A tale of two psychologies: The Høffding–Lehmann controversy and the establishment of experimental psychology at the University of Copenhagen
✍ Scribed by Jörgen L. Pind
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2009
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 162 KB
- Volume
- 45
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-5061
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Alfred Lehmann (1858–1921) was the pioneer of experimental psychology in Denmark. He established a laboratory of psychophysics in Copenhagen in 1886 after spending a winter in Wundt's laboratory. Philosophical psychology had been taught for the better part of the nineteenth century at the University of Copenhagen and had enjoyed a positivistic turn with the philosophers Harald Høffding (1843–1931) and Kristian Kroman (1846–1925). Shortly after establishing his laboratory, Lehmann criticized Høffding's theory of “unmediated recognition,” which led to a sharp dispute between them on the nature of recognition. It has been claimed that this was a direct cause of Lehmann's slow advance at the University of Copenhagen. Archival sources show that Høffding, though having a very different conception of psychology from Lehmann, was on most occasions supportive of Lehmann and thus played an important role in establishing experimental psychology at the University of Copenhagen. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.