Listing of Sessions and Abstracts of Papers - History of Science ...

ences and the humanities. Originally a part of philosophy, psychology developed through the works of
physiologically oriented scientists like Gustav Theodor Fechner, Wilhelm Wundt and Hermann
Ebbinghaus. As a result, scientific disputes about results and methods as well as academic battles concerning
funding, staff and appointments of chairs in philosophy to experimental psychologists involved
fundamental controversies about the nature of psychology, its relation to the sciences, and the significance
of experimental research for philosophy. The paper illustrates this with regard to the dispute
between Carl Stumpf (1848-1936) and Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) in 1890-1892. At first, the dispute
centered on the perception of tonal distances and the conclusion Wundt draw from experimental data
gathered by his pupil Carl Lorenz. But the opponents quickly turned to personal invectives, accusing
each other of not behaving and arguing in a proper scientific manner. Historian of psychology Edwin
Boring suggested that this was simply an expression of both "giants’" passionate devotion to their
science. In contrast, I argue that the dispute between Stumpf and Wundt emerged primarily from opposing
views about the nature of psychology and its relation to the sciences. To expose the fundamental
disagreements underlying the dispute, I analyze the opponents’ technical arguments concerning the
experimental results from the Leipzig laboratory. I show that the controversy concerned not only different
interpretations of the same facts but also the very conditions of interpreting them and especially the
observer’s role in experiment.
Eshet, Dan
E-mail Address: deshet@worldnet.att.net
Science and Persecution: Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), the Dissenters and Anglican Newtonianism
in Late Eighteenth-Century England
In 1794 Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) decided to leave England and emigrate to America. In his
farewell sermon he explained his actions and argued that the t odium that [the dissenters] have incurred
into o the how little politics of any kind have been my object.And yet, even he was forced to acknowledge
that his avowed advocacy of ed him not only to write in defense of the most explosive issues of his
time (i.e., the American colonies and the French Revolution), but also to attack the very foundation of
Anglicanism. Moreover, Priestley’s criticism of the doctrine of the duality of humans, in which he
suggested that the human spirit was but a result of some form of organized matter, hit a most painful
issue in the mind of many Britons, namely the prospects of afterlife. Based on his scientific inquiries
into the properties of light and other forms of matter, this position brought Priestley’s career to a halt
among scientists who previously supported him and among the clergy. Indeed, when finally a use in
1789, they took care to destroy his laboratory and scientific papers as well. As Priestley explained,
plication to which gave some degree of weight to my labours in another field.d science of Priestley has
focused on his education and his scientific background, while the social and religious struggles, which
conditioned the trajectories of Priestley’s personal and professional career, have received scant attention.
This historiographical bias has emerged out of the premise that the primary sources of new scientific
ideas lie within the disciplinary boundaries and the discursive practices of scientists, even though it is
hard to argue that such boundaries were easily defined in late eighteenth-century England. I argue that
while the scientific background is important, a close examination of Priestley’s scientific work can
provide insight into how science was conducted in the social (and geographic) periphery. His science
therefore must also be seen through its connection to the persecution of nonconformists in England. My
paper concentrates on Priestley’s familial background and on his involvement in the struggles of the
Rational Dissenters as integral elements in the understanding of his innovative scientific endeavors. I
suggest that his interest in the fate of his fellow dissenters drove him to reevaluate the accepted premises
of Anglican Newtonianism. As a result of this reevaluation, Priestley revived the materialist psychology
of David Hartley (1705-1757) and developed a corpuscular optics. These studies eventually paid off.