Wilhelm Wundt and the emergence of scientific psychology

Bunn, GC (2017) Wilhelm Wundt and the emergence of scientific psychology. Psychology Review, 22 (3). pp. 10-12. ISSN 1750-3469

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Abstract

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a conscientious physician and one-time politician who had been born in Mannheim in 1832 to religious parents. Wundt was still a relatively obscure Assistant Professor of Physiology in 1867, although he had already taught the first university course in psychology and had published his Lectures on the Mind of Humans and Animals. In 1872 Wundt informed his fiancée that he intended to take up William James’ provocative call-to-arms to create a new discipline of scientific psychology and devote himself to the “somewhat suspect borderland between physiology and philosophy”. He dedicated the last half of his life to this “suspect borderland” and subsequently became known as “the father of experimental psychology”.