、意三分法为基础的心理学体系。中国早期心理学术语与日本心理学中的同形汉字有着紧密联系,服部宇之吉直接采用日本心理学界通用的术语以解决汉语心理学术语的创制困难。     

Personal Construct Theory and Cognitive Science

Abstract

Warren (1990) claims to have formulated an argument “that personal construct psychology is not a cognitive psychology” (p. 379). Nonetheless, he presents very little in the way of logical demonstration or empirical evidence to support this conclusion. Moreover, the theoretical significance of the question posed in the title of his essay (“Is Personal Construct Psychology a Cognitive Psychology?”) is far from obvious. He asserts that “what is at dispute here is the proper characterization of a position” however, his listing several textbooks that refer to Kelly's theory as a “cognitive” approach to the study of personality does nothing at all to either clarify the specific implications of this question or explain its importance. Interestingly, in a recent introductory personality text by one of Kelly's former students (Phares, 1988), this theory is designated as a “phenomenological approach,” which is consistent with Warren's own notion that “he [Kelly] was more phenomenological than he himself believed” Kelly vigorously resisted all such attempts to classify his model in terms of the usual textbook categories (cf. Adams-Webber & Mancuso, 1983).     

Shaping of scientific psychology in Japan

Japanese scientific psychology began with Y. Motora's lecture on pyschophysics at the University of Tokyo in 1888. He had just received his PhD under G.S. Hall at Johns Hopkins University, in the USA. He became the first professor of psychology in 1890 and founded the first psychological laboratory at the University of Tokyo in 1903. He studied many psychological problems, including attention, experimentally and theoretically. One of his first students, Matataro Matsumoto, founded the second psychological laboratory at Kyoto University and then succeeded to Motora's position in Tokyo. Matsumoto was interested in experimental studies of human performance and their applications. He trained many able psychologists and organized the Japanese Psychological Association in 1927. Some of his students founded more psychological laboratories in major universities of Japan. They introduced psychological tests, Gestalt psychology, and behaviourism in the 1920s and 1930s. Psychoanalysis was introduced through mainly nonacademic roots and became familiar to Japanese psychologists in the 1930s. After World War II, a strong influence of American psychology came to Japanese psychologists who had already trained in scientific methodology. The areas of research and applications have been greatly widened and the number of psychologists has increased rapidly up to the present day. Promotion of international interactions and indigenous traditions are both expected.