Wilhelm Wundt

1. “The work I here present to the public is an attempt to mark out a new domain of science”

-Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt set out deliberately to found a new science. Wundt ardently promoted systematic experimentation. It was while he was studying physiology that he began to depict the study of psychology as an independent experimental scientific discipline. He first outlined his ideas in a book named Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception. In this book he described experiments he was conducting in a makeshift laboratory made in his home. It was in this book when he first coined the term “experimental psychology”. This is considered the literary birth of a new science.

Wundt chose the title for his new science to be physiological psychology. At this time in history in German physiologically and experimental were used in the same context. This is because of how much he stressed the importance of systematic experimentation. From his makeshift laboratory to Lepzig, Wundt was always conducting experiments. Wundt’s discovery of just noticeable difference and two-point threshold are major contributions. This is why Wilhelm Wundt named his new science experimental physiological psychology.

This “new” psychology created by Weber is actually a melting pot of ideas put together to form a new science. There are a couple main ideas that seem to be the most important antecedents to “new” psychology. The first contributor would be philosophy. Empiricist philosophers were concerned with how the mind attains knowledge. Empiricist view is that the mind grows through the compilation of sensory experiences. Locke and Berkeley contributed to our thoughts on perception and senses. James Mill applied the doctrine of mechanism to the human mind. Mill suggested that the mind should be studied by the method of analysis, by reducing the mind to elementary components. John Stuart Mill believed the mind played an active role in association of ideas. Stuart Mill believed that the mind should be studied by the methods of science, even though other philosophers were denying that the mind could be examined by the methods of science. As you can see Wundt took quite a bit of his new psychology from philosophy.

The next main antecedent to the “new” psychology would be physiology. So while philosophers were creating the setting needed for an experimental look at the mind, physiologists were experimentally investigating the mechanisms that are present in mental processes. Physiologists were defining the structure and function of senses. All of this created the environment needed to experiment with and quantify the mind.

You could also add in the mind as an antecedent for the “new” psychology. Back in the day the mind was not looked at in the way we view it today. Helmholtz produced the first quantative measure of the mind. Helholtz made contributions by studying neural impulses, vision, and audition. Helmholtz also focused on the benefits of scientific research.

As you can see the three antecedents to the “new” psychology are philosophy, physiology, and the mind. These three things taken greatly into consideration by Wundt, and he combined these ideas to form the “new” psychology.

Fechner is not considered the founder of this new science. You could look at him as more of a originator. Fechner had no interests in creating a new science. His goal was to understand the relationship between the mental and material worlds. Fechner wanted to create a unified conception of mind and body that had scientific basis. Wundt gets the credit because his goal was to create this new science. He set out to spread the knowledge in universities and laboratories. This is why we consider Wundt to have been the founder of this “new” psychology and not the originator.

2. Wilhelm Wundt’s formal definition of the “new” psychology” would be the study of mental contents including laboratory experimentation and self-observation. This includes sensation, perception, attention, introspection, feeling, reaction, and association.

Wundt’s view of consciousness was that it is comprised of many different parts, and can be studied by the method of analysis.