Wilhelm Wundt Totally Explained

Everything about Wundt totally explained

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (August 16 1832-August 31 1920) was a German medical doctor, psychologist, physiologist, and professor who is, along with William James, regarded as the father of psychology. In 1879, Wundt founded the one of first formal laboratory for psychological research at the University of Leipzig, and the first journal for psychological research in 1881.

Biography

Formative years

Wundt was born in Neckarau, a town near Mannheim, the son of a Lutheran pastor. As a child, Wundt was quiet and stoic, preferring to spend his time in quiet study. He studied at a boarding school beginning at the age of 13, then moving on to study from 1851 to 1856 at the University of Tübingen, University of Heidelberg, and the University of Berlin. During his last year at Heidelberg, Wundt suffered a nearly fatal illness. After graduating in medicine from the university in Heidelberg 1856, Wundt studied briefly with Johannes Peter Müller, before joining the University's staff, becoming an assistant to the physicist and physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz in 1858 until 1864. There he wrote Contributions to the Theory of Sense Perception (1858-62). He married Sophie Mau while at Heidelberg.
It was during this period that Wundt offered the first course ever taught in scientific psychology, all the while stressing the use of experimental methods drawn from the natural sciences, emphasizing the physiological relationship of the brain and the mind. His background in physiology would have a great effect on his approach to the new science of psychology. His lectures on psychology were published as Lectures on the Mind of Humans and Animals in 1863. He was promoted to Assistant Professor of Physiology at Heidelberg in 1864.
Wundt applied himself to writing a work that came to be one of the most important in the history of psychology, Principles of Physiological Psychology in 1874. The Principles utilized a system of psychology that sought to investigate the immediate experiences of consciousness, including feelings, emotions, volitions, and ideas, mainly explored through introspection, or the self-examination of conscious experience by objective observation of one's consciousness.

Leipzig years

In 1875 he took up a position at the University of Leipzig. Four years later he set up a psychological laboratory, it's the the oldest lab that's still open today. Scholars from all over the world flocked to Wundt's laboratory, including Edward B. Titchener. Wundt's students would eventually found important psychology laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and Stanford.
   He remained in Leipzig until his death, supervising 186 doctoral dissertations in various disciplines.
   In his later years, Wundt focused on social and cultural psychology, and before his death in 1920 he'd completed his 10-volume masterwork, Social Psychology.
   Of Wundt's enormous corpus of 54,000 pages of books and article entries, some of his notable works include: Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology, Essays, Ethics: An Investigation of the Facts and Laws of the Moral Life, Hypnotismus und Suggestion (1892), and Introduction to Psychology.

Wundt's conception of psychology

Wundt sought to understand the human mind by identifying the constituent parts of human consciousness, in the same way that a chemical compound is broken into various elements. Thus, Wundt essentially imagined psychology as a science, much like physics or chemistry, in which consciousness is a collection of identifiable parts. Parts of Wundt's system were developed and championed by his one-time student, Titchener, who described his system "Structuralism." Structuralism couldn't effectively compete in the pragmatic American environment with the native, William James-inspired Functionalism.

Legacy

Wundt is widely recognized as one of the fathers of psychology. Several of his works, including Principles of Physiological Psychology are considered fundamentally important texts in the field of psychology. Though widely recognized as important in the birth and growth of psychology, his influence in psychology today is a subject of debate among experts.
Though Wundt wrote extensively on a variety of subjects, including philosophy, physics, physiology, and of course psychology, the immensity of his collected writings and the 65 year-long duration of his career makes it difficult to identify a single, coherent mode of thought. Doubtlessly, however, Wundt was a devout foundationalist, working tirelessly to understand the intricacies of the areas of knowledge he studied to form a coherent, atomistic understanding of the universe. In recognition of Wundt's work, the American Psychological Association established the "Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award for Exceptional Contributions to Trans-Atlantic Psychology", which recognizes "a significant record of trans-Atlantic research collaboration."

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