WUNDT, WILHELM (1832-1920)


Wilhem Wundt created the first scientific laboratory of psychology in 1879, and it is from this moment when Scientific Psychology appears , before psychology was considered only a branch of philosophy. Wundt was a professor of medicine and human physiology at the German University of Leipzig, and was interested in knowing both the physiological and philosophical problems that form the basis of psychology. Philosopher, physiologist and psychologist, was the founder of Structuralism . In this laboratory, he studies sensations at a very elementary level, such as heat and cold. He wrote the book Foundations of Physiological Psychology one of the most cited books within psychology.For Wundt there are two essential aspects in behavior: the objective (what we see and feel) and the subjective (how we capture what we are perceiving) .

With this new experimental psychology is described for the first time the reaction time, which is what it takes the organism to react to a given stimulus. The first cerebral locations are also discovered , the basic basis of behavior and the idea of ​​mental illnesses as brain diseases , something physiological. Wundtera an individual with vast intellectual interests. For example, between 1900 and 1920 he published a work of ten volumnestitulated Psychology of Peoples , in which he examined the psychological development of humanity.

Wundt was greatly influenced by John Locke and by English empiricism in general . He believed that the primary purpose of psychology was to study the way in which the associations of sensations and simple ideas give rise to complex ideas. And for this study, he understood that the appropriate tool was introspection, a process that requires the subject (trained to that effect). ) Observe what happens in your own consciousness and account for those discoveries.

Structuralism enjoyed great prestige for almost thirty years; In the long run, however, he was attacked from multiple angles, and by the time Wundt was an old man, he was considered outdated as a psychological school.

Other of his books were Physiological Psychology (1880) and Scheme of Psychology (1896).

Famous Quotes by Wilhelm Wundt

There is a large number of bodily movements that have their origin in the nervous system, which do not have the character of conscious actions.

The distinctive characteristics of the mind are merely subjective; we know them only through the contents of our own consciousness.

Fortunately, our mind is so equipped that it takes us to the most important bases for our thoughts without having the slightest knowledge of this elaboration work. The results of it are unconscious.

The old metaphysical prejudice that man "always thinks" has not yet disappeared completely. I am inclined to argue that man really thinks very little and very rarely.

An idea is not something constant like feeling an emotion or a volitional process. There are only changing processes and transient ideas; there are no permanent ideas.

Psychology, on the other hand, seeks to account for the interconnectedness of processes that evidences our own consciousness, or that we infer from such manifestations of bodily life in other creatures as indicated by the presence of a consciousness similar to ours.

Physiology and psychology cover, among them, the field of vital phenomena; they deal with the facts of life in general, and in particular with the facts of human life.

The philosophical reflection could not leave the relationship between mind and spirit in the darkness that had satisfied the needs of naive consciousness.

Ethnic psychology must always come to the aid of individual psychology, when the forms of development of complex mental processes are questioned.

Psychology must not only strive to become a useful basis for the other mental sciences, but it must also recur to the historical sciences again and again, in order to gain an understanding of the most developed mental processes.

Physiological psychology is competent to investigate the relationships that occur between the processes of physics and those of mental life.

Physiology seeks to derive the processes in our own nervous system from the general physical forces, without considering whether or not these processes are accompanied by processes of consciousness.

From the point of view of observation, then, we must consider as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of mental life date from the beginning of life in general.

Physiological psychology is, therefore, first and foremost psychology.

The animal kingdom exhibits a series of mental developments that can be considered as antecedents for the mental development of man, since in the mental life of the animals it is shown in everything, in its elements and in the general laws that govern the combination of the elements It is the same as the mental life of man.

Therefore, every time we encounter vital phenomena that present both the physical and the psychic aspects, a question naturally arises about the relationships in which these aspects are opposed to each other.

We speak of virtue, honor, reason; but our thinking does not translate any of these concepts into a substance.

The attitude of physiological psychology to sensations and feelings, considered as psychic elements, is, of course, the attitude of psychology in general.

The point of view of materialistic psychology can affirm, at most, only the value of a heuristic hypothesis.

Our mind is so extraordinarily equipped, that it provides us with the most important bases for our thoughts without having the slightest knowledge about the elaboration work. The results become unconscious.

There are other sources of psychological knowledge, which become accessible at the same point where the experimental method fails us.

The task of physiological psychology remains the same in the analysis of ideas that was in the investigation of sensations: acting as a mediator between the neighboring sciences of physiology and psychology.

Child psychology and animal psychology are of relatively small importance, in comparison with the sciences that deal with the corresponding physiological problems of ontogeny and phylogeny.

For Aristotle, the mind, considered as the principle of life, is divided into nutrition, sensation and faculty of thought, corresponding to the most important stages of the succession of vital phenomena.

The general statement that mental faculties are class concepts, pertaining to descriptive psychology, frees us from the need to discuss them and their importance in the current stage of our investigation.

Experimental psychology in itself has, it is true, again and again relapse into a metaphysical treatment of its problems.

The results of ethnic psychology are, at the same time, our main source of information regarding the general psychology of complex mental processes.

Physiology deals with all the phenomena of life that are presented to us in the perception of the senses as bodily processes and, therefore, are part of that total environment we call the external world.