Eighteenth-century German empirical psychology and the historiography of scientific objectivity

The ferment of knowledge. Studies in the historiography of eighteenth-century science

Though the eighteenth century has often been seen as an epoch in which European science was beleaguered in Augustan calm, stagnation, or even torpor, contemporaries thought otherwise. D'Alembert, for instance, deemed that all the sciences had been recently transformed in an unprecedented intellectual ferment. It is that ferment of knowledge which is examined by the twelve contributors to this a...

Annalists and historians. Western historiography from the eighth to the eighteenth century

DENYS HAY, Annalists and historians. Western historiography from the eighth to the eighteenth century, London, Methuen, 1977, 8vo, pp. viii, 215, £2.95 (paperback). For very nearly forty years the distinguished Professor of Medieval History in the University of Edinburgh has planned to write a history of European historiography. He now does so with a brilliant survey, ranging from the historian...

Psychology as a natural science in the eighteenth century.

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian “physics” or “natural philosophy” of the soul. C. Wolff placed psychology under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Scottish thinkers placed it within moral philosophy, but distinguished its “physical” laws from properly moral laws (for guiding conduct). Several Germans sought to establish an autonomous empirical Psychology as...

Reductionism: Historiography and Psychology

Scientific Psychology in the 18th Century

As early as 1783, the almost forgotten philosopher, metaphysicist, and psychologist Ferdinand Ueberwasser (1752– 1812) designated himself “Professor für empirische Psychologie und Logik” (professor of empirical psychology and logic) at the University of Münster, Germany. His position was initiated and supported by the minister and educational reformer Franz von Fürstenberg (1729–1810), who cons...