Sixteen Experimental Investigations from the Harvard Psychological Laboratory, Hugo Münsterberg [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗
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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.
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