Whilhelm Maximilian Wundt

 

In this text Wundt challenges associationist and rationalist psychology and suggests that what we need is a careful analysis of the more elementary psychical processes, of the facts of attention and of the wider scope of consciousness, as well as of the relations between them and of the manifold affective processes that intervene in all these cases.
It is rejected the view that humans could be able to explain what happens when they are thinking by simply turning their attention directly to their own consciousness.
In Wundt’s view, nothing can be discovered of the most complicated psychical processes if they are investigated directly and without any further preparation. As a consequence, direct observation of internal mental states is not scientifically accomplishable, Wundt’s “introspection” being not a naïve operation as too often reported.

 

introspection, psychology, methodology, self-observation