Wilhelm Wundt: biography of a fundamental psychologist – Online Psychologists

Throughout history there have been many figures who have marked a before and after in the world of psychology. However, very few have been as relevant as Wilhelm Wundt.

Wilhelm Wundt was born on August 16, 1832 in Neckarau, near Mannheim. He was a German philosopher and psychologist considered the founder of experimental psychology.

Wilhelm Wundt He was born on 16 August 1832 in Neckarau, in the German principality of Baden.

He was the fourth son of Maximiliam Wundt, a Lutheran pastor, and his wife Marie Frederike Arnold. One of the great influences of this important psychologist was his grandfather Friederich Peter Wundt, a Geography teacher with whom he frequently traveled because of the great interest the latter had in his education.

At the age of eight he entered a school that required high academic requirements, the local Catholic Gymnasium. Due to his poor academic performanceAt school, he was even advised to drop out of school altogether.

For this reason, the young Wundt was transferred to the Gymnasium in Heidelberg, where he was more successful and He managed to graduate in 1851.

As for their university studiesstudied in Tübinger, Heidelberg and at the Institute of Physiology in Berlin.

Wilhelm Wundt began his professional career as a professor in Heidelberg (1858-1874), but later taught inductive philosophy in Zurich and at the University of Leipzig.

HE He received his doctorate in medicine in 1857 and obtained the authorization to teach freely the following year. He was an assistant to the famous Helmholtzfor the person in charge of physiology practices.

It was then that he began to lean towards psychology and physiology, eventually occupying the Chair of Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Leipzig.

This city became the second home of Wilhelm Wundt, who presented the first academic course in psychology in 1862 and He founded the first Laboratory of Experimental Psychology in 1879.

He was an important disseminator of what is known as introspective or structuralist psychologywhich focuses on the observation of the conscious mind. Throughout his career he carried out a extensive experimental work on perception and feeling.

It is worth noting that Wundt developed a great activitywrote more than fifty thousand pages between books and articles. In addition, he enjoyed inviting his house to his disciples, to whom he gave advice and suggestions regarding their scientific work.

In fact, he became famous for a debate that he maintained with one of his most intelligent students, Oswald Külpe. The latter had prepared a psychology manual which came to light in 1893 in which rejected one of the fundamental theses of his teacherthat of the distinction between psychic and physical causality.

Following this discussion, Wilhelm Wundt wanted to write himself your own manualThis work was published in 1896 under the name Fundamentals of Psychology.

Wundt had achieved great fame, to the point of being recognized as an authority in his field. It is therefore not surprising that his manual quickly became successful and that many other books were published. numerous editions and translations.

Wilhelm Wundt was a great systematizer and made the introspection the main method of the psychology laboratory.

It marked a before and after and he went so far as to say that Psychology is the science of experiencewhich is why it must be developed without resorting to metaphysics.

According to this psychologist, it is not possible to distinguish between internal and external experience, since both occur in the same way: the first through feeling and the second through perception.

Thanks to your scientific spirit the most brilliant achievements of modern psychology emerge. In fact, due to Wundt's curiosity psychology is considered a science independent of philosophy and natural sciences.

Until the 19th century and before the arrival of Wundt, the task of many philosophers was based on create theories about how the mind works human based on speculation.

However, Wilhelm Wundt took the study of the mind a step further by creating theories about its functioning but based on the experimentation not in mere speculation.

Wundt wanted combining statistics and the experimental method to generate deeper mechanisms of the mind, unlike their predecessors who opted for other practices.

Although today, thanks to advances in psychology, many experts reject Wundt's theories, the entire psychological community is indebted to this psychologist.

Wilhelm Wundt was the first psychologist to systematically use the experimental method in a laboratory dedicated entirely to psychology.

Although there are many who believe that Wundt trusted too much in the introspective methodis a fundamental figure in the field of psychology.

Their most important books They are, without a doubt, those of psychology.

Among his most notable works we can find Fundamentals of physiological psychology and Psychology of the peopleboth considered part of the category of classical texts.

The first of these works was published in 1874 and can be considered 'the final version and summarized from a long series of works.

For the composition of the second workWundt dedicated almost twenty yearsa work that extends the method and psychological research to the manifestations of social life, such as language, art or even religion.

Other notable works by the author are:

In addition, Wundt He wrote other shorter workssuch as speeches or conferences and edited the magazine Philosophical Studieswhere he published experimental research by himself and his disciples.

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