Wilhelm Wundt in History: The Making of a Scientific Psychology / Edition 1

by Robert W. Rieber, David K. Robinson

Overview

In this new millenium it may be fair to ask, "Why look at Wundt?" Over the years, many authors have taken fairly detailed looks at the work and accomplishments of Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920). This was especially true of the years around 1979, the centennial of the Leipzig Institute for Experimental Psychology, the birthplace of the "graduate program" in psychology. More than twenty years have passed since then, and in the intervening time those centennial studies have attracted the attention and have motivated the efforts of a variety of historians, philosophers, psychologists, and other social scientists. They have profited from the questions raised earlier about theoretical, methodological, sociological, and even political aspects affecting the organized study of mind and behavior; they have also proposed some new directions for research in the history of the behavioral and social sciences. With the advantage of the historiographic perspective that twenty years can bring, this volume will consider this much-heralded "founding father of psychology" once again. Some of the authors are veterans of the centennial who contributed to a very useful volume, edited by Robert W. Rieber, Wilhelm Wundt and the Making of a Scientific Psychology (New York: Plenum Press, 1980). Others are scholars who have joined Wundt studies since then, and have used that book, among others, as a guide to further work. The first chapter, "Wundt before Leipzig," is essentially unchanged from the 1980 volume.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306465994
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	10/31/2001
Series:	Path in Psychology
Edition description:	2001
Pages:	302
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Rieber, Robert W.; Robinson, David K.

Table of Contents

1 Wundt before Leipzig.- A Question of Lifestyle.- Early Childhood and Family.- Boyhood and Early Youth.- Choice of a Career.- Student Years.- Postgraduate Training.- The Iodine Affair.- The Localization Problem.- Some Fresh Frustrations.- Controversy with Hermann Munk.- Assistant to Helmholtz.- The Beiträge.- The Introduction on Method.- Controversy with Ewald Hering.- The Swiftest Thought.- Wundt’s “Fireside Conversations”.- Early Political Activity.- Lectures on Psychology.- Three Nonpsychological Books.- The Complication Pendulum.- Judgments on Haeckel and Helmholtz.- “Physiological Psychology” Arrives.- Research in Neurophysiology.- Hall, Wundt, and Bernstein.- Academic Mobility.- What the Reviewers Said.- The Inaugurations and Beyond.- Summary.- References.- 2 Wundt and the Temptations of Psychology.- Does Wundt Matter?.- Traditions and Their Temptations.- The Mechanistic Temptation.- The Temptations of Intellectualism.- The Temptation of Individualism.- Postscript: Pitfalls of Wundt Scholarship.- References.- 3 The Unknown Wundt: Drive, Apperception, and Volition.- Wundt’s Opposition to the Theories of Lotze and Bain.- From Impulse to Choice: The Development of Volitional Activity.- The Apperception Concept and the Experimental Context.- Some Early Reactions to Wundt’s Theories.- References.- 4 A Wundt Primer: The Operating Characteristics of Consciousness.- Presentations of Wundt.- Wundt’s “Actuality Principle”—The Heart of Controversy.- The Principle of “Creative Synthesis” (Schöpferische Synthese).- The Influential Wundtian School of Psycholinguistics (Sprachpsychologie).- The Emotion System.- The Volition System.- Final Days.- References.- 5 Wundt and the Americans: From Flirtation to Abandonment.- The Americanization Process.- TheFunctionalist—Structuralist Debate.- Wundtian Influence and James Mark Baldwin.- Wundt and Darwinism in America.- Edward Wheeler Scripture: The Yale Laboratory and the New Psychology.- Addendum.- References.- 6 Reaction-time Experiments in Wundt’s Institute and Beyond.- The Heart of the Work of the Leipzig Institute in the 1880s.- Reaction-time Studies before the Leipzig Institute.- Reaction-time Studies in the Leipzig Institute.- Ludwig Lange’s Approach: Muscular vs. Sensorial Reaction.- Social Organization of Research in the Leipzig Institute: The Set-Up for Experiments.- Leipzig Psychology Spreads in Europe, 1885–1895.- Münsterberg’s Dissent.- Wundt’s Allies in Germany: Kraepelin and Martius.- Külpe’s Rejection of the Subtraction Method.- Structuralism and Functionalism.- Wundt’s Tridimensional Theory of Emotions.- Reaction Times after 1900.- References.- 7 Laboratories for Experimental Psychology: Göttingen’s Ascendancy over Leipzig in the 1890s.- Introduction: Did Wundt’s Laboratory Lead the Experimental Movement in Psychology in the Early 1890s?.- “Göttingen . . . Second Only to Leipzig”: I Don’t Think So!.- What Is a Laboratory?.- Krohn and Henri as Evaluators of Laboratories.- The Equipment of the Laboratories.- German Equipment Catalogs.- The Zimmermann Catalog.- The Diederichs Firm.- Spindler & Hoyer Catalogs.- Determining How the Apparatus Worked.- Conflicts between G. E. Müller and Wilhelm Wundt.- Wundt’s Rejection of Müller’s Memory Apparatus.- Müller and Wundt on the Proper Measurement of Reaction Time.- Calibrating the Hipp Chronoscope.- Münsterberg and RT Studies.- Edgell’s Analysis of RT Studies.- The Accuracy of RT Measurement.- Evaluation of the Productivity of the Two Laboratories.- What Remains to Be Said.-References.- 8 The Wundt Collection in Japan.- A Brief History of the Wundt Collection.- “The Story of the Wundt Collection” (An Excerpt from Daifuku-cho).- The Current Status of the Wundt Collection.- References, with Annotations.- Bibliography of Wilhelm Wundt’s Writings, Compiled by Eleonore Wundt.- Writings of Wilhelm Wundt, by Year.- Name Index.

Editorial Reviews

‘In all, then, this is an interesting collection, with sufficient new material to justify its acquisition by libraries and scholars, even those that possess the earlier book.'
Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, 39:3 (2003)

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