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Wundt’s Mature Project of a Scientific Psychology

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Wundt and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology

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Abstract

First, I will show how Wundt’s conception of psychology fits his classification of the sciences in general, as well as his theory of the evolution of knowledge and of experience. Second, I will analyze the division of psychology into two main branches, experimental psychology and Völkerpsychologie, as a further development of his theory of experience. Third, I will demonstrate the continuity between, on the one hand, Wundt’s central psychological concepts and principles, and on the other, his logical and epistemological assumptions. Finally, I will discuss Wundt’s conception of the will (der Wille) and its role in his psychological project.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For example, in the first three editions of the Grundzüge, which comprise the period between 1874 and 1887, Wundt introduced successive modifications into his demarcation of the psychological field, especially with regard to Völkerpsychologie (GPP1, pp. 4–5; GPP2, I, pp. 4–5; GPP3, I, pp. 4–6). This suggests that, at least until this period, he had not yet found a satisfactory solution to this issue.

  2. 2.

    In order to understand why Wundt wrote such a long text on the definition of psychology in 1896, one has to take into account at least three contextual factors. First, Oswald Külpe (1862–1915), Wundt’s ex-student and ex-assistant in Leipzig, had recently written two books on psychology and philosophy, showing considerable divergence in relation to his teacher’s proposal (Külpe, 1893, 1895). These two books were decisive for the emergence of the so-called “Würzburg School ” with which Wundt fought a tough theoretical-methodological battle (UAE, KNA; Bühler, 1907, 1908, 1909; see also Pongratz, 1991, 1997; Ziche, 1999a). In two letters to Külpe, in September 1895, soon after reading his Introduction to Philosophy , Wundt indicated the main differences between them and announced the publication of an article on the definition of psychology in which he would rectify some inaccuracies in Külpe’s exposition (UAL, NW, Letters 387 and 389). Second, Wundt followed the controversy that ensued after the publication of Wilhelm Dilthey’s (1833–1911) influential article in which he defended a descriptive or analytical psychology (zergliedernde Psychologie) in opposition to what he called explanatory psychology (erklärende Psychologie), associated with the experimental psychologists (Dilthey, 1894/1974). The main response came from Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), who attacked Dilthey’s proposal and defended the legitimacy of experimental psychology (Ebbinghaus, 1895). For the details and significance of this controversy, see Brauns (1987), Lessing (1985), and Rodi (1987). Finally, Richard Avenarius had recently published a series of four articles on the same topic (the definition of psychology), proposing a completely different way of understanding what psychological science should be (Avenarius, 1894a, 1894b, 1895a, 1895b). According to his empirio-criticist stance, “The object of psychology is experience in general, so far as experience depends upon System C [the central nervous system]” (Avenarius, 1894b, p. 418).

  3. 3.

    Wundt mostly uses the term Naturwissenschaft (natural science) to designate all the particular sciences that deal with the objects of nature (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.). Whatever their differences, they share the same perspective.

  4. 4.

    Mischel did not perceive this distinction, as he interprets Wundt’s conception of experience in ontological terms, in the sense of “an elusive inner world which has no essential connection with outer phenomena” (Mischel, 1970, p. 21).

  5. 5.

    It is exactly this point that marks the difference from Wundt’s early psychological project. As I showed in Sect. 2.5, he had already demarcated the field of psychology as the study of inner experience, without discussing the ontological issues traditionally involved therein. Now, associated with the concepts of immediate experience and intuitive knowledge, the phrase ‘inner experience’ acquires a very specific meaning and becomes a central concept in Wundt’s thought.

  6. 6.

    An example given by Wundt himself is the scientific concept of water. When we define it in terms of atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, we are no longer talking about intuitions, but concepts (SP4, I, pp. 140–141).

  7. 7.

    Considering contemporary physics, for example, both quantum mechanics and string theory perfectly illustrate Wundt’s point by showing how far natural science is from everyday intuition. For an excellent, multi-level analysis of intuition in philosophy and science, see Osbeck and Held (2014).

  8. 8.

    The term Anwendungsgebiet can be misleading. Wundt understood this application of psychology in purely theoretical terms, to the extent that descriptions and explanations in history, philology, etc., would be based on psychological principles. He did not have in mind here an application of psychological knowledge to solve educational, social, or health problems, i.e., applied psychology in the contemporary sense.

  9. 9.

    For a contextual analysis of this dispute, see Araujo (2013d). Lamiell (2013) has further explored this issue further, showing how Wundt defended psychology’s ties to philosophy and warned against the dangerous consequences of their separation.

  10. 10.

    After this period, he did not change his position or the way of presenting it, which becomes evident by comparing the fifth and sixth editions of the Grundzüge (GPP5, I, pp. 5–6 and GPP6, I, p. 6, respectively) with the fourth edition of his Logik (L4, III, pp. 160–240), the last general exposition of his psychological system.

  11. 11.

    I showed in Sect. 2.2 that Wundt did not offer a detailed treatment of animal psychology in his first psychological project. Likewise in his mature psychology. The few times he dealt with the topic (DTP; GDP; VMT2, Chaps. 23 and 24), it becomes clear that his only concern is to suggest in general terms the similarities and the discontinuity of mental development between humans and animals. Nonetheless, as he abandoned the hypothesis of unconscious inferences, he was obliged to find another way to the unification of all mental processes. He found it in the basic processes of consciousness (representation, association, will, etc.).

  12. 12.

    One should not forget that some of the experiments conducted in Wundt’s laboratory used physiological parameters as indicators of psychological states and processes, particularly with regard to emotion. For detailed descriptions of such experiments, see Wontorra (2009).

  13. 13.

    Wundt maintained his position until the end of his life, always emphasizing the importance of physiological knowledge for a better understanding of mental processes (L4, III, pp. 219–222). I will come back to this point in Sect. 5.3, where I will discuss the theoretical principles of Wundtian psychology.

  14. 14.

    As late as 1910, Wundt wrote, “For me, all psychological hypotheses that work with the unconscious are suspicious from the outset” (UAL, NW, Letter 822, p. 2).

  15. 15.

    Since the first edition of the Grundzüge, and throughout his career, Wundt showed an awareness of the fact that the experimental method can only offer an indirect access to inner experience, because it is limited to the manipulation and control of its external conditions (GPP1, p. 5; VMT2, p. 11; GPP6, I, pp. 4–5; L4, III, p. 168). Nonetheless, for him, this does not affect its reliability, provided we can measure the variations of the phenomena. In the last instance, the very condition of consciousness, namely, that it finds itself connected to the outer world, will guarantee the validity of experimental results (UPM, pp. 3–4).

  16. 16.

    I am using here the term ‘introspection’ as a general label to include all the alternatives regarding the proper method to reach inner experience, rather than to define Wundt’s particular position. It is important to note that Wundt himself never used the term Introspektion, but only Selbstbeobachtung (self-observation) and innere Wahrnehmung (inner perception). The lack of attention to this point, as Danziger correctly saw it, “not only makes it difficult to understand the nature of Wundt’s contribution to the problem of introspection, it also leads to the appearance of extraordinary inconsistency” (Danziger, 1980c, p. 244).

  17. 17.

    The term reine Selbstbeobachtung has been translated as ‘pure self-observation ’ (e.g., Blumenthal, 1985, p. 29; Spiller, 1906, p. 391) or ‘pure introspection’ (e.g., Hergenhahn & Henley, 2013, p. 252; Wooffitt & Holt, 2011). However, this is misleading, because the adjective rein does not mean ‘genuine’ or ‘unadulterated’ here but ‘mere’ or ‘sheer’. For this reason, following Gundlach’s suggestion for the term reine Beobachtung (Gundlach, 1987, p. 74), I will translate reine Selbstbeobachtung as mere self-observation. As it will become clear in the following, Wundt opposed mere self-observation to experimental self-observation .

  18. 18.

    Among others, Kant and Comte are the main sources for Wundt’s discussion of the problem of introspection. The central problem can be summarized thus: the act itself of observing one’s own mental processes interferes and modifies that which should be observed, thus invalidating the procedure. Both authors used the difficulties of the introspective method to argue against the possibility of a scientific psychology (Kant, AA IV, 471; Comte, 1830, p. 36). As for the development of the discussions up to the twentieth century, see Boring (1953), Brock (2013), Danziger (1980c), Lyons (1983), and Ziche (1999a).

  19. 19.

    Wundt’s intended methodological reform (Sect. 2.1) assumes here a different role in the justification of his psychological project. In his early writings, the attempt to overcome the limits of self-observation was primarily associated with the necessity of reaching the unconscious processes of mental life. Now, after the abandonment of the unconscious, what is at stake is the reliability of the observation of consciousness itself. Moreover, given the immaturity of his early theoretical formulations, Wundt had not yet realized the impossibility of an internal observation in a strict sense.

  20. 20.

    Wundt’s Selbstbeobachtung und innere Wahrnehmung (Self-observation and inner perception), published in 1888, is a direct response to Volkelt, who had criticized Wundt’s argument against the possibility of self-observation.

  21. 21.

    Wundt is referring here to the famous fictional character from German literature, Baron Munchhausen, created by the writer Rudolph Erich Raspe (1736–1794) and illustrated in his Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia (1785). Raspe’s character was inspired by the real-life aristocrat Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen (1720–1797), who developed a reputation as a very creative storyteller prone to exaggeration.

  22. 22.

    Although Wundt did not mention him here, this is exactly Comte’s argument against introspection (Comte, 1830, p. 36). In his Logik, Wundt repeated the same argument (L1, II, p. 482; L4, III, p. 162).

  23. 23.

    Wundt may have taken this distinction between self-observation and inner perception from Brentano, who developed the same idea in his Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint). For Brentano, too, inner perception is the basis of psychology (Brentano, 1874, pp. 35–42).

  24. 24.

    The idea that memory can serve to analyze mental phenomena was proposed by John Stuart Mill, who tried to answer Comte’s critique of introspection by appealing to a retrospective analysis of mental phenomena (Mill, 1882, p. 64).

  25. 25.

    For a detailed account of the historical and technological contexts of reaction time experiments, see Schmidgen (2003a).

  26. 26.

    In this context, Danziger confuses perception with observation: “The way out, for Wundt, was the manipulation of the conditions of internal perception, so that they approximated the conditions of external perception” (1990, p. 35). According to Wundt, perception (both internal and external) is, by definition, unsystematic and elusive. Therefore, the approximation he intended was between inner perception, submitted to the experimental method, and external observation. It is worth mentioning that Wundt’s belief in the potential of the experimental method depends on a previous philosophical postulate, namely, the regularity and lawfulness of consciousness. Accordingly, mental processes under similar experimental conditions have to occur in similar ways (L4, III, p. 166).

  27. 27.

    After reaching his final position on this subject, Wundt mostly used the phrase ‘real self-observation ’ (wirkliche Selbstbeobachtung) to designate this application of the experimental method to inner perception, thus differentiating it from the illusory mere self-observation.

  28. 28.

    Given the different meanings associated with the term ‘introspection ’, it does not help much to say that Wundt was an introspectionist, without further qualification. Boring (1953), for example, understood Wundt to be defending classical introspection, “the common belief that the description of consciousness reveals complexes that are constituted of patterns of sensory elements” (Boring, 1953, p. 172). This is misleading, though. Wundt’s conception of introspection is primarily based on epistemological and methodological grounds, not on the complexity of mental life. Furthermore, Boring did not understand the complexity and specificity of Wundt’s position regarding the difference between self-observation and inner perception. Danziger (1980c) corrected Boring’s inaccuracies and offered a sound interpretation of Wundt’s position. However, by claiming that Wundt “rejected introspection as such and replaced it with ‘internal perception ’” (Danziger, 1980c, p. 250), he ended up confusing inner perception with the application of the experimental method to it, a confusion that has been repeated in the literature (e.g., Brock, 2013, p. 29). Furthermore, Danziger failed to notice, as did Lyons (1986, p. 4), that Wundt himself came eventually to use the term ‘self-observation’ in a positive sense (as experimental or real self-observation) to classify his own position. Blumenthal (1985) acknowledged Wundt’s acceptance of experimental self-observation but wrongly identified traditional or mere self-observation with inner perception, thus ignoring the important difference between them. Thus far, Metge (1980) has been the only one to perceive the changing meanings of the term Selbstbeobachtung throughout Wundt’s work. Ziche (1999a, pp. 10–15) also recognized that Wundt accepted a new kind of self-observation, different from casual inner perception.

  29. 29.

    Wundt’s experimental studies in Leipzig have been presented in different ways. Boring (1950) focuses on the kind of mental process studied (e.g., sensation, perception, attention, etc.) and restricts himself to the Philosophische Studien. Robinson (2001) takes the reaction time experiments as a guiding element to present and discuss Wundt’s experimental investigations, describing the development and the controversies surrounding this kind of research. Wontorra (2009) offers a more in-depth classification, placing all the experiments into three separate categories: chronometry of mental operations, analysis of the content and course of consciousness, and physiological psychology in a narrow sense.

  30. 30.

    I will not deal here with the results of Wundt’s VP, only with its theoretical foundations. An examination of all his writings on language, myth, customs, and culture in general would require a completely different approach, which in its turn would probably exceed the limits of a single book. Nonetheless, it is one of the central gaps yet to be filled in Wundt scholarship, as I argued elsewhere (Araujo, 2007).

  31. 31.

    According to Eckardt (1997, p. 85), the first issue of the fourth volume of the Philosophische Studien, in which the text appeared, had already been published in 1886, and the date of 1888 refers only to the publication of the complete volume. Nevertheless, I will follow here the official dating of the general catalog of Wundt’s work, which establishes the year of 1888 (E. Wundt, 1927, p. 18). Either way, this possible difference of 2 years does not affect my argument at all.

  32. 32.

    Although the secondary literature has acknowledged the existence of a period of silence, to my knowledge there is no attempt to relate it to the abandonment of the logical theory of the mind and, thus, to the search for a new theoretical unity for psychology (e.g., Danziger, 1983; Eckardt, 1997; Fahrenberg, 2013b; Jahoda, 1999; Jüttemann, 2006; Klautke, 2013; Oelze, 1991; Schneider, 1990, 2008; Volkelt, 1922; Wolfradt, 2009).

  33. 33.

    A comparison of the distinct names and attributions VP received during this period is already sufficient to support my claim. Whereas, in the first two editions of the Grundzüge (1874 and 1880, respectively), its task consisted only in the study of the compounded phenomena of consciousness—in opposition to the simple phenomena of physiological psychology (GPP1, p. 5; GPP2, I, pp. 4–5)—in the methodological writings of the decade of 1880s, VP appeared as psychic anthropology (psychische Anthropologie) or historical psychology (historische Psychologie), the specific aim of which was to psychologically interpret language, myths, and customs (AEP, pp. 15–20; L1, II, pp 491–501). Only in the third edition of the Grundzüge (1887) did Wundt present VP as a complement to experimental psychology and define its subject matter as being the products of mental life in community, rather than individual consciousness, besides affirming the constant interaction between the two fields of psychological investigation (GPP3, I, p. 5). This was only to be properly explained in the article of 1888.

  34. 34.

    For instance, “The Negro is to a large extent apathetic. Doing nothing is for him the highest pleasure. The enduring energy with which the European devotes himself to a freely chosen labor is unknown to him” (VMT1, II, p. 137).

  35. 35.

    Greenwood (2003, 2009) argues that Wundt’s VP does not imply an impossibility in principle of applying the experimental method to higher psychological phenomena. According to him, “[W]hen [Wundt] claimed that the subject matter of Völkerpsychologie is ‘unapproachable by means of experiment in the common acceptance of the term’ (1897, p. 23), he meant that the historical development of social forms of language, myth, and custom cannot be investigated via experimental self-observation […]” (Greenwood, 2009, p. 310). It is true that Wundt referred many times to the experimental method in psychology in terms of experimental self-observation. It is also true that experimental self-observation, being restricted to individual consciousness, cannot shed light on the history of collective mental development. However, there are other reasons for Wundt’s rejection of experiment in VP, which Greenwood did not take into account. For example, by paying attention only to the methodological level of VP, he overlooked the philosophical dimension of the concept of the collective mind (Volksseele), which implies the existence and participation of supraindividual mental processes in the formation of mental products, such as language, myth, and custom. For Wundt, these supraindividual properties and processes appear only when there are interactions among individuals and cannot be arbitrarily manipulated or controlled. Moreover, Greenwood also overlooked Wundt’s epistemological difference between progressive and regressive explanations. According to Wundt, because of the complexity of creative synthesis, it is not possible in VP to use the experimental strategy of manipulating the causes of mental products and waiting for the effects to happen (see Sect. 5.3). Briefly, by attempting to use Wundt to defend contemporary experimental social psychology against its critics, Greenwood seems to have fallen victim to the same anachronism he criticized in some of his opponents.

  36. 36.

    Klautke did not notice the difference between the Beiträge (1862) and the Vorlesungen (1863) concerning the limits of the experimental method. According to him, “At that time, Wundt was still convinced that experimental methods could be applied to all psychological phenomena” (Klautke, 2013, p. 62). As I showed in Sect. 2.2, this claim is only valid for the Beiträge.

  37. 37.

    It is worth remembering that Wundt included in his analysis the influence of climate and environment on mental determination (VMT1, II, pp. 125–126).

  38. 38.

    Until the second edition of the Grundzüge (GPP1, pp. 4–5; GPP2, I, pp. 4–5), Wundt still associated the division of psychology with this methodological classification of the sciences (explanatory vs. descriptive sciences). However, from the third edition onward, he no longer recognized a sharp boundary between them, and did not use such a criterion to justify the division between VP and physiological or experimental psychology (GPP3, I, pp. 4–5; GPP4, I, pp. 3–5). Now, the distinction was between processes and products, which he presented in a more systematic way in his general classification of the sciences, published in 1889 (UEW). In the fifth and sixth editions, he did not even mention the distinction between ‘explain’ and ‘describe’ anymore. This is further evidence in favor of my interpretation, according to which the 1888 article is the first systematic presentation of his new VP, which perfectly agrees with his classification of the sciences. Furthermore, it reinforces my general thesis that his mature psychology was decisively influenced by his philosophical development.

  39. 39.

    Wundt also discussed Paul’s criticisms of the concept of a collective mind (Volksseele). However, considering the internal logic of my analysis, this point will only be discussed in Sect. 5.3, in which Wundt’s concept of mind (Seele) will be explained.

  40. 40.

    The role of laws in psychology will also be discussed in Sect. 5.3. The concept of development was so important for Wundt that he came to affirm that VP was developmental psychology (Entwicklungspsychologie) (EVP, p. 4). This declaration served as an occasion for misunderstandings, which led Wundt into a dispute with his ex-student Felix Krueger (1874–1948), who proposed the substitution of VP by a general developmental psychology (Krueger, 1915). For Wundt, Krueger did not perceive the specificity of VP in relation to the other forms of psychological analysis of development (VEP). For details concerning this polemic, see Meischner-Metge (2006).

  41. 41.

    In his first study of VP, Eckardt (1971, pp. 70–76) defended this thesis, using passages of the first edition of Wundt’s Logik to justify it. Nevertheless, this interpretation is mistaken exactly because it does not take into account the difference between Wundt’s two conceptions of VP. If this text of 1888 really inaugurates his new VP, then any previous declaration about VP can only belong to his old conception or, at most, to an intermediary period of indecision. Hence, it would only make sense to speak of a psychologization of history, if any, in his first VP.

  42. 42.

    Wundt understood the philosophy of history as a theory about the general development of humanity. Although he did not come to develop it, it occupied a very important place in his metaphysical project of a new worldview, as one can see in his classification of sciences: “Finally, on the basis of an overall consideration of mankind’s historical development, its political and cultural factors, as well as on the special development of those particular mental products, the philosophy of history attempts to reach a conception of the whole outer and inner life of humanity” (UEW, p. 54).

  43. 43.

    This point is very important. Language, myth, and custom are the primary sources for Wundt’s VP, i.e., they are the objects of analysis. This should not be confused, though, with VP’s main goal, which is the discovery of the universal laws of mental development of peoples. Wundt’s VP was never intended to offer a theory of social action, as Benetka (2002, p. 98) claims, but a theory of collective mental development.

  44. 44.

    Danziger seems to have missed this point. For him, Wundt’s interest was in analyzing cultural products “to illuminate psychological processes in the individual” (Danziger, 1983, p. 307, my italics). For Wundt, the mental products investigated in VP result from the mental interaction of individuals and suggest a supraindividual level of mental life. This is the primary focus of VP, not the individual mental processes.

  45. 45.

    Wundt gave a detailed explanation for the relationship between the history of language (Sprachgeschichte) and the psychology of language (Sprachpsychologie) in his reply to the linguist Berthold Delbrück (1842–1922), who had criticized many aspects of the first volume of Wundt’s VP (Delbrück, 1901). Wundt claimed that this relationship could not be thought of in terms of an application of the results of experimental psychology to the analysis of language, and that the central point was the contribution of the history of language to the progress of psychological knowledge (SGS, pp. 8–9).

  46. 46.

    This theme concerns the third question I raised. Here, I will present only the first part of the answer. The second part will be given in the next section, in which I will discuss Wundt’s concept of mind, which comprises both individual psychology and VP.

  47. 47.

    Wundt used here, as he did many times, the term Volksgeist as identical with Volksseele. Later, as I will show in the next section, he came to prefer Volksseele, but continued to employ Volksgeist sporadically.

  48. 48.

    Wundt addressed this interdependency between the individual and the collective in a talk he gave in 1891, in honor of the 63rd anniversary of King Albert of Saxony (1828–1902). On this occasion, he defended again the importance of psychological analysis for the understanding of socio-cultural products. At the same time, he recognized the limits of such analysis (UVE). However, according to some critics, Wundt’s considerations remained too abstract. For example, Arens claims that “he did not go far enough in accounting for feedback between the individual and culture” (Arens, 1989, p. 131).

  49. 49.

    As Jahoda (1999, p. 30) correctly observes, this book has been wrongly considered to be a summary of Wundt’s ten-volume VP. In the following, it will become clear why it is not.

  50. 50.

    Eckardt saw a double discrepancy between this book and the goals Wundt had established for his VP. On the one hand, the Elemente would have brought a new methodological strategy. On the other, Wundt would have abandoned the analysis of mental processes in favor of a psychologization of history (Eckardt, 1997, pp. 100–104).

  51. 51.

    In the tenth volume of his VP, Wundt reinforced the interactive character of language, myth, and custom , as well as their role in the formation of cultural unities: “from the outset, culture includes all of its forms: language, myth, custom; and these elements can never be isolated from each other, they are factors that belong together. Therein lies the unity of culture in all its stages” (VPK, p. 50).

  52. 52.

    Danziger did not pay attention to the close relationship between the Elemente and the ten volumes of VP. For him, “Wundt permitted himself to return to some of the sins of his youth in this little work” (Danziger, 1983, p. 308). Accordingly, his idea of “adding a historical dimension to psychology by the study of cultural development amounted to little more than paying lip service to the historicity of the human mind” (Danziger, 1983, p. 310). What seems to have escaped Danziger’s attention is the difference between the form and content of the human mind in Wundt’s theory. For Wundt, there are universal, ahistorical laws that regulate mental processes (e.g., mental causality). However, this is not the whole story. As every mental process occurs in time, its content will reflect the particularities of a certain cultural stage or historical moment. In this sense, the human mind is historical for Wundt. Regarding this point, I refer the reader to the last volume of Wundt’s VP (VPK, pp. 3–56).

  53. 53.

    Wundt expounded his psychological principles in different writings (e.g., EPsy; L4, III; NWP1; NWP2; UDP; UPC), but he did not maintain the same order or method of presenting them. For example, while in his Naturwissenschaft und Psychologie (Natural science and psychology), he divided them into two classes—the concept of mind and the principles of mental causality (NWP1, pp. 86–124)—in the last edition of his Logik, he preferred to list them one by one, without subsuming them under classes (L4, III, pp. 240–294). Here, I will discuss what I consider to be the three basic principles of his psychology—the concept of mind, the principle of psychophysical parallelism, and the principle of mental causality—as well as some of their derivatives.

  54. 54.

    As I argued in Sect. 4.4, Wundt’s rejection of a substantial mind constitutes further evidence of Kant’s influence on his thought (CPR, A381–382). However, Wundt later recognized another positive influence, namely, Friedrich Lange’s proposal of a “psychology without a soul” (Lange, 1866, p. 465). Lange insisted that psychology should abandon the idea of a substantial mind. Wundt accepted Lange’s idea only partially, however and criticized his phrase as “a mistaken designation, which at most possesses a certain truth for a transient state of development” (AEP, p. 390).

  55. 55.

    See Sect. 4.4.

  56. 56.

    For Wundt, Aristotle was the first one to conceive of the mind as actuality (PNW1, p. 88). However, he mentioned Fichte and Hegel as “the most resolute champions” of this principle, regretting the fact that they remained very far from the psychological issues (L1, II, p. 503).

  57. 57.

    As a general position regarding the mind-body relationship , psychophysical parallelism is rooted in Leibniz’s doctrine of pre-established harmony, according to which there is a correspondence, but no interaction, between body and soul (Leibniz, 1695/1978a, 1696/1978b). However, it was only explicitly formulated as a psychological principle in the second half of the nineteenth century, occupying pride of place in different projects of scientific psychology (Gutberlet, 1898; Heidelberger, 2004; Hildebrandt, 1985, 1989; Mohilewer, 1901; Reininger 1930). Fechner was the first to introduce it into psychology (Fechner, 1860), although he never used the term (Heidelberger, 2004, p. 169). Alexander Bain (1818–1903) comes close to it, when he speaks of “an accurate parallelism between the otherwise distinct physical and mental facts” and of “correspondences of the physical and the mental” (Bain, 1873, p. 40). It seems that the phrase psychophysischer Parallelismus was coined by Wundt in 1889 (SP1, p. 584).

  58. 58.

    It is worth noting here Leibniz’s influence on Wundt. His first elaborations of the parallelism principle were explicitly associated with Leibniz’s doctrine of pre-established harmony (GPP1, pp. 858–863; CIC, p. 175). Moreover, he gave a talk about the significance of Leibniz to his time (GWL) and wrote a book to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Leibniz’s death, in which he showed similarities between his own thought and Leibniz’s (LEI). Nevertheless, the details of this relationship deserve further investigation.

  59. 59.

    According to Heidelberger, Fechner also gave his psychophysical parallelism different connotations and changed the way of presenting it throughout his career (Heidelberger, 1988, 2000, 2004). In many aspects, it comes very close to Wundt’s position, which allows us to speculate about his debts to Fechner. Be that as it may, a detailed comparative study between both proposals remains to be done.

  60. 60.

    Although Wundt justified this separation between the empirical and metaphysical levels, he seems not to have been entirely faithful to it, because in his empirical treatment of the mind-body problem he presented arguments that could only be justified at a metaphysical level, such as those related to the impossibility of an interaction between the mental and the physical (Mohilewer, 1901). Adickes (1898) also noted the inclusion of metaphysical elements in Wundt’s discussions of the particular sciences.

  61. 61.

    As my focus here is an analysis of the philosophical foundations of Wundt’s psychology, not on his philosophical system as a whole, I will only consider psychophysical parallelism as a theoretical principle of psychological investigation, leaving aside its metaphysical significance.

  62. 62.

    The localizationist thesis, which is rooted in the phrenology of Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) and Johann Spurzheim (1776–1832), received new impetus in the second half of the nineteenth century with the neuroanatomical findings of Paul Broca (1824–1880) and Carl Wernicke (1848–1905), who discovered specific cerebral areas for language processing (Pribram & Robinson, 1985). One of the main representatives of localizationism at Wundt’s time was the physiologist Hermann Munk (1839–1912), who published at least two influential works on the localization of cerebral functions (Munk, 1881, 1890). In a paper devoted to Munk (ZFL), Wundt argued that the localizationist hypothesis was ill founded.

  63. 63.

    Blumenthal misunderstood this point, confusing correspondence with identity. For him, “concerning the factual basis of his subject matter, Wundt held firmly to the view that mental processes are the activity of the brain” (Blumenthal, 2001, p. 128, my emphasis). As will become evident in this chapter, Wundt’s basic principles (the concept of mind, psychophysical parallelism, and causality) exclude any possibility of an empirical identity between the mental and the physical.

  64. 64.

    Wundt’s assumption of the irreducibility of psychology to physiology is compatible with his optimism in relation to the development of neurophysiological research as a complement to psychological knowledge. One should not forget that Wundt never despised knowledge of nervous system (Ziche, 1999b).

  65. 65.

    In the first edition of his Logik, he had already used the term psychische Causalität (L1, II, p. 516).

  66. 66.

    To my knowledge, it was the French physician and philosopher Pierre Cabanis (1757–1808) who created this analogy. As early as 1805, he wrote, “To form an accurate idea of the operations from which thinking results, it is necessary to consider the brain as a special organ designed especially to produce it, just as the stomach and the intestines are designed to make the digestion, the liver to filter the bile, and the parotid, maxillary and sublingual glands to prepare the salivary juices” (Cabanis, 1805, pp. 152–153). During Wundt’s lifetime, this analogy reappeared in German materialism (e.g., Vogt, 1847/1971a, p. 17). Curiously, it is still alive in contemporary debates (e.g., Searle, 1997, p. 6). For a historical overview of this topic, see Araujo (2012c).

  67. 67.

    Later, Wundt added to these three a fourth principle, namely, the principle of contrast amplification (Prinzip der Kontrastverstärkung), according to which the content of subjective experience can be ordered in opposite pairs (e.g., pleasure-displeasure, good-evil, beautiful-ugly, etc.), which intensify along with mental development. This principle is directly related to the formation of feelings and affects and has implications for the ethical, aesthetic, and religious domains (L4, III, pp. 279–282).

  68. 68.

    The term ‘mental energy’ and the idea of the unlimited creation of mental energy, in contrast to the conservation of physical energy, appeared for the first time in Wundt’s Logik (L1, II, pp. 507–512). He never explained how exactly this mental energy was to be understood, however (e.g., whether it was only a metaphor or whether it had an ontological status). Be that as it may, some of his contemporaries, such as Vladimir Bekhterev (1857–1927), interpreted his position as an ontological dualism (Bekhterev, 1908, p. 19). For a detailed account of Bekhterev’s critique of Wundt, see Araujo (2014b).

  69. 69.

    It appeared for the first time in Wundt’s Ethik as the principle of growing mental energy (Prinzip wachsender geistigen Energie), according to which the effects of voluntary actions cannot be reduced to their mental causes (Eth, pp. 399–400).

  70. 70.

    This seems to contradict the position adopted by Wundt in his System, where he argued for a general identity between regressive explanation and finalist explanation. However, there is no contradiction. Here, Wundt was referring only to the more complex form of purposiveness that manifests itself in cultural products and is more relevant to his psychology.

  71. 71.

    This happened in 1895, as he recognized in a letter to Oswald Külpe, written on September 20 of that same year (UAL, NW, Letter 389, p. 3). More specifically, it was in the second edition of his Logik that Wundt introduced the term voluntaristische Psychologie (voluntaristic psychology) to refer to his psychological system (L2, II.2, p. 166).

  72. 72.

    The term ‘voluntarism’ serves to designate a trend in psychology, logic, and metaphysics, “according to which the will is the fundamental or main factor of mental events or of being in general” (Eisler, 1910a, p. 1682). The German philosopher Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936) seems to have been the first to use the adjective voluntaristisch (voluntaristic) in contemporary philosophical debate (Tönnies, 1883, p. 169), but it was Friedrich Paulsen who made it popular at the end of the nineteenth century in the German context. He employed not only the term voluntaristische Psychologie, but also Voluntarismus (Paulsen, 1892, pp. ix, 116–132). It seems that Wundt borrowed both terms from Paulsen (Eucken, 1904, p. 38; Knauer, 1907, p. 11).

  73. 73.

    I will not treat Wundt’s theory of the will in all of its aspects and details, which is impossible within this context. Instead, I will consider only the elements that are relevant for clarifying my central question.

  74. 74.

    In fact, it did change. According to him, “the concept of the will became the central problem toward which, in the last instance, all other central problems of psychology are orientated” (EDW2, p. 342). Not only in German, but also in Anglo-Saxon and French psychology, this topic was very much debated in the second half of the nineteenth century (Daston, 1992; Gundlach, 1987; Külpe, 1889; Smith, 2013). For the cultural context and significance of this systematic focus on the will, see Crary (2001) and Stöckmann (2009).

  75. 75.

    Danziger regards the first edition of the Grundzüge as “a transitional work” with respect to Wundt’s conception of the will (Danziger, 2001b, p. 103).

  76. 76.

    Resch (1916, pp. 10–20) took this idea as a criterion for defending the existence of a theory of the will in the first edition of the Grundzüge. Nevertheless, he failed to present any convincing evidence for his position.

  77. 77.

    This is valid not only for his theory of the will but also for some aspects of his new conception of consciousness, as I showed in Chap. 3.

  78. 78.

    During the 1880s, Wundt presented his theory of the will not only in the successive editions of the Grundzüge (GPP2, II, pp. 383–401; GPP3, II, pp. 463–504), but also in his Logik (L1, II, pp. 508–515), his Ethik (Eth, pp. 372–425), his System (pp. 562–591) and two separate essays (ZLW, EDW1). This is a clear sign of how important the concept became for him.

  79. 79.

    Both definitions follow from Wundt’s conception of the mind, which includes its tripartition into representing, feeling, and willing, as well as the postulate of activity.

  80. 80.

    Against Schopenhauer, for example, he said, “When Schopenhauer attributed to a falling rock a will, this idea was the monstrous invention of a fanciful metaphysics, which uses the term ‘will’ in a sense that has nothing to do with the psychological concept of will” (EDW1, p. 294).

  81. 81.

    In his answer to Julius Baumann (1837–1916)—who had published a critical review of his theory in the second edition of the Grundzüge (Baumann, 1881)—Wundt repeated this point, saying that Baumann defended the same heterogenetic position (ZLW).

  82. 82.

    Trieb is a difficult term to translate into English. Since the eighteenth century, it has been used in the German tradition within different contexts and with different meanings (biological, psychological, and metaphysical). In Wundt’s case, it has a clear psychological meaning, because it is a mental process. Wundt’s translators, J. E. Creighton and E. B. Titchener, adopted the term ‘impulse’ and its derivative ‘impulsive’ (LHA, p. 383). I will follow them.

  83. 83.

    The following passage illustrates Wundt’s conceptual distinction: “[T]he hungry animal that takes the food offered to him acts without choice, but not without will” (Eth, p. 381).

  84. 84.

    The primitive movements have effects or consequences that are not known beforehand. For instance, one never knows what a smile can provoke in a new situation. However, after its first occurrence, one is able to represent its effects (e.g., whether it was well received or not) for future situations. By doing this, purpose (the representation of the desired consequences of our actions) emerges.

  85. 85.

    These two directions of the will were presented in a more detailed way in the fifth and sixth editions of the Grundzüge (GPP5, III, pp. 254–258; GPP6, III, pp. 231–235).

  86. 86.

    The same idea appears in different places (e.g., EDW1, p. 325; Eth, p. 382; GPP3, II, p. 475).

  87. 87.

    This phrase appeared for the first time in the fifth edition of the Grundzüge (GPP5, III, p. 303).

  88. 88.

    On the one hand, Gundlach argues that, “one cannot talk of one conception of the will in Wundt” (Gundlach, 1987, p. 73, emphasis in original); according to Resch (1916), Wundt developed four different theories; and Lifschitz (1910) also considered the emotional theory to be a new one. On the other hand, Skribanowitz (1906) and Schumann (1912) regarded all the presentations of Wundt’s theory as parts of the same conception. More recently, Danziger claimed that “Wundt’s views on volition were subject to periodic revision. However, once he had developed the independent position of his mature years, these revisions did not affect his fundamental views. […] In the case of his theory of volitional activity, that point was clearly reached with the second edition of the Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie in 1880. […] After 1880, he undertook no changes of comparable magnitude” (2001, pp. 103–104). However, Danziger took into account only Wundt’s autogenetic theory of the will, thus failing to show how his emotional theory of the will could be integrated with it.

  89. 89.

    I am not saying that Wundt’s new way of characterizing his theory is free of ambiguities and conceptual difficulties. In fact, when it comes to the details of his theory, many points are presented in different forms, thus leading to possible misunderstandings. I am only saying that, in its essentials, the emotional theory is compatible with the autogenetic theory.

  90. 90.

    In the fifth and sixth editions of the Grundzüge the previous contents were displaced to another section, but remained intact (GPP5, III, pp. 296–319; GPP6, III, pp. 271–295).

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  1. 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). Wundt’s Mature Project of a Scientific Psychology. In: Wundt and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26636-7_5

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