Introduction
The rise of psychology as a distinct scientific field in the late 19th century included those individuals who contributed to this development: Wilhelm Wundt, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Franz Brentano, and Carl Stumpf. Although these pioneers varied in their methods and theoretical orientations, they had a common interest in comprehending the human mind generally and behaviour specifically. This paper addresses the similarities among these scholars and reviews their contributions to the field of psychology.
Commonalities in the Works of Wundt, Ebbinghaus, Brentano, and Stumpf
Wilhelm Wundt, often regarded as the founder of psychology, sought to understand the anatomy of consciousness, much like how a chemist analyzes a compound by disassembling it into its basic components. Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig in 1879, and here he experimented based on introspection, which is self-observation with reporting conscious experiences (Kendra Cherry, 2019). Although Wundt focused on conscious experiences, the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus investigated the processes involved in memory. According to Tietz (2019), while the work of Ebbinghaus focused on memory with its illustrations for the forgetting curve, the spacing effect shared a common interest in understanding the fundamental aspects of cognitive processes.
Another major figure in early psychology was Franz Brentano, who argued that it was important to study mental acts and not conscious experiences. Brentano described intentional inexistence, claiming that all acts of the mind are directed at some object (aeon, 2020). Despite the difference from Wundt’s view of conscious experience, Brentano’s concern with mental acts made apparent the common interest among them in reducing psychological phenomena to their parts.
Carl Stumpf, who was a colleague of Wundt and Brentano, is another psychologist whose contributions to psychology greatly focused on auditory perception and the psychology of tones. Stumpf’s methodology resembled that of Wundt, who investigated lived experiences and phenomena in the present (ebrary, n.d.). As in the case of Wundt, Stumpf tried to unravel the nature and building blocks of psychological processes.
Contributions to the Field of Psychology
Wundt, having established the first psychology laboratory and committed to systemic introspection, created the basis of experimental psychology. His ‘empiricism and scientific approach to the study of consciousness’ directly impacted generations of psychologists and played a major part in psychology becoming a respectable science (Kendra Cherry, 2019). Ebbinghaus’s experimental approach to exploring memory processes offered significant information about the structures and workings of cognitive operations. He practically laid the groundwork for cognitive psychology by developing his methods of experimental inquiry and quantitative analysis of mental phenomena that were later followed, such as learning, memory, and human information processing.
Brentano’s views on intentional inexistence and mental acts, as well as their study, served as the genesis of phenomenology, which is a philosophical and psychological trend that focuses on the description and analysis of subjective experience ((Kriegel, n.d.). Phenomenology would later provide ideas to prominent psychologists of this century, such as Edmund Husserl and Jean-Paul Sartre. In this regard, Stumpf’s research on auditory perception and psychogenic tone contributed to the growth of experimental psychology by widening its borders from only visual perception (ebrary, n.d.). His work on the perception of sound and music was considered to be preparing fertile ground for the development of the psychology of music more discipline that began to concentrate not only on the intellectual but also on the emotional sides of musical experiences.
Structuralism and Criticism
Titchener, a close disciple of Wundt, developed structuralism as the new science in psychology. The structuralist perspective sought to discover and analyze the fundamental building blocks of the mind through phenomenological introspection. On the other hand, detractors contended that consciousness was not adequately suitable for analysis into component units. (studylib, n.d.) They argued that the experience could not be fully understood by looking at its constituents sequentially.
Critics such as William James, who was the founder of functionalism, pointed out the weaknesses that follow in pursuing structural analysis solely for all potential avenues. James, in his turn, was for a functional approach that focused on adaptive functions of mental processes and behaviors about evolution and survival. This attack, therefore, sealed the fate of structuralism, paving the way for substitute theories to take root.
Conclusion
Despite the differences in outlook and research interests of Wundt, Ebbinghaus, Brentano, and Stumpf, they were united by a commonality of the belief that basic mental constituents must be subjected to systematic investigation. Their cumulative output facilitated the development of psychology into a scientific discipline. Even though these pioneers were eventually subjected to criticisms based on structuralism, the groundwork they laid early in this field opened doors for diverse schools of thought in psychology, each contributing to our understanding of the human mind and behavior.
References
aeon. (2020). Brentano, who taught freud and husserl, is a lesson to us all | aeon essays. Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/brentano-who-taught-freud-and-husserl-is-a-lesson-to-us-all
ebrary. (n.d.). Stumpf, G. E. müller and his students. Ebrary. Retrieved January 30, 2024, from https://ebrary.net/269421/psychology/stumpf
Kendra Cherry. (2019). Wilhelm wundt profile: The father of psychology. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/who-is-the-father-of-psychology-2795249
Kriegel, U. (n.d.). Franz brentano: An invitation to philosophy. Retrieved March 16, 2023, from https://philarchive.org/archive/KRIFBC
studylib. (n.d.). A. psychology fraught with divisions and controversies. Studylib.net. Retrieved January 30, 2024, from https://studylib.net/doc/9008038/a.-psychology-fraught-with-divisions-and-controversies
Tietz, T. (2019, January 24). Hermann ebbinghaus and the experimental study of memory. SciHi Blog. http://scihi.org/hermann-ebbinghaus-memory/
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