Wundt

• Wundt is considered as one of the founding father of modern psychology, he founded and directed the first laboratory of psychology at the university of Leipzig, Germany.
• Wundt analyzed two definitions of psychology: The science of mind and The science of inner experience.
• These relations aren’t determined through chance introspections, but systematic experimental observation → introspectionism
• skinking below/appears above the threshold of consciousness: processes disappearing from/ appearing in consciousness
• The science of mind is defined as the study of psychical processes as phenomena from which it is possible to infer an underlying metaphysical substance, the soul.
• The science of inner experience is defined as the study of psychical processes known through introspection, or the inner sense, which is counterposed to outer sense.
• Both definitions of psychology are unsatisfactory as they refer to the metaphysical stage of the discipline and promote the idea that psychology deals with a totally different kind of objects than those that can be grasped with outer sense.
• According to Wundt, every natural object can be an object of psychology, there is not a limitation between psychological and natural objects.
• The content of consciousness is not known through special organs, but is directly and inseparably connected with the ideas referred to external objects.
• Ideas are connected to natural objects.
• Experiment is observation connected with an intentional interference on the part of the observer, in the rise and course of the phenomena observed.
• Observation, in its proper sense, is the investigation of phenomena without such interference, just as they are naturally presented to the observer in the continuity of experience.
• Experiment is preferred when the beginning (starting point) of a process needs to be observed.
• The methods used by natural sciences are experiment and observation.
• Wundt acknowledges that psychology and natural sciences have different perspectives on the object, but argues that they should use the same methods, advocating for methodological monism.
• Psychology is an empirical science and uses natural sciences’ methods, since its interest lies in experience in its immediate nature.
• Experiment is preferred when the object of interest is a natural object, as they do not require to be produced at a particular moment, being relatively constant.
• Experiment is required when phenomena need to be analyzed in different phases.
• Experimental interference is required in the exact determination of the course, and in the analysis of the components, of any natural process.
• There is not a single natural phenomenon that may not, from a different point of view, become an object of psychology.
• Wundt describes psychic processes with metaphors, particularly with the optical system: fixation point of consciousness: contents of consciousness upon which attention is focused, field of conscious: the whole content of consciousness at any given time.
• The study of natural processes linked to the normal development of an organ entails to focus on phenomena “in the making” and requires experiments to analyse and elicit these phenomena under the experimenter’s control.
• Social psychology, which deals with collective mental processes, can use observation as it deals with collective objects.
• Experimental investigation is generally necessary only when the production and the modification of objects are to be inquired into.
• Pure science observation includes mineralogy, botany, anatomy, geography, and zoology.
• There are psychical objects which are permanent over time, they thought undergo processes of evolution, but they maintain the same features for a long period of time.
• Experimentation is necessary for studying the shapes of objects over time.
• Psychology, as a basic experimental science, deals with mental processes that can only be investigated through experiments.
• Observation is sufficient for studying the shape of a natural object that is constant in time.
• Individual psychology, which deals with the content of consciousness, is all about experimentation as there are no permanent objects in the individual domain.
• The morphologic study of an organ aims at describing the features of an organ, as a constant object: pure observation is enough.
• Experiments are necessary in psychology to investigate mental processes as they happen all the time and can’t be observed naturally repeating themselves with the same subjective state.
• The distinction between outer and inner experiences is not inherent to objects, but is a matter of different points of view.
• The experience is unitary but can be adopted different perspectives/points of view from which we take up the consideration and scientific treatment of a unitary experience.
• Every concrete experience can be divided into two factors: a content, what is presented to us, and our apprehension of the content, which deals with the experiencing subject.
• The distinction of natural sciences and psychology is based on these two notions: the objects of experience are considered as independent in the direction of natural sciences, while in the direction of psychology the whole content of experience is investigated.