Philosophy of Humanity

Philosophy of Psychology (Psychological Theory)

Early Psychological Schools

The emergence of psychology as a distinct science was largely due to the German philosopher and psychologist Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832-1920), who established experimental psychology. Enthralled by the achievements of contemporary natural science, Wundt aimed to make psychology equally successful. For psychology to reach the same heights as chemistry and physics, it needed to employ similar methods. Since natural science relies on experimentation, Wundt posited that experimentation should become the primary method in psychology. Based on this principle, he advocated for the development of experimental rather than theoretical psychology and founded the world’s first laboratory dedicated to experimental psychology. However, Wundt faced a new challenge. Prior to his work, psychology was considered the science of the soul, which was an intangible subject for experimentation. To realize Wundt’s vision, psychology’s focus had to shift from the soul to mental processes. Unlike natural philosophy, which seeks to answer what nature is, physics studies natural processes, and thus only physics uses experiments. To incorporate experimentation into psychology, its subject needed to be redefined as mental processes rather than the soul. Consequently, after Wundt, psychology came to focus on mental processes, thus distinguishing it from general philosophical discourse. Wundt endeavored to describe and systematize various mental processes, similar to how elements are systematized in chemistry. By experimenting with stimuli, he identified the processes these stimuli triggered. Wundt’s ideas and methods were carried to America by his student Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927). In contrast to the functionalists, whom Titchener debated, he termed experimental psychology as structuralism. Thus, the psychological approach founded by Wundt is sometimes referred to as structuralism.

Following the introduction of the experimental method, it became widely accepted in psychology. One of the first scientific centers to apply these methods and yield significant results was the Würzburg School—a group of psychologists working at the University of Würzburg (Germany). Founded in 1869 with the establishment of a laboratory for experimental psychology at Würzburg University, this school focused primarily on thought, utilizing both experimentation and introspection (self-reflection). Although introspection had been used previously, their innovation lay in employing this method in artificially constructed situations. Participants were tasked with solving intellectual problems and then describing their experiences during the process. These experiments led to the conclusion that there are factors influencing thought that individuals are unaware of. The goal of the Würzburg psychologists was to demonstrate that thought does not operate on associative principles. Associationism, which had dominated psychology since antiquity, held that thinking involved finding associations (similarities) between objects, and that this was how people remembered information. The Würzburg psychologists refuted this belief, positing instead that thinking is guided by unconscious factors. The Würzburg School included Oswald Külpe (1862-1915), Narcissus Caspar Ach (1871-1946), Otto Selz (1881-1944), Karl Marbe (1869-1953), Heinrich Meyer (1867-1933), and Karl Bühler (1879-1963).

A third influential school in the discourse of early psychological theories was functionalism. Proponents of this school adopted the experimental methods that had become prevalent after Wundt and agreed with the Würzburg School's findings that thinking is governed by unconscious factors. Their research aimed to describe these unconscious factors influencing thought. They turned to the works of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, who posited that all living beings adapt to their environment, developing new traits necessary for survival and losing those that become obsolete in new conditions. Functionalists concluded that mental and cognitive processes evolve to enable individuals to function more effectively in their environments.

Functionalism is divided into European and American branches. Friedrich Carl Stumpf (1848-1936) was a prominent representative of the European functionalist branch, focusing on the perception of music, which he regarded as a unique achievement of human civilization. Through the study of music and psychological factors of its perception, Stumpf developed his theory. He argued that psychology should study phenomena—what a person perceives, mental functions—how a person relates to phenomena, and the inherent connections between phenomena and perception. Mental functions, or how the psyche responds to phenomena, are driven by the need for adaptation to the environment and circumstances in which a person finds themselves. In America, functionalism was developed by several influential scholars who made significant contributions to psychology:

• William James (1842-1910) was a major founder of both pragmatism and functionalism. He authored the pragmatic theory of truth in epistemology, asserting that a hypothesis is considered true if it has practical consequences, that is, if it aids survival. From this perspective, he evaluated the role of thought and mental processes. Consciousness developed and functions because it is necessary; people think, feel emotions, and experience mental processes because they help in survival. James also focused on the psychology of religion, arguing that religion is pragmatically essential because it helps individuals grasp the meaning of life, mental health, and life’s goals. His work established psychology of religion as a significant research area.
• John Dewey (1859-1952) shared similar views, with his greatest achievements in pedagogy, yet he also addressed psychological issues. Dewey claimed that children acquire knowledge not for its own sake but for its potential to foster self-realization and personal progress.

By the end of the 19th century, French psychologists also adopted empirical psychological methods, forming the French School of Psychology. Key figures included Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), Théodule-Armand Ribot (1839-1916), and Pierre Marie Félix Janet (1859-1947), who were psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists exploring various issues within their fields. They were united by their use of experimental methods, aligning them with Wundt and his inspired psychologists. However, a significant difference existed: whereas Wundt and his colleagues conducted experiments in universities to study mental processes, French school practitioners worked in both universities and clinics, gathering data primarily from patients, believing that nature itself provided ample experiments for observation.

These schools sought to establish psychology on principles akin to those of natural science and to formulate universal laws governing mental functions, much like natural laws. However, not all psychologists accepted the principles of experimental psychology. German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) proposed distinguishing between natural sciences and the sciences of the spirit. The natural sciences explain natural processes and form laws predicting future occurrences, while the sciences of the spirit only understand spiritual (psychic, social, and other) processes, describing events without asserting that identical conditions will always yield the same outcomes. Based on this, Dilthey argued that psychology, as a science of the spirit, employs methods different from those of natural science. Since the method of the sciences of the spirit is understanding, the psychological approach founded by Dilthey is known as interpretative or descriptive psychology, in contrast to experimental psychology, which Dilthey termed explanatory psychology. Dilthey’s ideas were further developed by the German psychologist Eduard Spranger (1882-1963).