William Wundt, born in Baden, Germany on August 16, 1832, was the son of a Lutheran pastor. He was quite the studious boy, and solitary at that. At the ripe age of 19, he was sent to Tubingen, Heidelburg and Berlin to study medicine. Despite his family's wishes, he was more interested in the science what makes people tick, then a medical career.Wundt became assistant professor at Heidelburg in 1864 and, three years later, developed a course called physiological psychology. This class studied the area between physiology and psychology. This philosophy would eventually develop into ...view middle of the document...
This opposed belief of all earlier philosophers, such as Kant.Wundt developed a method to contemplate one's own thoughts, feelings and sensations. He said that the researcher should carefully observe some simple event, one that could be measured to a quality, intensity or duration. He should then record all responses to those events. Don't forget that in German philosophy of that time, all sensations were considered physiological events, and therefore they were internal to the mind, even though sensation is something that is outside the mind. In today's time, what we might call observation was called Wundt introspection back in the day.After founding this idea, Wundt continued on to become chair of "inductive philosophy" at Zurich in 1874, then professor of philosophy at Leipzig, where he remained for the next 45 years. In 1875, a separate classroom was set aside for his experimentation in sensation and perception. We celebrate this year as the founding of experimental psychology, due to William Wundt. In 1881, he began his journal "Philosophische Studien." The following year, he began instructing his first class titled experimental psychology. Soon afterward, his efforts were rewarded with the establishment of the first ever "Institute for Experimental Psychology" at Leipzig.
