Voluntarism, Structuralism, and

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Chapter 9 Voluntarism, Structuralism, and Other
Early Approaches to Psychology
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1. Voluntarism 2. Physiologische Psychologie
vs. Volkerpsychologie 3. Mediate vs. immediate
experience 4. Innere wahrnehmung vs. selbst
beobachtung 5. Elements of thought sensations
and feelings (tridimensional) 6. Perception,
apperception, and creative synthesis 7. His
productivity (p. 243) 8. Mental chronometry 9.
Psychological vs. physical causation 10.
Volkerpsychologie and language 11.
Misunderstanding of Wundt
1832-1920
Wilhelm Wundt
1818-1889
1. The subtractive method of mental chronometry
Franciscus Donders
1. Wundts lab (Frank Angell) 2. Women The
Experimentalists 3. Goals what, how, why 4.
Introspection and the stimulus error 5.
Sensations, images, and affections 6.
1867-1927
Edward B. Titchener
1838-1917
1. Act psychology 2. Mental acts intend 3.
Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874) 4.
Phenomenological introspection
Franz Brentano
1848-1936
1. Oskar Pfungst, von Osten, Clever Hans
Phenomenon 2. Acoustical perception
Carl Stumpf
1859-1938
1. Father of phenomenology (hermeneutics) 2.
Intentionality 3. Pure phenomenology (Stumpf
Brentano)
Edmund Husserl
1. Wundts student 2. The Wurzburg School 3.
Imageless thought 260
1862-1915
Oswald Kulpe
1852-1933
1. The Philosophy of As If Fictions of
Mankind (1911) 2. Matter, causality fictions
3. Fictionalism vs. pragmatism
Hans Vaihinger
1. Memory An Investigation in Experimental
Psychology (1885) 2. Nonsense material
1850-1909
Hermann Ebbinghaus
1900
1875
1850
1825
1800
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• What is meant by a school of psychology?
• Why was the school of psychology created by Wundt
  called voluntarism?
• Why did Wundt believe that experimentation in
  psychology was of limited usefulness?
• How did Wundt differentiate between mediate and
  immediate experience?
• Discuss Wundts use of introspection.
• For Wundt, what were the elements of thought, and
  what were their attributes? Include in your
  answer a discussion of Wundts tridimensional
  theory of feeling.
• How did Wundt distinguish between psychological
  and physical causation?
• What did Wundt mean when he said that volutional
  acts are creative but not free?
• Define the terms sensation, percepetion,
  apperception, and creative synthesis as they were
  used in Wundts theory.
• Summarize how Wundt used reaction time in an
  effort to determine how long it took to perform
  various mental operations. Why did Wundt abandon
  his reaction-time research?
• Why did Wundt think it necessary to write his
  Volkerpsychologie? What approach to the study of
  humans did it exemplify?
• Summarize Wundts explanation of language.
• For Titchener, what were the goals of psychology?
• What did Titchener believe would be the ultimate
  why of psychology?

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• How did Titcheners explanation of how mental
  elements combine differ from Wundts?
• What was Titcheners context theory of meaning?
• Compare and contrast Wundts view of psychology
  with Titcheners.
• List the reasons for the decline of
  structuralism. Include in your answer the various
  criticisms of introspection.
• Summarize Brentanos act psychology.
• What did Brentano mean by intentionality?
• What did Husserl mean by pure phenomenology? Why
  did he believe that an understanding of the
  essence of subjective experience must precede
  scientific psychology?
• What did Külpe mean by imageless thought? Mental
  set?
• What did Vaihinger mean by his contention that
  without fictions, societal life would be
  impossible? Describe the difference between
  pragmatism and fictionalism.
• Why is it incorrect to refer to the material that
  Ebbinghaus used for his research as nonsense
  syllables?
• Discuss the significance of Ebbinghauss work to
  the history of psychology.

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