The Logical Mind: Wundt’s Early Psychological Project

de Freitas Araujo, Saulo

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26636-7_2

The Logical Mind: Wundt’s Early Psychological Project

Saulo de Freitas Araujo²

Chapter
First Online: 24 December 2015

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Abstract

I will show how Wundt articulated his initial program of a scientific psychology around two central ideas—a methodological reform and a unified conception of mental phenomena. After that, I will analyze the relationship between Wundt’s psychology and his early philosophical ideas. Finally, I will discuss the intellectual roots of the young Wundt, situating him in the broader context of the German philosophical and scientific tradition.

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Notes

1.
In fact, Wundt began his academic career in Heidelberg 1 year earlier. After receiving his Habilitation in February 1857 (Drüll, 1986, p. 307), he began lecturing in experimental physiology in the summer semester of the same year. However, his first psychological work was published only in 1858 (E. Wundt, 1927).
2.
According to Wundt’s own report (EB, p. 1079), his assistantship with Helmholtz, which had begun in 1858, ended in 1863, information that most of his biographers have reproduced (Diamond, 1980; Gundlach, 1999; Lamberti, 1995; Meischner & Eschler, 1979; Schlotte, 1956; Ungerer, 1979). Others have proposed alternative dates (Boring, 1950; Flugel, 1964; Kim, 2009; Nicolas, 2003a; Robinson, 1987; Sprung, 2001; Titchener, 1921), and Helmholtz himself offered a different version of events, showing that Wundt could not have abandoned his post until 1865 (UAH, PA 2478; Kirsten, 1986, p. 215). Bringmann and Balance (1975), Nitsche (1990), and Werner (1997) have suggested the year 1865 but have not offered any documentary proof. Bringmann, Bringmann, and Cottrell (1976) tried to explain these contradictory claims, favoring Helmholtz’s version, but left the question undecided. In a recent paper, I presented new archival sources that definitively establish the period of Wundt’s assistantship between October 1858 and March 1865 (Araujo, 2014a). Given the selectivity and vulnerability of human memory, this case should serve as a warning not to put too much confidence in Wundt’s late autobiographical reports, as Bringmann, Brauns, and Bringmann (2003) have already suggested.
3.
Although there are some biographical studies on different aspects of Wundt’s Heidelberg years (Bringmann et al. 1976; Diamond, 1980; Robinson, 1987; Ungerer, 1978, 1979, 1980), theoretical and conceptual analyses of his early psychological project are lacking. The few existing attempts, notwithstanding the important questions they raise, bring one-sided, sometimes contradictory interpretations and consider only superficially the question of continuity with Wundt’s later writings (Graumann, 1980; Hoorn & Verhave, 1980; Richards, 1980; Schmidgen, 2003b), or else they are restricted to aspects of Völkerpsychologie (Eckardt, 1997; Oelze, 1991; Schneider, 1990). Even the detailed and valuable analyses of Nitsche (1990) and Wassmann (2009) are problematic in some respects, as I will show in this chapter.
4.
It is interesting to note that Beneke, almost half a century before Wundt, used the same rhetorical strategy to promote his own reform of empirical psychology (Beneke, 1820, p. 1).
5.
This idea of building a psychology that avoided metaphysical disputes was not new in the German tradition. Beneke, Theodor Waitz (1821–1864), and Karl Fortlage (1806–1881), for example, had all proclaimed the need for an empirical psychology free from metaphysics (Beneke, 1820, pp. 1–9; Fortlage, 1855, pp. viii–ix; Waitz, 1846, pp. iii–vi).
6.
Although Wundt does not mention any specific author or philosophical position, it is clear from the context that he was referring to the general atmosphere of dissatisfaction with the speculative exaggerations of German Idealism , as well as to the new tendency among many German philosophers in the first half of the nineteenth century to base philosophy upon the empirical sciences (Beiser, 2014a; Köhnke, 1986; Schnädelbach, 1983). In the preface of the Vorlesungen, he repeated the same point (VMT₁, I, p. iii).
7.
Wundt resumed here the classical distinction suggested by Christian Wolff between rational and empirical psychology (see introduction). For Wundt, the essential difference between both psychologies was a methodological one, which would serve as a basis for his reform. As I will show in the next section, it comprises a complete refusal of rational psychology and an improvement of empirical psychology . It is interesting to note how the vocabulary of German psychology in the nineteenth century was firmly rooted in, and continuous with the tradition inaugurated by Wolff about a century earlier (Araujo, 2012a). In fact, continuity here seems to involve more than mere vocabulary. If we take ‘psychology’ as a field of coherently and systematically organized knowledge (science, Wissenschaft) about a specific subject matter (Seele) that is not identical with the physical body or the nervous system, I think we can talk of a continuous intellectual project running from Wolff to Wundt, aside from conceptual and methodological particularities. In this case, at least, there would be more involved than what Roger Smith called “the appearance of being psychological to a certain way of thought and a certain interest” (Smith, 1988, p. 159, emphasis in original).
8.
Wundt did not offer an example of how Hegel or his disciples accommodated psychological facts to their metaphysical systems, but the point here, which he would develop in the Vorlesungen, is a critique of the speculative method of German Idealism in general, namely, the deduction of facts from concepts (VMT₁, I, pp. 4–10).
9.
In the Vorlesungen, Wundt repeated the same point, including Herbart among the metaphysical psychologists (VMT₁, I, pp. 4–5). Herbart himself explicitly conceded that psychology is a subdivision of metaphysics and thus subordinated to it (Herbart, 1850b, §§ 14–15). According to Maigné, “Herbart turns psychology into an applied metaphysics” (Maigné, 2007, p. 104, emphasis in original). Wundt recognized the merit of Herbart’s conception of the mind as a unit, but he deepened his critique of Herbartian psychology , condemning as illusory its proposed mechanization and spatialization of representations, along with its mathematical treatment. He also argued that the axiom underlying mathematical psychology, namely, that the sum of representations available in consciousness always remains the same, could be empirically refuted (BTS, p. 382), a claim related to his experiments on the speed of thought, as Titchener (1923) noted (see Sect. 2.2 for more details). Because of his criticisms, Wundt was attacked by Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch (1802–1896), Herbart’s disciple, who published a review of Wundt’s early work accusing him of extreme superficiality in his psychological knowledge (Drobisch, 1864). I will discuss the impact of Drobisch’s review in Sect. 3.5.
10.
It is important to note that, from the beginning, Wundt explicitly admitted the possibility of metaphysics, although at this point of his work it was still in an embryonic state. In Chap. 4, I will show how he finally justified the need for metaphysical knowledge in his mature work.
11.
In the preface of the Vorlesungen, Wundt repeated that empirical psychology “has accepted self-observation as its only source” (VMT₁, I, p. iv). However, since he did not mention any author or theory in this context, it is not easy to identify his target. In the first half of the nineteenth century, there were competing programs for an empirical psychology , all of which were based to a greater or lesser extent on self-observation (e.g., Beneke, 1820, 1833; Drobisch, 1842; Fortlage, 1855; Waitz, 1849). It is also unclear how much he knew of them at this time (see the first section of the Introduction).
12.
Wundt is criticizing here the classical conception of self-observation as developed in the German philosophical tradition since Wolff, that is, a pure or uncontrolled self-observation. His claim is that it gives us no access to mental processes outside of consciousness. For conscious phenomena, however, it was still valid. One should keep in mind that at this time he had not yet elaborated his proper conception of an experimental self-observation, rejecting this classical model (SIW). This means that Wundt’s early critique of pure self-observation has nothing to do with his later critique, since he had not yet rejected it. Unfortunately, Wundt’s conception of introspection remains largely misunderstood in the secondary literature. In Sect. 5.2, I will discuss this question in more detail.
13.
Implicit here is Wundt’s first positive characterization of the subject matter of psychology. For him, mental life was much broader than consciousness, comprising phenomena that are not accessible to our immediate observation. As will become clear in Sect. 2.3, the preponderance of unconscious mental life over consciousness constitutes the central point of his early psychological theory. Therefore, one can say that associated with the idea of a methodological reform there is a conception of the subject matter of psychology.
14.
The same strategy appears again 1 year later in the preface to the Vorlesungen: the stagnation of psychology and the need for methodological reform, the main objective of which is to overcome the limits of traditional self-observation by analyzing complex phenomena in terms of their underlying elements and to discover the general laws of mental life (VMT₁, I, pp. iii–v).
15.
In the German tradition, Seele has a broad semantic spectrum, always depending on the context and the author in question. Given the term’s close relationship with the Western religious tradition, one possibility would be to translate it as ‘soul ,’ which retains this religious dimension. However, in the nineteenth century, during which attempts at an epistemological and methodological emancipation of scientific psychology occurred, the term was often linked to discussions about how to define and characterize the field’s proper subject matter—far removed from any religious connotations—so the world ‘soul’ seemed to me inappropriate to capture this specific aspect of the psychological debate. In Wundt’s particular case, as I will show later (Sect. 5.3), Seele is a term that refers to the totality of psychological phenomena, serving to define the subject matter of psychology and to unify the multiplicity of mental processes. Therefore, I have preferred to translate it here as ‘mind.’ Besides being a more neutral term in relation to religious tradition, this word is more appropriate to designate the specific discussion around the subject matter of psychology. I am aware, nevertheless, of the possible limitations of this choice.
16.
It is not easy to find an accurate translation for Völkerpsychologie. Given the specificity of the term Volk in the German tradition—which, especially in the nineteenth century, acquired at the same time political, ethnic, cultural, and social connotations (Brandt, 2001)—I could not find a corresponding English expression, faithful to the multifaceted semantic content of the original term. Danziger (1983) and Gundlach (1983), p. ex., have shown how problematic and misleading are the usual candidates (‘social psychology,’ ‘ethnic psychology,’ ‘racial psychology,’ ‘folk psychology’). ‘Cultural psychology ’ may offer an alternative, but it is equally misleading if associated with its contemporary meanings in psychology. To avoid all these problems, I will keep the original term throughout the book, adding clarifications whenever necessary.
17.
The idea of psychology as Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele was already present in the German tradition long before Wundt, usually associated with the acceptance of the genetic method. C. G. Carus, for example, defined psychology as Entwicklungsgeschichte der Psyche (Carus, 1831, p. 27) or Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele (Carus, 1846). Following a different path, Beneke and Waitz, among others, also defended the genetic method in psychology (Beneke, 1827, pp. 28–30; Waitz, 1849, pp. 25–26). However, because they used this method within different theoretical frameworks, the very idea of Entwicklung assumed different meanings.
18.
It is no accident that animal psychology occupies, at least theoretically, an important place in the Wundtian project. As the unity of the mind goes beyond the human dimension, psychology cannot be restricted to the investigation of the human being. It is important to remember that Wundt’s goal is, from the beginning, to grasp the totality of psychic life (VMT₁, I, pp. 23–24).
19.
Wundt makes this explicit in the Vorlesungen (VMT₁, II, p. 459).
20.
It is important to keep in mind that, at that time, evolutionary psychology as a large-scale application of Darwin’s central principles, such as we have today, still did not exist. For this reason, I will appeal to its current form, in order to enhance the contrast and show how problematic such claims are. If we compare Wundt’s proposal with, say, contemporary evolutionary psychology, in which psychological phenomena are explained through Darwin’s principles (e.g., Buss, 1999; Tooby & Cosmides, 2005), the difference becomes immediately clear. One does not find either in the Beiträge or the Vorlesungen anything like an explanation of mental processes (e.g., perception, consciousness) in terms of psychological modules evolved as result of adaptation and natural selection. Thus, it is wrong to conclude that “he applied Darwin’s evolutionary theory to the development of psychic capacities and the nervous system” (Wassmann, 2009, p. 226).
21.
One should not forget that the concept of Entwicklung had a long tradition in German philosophy before Darwin’s theory appeared and that a confusion between the philosophical (metaphysical) and biological aspects of evolution can lead to major misunderstandings, as happened in the reception of Darwinism in nineteenth-century Germany (Solies, 2007). As Bayertz rightly notes, Hegel cannot be regarded as a precursor of Darwin (Bayertz, 2007, p. 16). Wundt’s conception of Entwicklung is deeply rooted in this philosophical tradition, without any significant biological connotations. Thus, he is much closer to Hegel than to Darwin . In fact, it comes as no surprise that Wundt did not play any important role in the reception of Darwinism in Germany, as the literature shows (Bayertz, Gerhard, & Jaeschke, 2007b; Kelly, 1981; Montgomery, 1974).
22.
The relationship between Wundt and Lazarus’s program will be discussed at two separate points (Sects. 2.4 and 5.2), respecting Wundt’s development of two distinct conceptions of Völkerpsychologie (Araujo, 2013b).
23.
The similarities are more than apparent. Wundt seems to have taken many examples from Waitz’s book, such as the different effects of cold and hot temperatures on the temperament (Waitz, 1859, pp. 396–403). In Wundt’s mature psychological system, however, this influence seems to disappear. For an overview of Waitz’s life and work, see Gerland (1896) and Zeller (1877a, pp. 363–372).
24.
Reimarus used the terms Trieb or Instinkt to refer to “all natural impulses to certain actions” (Reimarus, 1762, p. v). To explain animal behavior , he distinguished three main classes of instincts (mechanical, representational and volitional) with many subdivisions, resulting in a total of 47 types. However, his main topic in this book was those instincts related to the preservation and welfare of each animal, which he called Kunsttriebe (Reimarus, 1762, p. vi). For a general presentation of Reimarus’s animal psychology in English, see Jaynes and Woodward (1974a, 1974b) and Wilm (1925, pp. 94–119).
25.
Wundt referred to the establishment of a new journal, the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft , which carried in its first issue a long introductory essay by both authors, in which they defined the program and the general guidelines of their Völkerpsychologie (Lazarus & Steinthal, 1860). It must be noted, nonetheless, that the original idea belongs to Lazarus, who had already presented in a previous essay (Lazarus, 1851/2003)—incorporated in the introductory essay of 1860—the concept of a Völkerpsychologie. Since the articles in this journal encompass a very broad thematic spectrum, ranging from linguistics to mythology to art and poetry, it is very difficult to know exactly what Wundt meant when he said that the psychological meaning of this material had not yet been explored. For example, in his essay “Assimilation und Attraction,” Steinthal presented association (Association) and fusion (Verschmelzung) of representations as fundamental mental processes underlying language understanding and production (Steinthal, 1860, pp. 114–117). In the same way, Lazarus offered an example of how the approximation of geography and psychology belongs to Völkerpsychologie (Lazarus, 1860, pp. 213–214). For different accounts of the program of Lazarus and Steinthal, see Belke (1971), Beuchelt (1974), Eckardt (1997), Kalmar (1987), Klautke (2013), Köhnke (2003), Sganzini (1913), and Trautmann-Waller (2006).
26.
Again, Wundt did not mention any name or theory. However, in the preface to the Vorlesungen, resuming the same context, he referred to the following names: Lotze, Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795–1878), Fechner and Helmholtz (VMT₁, I, pp. vii–viii). This reinforces my hypothesis that the “history of the development of the mind” is very similar in its general meaning to what Wundt would later call individual, physiological, or experimental psychology.
27.
In the Vorlesungen, Wundt reintroduced the positive role of deductive processes in the development of the mind and in the establishment of scientific knowledge. I will come back to this point in Sects. 2.3 and 2.5. Here, it is important to highlight the fact that Wundt’s early emphasis on the inductive method, as well as his critique of traditional metaphysics, poses some problems for the interpretation shared by some historians of psychology according to which Wundt would be anti-empiricist, anti-inductivist, and anti-positivist (Danziger, 1979, 1980b; Leahey, 1981). First, both Danziger and Leahey directed their attention only to Wundt’s mature psychology, without worrying about his early phase, which had a strong empiricist and inductivist character (see Sects. 2.3 and 2.5). Second, the use of such broad labels as ‘positivism ,’ in the absence of a concrete context of reference (e.g., empirio-criticism) or detailed textual evidence, does not help us to understand the nuances of Wundt’s thought, thus producing more confusion than clarification. Therefore, at least with respect to Wundt’s early psychological project, one can conclude two things: 1) it is wrong to classify him as anti-empiricist and anti-inductivist, and 2) it is inadequate to apply the label ‘positivism’ here, given the absence of systematic philosophical discussions up to that point. As for his mature work, see Sect. 4.5.
28.
It is curious that Wundt never referred to animal psychology in his methodological prescriptions for reform. All examples are related to Völkerpsychologie in a broad sense. While acknowledging the importance of animal psychology to ensure the unity of his psychological project, he did not devote much space to it in his early work. From the 57 lectures in the Vorlesungen, only two are devoted exclusively to the animal kingdom, namely, Lectures 29 and 42, dealing with intelligence and social life, respectively. This problem will reappear in his mature project, as I will show later (see Sect. 5.2).
29.
In the early nineteenth century, the expression Nationalökonomie appears, directly linked to the German reception of Adam Smith’s (1723–1790) work—especially The Wealth of Nations—and his economic theory. However, throughout the century, it acquired new meanings, receiving social and historical connotations rather than purely economic (Rabe, 1984; Schäfer, 1971; Winkel, 1977). It is in this sense of a statistically grounded social theory (Gesellschaftslehre)—a new and autonomous field of investigation of social life—that Wundt understood Nationalökonomie and its positive contributions to psychology.
30.
Graumann (1980, p. 38) argues that Wundt was deeply impressed by the work of the famous Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874), who promoted the idea of a statistique morale (Quetelet, 1848), but he fails to offer concrete evidence. Rather, I think that Wundt’s positive attitude towards social statistics was primarily aroused by the work of the English historian Thomas Buckle (1821–1862), whose monumental History of Civilization in England had been translated in Germany in 1860. In the introduction, Buckle gave very similar examples on the application of statistics to social life (homicide, suicide, marriage, etc.) and cited the work of Quetelet (Buckle, 1858, pp. 24–30). In fact, as Turner (1986, pp. 90–91) and Heilbron (2003, p. 47) have pointed out, Buckle adopted Quetelet’s ideas concerning moral statistics. Since Wundt explicitly referred to Buckle’s work within the same context (BTS, p. xxvi), but not to Quetelet, I believe that his contact with the latter’s work was initially indirect, via Buckle. In the Vorlesungen, when he returned to the same topic, he referred again to Buckle, but this time he also mentioned Quetelet’s work and considered him to be the founder of statistics (VMT₁, II, pp. 409–410, 462). I will return to this point in Sect. 2.4. For a very informative account of Quetelet’s project, see Porter (1986, pp. 41–54) and Turner (1986, pp. 60–89). Regarding Buckle’s work, see Fuchs (1994). Diamond (1984) has also noted Buckle’s influence on Wundt. According to him, “[…] Buckle was Wundt’s mentor in statistics” (p. 148). His claims on influence, however, are much stronger than mine are.
31.
Wundt praised Aristotle for being the first to discover the law of the unity of thought (Einheit des Denkens), according to which we can never have more than one thought or representation at a time in consciousness (VMT₁, I, p. 42). This law, which Wundt also called the unity of representation, played an important role in his early psychology, as will be clear in the following. In fact, Aristotle, in his On Sense and the Sensible , raised the question: “is it possible or not that one should be able to perceive two objects simultaneously in the same individual time?” (447a13–14, translation of J. E. Beare in Aristotle, 1995, p. 709), and answered in the following way: “it is not possible to perceive the possibility of perceiving two distinct objects simultaneously with one and the same sense” (447b19–20, translation of J. E. Beare in Aristotle, 1995, p. 710). References are given according to Immanuel Bekker’s standard edition of the Greek text of Aristotle from 1831 (page number followed by column and line of text) and to the Revised Oxford Translation of the Complete Works of Aristotle (date and page number). For an outstanding presentation of Aristotle’s psychology, see Daniel Robinson (1989).
32.
One should keep in mind, however, that a descriptive statistics of population and state administration data was already present in the eighteenth century, as Sturm (2009, pp. 321–322) shows in relation to the Göttingen historical school, especially concerning the work of the historian Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727–1799).
33.
The term ‘natural history’ (Naturgeschichte) usually refers to the description and classification of natural objects, which in the nineteenth century incorporated the temporal factor related to evolutionary thought, and also became highly popular in many countries (Bates, 1950; Farber, 2000; Jardine, Secord, & Spary, 2000; Lepenies, 1978; Nyhart, 2009). In this context, however, Wundt used the term to oppose two historical approaches to mental life. For this reason, he insisted on the conceptual distinction between Geschichte and Naturgeschichte, contrasting the limits of the former with the positive contributions of the latter. The basic idea is to study, with the help of statistics, the modifications of man caused by nature and social variables, thus looking for collective patterns of behavior. Wundt’s model here was Buckle’s History of Civilization in England , despite some reservations (BTS, p. xxvi). In the Vorlesungen, the terms Geschichte and Naturgeschichte also appeared as complementary methodological approaches to the study of mental life. Nevertheless, Wundt also used them in a different context, referring to Völkerpsychologie and the development of customs and social norms. He did not want to contrast a personal with an impersonal account of historical and social events but to highlight the difference between the diachronic (Geschichte) and synchronic (Naturgeschichte) perspectives on social and cultural development, the first provided by history, the second by anthropology (VMT1, II, p. 120). Wundt’s model of Naturgeschichte here was no longer Buckle’s work, but the first three volumes of Waitz’s Anthropologie der Naturvölker, published between 1860 and 1862 (VMT1, II, p. 451). See Sect. 2.4 for further details on this topic.
34.
In a very similar way, Buckle speaks of “those vast social laws, which, though constantly interrupted, seem to triumph over every obstacle, and which, when examined by the aid of large numbers, scarcely undergo any sensible perturbation” (Buckle, 1858, p. 29). Again, this is an idea Buckle borrowed from Quetelet (1848, pp. 5–6), which reinforces my suspicion that at this time Wundt did not have direct contact with the latter’s work. Nevertheless, a century before, in his Idea for a Universal History, Kant had also praised the role of statistics in capturing a supra-individual pattern of historical development: “Thus marriages, the births that come from them and deaths, since the free will of human beings has so great an influence on them, seem to be subject to no rule in accordance with which their number could be determined in advance through calculation; and yet the annual tables of them in large countries prove that they happen just as much in accordance with constant laws of nature […]” (AA II, 17). For the Idea for a Universal History, I use the translation by A. Wood in Kant (2007b).
35.
The phrase ‘practical psychology’ should not be understood here in its contemporary sense, meaning a supposed professional application of psychological knowledge. In this context, Wundt was referring to the psychological facts of everyday life in society, such as suicide. In addition, the restriction of statistics to practical psychology indicates that, however useful, statistical facts cannot provide us with the general laws of mental life, which was the ultimate objective of Wundt’s general psychology. In other words, implicit here is the primacy of the experiment in his methodological reform.
36.
According to Wundt, the astronomers’ issue of personal equation led him to his experiments on the speed of thought (VMT₁, I, p. 469). In September 1861, during the 36th Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians at Speyer, he gave a talk reporting his first experimental results on individual differences regarding visual and auditory perception (Schmauss & Geenen, 1861, p. 25). In 1862, he published a paper entitled “Die Geschwindigkeit des Gedankens ” (The speed of thought), in which he considered the formation of representations and thoughts to be the proper activities of the mind: “In comparison with the mere sensation transmission, these are already very complex processes, which build themselves on more simple processes” (DGG, p. 263). However, according to Wundt, the construction of a representation from such simple processes could not be measured, for “we do not know where it begins, we only know where it ends” (DGG, p. 264). Instead, he proposed to measure the time of the swiftest thought (die Zeit des schnellsten Gedankens) through an apparatus he called “the thought meter ” ( Das Gedankenmesser ), a pendulum clock with a metal crossbar attached to its shaft, so that when the pendulum swings the crossbar rings a bell that is fixed on the extremities of the clock. Wundt’s idea was to investigate the relationship between two classes of representation—visual (the position of the pendulum pointer) and auditory (the bell sound)—by measuring the time interval between them. This was the swiftest thought or “the shortest time in which two representations can follow one another” (DGG, p. 264). As for the experimental hypothesis, it can be reconstructed as follows: “If we are able to represent two things simultaneously, we would be able to see the pendulum at the same moment that we hear its sound” (DGG, p. 265). Unfortunately, Wundt did not provide information on how exactly he conducted these experiments, how many subjects participated, who they were, and so on. He only reported the general result of one eighth of a second (0.125 s) as the average time extracted from “a great number of observations” (DGG, p. 264). Nevertheless, from these experiments he inferred a law on the limits of consciousness: “Consciousness grasps only one single representation, one single thought” (DGG, p. 265). In the Beiträge, Wundt called it the law of the unity of representation (das Gesetz der Einheit der Vorstellung), providing the following characterization: “when two impressions that cannot be unified in one representation act on consciousness, only one of them comes to be grasped” (BTS, p. 335). Later, in the Vorlesungen, Wundt reaffirmed the same idea (VMT₁, I, pp. 25–40; 365–377). For a broader context of Wundt’s experiments in relation to the issue of personal equation and the beginnings of mental measurement, see Boring (1961), Canales (2009), Michell (1999), and Schmidgen (2003a).
37.
At this time, Fechner had not yet conceived his experimental aesthetics (Fechner, 1871, 1876), which would have a great impact on subsequent psychological studies of aesthetic phenomena (Allesch, 1987; Hetrick, 2011). Thus, Wundt’s judgment was based only on Fechner’s psychophysics . From this perspective, it is clear that Wundt’s main goal was different from that of Fechner’s initial program, to the extent that the central concern in psychophysics was the establishment of functional relationships between stimulus and sensitivity. Moreover, the scope of Wundt’s project was much broader than Fechner’s was, since he wanted to extend the use of the experimental method beyond the field of sensation and basic perception. Schneider did not perceive this crucial difference, claiming that psychophysics was at the basis of Wundt’s proposal (Schneider, 1990, p. 57). For an in-depth analysis of Fechner’s program , see Gundlach (1993) and Heidelberger (2004).
38.
I will discuss the novelty of Wundt’s early project and its relationship to the German psychological tradition before his Heidelberg years in Sect. 2.6. All the same, it is curious that, as early as 1866—i.e., long before his canonization in twentieth-century historiography of psychology as its founding father (e.g., Blumenthal, 1979; Boring, 1950)—in an anonymous review of the Beiträge and the Vorlesungen, Wundt had already been labeled “the father of experimental psychology” (Anonym, 1866, p. 439). I thank Horst Gundlach for this information.
39.
I use the term ‘ontology ’ to refer to the set of objects designated by a theory, as well as to their nature. It has nothing to do with Heidegger’s fundamental ontology (Heidegger, 1927/1993, § 4), but only with what one might call a regional ontology for psychology.
40.
Although he had already announced in the introduction of the Beiträge the expansion of his observational methods, especially through statistics, as a complementary step to the introduction of the experiment in the reform of psychology, Wundt’s investigations presented in the following chapters of the Beiträge were restricted to the field of sensory perception and, therefore, to the experimental method. It was only in the Vorlesungen that the program would be fully developed, as I will show in the next section.
41.
Starting in the second semester of 1855, after he had graduated in medicine, Wundt worked until the beginning of 1856 as assistant of the pathologist Karl Ewald Hasse (1810–1902) at the Medical Clinic in Heidelberg, where he had contact with patients who had tactile sensory disorders caused by muscle paralysis. According to him, these first experiences in the field of tactile perception—in which he came across the limits of Ernst Weber’s theory—led him from physiology to psychology, when he became acquainted with the main psychological ideas of the time (EE, pp. 100–101). Nonetheless, we should also consider in this regard another important source, never mentioned by Wundt in his autobiography, namely, the psychophysiological experiments carried out at the Physiological Institute in Heidelberg by his uncle and professor of physiology, Friedrich Arnold (1803–1890). Arnold had a laboratory with a wide experimental program (Arnold, 1858), which certainly helped his nephew to become acquainted with some of the activities he would later develop, not only with Helmholtz, but also for his own purposes. So far, only Gundlach (1986) and Wassmann (2009) have called attention to this fact. However, its implications for Wundt scholarship have not yet been fully analyzed, a point that I will discuss later (see Sect. 2.6). At the same time, one should note that many authors cited by Wundt in this context—Waitz, Lotze, Fortlage, Johann Friedrich Leopold George (1811–1873), Wilhelm Fridolin Volkmann (1821–1877), etc.—were not exactly physiologists, but philosophy professors with a keen interest in psychology.
42.
In the case of Lotze, Wundt recognized his importance for having introduced the psychological point of view in the analysis of perception. However, with his theory of local signs (Lokalzeichen), according to Wundt, Lotze eventually returned to an essentially physiological explanation (BTS, pp. 12–19).
43.
It is usually held that Helmholtz originated the term, and that Wundt borrowed it from him. Nonetheless, as I will show in Sect. 2.6, Wundt was the first to use it, and the general idea of an unconscious judgment or inference already existed long before Helmholtz came to defend it.
44.
One should not forget the important role that reflexes play in Wundt’s theory of perception. They are the first link in the chain of mental development, from which objective perceptual processes and, consequently, many high-order mental processes become possible (BTS, p. 426). According to him, “the colligation of sensations is based on the physical mechanism of reflex” (BTS, p. 442). However, the reflexes can also be considered from a psychological point of view: as goal-directed movements, as judgments and inferences closely associated with sensations. In the Vorlesungen, Wundt discussed the nature of reflexes from both perspectives (VMT₁, I, pp. 203–240). However, in most part of his psychological theory, reflexes were treated merely from the physical point of view. In this sense, they do not belong to the proper psychological side of Wundt’s project.
45.
This chapter had also been previously published in the Zeitschrift für rationelle Medizin.
46.
Wundt defined induction as a generalization from particular cases. However, he emphasized that this experience was not limited to a single set of facts of the same kind, which would be the basis for small-scale induction. In other words, he argued that the concept of induction should be expanded to designate the simultaneity of several inductive processes of different types, which together would constitute a complex totality, as in human perception (BTS, pp. 439–441). I will return to this point in Sect. 2.5.
47.
Wundt’s early understanding of logic was framed within the context of the Aristotelian tradition , as was usual until the first half of the nineteenth century. His main concern was the distinction between two classes of inference or logical proceeding, as he understood them (BTS, p. 439): inductive (from the particular to the general) and deductive (from the general to the particular). The advent of modern or mathematical logic through the work of George Boole (1815–1864) and Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), among others, set up a new agenda with many different topics, such as the quantification of propositions. However, even after the mathematization of logic, as Simon notes, “German logicians continued to produce large and wordy textbooks of traditional logic” (Simons, 2003, p. 124), Wundt being a clear example thereof (see Chap. 4).
48.
Wundt accepted a sixth sense, which he called “muscular sense ” (Muskelsinn) or “subjective sense ,” in contraposition to the traditional five objective senses (BTS, p. 400). A muscular sensation for Wundt is a sensation that accompanies a muscular contraction that exists whenever a sensorial organ moves (e.g., when one follows the rapid course of a shooting star or when one lifts a weight), thereby being associated with the respective objective sensation (visual or tactile). To defend his point of view, he presented empirical evidence coming from his own studies on visual and tactile perception, from Weber’s and Fechner’s studies on sensation, and from medical observations. He argued that only the hypothesis of muscular sensation could explain why tactile perception is much finer when one lifts a weight than when one has the same weight brought over one’s hand at rest on a table (BTS, pp. 400–422). In the Vorlesungen, he repeated the same point, highlighting the importance of the muscular sensations for spatial perception (VMT₁, I, pp. 220–240).
49.
Wundt referred here to Francis Bacon (1561–1626), comparing what he called colligation with Bacon’s induction by simple enumeration. In the Vorlesungen, he claimed that Bacon “correctly specified the basic features of the true induction” (VMT₁, I, p. 471). However, it should be noted that, while Bacon did not understand inductive inferences as unconscious psychological phenomena, neither did he lavish praise on this kind of primitive induction: “the induction which proceeds by simple enumeration is a childish thing” (Bacon, 1620/2000, p. 83). Wundt took the word ‘colligation’ from William Whewell (1794–1866), who coined the phrase “colligation of facts” in his influential Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (Whewell, 1847, II, pp. 36–46). Whewell, however, used the term in a much broader sense than Wundt, who criticized him for almost identifying colligation with the entire inductive process. See Sect. 2.5 and 2.6 for further details on Wundt’s inductivism.
50.
It is interesting to note that Wundt already defended, long before the emergence of so-called Gestalt psychology, the fundamental principle through which it became famous: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Curiously, however, its founders—Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) and Kurt Koffka (1886–1941)—have never stated this principle, as Ash has shown (1998).
51.
In contemporary logic, the status of analogy is controversial. On the one hand, traditional textbooks continue to present it as a kind of inductive reasoning. Copi, for example, argues that, “the most common type of inductive argument relies on analogy” (Copi, 2014, p. 487). On the other hand, some philosophers defend the view that reasoning by analogy has proper basic features that make it different from both induction and deduction. As Juthe claims, “arguments by analogy differ from other types of arguments by making the inference from particular to particular and by the fact that the conclusion never follows solely in virtue of the semantics or the syntactical structure of the argument” (Juthe, 2005, p. 24). Curiously, in the Vorlesungen, Wundt presented analogy slightly differently than in the Beiträge, without changing either its definition or its function: “Analogy can be regarded as a kind of intermediate link between inductive and deductive inferential procedures. From one fact it infers another fact related to the former” (VMT₁, I, p. 440, emphasis in original). This can be explained by the fact that in the Beiträge he did not consider the positive role of deductive processes in mental development.
52.
Wundt’s vocabulary is perfectly continuous with the philosophical and psychological terminology of the German tradition, which dates back to Wolff and Kant. If one takes, for instance, Kant’s famous progression (Stufenleiter) of terms in his Critique of Pure Reason, one finds Empfindung, Vorstellung, Bewusstsein, etc. (CPR, B376–377). On the conceptual level, however, there is no continuity, since Wundt’s Stufenleiter is very different from Kant. Unfortunately, Wundt does not strictly follow his own definitions throughout the Beiträge and the Vorlesungen. Sometimes he speaks of unconscious representations or uses the term ‘perception’ interchangeably with ‘representation.’ Moreover, he does not differentiate between mental processes and mental states in a very clear manner. Thus, the terms ‘sensation,’ ‘perception,’ and ‘representation’ sometimes denote processes, sometimes states. This is valid for both consciousness and the unconscious.
53.
In the Vorlesungen, besides reaffirming the same stages in the development of induction, Wundt added the positive role that deductive processes, such as analysis, play in the development of mental life. Despite the fact that induction continued to be viewed as more fundamental, Wundt recognized that in real life both kinds of process were not so strongly separated (e.g., VMT₁, I, p. 441).
54.
One should not forget that the issue of the unconscious was very much alive in the German philosophical, physiological, and psychological traditions. However, the term ‘unconscious’ was conceived in many different and often incompatible ways. For recent accounts of these different, but intersecting traditions, see Buchholz and Gödde (2011), Ffytche (2012), Gödde (1999), Hemecker (1991), Mills (2002), Nicholls and Liebscher (2010), and Völmicke (2005). In Sect. 2.6, I will return to this point, showing the specific context of Wundt’s inferential unconscious.
55.
In the Vorlesungen (Lecure 49), Wundt explained that the difference between unconscious and conscious (or methodical) induction consists not in the nature of the logical processes involved but only in the greater complexity of the latter (VMT₁, II, pp. 317–320).
56.
Notwithstanding the fact that the motivational-affective and volitional dimensions are not absent from Wundt’s early system, they are in themselves derived from that primary logical function. It is also interesting to note that this notion of an unconscious cognitive activity remains a central element in contemporary cognitive psychology (Froufe, 1997; Hassin, Uleman, & Bargh, 2005; Hatfield, 2002).
57.
Even in the case of John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), who admitted two distinct forms of association of mental contents (mechanical and chemical) as well as the creation of new and irreducible contents (Mill, 1872/1981, II, pp. 852–856), the laws of association are the fundamental empirical laws of mental phenomena: “It may be remarked, that the general laws of association prevail among these more intricate states of mind, in the same manner as among the simpler ones. A desire, an emotion, an idea of the higher order of abstraction, even our judgments and volitions when they have become habitual, are called up by association, according to precisely the same laws as our simple ideas” (Mill, 1872/1981, II, p. 856). As Danziger noted (1980c), we should not exaggerate the influence of the British tradition on Wundt (see Sect. 2.6 for further discussion on this topic).
58.
In the Vorlesungen, Wundt returned to this topic, stating, “association remains limited to the alignment of the particulars” (VMT₁, I, p. 412); i.e., it does not involve the creative work of the mind. I will return to this point in Chap. 5, where I will discuss the fundamental principles of Wundt’s mature system.
59.
At first sight, the positive role that history (Geschichte) plays in the Vorlesungen contrasts with the criticism it received in the Beiträge. This can be easily explained by taking into account the different contexts in which the term appears. In the Beiträge, Wundt was using the term in a very narrow sense to indicate the limits of the personalist or individualist explanation of historical events. Now, in the analysis of concept formation , what is at stake is the history of science (especially physics), which will be an important source for Wundt’s observations (VMT₁, I, pp. 416–426). As Jahnke (1996) remarked, the appeal to the history both of science and of philosophy plays an important role in Wundt’s work.
60.
By “traditional view,” Wundt meant the logic textbooks of his time, which presented the sequence of thought in terms of concept, judgment, and inference. He did not mention any author because this was a widespread conception or, as he put it, “the usual opinion of the logicians” (VMT₁, I, p. 54). However, he admitted to not being the first to criticize this classical conception, thereby referring to the work of the German philosopher and philologist Otto Friedrich Gruppe (1804–1876), one of the sharpest critics of Hegel and speculative philosophy in the first half of the nineteenth century. In fact, in one of Gruppe’s most influential books, one finds the following passage: “Again, I am in absolute contradiction with all hitherto existing logic, which I cannot help but accuse of a great inversion. […] According to it, concepts exist as something finished before judgments. On the contrary, I state that concepts are only products of judgments, that they are constantly extended by judgments, and that they can only be explained by the latter” (Gruppe, 1834, p. 43, emphasis in original). For a recent reappraisal of Gruppe’s cultural legacy, see Bernays (2004).
61.
The following passage illustrates the difference between a particular representation, a general representation, and an empirical concept: “For example, whereas the particular representation ‘man’ grasps only the individual with all his essential and unessential characteristics, and the general representation ‘man’ contains only the sum of his essential characteristics, the empirical concept of man relies on a greater or smaller number of related general representations, which initially align themselves with the general representation ‘man’” (VMT₁, I, p. 400).
62.
The idea that the mind or soul can be divided into different parts, functions, activities, or capacities dates back to ancient literary and philosophical thought (Plato) and extends well into the nineteenth century, being captured by the expressions ‘faculty psychology ’ or Vermögenspsychologie (Easton, 1997; Eisler, 1910a; Heßbrüggel-Walter, 2004; Lorenz, 2009; Snell, 1953). Especially in the eighteenth century, German philosophers such as Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) and Johann Nicolas Tetens conceived of a tripartition of the mind (thinking/representation, feeling, and desire/will) that would be influential in subsequent generations (Mendelssohn, 1776/2006; Tetens, 1777, I, Chap. X). It is nonetheless important to highlight the fact that there are substantial differences among these authors. Tetens, for example, did not understand the tripartition as expressing three fundamental faculties, as did Mendelssohn. For him, all activities of the mind derived from a basic and unitary force (Grundkraft), the nature of which is unknown to us. Be that as it may, this general idea of a tripartition of the mind has been very influential in the development of psychological theories (Boring, 1950; Dessoir, 1902; Fodor, 1983; Hilgard, 1980b; Klemm, 1911; Pongratz, 1967; Robinson, 1995; Sommer, 1892). Wundt seems to accept this tripartition of the mind here, at least in its more general or neutral sense, without any ontological implications. In this respect, we may say that the division of the Vorlesungen acquires a new meaning: whereas the first volume deals with processes related to representation and thought, the second is restricted to the phenomena related to feeling, desire, and the will. However, it should be clear that this in no way means that Wundt adhered to faculty psychology. On the contrary, he was one of its critics in nineteenth-century German psychology.
63.
This passage leaves no doubt that Wundt’s early conception of self-observation has nothing to do with his mature view, which is closely related to the experimental method (see Sect. 5.2). Here, traditional, pure self-observation is still valid for conscious phenomena, such as feelings.
64.
Wundt used two different terms—das Fühlen and das Gefühl—to refer to the class of phenomena associated with feeling. In the first case, the emphasis seems to be on the activity of feeling; in the second, on the result of that activity. However, since he does not establish a conceptual difference between both, I will translate them as ‘feeling’ in all cases.
65.
Wundt was aware of the conceptual difficulties that psychology faces whenever it engages in an unreflective interchange with common sense, a problem that has hindered its theoretical development (Araujo, 2001).
66.
It is worth noting that Wundt’s classification is very broad, ranging from the lower feelings, which he called “sensory feelings ” (sinnliche Gefühle), to the abstract or higher feelings (aesthetic, moral, intellectual, and religious). Nevertheless, I will not discuss the details of each form of feeling, since this would lead me astray.
67.
This is an abstraction, a logical necessity arising from Wundt’s anti-innatist assumptions, since no possible experience can demonstrate the emergence of consciousness in the individual.
68.
Nonetheless, both in the Beiträge and in the first part of the Vorlesungen, Wundt gave some hints about this subjective side of mental life by discussing the role of muscular sensations in perception (BTS, 400–422; VMT₁, I, 220–240).
69.
The general feeling is the only topic in Wundt’s early psychology that did not receive a deeper analysis in the Vorlesungen than in the Beiträge. In the latter, Wundt explained that he was attacking two main positions: first, the idea that we have immediate consciousness of our movements and that, therefore, we do not need previous sensory feelings (e.g., George, 1854, p. 203; Trendelenburg, 1840, I, pp. 200–203); second, the idea defended by different psychologists, according to which the general feeling is a simultaneous but confused awareness of every single sensation that affects us at a certain time. Wundt situated his position as being continuous with the physiological tradition, mentioning Müller’s studies on visual perception and Weber’s on tactile perception. For details, see the last chapter of the Beiträge (BTS, pp. 376–400).
70.
In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant formulated the categorical imperative as follows: “So act that the maxim of your will could always hold at the same time as a principle in a giving of universal law” (AA V, 30). For the Critique of Practical Reason, I use the translation by M. Gregor in Kant, 1996.
71.
Wundt proposed a difference between natural peoples (Naturvölker) and cultural peoples (Kulturvölker) to highlight the hierarchical development from a more primitive to a more developed cultural life. In this sense, the term ‘natural people’ does not mean the absence of culture, but only a lower cultural level (e.g., an Indian tribe) in comparison with European civilization (VMT₁, II, pp. 121–139). This was a widespread idea in the German anthropology and ethnology of this period (e.g., Bastian, 1860, I, p. 144–165; Waitz, 1859, pp. 334–394). For an overview of the German anthropological tradition in a broader context, see Penny (2009), Penny and Bunzl (2003), and Smith (1991).
72.
It is extremely important to emphasize this dependence of Völkerpsychologie on individual psychology in Wundt’s initial project. This is the only theoretical aspect explicitly discussed by him here. For a comparison with his mature Völkerpsychologie, see Sect. 5.2.
73.
Despite being a much-debated topic in the nineteenth century, instinct was defined in very different ways, as Boakes argues: “During the nineteenth century, there was considerable confusion concerning the concept of instinct . The term was used a great deal by biologists and psychologists as if it had some precise technical meaning. Yet what one writer meant when talking of a particular instinct often had very little in common with the meaning attached to such phrases by someone else” (Boakes, 1984, p. 204). For this reason, it should be clear that Wundt uses the term ‘instinct’ to designate an unconscious mental activity: “The term instinct always refers to the expressions of feelings and desires in the action. Since these expressions are unconscious, as are the motives of feelings and desires, the instinct is also an unconscious event. It is always that activity through which the individual expresses his feelings and desires, and it indicates the last stage in the hierarchy of these subjective states: feeling is still completely latent, desire strives already for activity, and to act instinctively is that very activity” (VMT₁, II, p. 341, emphasis in original). Wundt reinforced this point, by saying that he did not understand instinct as a natural impulse derived from our biological organization (VMT₁, II, p. 342). Richards (1980) seems not to have perceived this peculiarity of Wundt’s terminology, because he interprets it within a Darwinian context, without establishing the fundamental difference between them (see Sect. 2.2). Wundt’s rejection of a biological meaning for instinct allowed him to overcome the main hindrance of animal psychology—diagnosed in the introduction of the Beiträge—by excluding from it the very notion of instinct as an all-encompassing explanatory concept for animal behavior. Not by accident, when he discussed the mental development of animals, he appealed to the same logical processes that govern human development. The difference is, according to him, only a matter of degree, not of essence (VMT₁, I, pp. 443–460). This means that the principle of continuity is valid not only for the intra-specific, but also for the interspecific scale.
74.
The concept of the will has a long tradition in the history of philosophy and psychology (Bourke, 1964; Eisler, 1910a; Heckhausen, Gollwitzer, & Weinert, 1987; Pink & Stone, 2004). In the particular context of nineteenth-century Germany, the term Wille assumed a central role in the discussions concerning freedom and causality (both in their metaphysical and psychological dimensions) in the aftermath of Kant’s idealism (Gabriel, Hühn, & Schlotter, 2004; Hühn, 2004). Wundt’s initial reflections on the will are deeply rooted in this context.
75.
This time, Wundt referred explicitly to Quetelet, borrowing from his works the statistical data concerning crimes, suicides, and marriages, among other phenomena. See Sect. 2.2 for more information about Wundt’s interest in social statistics.
76.
Wundt suggests here the possibility of a multiple determination, which involves simultaneously cultural and biological factors. The appeal to such determination appears whenever he finds a gap in his analysis. This supports my previous remark on the secondary role that biological factors play in a genuine psychological explanation for Wundt (see Sect. 2.2).
77.
Kant distinguished between a transcendental (theoretical) and a psychological (practical) dimension of freedom. First, he conceived of freedom as an a priori idea of reason, which refers to a type of causality with its proper laws, which stays outside space and time, and which is not subjected to natural causality, but the objective reality of which cannot be demonstrated. It is the freedom of pure reason: “By freedom in the cosmological sense, on the contrary, I understand the faculty of beginning a state from itself, the causality of which does not in turn stand under another cause determining it in time in accordance with the law of nature. Freedom in this signification is a pure transcendental idea, which, first, contains nothing borrowed from experience, and second, the object of which also cannot be given determinately in any experience. […] Reason creates the idea of a spontaneity, which could start to act from itself, without needing to be preceded by any other cause that in turn determines it to action according to the law of causal connection” (CPR, B561, emphasis in original). He connected this transcendental freedom to a psychological or practical one: “it is this transcendental idea of freedom on which the practical concept of freedom is grounded […]. Freedom in the practical sense is the independence of the power of choice from necessitation by impulses of sensibility […] because sensibility does not render its action necessary, but in the human being there is a faculty of determining oneself from oneself, independently of necessitation by sensible impulses (CPR, B561–562, emphasis in original). For the Critique of Pure Reason , I use the translation by P. Guyer and A. Wood in Kant (1998).
78.
For Kant, although transcendental freedom lies outside nature, it can be a cause of the will: “At times, however, we find, or at least believe we have found, that the ideas of reason have actually proved their causality in regard to the actions of human beings as appearances, and that therefore these actions have occurred not through empirical causes, no, but because they were determined by grounds of reason (CPR, B578). However, because we do not know exactly how this is possible, we assume for practical purposes that this is so: “every being that cannot act otherwise than under the idea of freedom is just because of that really free in a practical respect, that is, all laws that are inseparably bound up with freedom hold for him just as if his will had been validly pronounced free also in itself and in theoretical philosophy” (AA IV, 448, emphasis in original). For the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, I use the translation by M. Gregor in Kant (1996b).
79.
The list is very long, ranging from the Pre-Socratics, Plato, and Aristotle to Wundt’s contemporaries. Just to take one example, the epigraph Wundt chose for his Beiträge, the meaning of which I will discuss in what follows, came from Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716): nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu—nisi intellectus ipse (BTS, p. i). Even in his psychophysiological work, one finds many references to philosophers, as in the chapter on the history of vision (BTS, pp. 66–104).
80.
In the nearly 1500 pages that compose his early psychological work (Beiträge and Vorlesungen), there is only one passage in which he offered something close to a definition of philosophy. After defending the interconnection and interaction of all sciences, he stated, “philosophy is a science for all sciences. It alone gives the particular fields of knowledge their meaning” (VMT₁, I, p. x).
81.
So far, the extant analyses of Wundt’s philosophy have not taken into account his early philosophical ideas (Arnold, 1980; Eisler, 1902; Nef, 1923).
82.
The term ‘psychologism’ was coined in the context of German debates in the nineteenth century on the foundations of philosophy (Janssen, 1989; Kusch, 2011). In its first widespread sense, it was pejorative and related to the arguments presented by Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) against the attempts to reduce logic to psychology (Rath, 1994; Schmidt, 1995). In the course of time, however, it acquired many distinct, sometimes overlapping meanings and has been used in different contexts (Crane, 2014; Jacquette, 2003; Kaiser-el-Safti & Loh, 2011; Kusch, 1995; Marquard, 1987). For this reason, it only makes sense to use it nowadays if one can offer a concrete context of application. In a detailed investigation of the German context in the nineteenth century, Rath (1994) presents a classification of different types of psychologism , in which Wundt is considered only during his mature period. Nevertheless, if Rath had taken into account Wundt’s first psychological project, he would have noted that Wundt had already defended, well before Theodor Lipps (1851–1914), a proposal to reconstruct philosophy on the basis of the empirical sciences, which Rath understands as a form of psychologism (Psychologismus als Konstruktion). Kush (2011) also includes the mature Wundt among the representatives of psychologism . However, since in his later work Wundt stated that he did not want to reduce logic or philosophy as a whole to psychology, it seems that his inclusion among them must be qualified. For Wundt’s conception of philosophy, see Chap. 4.
83.
In Wundt’s early work, the words ‘a priori’ and ‘innate’ were interchangeable. Moreover, he understood the issue of apriorism or innatism in psychological terms. This becomes clear, for example, when he speaks of an innate impulse to generalization (Trieb zur Verallgemeinerung) (VMT₁, II, p. 313).
84.
The following passage is clear: “Things that converge in one aspect tend also to converge in other aspects. The inference by analogy acquires, through this principle that is drawn from experience, its authority and even its meaning in science (VMT₁, II, p. 314, emphasis in original).
85.
In the Vorlesungen, Wundt accepted that deductive processes also take part in the establishment of scientific knowledge. However, following the same logic of the development of the mind, induction played the major role in science, for “deduction is a process that necessarily follows induction everywhere” (VMT₁, I, p. 408).
86.
I will return to this question in the next section, where I will discuss the intellectual influences on the young Wundt, and in Chap. 4, in which I will suggest some similarities between Wundt’s conception of philosophy and German Idealism.
87.
This can be seen as a strong form of cognitivism avant la lettre. Even though Wundt never mentions the possibility of, say, an artificial intelligence or a simulation of the mind’s operations through Boole’s algebra, his logical theory of the mind is already enough to include him in the history of the cognitive sciences. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no such history has paid attention to his early cognitivism (e.g., Baars, 1986; Boden, 2006; Gardner, 1985).
88.
Nitsche (1990) and Wassmann (2009) understood this identity in materialistic terms, which it is not. I will discuss the point in Sect. 2.6.
89.
Although Wundt did not use here a name for his position, we can say that the main ideas of his psychophysical parallelism, which he would later develop and justify (see Sect. 5.3), are here already foreshadowed. Heidelberger (2000) has also noted this point.
90.
Vischer became a full professor at the University of Tübingen in 1844. He became famous for his work on aesthetics and arts in general. According to Wundt, “his lecture on aesthetics in the winter semester is the only philosophical lecture I attended in Tübingen” (EE, p. 67). However, there are no signs of any intellectual influence here.
91.
To take a recent example, Wassmann (2009) aims to offer a “novel look” at Wundt’s early work by focusing on Wundt’s physiological background and rejecting any approximation to philosophy. As she claims, “Wundt’s work needs to be situated in the context of German medical and physiological research. […] While historians interpreted Wundt’s work in a philosophical framework, Wundt’s concept of brain function, cognition, and emotion was thoroughly informed by physiological research” (Wassmann, 2009, p. 215). I think she is right with regard to the German physiological tradition. In fact, it is difficult to understand Wundt’s early psychological investigations apart from his physiological background. It is also true that his early theory of emotion developed out of his previous psychophysiological work on vision. On the other hand, as I hope to make clear in this chapter, there is from the beginning in his psychological work a very close relationship to philosophy, to the extent that many of his views were also embedded in the German philosophical tradition. Therefore, a complete rejection of philosophical considerations in favor of an exclusively physiological analysis will produce the same distortion one is trying to correct.
92.
The following passage provides a very clear example: “Even Mill, who most deeply penetrated into the nature of the inductive method, offers very inadequate conceptual definitions. […] He goes on to say that every induction is a syllogism, of which the major premise is missing. […] A syllogism without a major premise is unconceivable, is a contradiction in itself, for if that premise is missing, nothing can ever be inferred” (VMT₁, I, p. 472, emphasis in original).
93.
This does not mean, as Schmidgen (2003b) claims, that Wundt’s early contact with chemical experiments (e.g., on salt and urine) had much of an impact on the development of his psychology. Schmidgen does not offer any convincing evidence of such an impact. Instead, he appeals to “a deliberately anachronistic move” (Schmidgen, 2003b, p. 472), through which he interprets Wundt’s experiment on salt and urine, conducted in 1853, from the perspective of Wundt’s experimental criteria established in the 1880s! Neither the arguments nor the evidence presented by Schmidgen support his general claim. He seems to confound a first motivation with a permanent influence. As I hope to make clear in this section, we must avoid such exaggerated and one-sided claims of influence, except in the light of overwhelming evidence, which is not the case here.
94.
In his autobiography, Wundt reported that, soon after the reading of Mill’s Logic, he debated it with its first German translator (J. Schiel), who was then a docent at the Medical Faculty in Heidelberg (EE, p. 223). These debates can only have occurred between 1859 and 1861, the only period in which Schiel, after his return from a long stay in the USA, taught alongside with Wundt in Heidelberg, before moving to Frankfurt (Munday, 1998). This is in accordance with the remarks on the reception of positivism in Germany made by Fuchs (1994, pp. 260–334), for whom one can only talk of the real penetration of Mill’s Logic among German scientists from the end of the 1850s and beginnings of the 1860s.
95.
This means that, before going to Berlin, Wundt may already have had a good source of empirical data for his first book, written and published before Helmholtz’s arrival.
96.
We can infer therefrom that the claim “physiological experimentation was something Wundt learned by himself” (Schmidgen, 2003b, p. 470) is incorrect. Moreover, the lessons Wundt learned from his uncle make clear that the physiological experiment, not the chemical, was the great influence on his early psychological program.
97.
In a letter to du Bois-Reymond on December 28, 1857, Wundt affirmed that he had been his first great influence in physiology, and asked for permission to dedicate his first book to him (UAL, NW, Letter 26). Contrary to what Diamond has suggested, the relationship between them did not have a “bitter ending just before Wundt started working for Helmholtz” (Diamond, 1980, p. 31). Their correspondence, preserved at the Archives of Leipzig University, testifies to a friendly interchange at least until October 1861, the date of the last letter (UAL, NW, Letters 20–34). In addition, du Bois-Reymond recommended Wundt to Helmholtz, saying that, “Wundt is a very decent and nice person to have around in laboratory” (Kirsten, 1986, p. 187). It seems, however, that du Bois-Reymond changed his mind and developed a more negative attitude toward Wundt. In a letter to Helmholtz in April 1868, he criticized Wundt’s Handbook of Medical Physics and claimed that politics would be a more appropriate pursuit for him than science (Kirsten, 1986, p. 230).
98.
According to Young, Müller was, alongside Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens (1794–1867) and François Magendie (1783–1855), one of the “the three major exponents of the experimental method in neurophysiology” (Young, 1990, p. 90). Müller’s influential book on visual perception, for example, written many years before Mill’s Logic, has a section on observation and experiment, in which he defended the necessity of both, arguing for the expansion of observation and the introduction of the experiment (see Sect. 2.1). For a lively account of the role played by both Müller and du Bois-Reymond in the nineteenth-century physiology, see Otis (2007) and Finkelstein (2013), respectively.
99.
It has also been argued that Mill’s program for psychology had an impact on Wundt’s project, which would explain the similarity between them (Bistricky, 2013; Boring, 1950; Schmidgen, 2003b). Again, I do not find any convincing evidence here. Even if some similarities are granted, they are not sufficient to support the conclusion. To discard false positive suspicions, a much deeper philosophical analysis is needed, which has not been done. Moreover, if we leave aside the similarities and focus on the differences, the situation becomes much worse, because they seem to be the rule rather than the exception. To give just two crucial examples, Mill’s confidence in observation and experiment for the moral sciences (psychology included) was much lower than Wundt’s, and he ended up recommending deductive rather than inductive methods for the universal laws of human nature (Mill, 1872/1981, I, p. 384; II, pp. 863–870). See, for example, Turner (1986) and Wilson (1998), for a detailed discussion of Mill’s program. Be that as it may, there are many other factors involved in Wundt’s project, as I will show in what follows.
100.
With the exception of Wolff’s psychological work, it is almost certain that in his early career Wundt knew practically nothing of this eighteenth-century tradition. At least, there is no evidence in either the Beiträge or the Vorlesungen of such empirical or experimental studies.
101.
We should not forget that Herbart, for example, opposed the use of the experimental method in psychological matters: “psychology cannot experiment with humans, and artificial tools do not exist for it” (Herbart, 1850a, § 4). Moreover, even when not opposing the experimental method, many strands of empirical or scientific psychology never used it, thereby becoming different kinds of what we now call ‘armchair psychology.’ This discontinuity in the use of the experiment in psychological matters between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries is best explained by the huge influence of Kant’s critique of experimental psychology in his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (AA IV, 471).
102.
I will divide the discussion of the relationship between them into two parts, according to the internal logic of Wundt’s intellectual development. Here, as I am dealing only with his early psychological project (1858–1863), the relevant issue is the idea of unconscious inferences . In the next chapter, which deals with the abandonment of this early project, the pertinent question is the influence of Kant.
103.
Just a reminder: Helmholtz arrived in Heidelberg in 1858 and remained there until 1871. Wundt was his assistant between October 1858 and March 1865 but remained in Heidelberg until 1874.
104.
There are exceptions, though. Turner (1982, pp. 154–157) argues for the partial influence of Wundt on Helmholtz’s Optics and mentions that both defended the notion of unconscious inference, but he does not make any claim of priority. Hatfield (1990, pp. 195–208), in a careful and detailed reconstruction of Helmholtz’s theory of spatial perception, argues that Wundt anticipated the notion in several ways, favoring his precedence over Helmholtz. Furthermore, he shows that Helmholtz was well acquainted with Wundt’s experiments on sensory perception and held him in high esteem. For Benetka (2002), “Wundt goes far beyond Helmholtz’s use of this concept” (p. 72).
105.
The first complete edition of Helmholtz’s Physiological Optics (comprising three parts) appeared only in 1867. The first two parts were first published separately in 1856 and 1860, respectively. However, following the page indications from the 1860 edition given by Drobisch (1864), one concludes that they are identical with the 1867 edition. Thus, it is safe to use the complete first edition as a reference for the present discussion.
106.
It is interesting to note that August Classen (1835–1889), a German physician contemporary of Helmholtz and Wundt, also adopted the theory of unconscious inferences to explain visual perception and attributed its formulation to Wundt, not to Helmholtz: “By emphasizing particularly that the act of seeing is a logical inference that occurs largely unconsciously, [Wundt] has indicated the correct point of view from which all new investigations have to start” (Classen, 1863, p. 3).
107.
Two years later, in a paper that is usually not mentioned in the context of this controversy, Helmholtz applied the same principle to explain sound perception, highlighting the importance of training to achieve correct inferences. Again, he did not use the term ‘unconscious inference’ (Helmholtz, 1857/1876, p. 82).
108.
In the first edition of his Textbook of Human Physiology , published in 1865 (LPM₁, p. 478), Wundt claimed to be the first to introduce the idea of unconscious inference to explain perception, reporting that Helmholtz joined him in his attempt. Fifteen years later, he defended himself against an accusation of having taken it from Helmholtz by saying that 1) he did not know Helmholtz’s essay on human vision, 2) Helmholtz’s early idea was much more restricted than his theory was, and 3) his theory diverged in fundamental aspects from Helmholtz’s idea (BBA, p. 138).
109.
Ellenberger’s claim that “Helmholtz discovered the phenomenon of ‘unconscious inference’” (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 313) is simply false.
110.
In his historical analysis of theories of visual perception, originally published in 1859 (BTS, pp. 66–104), Wundt was well aware of this fact. Just to mention one example, he claimed that Hegel had already conceived of visual sensation as an inference (Schluss) (BTS, p. 99). However, we can go back much further. Hatfield (2002) convincingly shows that the first explicit theory of unconscious inferences to explain visual perception was proposed around 1030 by the Arab mathematician Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen (965–1040).
111.
Even outside the German philosophical tradition, this was by no means a novel idea. At about the same period, the great logician George Boole, for example, defended a similar idea (Boole, 1854). I thank Thomas Sturm for calling my attention to this fact.
112.
Crone (1997) observes that Schopenhauer’s essay on colors contained a general theory of perception, including both physiological and psychological elements, in an attempt to reconcile Goethe’s romantic views with Kant’s rigorous philosophy.
113.
In his Physiological Optics, Helmholtz did not refer to anyone before him, as if he were the first to propose the idea. Curiously, he was accused of plagiarizing Schopenhauer (Hörz, 1994; Hörz & Wollgast, 1971). Indeed, a careful reading of their texts reveals a striking similarity of point of views, as Wundt (UEG) and Zöllner (1872) had already observed. In his outstanding intellectual biography of Helmholtz, Koenigsberger reproduces a letter from Helmholtz’s father defending him against such accusations, which suggests how lively the controversy must have been (Koenigsberger, 1902, p. 278).
114.
Even in physics and astronomy, the idea was also being used to explain visual illusions. The French physicist Georg Friedrich Parrot (1767–1852), interested in explaining why external objects seem to diminish in size when seen from the window of a fast-moving locomotive, came very close to saying that mental judgments responsible for this illusion are unconscious (Allik & Konstabel, 2005). The astronomer Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner (1834–1882) published a paper in 1860, short before the appearance of the second part of Helmholtz’s Optics, in which he employed the idea of unconscious inferences to explain a visual illusion that now bears his name (Zöllner, 1860). In an early attempt to map the history of the concept of the unconscious, Volkelt (1873a, p. 6) mentioned Helmholtz, Wundt, and Zöllner as representatives of the idea of unconscious inferences, without any claim of priority.
115.
Wundt was well acquainted with Müller’s theory of sensory perception, as he showed in the Beiträge (e.g., BTS, pp. 93–97).
116.
In Weber’s text, there is an explicit Kantian tone, in the sense that the passage from sensation to perception presupposes the application of a priori categories. In truth, one can say that a significant number of the representatives of the new German physiology in the first half of the nineteenth century were searching for a Kantian interpretation of physiological facts, which had already been noted by Wundt himself and some of his contemporaries (BTS, pp. 91–97; Liebert, 1915; Riehl, 1904). Nowadays, it is usual to refer to this movement as physiological Neo-Kantianism (e.g., Schmitz, 1996). I will return to this point in the next chapter (see Sect. 3.6), where I will discuss the relationship between Wundt and Neo-Kantianism. Be that it as it may, this close relationship between philosophy and natural science in the German context of the nineteenth century is in itself strong evidence in favor of my general thesis, according to which Wundt’s philosophical inclinations are not a late product in his development.
117.
With the exception of Graumann and Sommer (1983) and Meischner (2000), Weber’s possible influence on Wundt’s hypothesis has not been taken into account in the secondary literature. Wassmann (2009), after a very informative review of Wundt’s physiological background, did not notice that the idea of unconscious acts was already present in the physiological tradition before Helmholtz. Having also neglected the philosophical tradition, she believes that “at the moment when Wundt first elaborated upon unconscious processes of thought, obviously, this idea was inconceivable” (Wassmann, 2009, p. 223).
118.
Helmholtz’s text is the reproduction of a talk he gave in Königsberg in honor of Kant—“as the best monument for Kant,” as the subtitle says (Helmholtz, 1855). I will return to this point later (see Sect. 3.6).
119.
Since Wundt would soon change his mind, I will return to this issue in the next chapter and discuss the implications of his new position for his psychological project.
120.
Even the most optimistic interpreters (e.g., Conrat, 1903; Darrigol, 2003) recognize that Helmholtz had only a peripheral interest in psychology as a whole. His psychological ideas were subordinated to his epistemological agenda.
121.
So-called mechanical or vulgar materialism was an intellectual movement that emerged around the 1850s in Germany, the main objective of which was to defend a mechanistic and materialistic worldview, based on the progress of the natural sciences. With regard to psychological questions, its adherents believed in a material identity between the mind and the brain and rejected every form of spiritualism. The main representatives of this movement were Karl Vogt (1817–1895), Jacob Moleschott (1822–1893), and Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899). Through writings directed mainly at a general audience (Büchner, 1855/1971; Moleschott, 1852/1971; Vogt, 1847/1971a; 1855/1971b), they played an important role in the German intellectual context of the second half of the nineteenth century, especially with regard to the popularization of science (Daum, 2002; Gregory, 1977; Klimke, 1909; Nieke, 1980).
122.
My response to Nitsche applies equally to Wassmann, who also understands Wundt’s position in materialistic terms, although she does not use the term ‘vulgar materialism .’ She argues that, “Wundt’s specific contribution to epistemological questions lies in the fact that he approached the psyche in terms of brain function” (Wassmann, 2009, p. 216). For her, the brain is the real subject of Wundt’s psychology: “Wundt asked how the brain acquired a sense of space” (p. 229); “In Wundt’s view, […] the brain would interpret the sensation as referring to the Self” (p. 230); and so on. Since Wundt never said anything like this, Wassmann cannot provide textual evidence for such claims. This is the price paid for turning Wundt into a materialist.
123.
A good example of how it is possible to share similar methodological perspectives without being in agreement about fundamental philosophical questions can be seen in the differences between French and German physiology of the first half of the nineteenth century. While French physiologists were close to the sensualist tradition of Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715–1780), Müller had a vitalist and idealist background (see Young, 1990, Chap. 2), although the exact contours of his philosophical positions remain controversial (Hagner & Wahrig-Schmidt, 1992; Otis, 2007). But even within the German tradition, there is another good example. Müller and du Bois-Reymond, who worked together during many years in Berlin, shared the same enthusiasm for the experimental method and a faith in the progress of physiology, in spite of their rather distinct metaphysical positions (du Bois-Reymond, 1848; Liebert, 1915; Wenig, 1988). Finkelstein also sees in metaphysics the central point of divergence between du Bois-Reymond and his German mentors (including Müller), pointing out what he calls, “the three planks of his scientific program: shunning recourse to vitalism, establishing functional relationships, and positing only matter and motion” (Finkelstein, 2013, p. 64). Finally, one should not forget the differences and contradictions within materialism itself, despite some methodological consensus (Araujo, 2012c, 2013c; Flügel, 1902; Lange, 1866).
124.
Wundt himself recognized the influence of Fichte and Hegel in some aspects of his early psychological theory (GPP₁, p. 702). It was not by accident that Wilhelm Tobias (1834–1905), from reading Wundt’s Vorlesungen, saw them as the expression of an “unrelenting Neo-Hegelianism” (Tobias, 1875, p. 37). Curiously, Tobias’s labeling ended up acquiring historical significance: apparently, it was the first time the expression ‘Neo-Hegelianism ’ was officially used in the nineteenth century. However, this does not mean any involvement by Wundt in the emergence of the Neo-Hegelian movement properly speaking (Kleiner, 1984). The similarity between some of Wundt’s ideas and Hegel’s has been suggested in the secondary literature (p. ex., Arnold, 1980; Robinson, 1982), but so far, no systematic analysis of this relationship has been done.
125.
I am well aware both of the minor differences among the three vulgar materialists and the contradictions that every form of radical materialism ends up producing. Büchner, for example, oscillated between identity, epiphenomenalism and property dualism (Büchner, 1855/1971). Nevertheless, as Nitsche only referred to identity, I will restrict myself to it. If Büchner’s notion of identity bears any resemblance to Wundt’s, this indicates his departure from the basic assumptions of vulgar materialism rather than Wundt’s adherence to the materialistic worldview. As I showed elsewhere, the rejection of materialism as a metaphysical perspective is a constant feature of Wundt’s work (Araujo, 2006).
126.
Around 1850, a fierce intellectual battle emerged in Germany, which came to be known as der Materialismusstreit (the materialism dispute). Two opposing worldviews (Weltanschauungen)—idealism and materialism —were at the center of the dispute, in which the problem of the mind and its relation to the body or brain occupied a prominent place (Bayertz, Gerhard, & Jaeschke, 2007a, 2012; Cornill, 1858; Flügel, 1902; Klimke, 1909; Meschede, 1980; Meyer, 1856).
127.
Nitsche argues further that the form in which Wundt’s Vorlesungen were published would be another proof of his relationship with vulgar materialists, since this was also their favorite type of publication. However, putting this fact in the broader context of the popularization of science in the nineteenth century in Germany, one comes to the conclusion that, rather than a peculiarity of vulgar materialism, the publication of a book in the form of letters, lectures or popular essays was widespread among German scientists and philosophers at the time, whenever they wanted to reach a larger audience (Cahan, 1995; Daum, 2002). This was exactly Wundt’s goal, as he made clear in the preface (VMT₁, I, p. ix). Drobish (1864), who wrote a detailed review of Wundt’s Vorlesungen, also understood them in this sense. Moreover, even antagonists of materialism published books in the form of Vorlesungen (e.g., Carus, 1831). Still others, more neutral in relation to the idealism/materialism dispute, also adopted this form of publication (e.g., Meyer, 1856).
128.
About Cornill’s life, we know very little. There is very little information available. He was a docent of philosophy at the University of Marburg and moved later to Heidelberg, where he lived as a Privatgelehrter (independent scholar) from 1853 to 1862. After that, he moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he remained until his last days.
129.
So far, Ungerer has been the only one to note Cornill’s importance (Ungerer, 1980). Nonetheless, by considering Cornill’s ideas in a superficial way, Ungerer perceived only some aspects related to Wundt’s idea of a physiological psychology, leaving aside the sources and the central aspects of Cornill’s philosophy.

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Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Saulo de Freitas Araujo

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de Freitas Araujo, S. (2016). The Logical Mind: Wundt’s Early Psychological Project. In: Wundt and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26636-7_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26636-7_2
Published: 24 December 2015
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26634-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26636-7
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