Reason and the Rise of Modern Psychology

Reason and the Rise of Modern Psychology

The Enlightenment period of the 18th century and the scientific and industrial revolutions of the 19th century established reason as the dominant guiding principle. Yet, by the eve of World War One, during the Age of Empire, this reason-based, mechanistic worldview began to exhibit instability. Eric Hobswamn’s book chapters called “The Arts Transformed”, “Certainties Undermined”, and “Reason and Society” explore this change through the lens of arts and science, both natural and social. In this paper, drawing on Hobsbawm’s account of how reason and certainty were undermined in sciences in the early twentieth century, I examined whether similar shifts can be observed within psychology. 

At that time, to be scientific was regarded as an intellectual honor. The degree to which a discipline was considered scientific depended on how closely it resembled the natural sciences, particularly physics. Auguste Comte referred to his new field of sociology as “social physics”. This is the case also in psychology, whose foundation is dated to 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt established his laboratory in Leipzig. Along with Wilhelm Wundt, other founding “fathers” of modern psychology are Gustav Theodor Fechner, Hermann von Helmholtz and Ernst Weber. All were trained in physiology and applied the methodologies of physics to study physiological processes. From their works, experimental psychology as a discipline arose (Schultz & Schultz, 2007).

While these were happening in psychology, situation in natural sciences showed somewhat contradictory phenomena. Einstein’s theory of relativity challenged the previously stable, atomistic worldview of Newtonian mechanics—a world that was structured, predictable, and ultimately knowable. Some thinkers raised concerns about this way of doing science and worldview. Edmund Husserl, founder of phenomenology, is among those (Hobswman, 1989). However, it should be noted that Husserl is not against science, he is not on the side of some kind of mysticism or blurry mode of thinking. He was still in search of something systematic (Husserl, 2024). Nevertheless, he held concerns about the intellectual situation of his period.

Although mainstream psychology largely remained faithful to the physics-based model, some theories at the margin began to question this. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and Gestalt psychology can be two examples. Freud’s saying “Man is not master in his own house” and his discovery of unconsciousness implies that there are still unknown and irrational dimensions in human life that cannot be fully grasped through mechanistic explanation. Similar to Husserl, Freud was not against science. Even he introduced psychoanalysis as a scientific field, although many contemporaries and later scholars contested this claim (Weinert, 2009).

Gestalt psychology, founded in the early 20th century, also emerged as a challenge to Wundtian, elementarist and reductionist approaches. Its founders, including Max Wertheimer, emphasized that mental phenomena cannot be understood by analyzing parts in isolation but must be studied as organized wholes. They said “whole” cannot be understood by “sum total of parts” (Köhler, 1929). It seems to me striking that both Husserl and founding figures of Gestalt theory were influenced by Franz Brentano (Wertheimer, 2012). Emphasis on consciousness and holistic perception was shared by two. While the details of the relationship between Gestalt theory and phenomenology are beyond the scope of this paper, I personally plan to research that connection further.

 In this paper, I have attempted to interpret the changing understanding of science on the eve of World War I through the lens of modern psychology. The social sciences, in their early formation, took the natural sciences—especially physics—as their model. However, towards the war, physics itself was undergoing a crisis of certainty. This is also the period marginal figures such as Freud and the Gestalt psychologists began to offer alternative ways of understanding human beings. Their approaches were both at the margin of mainstream psychology and yet deeply attuned to the intellectual atmosphere of their time.

References

Hobsbawm, E. J. (1989). The age of empire: 1875-1914. Vintage Books. (Original work published 1987)

Husserl, E. (2024). Fenomenoloji üzerine beş ders (H. Tepe, Trans., 5th ed.). Bilgesu. (Original work dated 1907)

Köhler, W. (1929). Gestalt psychology. Horace Liveright. 

Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2007). Modern psikoloji tarihi (Y. Aslay, Trans.). Kaknüs. (Original work published 1969)

Weinert, F. (2009). Copernicus, Darwin, & Freud: Revolutions in the history and philosophy of science. Wiley-Blackwell. 

Wertheimer, M. (2012). A brief history of psychology (5th ed.). Psychology Press.