Content area
Full Text
Contents
- Abstract
- The Comprehensive Catalogue of Wundt’s Academic Activities Compiled by Eleonore Wundt
- The Reception of Wundtian Psychology in the English-Speaking World
- Wundt’s View of the Nature of Psychology and Its Relation to Other Disciplines
- Examining the First Key Document: “On the Classification of Scientific Disciplines”
- Examining the Second Key Document: The Introduction to “Outlines of Psychology”
- Examining the Third Key Document: “Psychology Struggling for Its Survival”
- The Nature of Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie and Its Role in Psychology
- The Origins of Wundtian Völkerpsychologie
- The Conception, Goals, and Methods of Wundtian Völkerpsychologie
- The Accomplishments and Limitations of Wundtian Völkerpsychologie
- Wundtian Völkerpsychologie Appraised in the Light of Russian Cultural-Historical Psychology
- Wundtian Völkerpsychologie Viewed Through the Lens of Recent Advancements in Psychology
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
Abstract
In 1927, Wilhelm Wundt’s daughter, Eleonore Wundt, compiled and published a comprehensive catalogue of her father’s works and works in translation. We use this catalogue as a starting point for an examination of the breadth of Wundt’s contributions, the reaction to his works from the international psychological community, and the overall trajectory of his academic career. Two areas of particular interest are Wundt’s view on the nature of psychology and its relationship to other disciplines, and his discussion of the nature of Völkerpsychologie and its role in psychology. A close examination of original sources reveals that Wundt anchored psychology in the realm of mental sciences. He regarded “psychology [to be] in relation to natural sciences the supplementary, in relation to the mental sciences the fundamental, and in relation to philosophy the propaedeutic empirical science.” The accomplishments and limitations of Wundtian Völkerpsychologie are viewed stereoscopically through the lenses of its explicated conceptions, goals, and methods, on one hand, and of the contemporary advancements in psychology, on the other. Current implications of Wundt’s works and further developments of his ideas are related to Davidson’s theory of epistemology and to present-day deliberations on the biocultural coconstruction of human development. We conclude by considering the continuing relevance of Wundt’s intellectual legacy.
Amid the active research endeavors and the diverse discourse in psychology, efforts to retrace the footsteps of Wilhelm Wundt might seem of questionable value. Around the centennial year of the founding of Wundt’s laboratory, a number of authors made noteworthy...