The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazineVarious
Philosophy
The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 : $b A quarterly magazine
Various
Philosophy -- Periodicals
The much fought over and much disputed province of psycho-physics has
also been entered on by a younger psychologist, who has already acquired
a considerable name,—by Hugo Münsterberg, docent at the university of
Freiburg in Baden. In his _Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie_,
which are published in parts at indefinite periods by Mohr of Freiburg in
Baden—three parts have already been published—Münsterberg raises, in the
first place, a vigorous protest against Wundt; repudiating on the basis
of the results of independent experiment the apperception hypothesis
which has been propounded by the scientist mentioned, and producing proof
that all kinds of so-called apperception are reducible to associations
of the representative activity. Secondly, he offers us in the third part
a new foundation on which to base psycho-physics. It is, of course,
impossible, in so difficult a subject, to reproduce briefly yet clearly
the developments to which Münsterberg devotes one hundred and twenty-two
pages. But we will at least supply a few hints with regard to what this
new foundation of psycho-physics is.
In the first place, Münsterberg rejects the notion that prevails with
Fechner and his school, that a powerful sensation is a multiple of a
weaker one, by which the first can be measured. The stronger sensation
is, says he, in comparison with the weaker one something wholly new;
for, accurately considered, the intensity of a sensation is also of a
qualitative nature. However, we are not by any means at liberty to infer
from this that the measurement of psychical quantities is impossible.
To appreciate this, it is first requisite that we should get clear
ideas with respect to the psychological foundation of our physical
measurements. The only foundation of these last is our muscular feeling,
to this extent, that all measurement is founded on the measurement of
quantities of space, time, and mass, and any estimate of the latter is
only possible on the basis of the muscular feeling that enters as a
factor in the conceptions involved. All physical measurement rests on the
establishment, and therefore reproduction, of _like_ muscular sensations;
on exactly the same foundation rests also all measurement of psychical
quantities, of intensities of sensation, and since this foundation is
the same, for this very reason the same justification is due to the
measurement of psychical intensity as is due to physical measurements.
This is the foundation on which the psycho-physics of Münsterberg is
raised, which for a fuller view must be studied in the third part of the
“Beiträge” itself.
CHR. UFER.
Altenburg, November, 1891.
DIVERSE TOPICS.
THE CLERGY’S DUTY OF ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN
WORLD-CONCEPTIONS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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