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Wilhelm Wundt
(16 Aug 1832 - 31 Aug 1920)
German psychologist and physiologist who established the first laboratory for experimental psychology.
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Wilhelm Wundt Quotes on Psychology (29 quotes)
>> Click for 40 Science Quotes by Wilhelm Wundt
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>> Click for 40 Science Quotes by Wilhelm Wundt
>> Click for Wilhelm Wundt Quotes on | Mind | Physiology |
Child psychology and animal psychology are of relatively slight importance, as compared with the sciences which deal with the corresponding physiological problems of ontogeny and phylogeny.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Experimental psychology itself has, it is true, now and again suffered relapse into a metaphysical treatment of its problems.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Hence, even in the domain of natural science the aid of the experimental method becomes indispensable whenever the problem set is the analysis of transient and impermanent phenomena, and not merely the observation of persistent and relatively constant objects.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Hence, wherever we meet with vital phenomena that present the two aspects, physical and psychical there naturally arises a question as to the relations in which these aspects stand to each other.
— Wilhelm Wundt
In the course of normal speaking the inhibitory function of the will is continuously directed to bringing the course of ideas and the articulatory movements into harmony with each other. If the expressive movement which which follows the idea is retarded through mechanical causes, as is the case in writing ... such anticipations make their appearance with particular ease.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Folk Psychology (1900)
Many psychologists ... thought by turning their attention to their own consciousness to be able to explain what happened when we were thnking. Or they sought to attain the same end by asking another person a question, by means of which certain processes of thought would be excited, and then by questioning the person about the introspection he had made. It is obvious ... that nothing can be discovered in such experiments.
— Wilhelm Wundt
An Introduction to Psychology (1912)
Now the word-symbols of conceptual ideas have passed so long from hand to hand in the service of the understanding, that they have gradually lost all such fanciful reference.
— Wilhelm Wundt
On the other hand, ethnic psychology must always come to the assistance of individual psychology, when the developmental forms of the complex mental processes are in question.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Philosophical reflection could not leave the relation of mind and spirit in the obscurity which had satisfied the needs of the naive consciousness.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Physiological psychology is, therefore, first of all psychology.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Physiological psychology, on the other hand, is competent to investigate the relations that hold between the processes of the physical and those of the mental life.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Physiology and psychology cover, between them, the field of vital phenomena; they deal with the facts of life at large, and in particular with the facts of human life.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Physiology, in its analysis of the physiological functions of the sense organs, must use the results of subjective observation of sensations; and psychology, in its turn, needs to know the physiological aspects of sensory function, in order rightly to appreciate the psychological.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Psychological introspection goes hand in hand with the methods of experimental physiology. If one wants to put the main emphasis on the characteristic of the method, our science, experimental psychology, is to be distinguished from the ordinary mental philosophy [Seelenlehre], based purely on introspection.
— Wilhelm Wundt
In Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie [Principles of Physiological Psychology] (1874), 2-3. Trans. K. Damiger, Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research (1990), 206.
Psychology must not only strive to become a useful basis for the other mental sciences, but it must also turn again and again to the historical sciences, in order to obtain an understanding for the more highly developed metal processes.
— Wilhelm Wundt
An Introduction to Psychology (1912)
Psychology, on the other hand, seeks to give account of the interconnexion of processes which are evinced by our own consciousness, or which we infer from such manifestations of the bodily life in other creatures as indicate the presence of a consciousness similar to our own.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Some say that everything that is called a psychical law is nothing but the psychological reflex of physical combinations, which is made up of sensations joined to certain central cerebral processes... It is contradicted by the fact of consciousness itself, which cannot possibly be derived from any physical qualities of material molecules or atoms.
— Wilhelm Wundt
An Introduction to Psychology (1912)
The animal kingdom exhibits a series of mental developments which may be regarded as antecedents to the mental development of man, for the mental life of animals shows itself to be throughout, in its elements and in the general laws governing the combination of the elements, the same as the mental life of man.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Outline of Psychology (1902)
The attitude of physiological psychology to sensations and feelings, considered as psychical elements, is, naturally, the attitude of psychology at large.
— Wilhelm Wundt
The distinguishing characteristics of mind are of a subjective sort; we know them only from the contents of our own consciousness.
— Wilhelm Wundt
The general statement that the mental faculties are class concepts, belonging to descriptive psychology, relieves us of the necessity of discussing them and their significance at the present stage of our inquiry.
— Wilhelm Wundt
The materialistic point of view in psychology can claim, at best, only the value of an heuristic hypothesis.
— Wilhelm Wundt
The old metaphysical prejudice that man 'always thinks' has not yet entirely disappeared. I am myself inclined to hold that man really thinks very little and very seldom.
— Wilhelm Wundt
The results of ethnic psychology constitute, at the same time, our chief source of information regarding the general psychology of the complex mental processes.
— Wilhelm Wundt
The task of physiological psychology remains the same in the analysis of ideas that it was in the investigation of sensations: to act as mediator between the neighbouring sciences of physiology and psychology.
— Wilhelm Wundt
There are other sources of psychological knowledge, which become accessible at the very point where the experimental method fails us.
— Wilhelm Wundt
Principles of Physiological Psychology (1904)
Thus ordered thinking arises out of the ordered course of nature in which man finds himself, and this thinking is from the beginning nothing more than the subjective reproduction of the regularity according to the law of natural phenomena. On the other hand, this reproduction is only possible by means of the will that controls the concatenation of ideas.
— Wilhelm Wundt
An Introduction to Psychology (1912)
We know, from ordinary life, that we are not able to direct our attention perfectly steadily and uniformly to one and the same object... At times the attention turns towards the object most intensely, and at times the energy flags.
— Wilhelm Wundt
An Introduction to Psychology (1912)
We speak of virtue, honour, reason; but our thought does not translate any one of these concepts into a substance.
— Wilhelm Wundt
See also:
- 16 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Wundt's birth.
- Wilhelm Wundt in History: The Making of a Scientific Psychology, by David K. Robinson. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
