Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory by Hugo Münsterberg (100 books to read .txt) 📕

specific concrete facts are in the world of phenomena objects,

physical or psychical objects, in the world of purposes acts of

will—specific norms or historical acts. If we turn first to

phenomena, the laws thereof are expressed in the physical sciences, by

mechanics, physics, chemistry, and we make mechanics the superior as

chemistry must become ultimately the mechanics of atoms. In the

psychological sciences the science of laws is psychology, with the

side-branch of animal psychology, while human psychology refers to

individuals and to social groups. Social psychology, as over against

individual psychology, is thus a science of general laws, the laws of

those psychological phenomena which result from the mutual influence

of several individuals.

On the other hand, we have as the special concrete products of the

laws, the objects themselves, and the most natural grouping of them

may be from whole to part. In the physical world it means that we

start from the concrete universe, turning then to the earth, then to

the objects on the earth, inorganic and organic. There is here no

logical difficulty. Each one of these objects can be considered in

three aspects, firstly as to its structure, secondly as to its special

laws, that is, the special function of the object as related to the

general sciences of physics and chemistry, and thirdly as to its

natural development. If we apply these three methods of study to the

whole universe we have astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology, to the

whole earth, geography, geophysics, geology, to animals, zoölogy,

physiology, comparative anatomy, and so on.

The special phenomena in the framework of the psychological sciences

group themselves in the same logical order, from the whole to the

part. The psychological totality is empirical mankind, and as we

select the earth as the one part of the universe which is the habitat

of man, so our scientific interest must move from the whole psychical

humanity to those phenomena of human life which are the vehicle of our

civilization, from mankind to its most important function, the

association of man; and as we moved from earth to the special objects

on earth, so we may turn from association to the special phenomena

which result from association. If we separated further the inorganic

from the organic, we must here separate the products of

undifferentiated and of differentiated association. The science of

mankind is race psychology, the science of the association of man is

sociology, the science of the results of undifferentiated association

is Völkerpsychologie, folk psychology. The science of products of

differentiated association has no special name; its subject matter is

the whole of historical civilization considered as a psychological

naturalistic phenomenon. As soon as we follow the ramification still

further we have to do with the special kinds of these products, that

is, with the volitions, thoughts, appreciations and beliefs. In the

undifferentiated associations they give us morals and habits,

languages and enjoyments and mythological ideas, while the

individually differentiated association gives political, legal and

economic life, knowledge, art and religion: all of course merely as

causal, not as teleological processes, and thus merely as

psychological and not as historical material. Here, as with the

physical phenomena, the structure, the special laws and the

development must be everywhere separated, giving us three sciences in

every case. For instance, the study of mankind deals with the

differences of mental structure in psychical anthropology, with the

special psychical laws in race psychology and with the development in

comparative psychology. The chief point for us is that social

psychology, race psychology, sociology, folk psychology, etc., are

under this system sharply differentiated sciences and that they do not

at all overlap the real historical sciences. There is no historical

product of civilization which does not come under their method but it

must be conceived as a causal phenomenon, not as related to the

purposes of the real man, and thus even the development means merely a

growing complication of naturalistic processes and not history in the

teleological sense.

We turn to the normative sciences. The general theory of the

overindividual purposes is metaphysics; the special overindividual

acts are those which constitute the normative volitions, connected in

the philosophy of morals, the philosophy of state and the philosophy

of law, those which constitute the normative thoughts and finally

those which constitute the normative appreciations and beliefs,

connected in æsthetics and the philosophy of religion. Especial

interest belongs to the philosophy of thought. We have discussed the

reasons why we group mathematics here and not among the

phenomenalistic sciences. We have thus one science which deals

critically with the presuppositions of thought, i.e. the theory of

knowledge or epistemology, which can be divided into the philosophy of

physical sciences, the philosophy of psychological sciences, the

philosophy of normative sciences and the philosophy of historical

sciences. We have secondly the science of the processes of thought

dealing with concepts, judgments and reasoning, i.e., logic, and we

have finally the science of those objects which the thought creates

freely for its own purposes and which are independent from the content

of the world, i.e., mathematics, which leads to the qualitative

aspect of general mathematics and the quantitative aspect of concrete

mathematics. For our purposes it may be sufficient to separate

externally algebra, arithmetic, analysis and geometry. In this way all

the philosophical sciences find their natural and necessary place in

the system, while it has been their usual lot to form an appendix to

the system, incommensurable with the parts of the system itself, even

in the case that the other scheme were not preferred, to make ethics,

logic, æsthetics, epistemology and metaphysics merely special branches

of positivistic sociology and thus ultimately of biology.

In the historical sciences the general theory which stands over

against the special acts has a special claim on our attention. We may

call it the philosophy of history. That is not identical with the

philosophy of historical sciences which we mentioned as a part of

epistemology. The philosophy of historical sciences deals with the

presuppositions by which historical teleological knowledge becomes

logically possible. The philosophy of history seeks a theory which

connects the special historical acts into a unity. It has two

branches. It is either a theory of the personality, creating a theory

of real individual life as it enters as ideological factor into

history, or it seeks the unity of entire humanity. The theory of

personality shows the teleological interrelation of our purposes; the

theory of humanity shows the teleological interrelation of all

nations. The name philosophy of history has been used mostly for the

theory of humanity only, abstracting from the fact that it has been

often misused for sociology or for the psychology of history or for

the philosophy of historical sciences—but the name belongs also to

the theory of personality. This theory of personality is exactly that

second kind of ‘psychology’ which does not describe and does not

explain but which interprets the inner teleological connections of the

real man. It is ‘voluntaristic psychology’ or, as others call it who

see correctly the relation of this science to history, ‘historical

psychology.’ It is practically ‘apperceptionistic psychology.’ The

special activities of the historical man divide themselves again into

volitions, thoughts, appreciations and beliefs, with their realization

in the state, law, economical systems, knowledge, art and religion.

Each of these special realizations must allow the same manifoldness in

treatment which we found with the special physical or psychical

objects; we can ask as to structure, relation to the general view and

development. But in accordance with the teleological material the

study of the structure here means ‘interpretation,’ the study of the

general relations here means study of the relation to civilization,

and the study of the development here means the real history. We have,

thus, for the state or law or economy or knowledge or art or religion

always one science which interprets the historical systems of state,

etc., in a systematic and philological way, one science which deals

with its function in the historical world and one which studies

biographically and nationally the history of state, law, economical

life, science, art or religion.

In the sphere of the practical sciences the divisions of the

theoretical sciences must repeat themselves. We have thus applied

physical, applied psychological, applied normative and applied

historical sciences, and it is again the antithesis of psychological

and of historical sciences which is of utmost importance and yet too

often neglected. The application of physical sciences, as in

engineering, medicine, etc., or the application of normative

knowledge in the sciences of criticism do not offer logical

difficulty, but the application of psychological and historical

knowledge does. Let us take the case of pedagogy or of penology,

merely as illustrations. Is the application of phenomenalistic

psychology or the application of teleological voluntarism in question?

Considering the child, the criminal, any man, as psychophysical

apparatus which must be objectively changed and treated, we have

applied psychology; considering him as subject with purposes, as

bearer of an historical civilization whose personalities must be

interpreted and understood and appreciated, then we need applied

historical knowledge. In the first case the science of pedagogy is a

psycho-technical discipline which makes education mechanical and

deprives the teacher of the teleological attitude of inner

understanding; in the second case it is a science of real education

far removed from psychology. All the sciences which deal with service

in the system of civilization, service as teacher, as judge, as social

helper, as artist, as minister, are sciences which apply the

teleological historical knowledge, and their meaning is lost if they

are considered as psycho-technical sciences only.

LIFE (in its immediate reality, felt as a system of telelogical

| experiences, involving the acknowledgement of other subjects of

| experiences)

|

|-VOLITION (will aiming towards new experiences).

| |-Individual: Practical Life.

| |-Overindividual: Mortality.

|

|-THOUGHT (will acknowledging the connection of experiences).

| |-Individual: Judgement

| |-Overindividual: TRUTH

| |-THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE (connection of experiences determined by

| | | pure experience).

| | |

| | |-KNOWLEDGE OF PHENOMENA (connection of experiences after

| | | | abstracting their will relations).

| | | |-Knowledge of Phenomena Given to Overindividual Consciousness.

| | | | |-I. PHYSICAL SCIENCES.

| | | | |-A. GENERAL LAWS.

| | | | | |-Mechanics.

| | | | | |-Physics.

| | | | | |-Chemistry.

| | | | |

| | | | |-B. SPECIAL OBJECTS.

| | | | |-1. Universe.

| | | | | |-Astronomy a, b, c.

| | | | |

| | | | |-2. Special Parts.

| | | | | |-Geography a, b, c.

| | | | |

| | | | |-3. Special Objects on Earth.

| | | | |-Inorganic.

| | | | | |-Mineralogy a, b, c.

| | | | |

| | | | |-Organic.

| | | | |-Plants.

| | | | | |-Botany a, b, c.

| | | | |

| | | | |-Animals.

| | | | |-Zoology a, b, c.

| | | | |-Anthropology a, b, c.

| | | |

| | | |-Knowledge of Phenomena given to Indiviual Consciousness.

| | | |-II. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES.

| | | |-A. GENERAL LAWS.

| | | | |-PHENOMENALISTIC PSYCHOLOGY

| | | | |-Animal Psychology.

| | | | |-Human psychology.

| | | | |-Individual Ps.

| | | | |-Normal.

| | | | | |-Child.

| | | | | |-Adult.

| | | | |

| | | | |-Abnormal.

| | | |

| | | |-B. SPECIAL OBJECTS.

| | | |-1. Mankind.

| | | | |-Race Psychology a, b, c.

| | | |-2. Special Functions.

| | | | |-Association of Men.

| | | | |-Sociology a, b, c.