Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) is a character studied in every psychology faculty in the world. This German was a physiologist, philosopher and psychologist and created the first laboratory of Experimental Psychology in history. Through the scientific method he proposed to study in depth the immediate human experience, to measure it and to categorize it.

Based on his knowledge as a physiologist, he inaugurated Experimental Psychology by measuring reaction times, that is, by timing how long it takes our organism to generate a reaction to a stimulus. He is also one of the first discoverers of the relationship between certain areas of the brain and behaviour. In addition, he is also credited with the first steps in the scientific knowledge of certain mental disorders whose cause is disease in a specific area of the brain.

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Wundt’s famous phrases

A central figure in the beginnings of Psychology, but at the same time an unknown character in popular culture. In this article we will recover the best phrases of Wilhelm Wundt and an explanation to contextualize each of them.

1. The point of view of materialistic psychology can affirm, at most, only the value of a heuristic hypothesis.

Famous quote that inquires about science and one of its basic precepts.

2. The general statement that mental faculties are class concepts, belonging to descriptive psychology, frees us from the need to discuss them and their importance in the current stage of our research.

One of his greatest efforts was to create the right environment to measure mental processes.

3. Our mind is so equipped, fortunately, that it leads us to the most important bases for our thoughts without our having the least knowledge of this work of elaboration. The results of this work remain unconscious.

About the wonders of the human mind.

4. Physiology and Psychology, within the field of vital phenomena, are concerned with the facts of life in general, and in particular with the facts of human life.

Describing his two favorite scientific fields.

5. Physiological psychology is therefore first of all psychology.

Physiology is the basis of what we do, according to Wilhelm Wundt.

6. The point of view of materialistic psychology can affirm, at most, only the value of a heuristic hypothesis.

A good reflection on the observable.

7. The psychology of the people must always come to the aid of individual psychology, when the forms of development of complex mental processes are questioned.

From the general to the individual, and with a therapeutic utility.

8. Child psychology and animal psychology are of relatively small importance, compared to the sciences dealing with the corresponding physiological problems of ontogeny and phylogeny.

In this sentence, Wundt established a kind of hierarchical categorization between disciplines.

9. Physiological psychology is competent to investigate the relationships between physical and mental life processes.

A simple and concrete description of physiological psychology.

10. The attitude of physiological psychology to sensations and feelings, considered as psychic elements, is naturally the attitude of psychology in general.

From one of his most famous works: Principles of Physiological Psychology .

11. The distinguishing features of the mind are merely subjective; we know them only through the contents of our own consciousness.

A great line by Wilhelm Wundt about the nature of the mind.

12. We speak of virtue, honour, reason, but our thought does not translate one of these concepts into a substance.

They are metaphysical elements that we can only access through our morality.

13. Therefore, even in the natural science domain the aid of the experimental method makes it indispensable whenever the set of problems is the analysis of transitory and impermanent phenomena, and not only the observation of persistent and relatively constant objects.

A comprehensive analysis must take into account more than a single investigation.