Wilhelm Wundt is considered one of the most important and prestigious psychologists of all time, in fact, his achievements have elevated him to the rank of “father of psychology”. Although his model was neither the only nor the first, his ideas had a great impact. impact and impact on Europe in the twentieth century, let’s summarize them in these 10 sentences of Wilhelm Wundt.
Wilhelm Wundt was a German doctor, psychologist and philosopher of Protestant family, professor at the University of Zurich and then in Leipzig, directed about 200 doctoral theses, has he published more than 500 books, among them?Fundamentals of physiological psychology? (1874) and “Psychology of Peoples”, with 10 volumes (1900-1904).
- At the age of 23 he obtained a doctorate in medicine with summa cum laude.
- Two years later he received his second doctorate Wundt pioneered the attempt to unite philosophy and physiology to bring psychology.
- Having studied with the physiologist Muller.
- To do this.
- He studied a boundary area between the physical and the mental.
- Composed of phenomena that can be studied by both sciences.
“The attitude of physiological psychology towards sensations and feelings, considered psychic elements, is, of course, the attitude of psychology in general.
While physiology provides information about what we perceive through our senses, psychology allows the individual to look at himself. His conception of both disciplines marked the beginning of physiological psychology.
“The task of physiological psychology remains the same in the analysis of ideas to investigate sensations: mediating between the neighboring sciences of physiology and psychology.
He tried to review the philosophical questions that revolved around psychology at the time, and then, having been conceived as a world of ideas by Descartes and Locke, became considered a non-speculative science.
“Psychology studies the mind and laws that govern it
It is one of Wilhelm Wundt’s most enlightening phrases about the field in which he thought that this discipline and its main objective should be framed, that is, to study the measurable and the structure of the mind.
“Our mind is so equipped, fortunately, that it takes us to the most important foundations of our thinking without having knowledge of the development of this work. His results are unconscious.
His introspective or structuralist psychology focuses on the observation of the conscious mind and emphasizes the importance of external behavior, so, according to this physiologist, the most appropriate method to know the content of the psyche is experimental self-observation.
“The distinctive characteristics of the mind are simply subjective; we know them only by the content of our own conscience.
Wundt saw it as a creative, dynamic and voluntary force, for him it could never be understood simply by identifying its elements or its static structure, this is one of Wilhelm Wundt’s best phrases on the subject:
“An idea is not constant like feeling an emotion or a voluntary process. There are only transient ideas and changing processes; there are no permanent ideas.
On the contrary, it must be understood through the analysis of its activity.
“We speak of virtue, honor, reason, but our thinking does not translate any of these concepts into substance.
Wundt recognized that a purely “natural” approach was insufficient in psychology, so he considered it necessary to complete his physiological psychology (individual, analytical and experimental), valid for the study of simple mental processes, with a psychology of peoples, also called ethnic or ethnological psychology.
“The results of ethnic psychology are, at the same time, our main source of information on the general psychology of complex mental processes.
The psychology of peoples studies the products of collective life (language, customs, myths?) These products indicate the existence of superior operations in the mind.
For him, experimental psychology remained on the surface of the mind, while the psychology of peoples went much further; the psychology of peoples was conceived as a means to understand human psychology and different cultures; is one of Wilhelm Wundt’s phrases that best sums up this idea:
“On the other hand, ethnic psychology should always come to the aid of individual psychology, when forms of development of complex mental processes are involved. “
His greatest success was the development of the first laboratory of experimental psychology in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879; as a result, psychology has acquired an academic specialty status; In addition, because of their contributions, the foundations of autonomous development of psychology have been laid and laid. their social and institutional support improved.
This openness marks a turning point in discipline at the start of its scientific phase, however, he made a grave mistake in underestimating other branches of psychology, which were then as relevant as what he proposed:
“Child psychology and animal psychology are relatively low in importance compared to the sciences dealing with the corresponding physiological problems of ontogeny and phylogeny.
There are few characters as important as him in the history of psychology, and Wilhelm Wundt’s quotes give a good idea. The researcher marked the beginning of scientific psychology and was one of the first to tackle the problems of studying mental processes at a practical and epistemological level. level.