Wilhelm Wundt
born , Aug. 16, 1832, Neckarau, near Mannheim, Baden
[Germany]
died Aug. 31, 1920, Grossbothen, Ger.
German physiologist and psychologist who is generally
acknowledged as the founder of experimental psychology.
Wundt earned a medical degree at the University of Heidelberg
in 1856. After studying briefly with Johannes Müller, he was
appointed lecturer in physiology at the University of
Heidelberg, where in 1858 he became an assistant to the
physicist and physiologist Wilhelm von Helmholtz. There he wrote
Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (1858–62;
“Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception”).
It was during this period, in 1862, that Wundt offered the
first course ever taught in scientific psychology. Until then,
psychology had been regarded as a branch of philosophy and,
hence, to be conducted primarily by rational analysis. Wundt
instead stressed the use of experimental methods drawn from the
natural sciences. His lectures on psychology were published as
Vorlesungen über die Menschen und Thierseele (1863; “Lectures on
the Mind of Humans and Animals”). He was promoted to assistant
professor of physiology in 1864.
Bypassed in 1871 for the appointment to succeed Helmholtz,
Wundt then applied himself to writing a work that came to be one
of the most important in the history of psychology, Grundzüge
der physiologischen Psychologie, 2 vol. (1873–74; 3 vol., 6th
ed., 1908–11; Principles of Physiological Psychology). The
Grundzüge advanced a system of psychology that sought to
investigate the immediate experiences of consciousness,
including sensations, feelings, volitions, and ideas; it also
contained the concept of apperception, or conscious perception.
The methodology prescribed was introspection, or conscious
examination of conscious experience.
In 1874 Wundt went to the University of Zürich for a year
before embarking on the most productive phase of his career, as
professor at the University of Leipzig (1875–1917). There, in
1879, he established the first psychological laboratory in the
world, and two years later he founded the first journal of
psychology, Philosophische Studien (“Philosophical Studies”).
Wundt’s most important later works include Grundriss der
Psychologie (1896; “Outline of Psychology”) and
Völkerpsychologie, 10 vol. (1900–20; “Ethnic Psychology”).
