PSYA01H3 Chapter Notes -Wilhelm Wundt
Document Summary
Psychology has origins in both philosophy and physiology. Philosophers are interested in questions like do people have free will and. Are people inherently good or evil and in a different sense, so are psychologists. Philosophers answer questions through rationalism (finding answers through reason and logic) Psychologists today have adopted more physiological approaches to answer questions posed by philosophers- but through scientific methods. A philosopher would look at reason and logic to answer questions whereas a physiologist would look at scientific methods founding fathers of psych are willhelm wundt and william james, they set up the first psych lab. Wundt, von helmholtz, fechner and other 19c german psychologists are now considered to have followed the structuralist viewpoint, which emphasizes the elemental constituents of experience. They thought that, like bricks in a wall, human experience was built up of elemental sensations. William james was a medical doctor, philosopher and physiologist, and studied many aspects of psychology.
