Local institutionalization, discontinuity, and German textbooks of psychology, 1816–1854

Abstract

In the context of social and intellectual developments and the changing role of German universities in the first half of the nineteenth century, which led to the local institutionalization of the discipline of psychology at German universities, the structure and content of textbooks of psychology are discussed. Textbooks in the first half of the nineteenth century had a pedagogical function in training teachers, in socializing students into the field, and in providing students and readers with knowledge about the subject matter, methodology, and topics of psychology. The textbooks, representative of influence, philosophical-psychological orientations, and different decades in the first half of the nineteenth century, are reconstructed with regard to the definition of psychology, the ways of studying the soul, and how to conceptually organize the field. The textbooks by Herbart, Beneke, and Waitz, which were written within a natural-scientific programmatic vision for psychology, are contrasted with the traditional philosophically intended textbooks of Reinhold, Mußmann, George, and Schilling. Fischhaber's textbook for Gymnasien is summarized. Issues regarding the continuity of psychology are discussed, and discontinuous developments in the history of German psychology are identified. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Contemporary textbooks on the history of psychology share the view that the nineteenth century was crucial in the transformation of psychology from a philosophical to an empirical discipline and in the separation of psychology from philosophy (see also Green, Shore, & Teo, 2001;Richards, 1996; Windelband, 1892Windelband, /1958. However, the majority of historical research focuses on the second half of the nineteenth century, when German psychology has been iden- Thus, the first half of the nineteenth century and earlier periods appear only as precursors to experimental psychology. This is most clearly expressed in Boring's (1950) classical study, where he discussed only Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841), and Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817-1881) as early nineteenth-century psychologists. Yet, Kant belonged more to the eighteenth than to the nineteenth century, and Lotze published his most important works in the second half of the nineteenth century. More importantly, philosophical conceptualizations of the first half of the nineteenth century were significant for later researchers, as Willy (1899) has pointed out in his critique of the continuity of speculative thinking in psychology. More recently, historiography has accumulated knowledge that specifically includes the first half of the nineteenth century (Eckardt, 2000;Gundlach, 2004;Hatfield, 1990;Leary, 1978;Sachs-Hombach, 1993a;Smith, 2005).

Instructional Manuals of Boundary‐work: Psychology Textbooks, Student Subjectivities, and Disciplinary Historiographies

“…This, however, is more contributing to the image of the denigrated faulty textbooks and their flawed accounts of science (Morawski, ) than to textbook historiography. For a more historical perspective, Thomas Teo's () study of German psychology textbooks in the beginning of the nineteenth century is a breath of fresh air. Andrew Winston's studies on textbook definitions and redefinitions of psychological experiments should be mentioned here (; Winston, ; Winston & Blais, ; MacMartin & Winston, ; Winston, ), as well as his study on the changes in presentation of race and heredity in introductory textbooks (Winston, Butzer, & Ferris, ).…”

“…. For a nonessentialist historical approach, see ThomasTeo's (2007) treatment of German introductory psychology texts in nineteenth century Germany.…”

A useful science: Criminal interrogation and the turn to psychology in Germany around 1800

“…Although the philosopher Immanuel Kant was sometimes ambiguous about the status of psychology as a science, the empirical methods and topics he proposed in his Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View (Kant, 2006(Kant, [1798) proved to be highly influential for later psychologists (Hatfield, 1998). That being said, psychologists' insistence on empiricism was often programmatic rather HOFMAN | 323 actualized (Teo, 2007). Scholars working in universities were usually more occupied with attempts to systematize knowledge of the workings of the soul, rather than with practical applications or actual empirical observations (Vidal, 2011, p. 326).…”

“…According to this view, still common in textbooks, Wilhelm Wundt and his experimental methods made psychology into a sustainable and innovative discipline in the late nineteenth century. In response, historians of psychology have extensively debated where we might situate the origins of "modern psychology"-or even simply of "psychology"-and by what criteria (Brock, 2015;Danziger, 1997Danziger, , 2013Robinson, 2013;Teo, 2005). Apart from the late nineteenth century, antiquity, the eighteenth century, the early nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century have been held out as candidates.…”

Instructional Manuals of Boundary-Work: Psychology Textbooks, Student Subjectivities, and Disciplinary Historiographies

“…This, however, is more contributing to the image of the denigrated faulty textbooks and their flawed accounts of science (Morawski, 1992) than to textbook historiography. For a more historical perspective, Thomas Teo's (2007) study of German psychology textbooks in the beginning of the nineteenth century is a breath of fresh air. Andrew Winston's studies on textbook definitions and redefinitions of psychological experiments should be mentioned here (1988; Winston, 1990;Winston & Blais, 1996;MacMartin & Winston, 2000;Winston, 2004), as well as his study on the changes in presentation of race and heredity in introductory textbooks (Winston, Butzer, & Ferris, 2004).…”