The positivist repudiation of Wundt - Kurt Danziger

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226 KURT DANZIGER ple of Priignanz, for example, is a principle of psychic causality, formally not dissimilar to the kinds of principles Wundt developed. Kurt Lewin’s concept of the life space, in which only psychological forces could have psychological effects, is a further development of the idea, and theories of cognitive balance and dissonance represent some of its more recent incarnations. Freud committed himself to psychic causality with the principle of psychic determinism which came to play such a central role in his system. But none of these later attempts to provide psychology with its own form of causality appear to have owed anything to Wundt’s treatment of the to pi^.^' Nevertheless, the clash between Wundt and the positivists remains historically in- structive. It foreshadowed the most general, the most significant line of division among psychologists during the years to come. That division was based on conflicting philosophies of science. On the one hand, there were those whose conception of the nature of science was essentially Machian and for whom psychology was part of a hierarchical system of the sciences in which the aim of explanation was the reduction of each level of generalization to the next, more fundamental, level. On the other hand, there were those who regarded science as aiming at more than the economical formula- tion of functional relationships and whose affirmation of a specifically psychological level of causality, in whatever form, opened doors to the humanistic disciplines. This division was marked by successive attempts to reformulate the theories of the second type in terms that were acceptable to the positivist ethos, attempts that necessarily deprived those theories of their essential content and changed them into something far removed from the original conception. (Attempts to reformulate Freudian theories in behaviorist terms represent extreme examples of this trend.) This sterile process was largely determined by the fact that in psychology positivism had become identified with scientific orthodoxy. Those who found themselves outside the positivist pale were often hampered by a failure to appreciate the real nature of the division which, of course, in- volved much more than strictly psychological questions. In this respect they might have profited from Wundt’s remarkable insights into the nature of the issues raised by psychology’s status as a science. NOTES I. It was C. H. Judd, the chosen translator of the Grundriss, who faithfully represented the spirit of Wundt’s psychology in America, not Titchener. For a general expression of that spirit see Judd’s autobiographical statement in Carl Murchison, A History of Psychology in Autobiography (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University Press, 1932). See also Richard J. Anderson, “The Untranslated Content of Wundt’s Grundziige der physiologischen Psychologie,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences I 1 (1975): 381-386. An excellent contemporary analysis of the fundamental principles of Wundt’s psychology is to be found in Arthur L. Blumenthal, “A Reappraisal of Wilhelm Wundt,” American Psychologist 30 (1975): 1081-1088. See also D. B. Klein, A Hisfory of Scientific Psychology (New York: Basic Books, 1970). 2. At least he notes the Machian position of KUlpe and Titchener; for some reason he does not make it explicit that Ebbinghaus adopted the same position. See Edwin G. Boring, A History of Experimental Ps.ychology, 2d ed. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1950), chap. 18. 3. Rudolf Willy, “Die Krisis in der Psychologie,” Vierteljahrschrvt Jur wissenschaftliche Philosophie 21 (1897): 79-96. 4. Boring, Experimental Psychology, p. 431. Boring’s notion of orthodoxy excludes a major part of European experimental psychology, including the majority of Wundt’s disciples, the most prominent of whom formed the so-called second Leipzig school - men like Krueger, Wirth, and Sander.
THE POSITIVIST REPUDIATION OF WUNDT 227 5. This division appears as early as the Vorlesungen iiber die Menschen-und Thierseele of 1863 and receives its systematic treatment in the long section on “the logic of psychology” in the Logik (1883). As was his custom, Wundt returns to the topic on a number of occasions, notably in a paper on the division of the sciences in the fifth volume of Philosophische Studien, in his Introduction to Philosophy of 1901, and in subsequent editions of the Logik. Everything that Wundt wrote on the subject contradicts Boring’s bald claim that “to Fechner and Wundt scientific meant experimental” (Boring, Experimental Psychology, p. 321). 6. Wilhelm Wundt, “uber psychische KausalitSIt und das Princip des psycho-physischen Parallelismus,” Philosophische Studien 10 (1894): 1-124, pp. 95-96. 7. Recent discussions of the content of Wundt’s principles of psychic causality will be found in Theodore Mischel, “Wundt and the Conceptual Foundations of Psychology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 31 (1970): 1-26; and in Arthur L. Blumenthal, “Wilhelm Wundt and Early American Psychology: A Clash of Two Cultures,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 291 (1977): 13-20. 8. Wundt, “Ober psychische Kausalitgt,” p. 117. 9. See, for example, the introduction of the third edition of the Grundziige derphysiologischen Psycholo gie (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1887). 10. Wilhelm Wundt, Outlines of Psychology (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1896), p. 17. Wundt also considered psychology to be of relevance to philosophy, especially in the area of ethics. 11. See Frederico Kiesow’s statement in Carl Murchison, A History of Psychology in Autobiography, vol. 1 (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University Press, 1930). 12. Wilhelm Wundt, ‘‘Uber die Definition der Psychologie,” Philosophische Studien 12 (1896): 1-66. 13. Oswald Kiilpe, Outlines of Psychology (New York: Macmillan, 1895), p. 4. (Original 1893.) 14. Ibid., p. 3. 15. Ibid., p. 6. It is worth noting that many aspects of Kiilpe’s position had been anticipated by Hugo MUnsterberg (Beitrage zur experimentellen Psychologie [Freiburg: Mohr, 1889]), against whom Wundt directed his remarks in his 1894 paper on psychic causality. MUnsterberg, however, based his conception of psychology as a natural science on an extreme form of philosophical dualism which gained no adherents among psychologists. Nevertheless, his conception of psychology had a profound influence on the formula- tions of many psychologists who contributed to the rise of behaviorism, like Knight Dunlap, Margaret Floy Washburn, E. B. Holt, and R. M. Yerkes (see Knight Dunlap and Margaret FIoy Washburn in Murchison, Autobiography, vol. 2). Miinsterberg’s role in the history of modern psychology, which has been the victim of several of Boring’s strongest biases, very much requires reassessment. 16. Richard Heinrich Ludwig Avenarius, Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (Leipzig: Reisland, 1888- 1890); “Bemerkungen zum Begriff des Gegenstandes der Psychologie,” Vierteljahrschrt$ fur wissenschafiliche Philosophie 18 (1894): 137-161, 400-420; 19 (1895): 1-18, 129-145. 17. In the fifth edition of his classic Analysis of Sensations, Ernst Mach writes: “As to the views of Avenarius, the affinity between them and my own is as great as can possibly be imagined where two writers have undergone a different process of development, work in different fields, and are completely indepen- dent of one another.” (Ernst Mach, The Analysis of Sensations [New York; Dover, 19591, pp. 46-47). Avenarius had already acknowledged the existence of this special affinity. In the present context it is inter- esting to note that Mach gives special emphasis to the convergence of his views and those of Avenarius in regard to matters psychological: “But it is to our agreement in the conception of the relation between the physical and the psychical that I attach the greatest importance. For me this is the main point at issue. It was by means of his psychological articles that I first became convinced of this coincidence between Avenarius and myself’ (ibid., p. 50). 18. Ibid., pp. 23-23. 19. Mach writes: “All special psychical causality disappears,” and “ . . . the assumption of a special psychical agent appears to me to be a presupposition which is unfortunate and can only do harm by making investigation difficult” (ibid., pp. 54-55). And again: ” the phenomena of volition must , . . be explained by means of the physical forces of the organism alone” (ibid., p. 171). 20. Many of the ideas advanced by Gilbert Ryle in his well-known The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson, 1949) bear more than a superficial resemblance to points made by Avenarius. 21. Kiilpe was an individual of very diverse interests which he was strikingly unable to integrate during his relatively short scholarly life. Consequently, he never adopted any particular position for very long, and soon turned against Mach’s positivism. In the 1890s. however, he was clearly to be counted among the adherents of the new philosophy of science and exerted considerable influence on its behalf. It is the Kiilpe of this period that we are concerned with here, not the later Kiilpe. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the work of the Wiirzburg School was inspired by the search for a new Machian “element” when the hitherto recognized elements were found to be inadequate. 22. Wundt, “Ober psychische Kausalitit.”
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The positivist repudiation of Wundt - Kurt Danziger

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