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Analysis of ConsciousnessThe formal launching of psychology as a separate science occurred in 1879 whenWilhelm Wundt opened his Psychological Institute at the University of Leipzig. Wundt was a physiologist and philosopher who had made contributions to both of these fields. In addition to his exper_ iments in psychology, he was to continue making important contribu_ tions to philosophy. The new movement was not so much a revolt against mental philos_ ophy as an attempt to get psychology out of an impasse, by utilizing the experimental method of physiology and physics. No science is, in an absolute sense, independent of philosophy. Psy_ chology has never completely broken away from philosophy and the two disciplines will always have much in common, since scientific endeavours psychological or otherwise, are preceded and followed by speculation. Today there is a flourishing branch of philosophy, the phi_ losophy of science, which critically examines the aims, methods and conclusions of all sciences. Scientific psychology at first took over the same apparatus and methods with which physiologists and physicists had been investi_ gating behaviour and experience. Very soon, however, psychologists were finding new problems and devising apparatus and procedures of their own. Most of the early psychological experiments dealt with experience. There was only incidental interest in a scientific study of behaviour as such: that is, in what persons said and did. Individual observers were trained to attend to and describe their experience while the experi_ menter made various changes in light, sound and other external con_ ditions. He also made experimental changes in physiological condi_ tions (fatigue, hunger, thirst). The method of attending to and describing experiences under known external and internal conditions was called experimental introspection. The chief aim of Wundt and his students was to discover the ingre_ dients of conscious experience. It was claimed, that it could be ana_ lyzed into its elements (sensations and so on). Especially there was an effort to discover the relations between stimuli, physiological struc_ tures, and particular types of experience. Because of emphasis upon conscious experience, psychology was at that time designated the sci_ ence of consciousness.
Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1773
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