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A Reappraisal of Wilhelm Wundt

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A Reappraisal of Wilhelm Wundt A Reappraisal of Wilhelm Wundt ARTHUR L. BLUMENTHAL University of Massachusetts at Boston Approximately 100 years ago, in an era of intel- of Wundt are in need of serious correction, then lectual ferment, events of marked consequence took one might again ask whether Wundt still turns out place in the history of psychology. It was in the to be irrelevant and of little interest. This article decade of the 1870s that the first handbook of is addressed to that question, and its answers will, experimental psychology appeared, followed soon I suspect, contain some surprises for many readers. by the founding of the first formal laboratory of There is another question that immediately fol- experimental psychology. Both were the achieve- lows upon these claims. It is, How could such ments of Wilhelm Wundt, ever since recognized as historical misinterpretations have arisen? This is experimental psychology's great patron, though surely a fascinating question but one requiring later barred from any role that might remotely separate treatment. For the moment merely take resemble sainthood. Soon after the wave of "new" note that Wundtian anecdotes have long been psychologists spread out from Wundt's laboratory, passed down from author to author without worthy a series of intellectual revolutions largely erased recourse to original sources, and, also, that it is from memory the content of Wundtian psychologi- common in intellectual history for later schools of cal theory. thought to foster distortions and misinterpretations Now that the movement set in motion by Wundt of earlier ones—psychology, of course, offering has come through its first century, it would seem numerous opportunities. For now, let us examine fitting to mark the centenary by briefly turning the fundamentals of Wundt's psychology that have, back, reexamining psychology's historical founda- for better or worse, been disguised or lost in the tions, and paying homage to the founding father. course of history's machinations. There is, however, another reason for review, being less ceremonial and clearly more interesting. To Wundt's Method put it simply, the few current Wundt-scholars (and some do exist) are in fair agreement that Wundt The basic premise in Wundtian psychology is that as portrayed today in many texts and courses is the only certain reality is immediate experience. largely fictional and often bears little resemblance Proceeding from this premise, Wundt had accepted to the actual historical figure (cf. Blumenthal, the following goals for all science: the construction 1970; Bringmann, Balance, & Evans, 1975; of explanations of experience and the development Mischel, 1970). of techniques for objectifying experience. By the Naturally, it might be suspected that the above latter, he meant that the scientist attempts to com- radical statement is only the nit-picking of a few municate and reproduce his experiences in others in antiquarians obsessed with minor matters of in- standardized ways; thus it becomes possible to per- terpretation. But alas, such is not the case. These form tests that lead to public agreement about are claims about the very fundamentals of Wundt's phenomena and to agreement about their explana- work, often asserting the opposite of what has been tion. This was commonplace for Wundt and is a standard description prevailing over much of the found at the outset of many of his texts. past century. Yet, if popular historical accounts In the natural sciences, as Wundt continues, it is the attributes of experience derived from ex- ternal objects and energies that' are subjected to tests, explanations, and public agreement. But in This article is a revised and expanded version of a talk presented to the New York Academy of Sciences, New the case of psychology, it is the attributes of ex- York City, October 19, 1974. perience derived from the processes of the ex- Requests for reprints should be sent to Arthur L. periencing subject that are made the object of Blumenthal, 48 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. tests, explanations, and public agreement. These AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST • NOVEMBER 197S • 1081 psychological entities include experienced memory and replicable, in this case for the study of per- and perceptual capacities, fluctuations of attention ception, attention, memory, etc. To be sure, there or alertness, ranges of our sensitivities, etc. In were some disagreements, conflicting data, and un- the jargon of today, we would without hesitation supported speculations in those days, just as there say "human information-processing capacities." are today. Yet it is this subtle division between the physical Wundt's adherence to the canons of experimental and the psychological sciences that has led to in- procedure was so strict that, in fact, it sharply numerable textbook treatments of Wundt as a limited his use of experiments in psychology. Thus, mind-body dualist, and that is one of history's in the case of most "higher" mental processes such glaring distortions. For if you read Wundt, in as language or concept formation, he felt that true almost any of his texts, you will discover that his experiments were not feasible. Instead, these topics rejection of mind-body dualism is as emphatic a must, he argued, be studied through techniques of statement on the matter as you are likely ever to historical and naturalistic observation and also of encounter. He often said that psychology cannot logical analysis. This Wundt did by examining the be denned as the science of the mind because there social-cultural products of human mental activity, are no objects called "minds." that are distinct from making logical inferences about the underlying pro- objects called "bodies," a scenario that appears cesses. In the case of language, for example, he repeatedly in his works. went deeply into the technical study of linguistics Although physiologists and psychologists study (Blumenthal, 1970). So in these ways, a large one and the same organism, Wundt viewed them part of Wundt's psychological work is not experi- as analyzing and objectifying different experiences mental. derived from different vantage points. This is now usually called the "double-aspect" resolution of the Wundt's Theoretical System mind-body problem. And Wundt's use of the phrase "psychophysical parallelism" referred to But so far these are methodological matters and do this same view, though again it unfortunately led not speak to the essence of Wundt's psychological many later reviewers to the mind-body-dualism in- theory. What emerged as the paradigm psycho- terpretation. Rather, it referred to the separate logical phenomenon in his theoretical system would orientations of physiology and psychology where now be described as selective volitional attention. it is separate methodologies, in the sense of separate It is why he identified his psychology as "volun- types of observations, that here run in parallel. taristic" to distinguish it from other schools (see Another serious problem of misinterpretation especially Wundt, 1896b). He did not use the concerns Wundt and introspection. Contrary to label "structuralist" which was proffered and per- frequent descriptions, Wundt was not an intro- petuated by Titchener and James. spectionist as that term is popularly applied today. Mischel (1970) has recently surveyed Wundt's The thrust behind his entire experimental program writings, detailing Wundt's grounding in volitional- was the claim that progress in psychology had been motivational processes. Yet it was with apparent slow because of reliance on casual, unsystematic forceful impact on later historical interpretation introspection, which had led invariably to unre- that Titchener (1908) had given short shrift to solvable debates. In several books and mono- this theme, at the very heart of Wundtian psychol- graphs (in particular, 1888 and 1907) Wundt ogy, because of the overtones of continental idealist argued that armchair introspection could, in princi- philosophy in notions of volition. Titchener's ple, never succeed, being a logical impossibility as longest period of formal education came at Oxford, a scientific technique. The 1907 monograph was and not surprisingly he maintained certain biases a severe critique of the Wiirzburg psychologists for toward the British empiricist-sensationist tradition, their return to an earlier style of unverifiable in- even though that tradition was anathema to trospection. Wundt's views, and more than any other topic the Wundt promoted the cause of experimental brunt of Wundt's polemical writings. psychology more through accomplishments in his Without giving supportive citation, Boring laboratory than through polemics. From its out- (1950) states that Wundt had opposed the implica- set, the Wundtian program followed the general tion of an active volitional agent in psychology. conceptions of experimental science and the re- But now Mischel (1970) with extensive citation quirement that private experience be made public has shown, on the contrary, that volition-motivation 1082 • NOVEMBER 1975 • AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST is a central, primary theme in Wundt's psychology. of psychology, especially associationism. His reac- Briefly, that theme runs as follows: To explain a tions against associationism were directed mostly volitional act on the basis of its motives is different at the form it had assumed in mid-19th-century from the explanation of occurrences in the physical Germany in Herbart's psychology. sciences, and "volitional activities are the type in Herbart, you may recall, had atomized mental terms of which all other psychological phenomena processes into elemental ideas that became asso- are to be construed" (Wundt, 1908, Vol. 3, p. 162). ciated into compounds according to classical asso- Wundt's studies of volition, in turn, amounted ciationist descriptions. Wundt considered that ap- to an elaborate analysis of selective and construc- proach to be a mere primitive analogy to systems tive attentional processes (often summarized under of physical mechanics, and he argued at length that the term apperception), which he localized in the those systems teach little about the interrelations brain's frontal lobes.
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