Should We Pre-date the Beginning of Scientific Psychology to 1787?

Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 2016

As early as 1783, the almost forgotten philosopher, metaphysicist, and psychologist Ferdinand Ueberwasser (1752-1812) designated himself "Professor für empirische Psychologie und Logik" (professor of empirical psychology and logic) at the University of Münster, Germany. His position was initiated and supported by the minister and educational reformer Franz von Fürstenberg (1729-1810), who considered psychology a core scientific discipline that should be taught at each school and university. At the end of the 18th century, then, psychology seems to have been on the verge of becoming an independent academic discipline, about 100 years before Wilhelm Wundt founded the discipline's first official laboratory. It seems surprising that Ueberwasser's writings-including a seminal textbook on empirical psychology-have been almost entirely overlooked in most historical accounts. We focus on this important founding moment of psychological science and on the circumstances that ...

In the context of social and intellectual developments and the changing role of German universities in the first half of the nineteenth century, which led to the local institutionalization of the discipline of psychology at German universities, the structure and content of textbooks of psychology are discussed. Textbooks in the first half of the nineteenth century had a pedagogical function in training teachers, in socializing students into the field, and in providing students and readers with knowledge about the subject matter, methodology, and topics of psychology. The textbooks, representative of influence, philosophical-psychological orientations, and different decades in the first half of the nineteenth century, are reconstructed with regard to the definition of psychology, the ways of studying the soul, and how to conceptually organize the field. The textbooks by Herbart, Beneke, and Waitz, which were written within a natural-scientific programmatic vision for psychology, are contrasted with the traditional philosophically intended textbooks of Reinhold, Mußmann, George, and Schilling. Fischhaber’s textbook for Gymnasien is summarized. Issues regarding the continuity of psychology are discussed, and discontinuous developments in the history of German psychology are identified.

The paper begins with a comparison between the history of the neologisms of ontology and psychology. If from a historical point of view there are many similarities of the diffusion of the two terms, from an epistemological point of view we encounter great differences. Ontology has always been collocated in the field of metaphysics, while psychology, before becoming an independent science, was a discipline divided between physics and metaphysics. Next, there is a focus on the debate of the status of the science of the soul developed in the centuries since Aristotle (2.1). During the Reformation Era the term was coined and the science of psychology had a great diffusion amongst philosophers and in university disputes (2.2). The paper sustains several new historical findings in regards to the first occurrences of the term. A historical assessment (3) on the early history of psychology concludes the paper

2016

In this chapter, I comment on the ten aspects listed by Roger Smith to show the usefulness of historical research in psychology. Thereby, I characterize and evaluate different historiographic trends. History should be seen as a way of acquiring perspective, and it should offer a conceptual tool for comparison between different epistemological approaches. It is also instrumental in analysis of the social dynamics involved in knowledge construction. In general, therefore, a connection between the history of psychology and the broader field of the history of science seems fruitful.

The period of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, known as late antiquity, gave rise to some of the elements that have since constituted the identity of the Western self, alongside new lines of psychological investigation. This article seeks to show that these developments constitute an important stage in the history of Western psychology. It argues, moreover, that without these developments there could be no modern discipline of psychology. Psychology, however, did not exist in the ancient world as an independent science, nor was a distinction drawn between scientific and moral or religious elements of psychological knowledge. Accordingly, this important source of evidence has been neglected by scholars investigating the history of Western psychology, who have tended to focus on the 19th-century roots of scientific psychology. While this is, indeed, the only part of the history of psychology that has a relatively un-problematical subject matter, this article argues for the need to broaden the focus on the history of the discipline of psychology to include the history of psychological knowledge, and seeks to make this important source of evidence available for scholars other than historians of late antiquity.

Reflexivity has been a common theme in the literature on the history of psychology in recent years. Reflecting on the history of psychology is for historians of psychology the ultimate reflexive step. Germany is widely regarded as the homeland of "modern" or "scientific" psychology. It is here that the oldest surviving work with the word, "psychology" in the title was published in 1590. It was also here that the first book with the title, "History of Psychology" [Geschichte der Psychologie] was published in 1808. This reflects the fact that a substantial literature on psychology had already been published in Continental Europe by the end of the eighteenth century. Several other works on the history of psychology were published in German-speaking countries in the nineteenth century and in the years leading up to the First World War. English-speaking countries were relatively late in adopting psychology but it grew rapidly in the United States when it was adopted and the country was already the dominant power in the field by the outbreak of the First World War. Several works on the history of psychology were published in the United States around the same time, suggesting that disciplines and disciplinary history tend to appear simultaneously. This is because disciplines use their history to create a distinct identity for themselves. The history of psychology was widely taught in American psychology departments and several textbooks were published to support these courses. E. G. Boring's A History of Experimental Psychology (1929/1950) was by far the most influential of these textbooks and it has profoundly shaped the understanding of psychologists of the history of their field. For example, it was Boring who traced the history of the discipline to the establishment of Wilhelm Wundt's laboratory for experimental psychology at the University of Leipzig in 1879. 1979/80 was widely celebrated as the "centennial" of psychology and the XXII International Congress of Psychology was held in Leipzig to mark the occasion. Prior to the 1960s, the history of psychology was mainly a pedagogical field and it still is as far as many psychologists are concerned. However, it also became an area of specialization during this decade. This was partly due to a few psychologists adopting it as their main area of interest and partly due to historians of science becoming more interested in the field. A large body of scholarly literature has been produced, including some scholarly textbooks, but this literature exists side-by-side with more traditional textbooks for which there is still a significant demand. There are signs that the history of psychology has been facing difficulties as a branch of psychology in Europe and North America in recent years. However, interest in the field has been growing among psychologists in other parts of the world and among historians of science. This situation will inevitably have implications for the content of the field.

The field of psychology established itself as a study in the late 1800’s through the contributions of many psychologists, theorists, and concepts pertaining to the human mind, behaviors, and purpose. During the pre-modernism era, fundamental thoughts and ideas were composed without a specific place to be directed. However, in Germany, doctors and philosophers such as Wundt contributed to the uprising of a field that was dedicated to the study of thoughts and concepts. The development of psychology progressed greatly through modernism by taking a scientific approach and establishing groundbreaking theories that would define the field. Several psychologists such as Freud, Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner implanted their efforts into making the field of psychology logical, practical, and scientific which led to the growth of what is psychology during the post-modernism era. New psychologists emerged to revise existing theories from the founding fathers and created an updated format of future ideas that reflect society today. Ideas such as existentialism developed into humanistic psychology while the contribution of women and minorities were added to the history of psychology. Overall, the study of the thoughts, ideas, and behaviors was a rough draft concept that lacked a foundation until the pre-modernism era. The development of psychology has taken a course through its roots in Germany and planted itself in American history. Due to the effort and contribution of researchers, the field of psychology has found a scientific path that legitimizes the purpose and study for the human mind and behavior.