Quote

The old metaphysical prejudice that man 'always thinks' has not yet entirely disappeared. I am myself inclined to hold that man really thinks very little and very seldom.

Wilhelm Wundt

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Wilhelm Wundt
Age: 88 †
Born: 1832
Born: August 16
Died: 1920
Died: August 31
Philosopher
Physician
Physiologist
Politician
Psychologist
University Teacher
Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt
Thinks
Hold
Disappeared
Littles
Inclined
Little
Metaphysical
Really
Seldom
Always
Psychology
Men
Entirely
Thinking
Prejudice

More quotes by Wilhelm Wundt

Image
Psychology must not only strive to become a useful basis for the other mental sciences, but it must also turn again and again to the historical sciences, in order to obtain an understanding for the more highly developed metal processes.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Physiology seeks to derive the processes in our own nervous system from general physical forces, without considering whether these processes are or are not accompanied by processes of consciousness.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Some say that everything that is called a psychical law is nothing but the psychological reflex of physical combinations, which is made up of sensations joined to certain central cerebral processes... It is contradicted by the fact of consciousness itself, which cannot possibly be derived from any physical qualities of material molecules or atoms.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
The results of ethnic psychology constitute, at the same time, our chief source of information regarding the general psychology of the complex mental processes.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
We know, from ordinary life, that we are not able to direct our attention perfectly steadily and uniformly to one and the same object... At times the attention turns towards the object most intensely, and at times the energy flags.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
The animal kingdom exhibits a series of mental developments which may be regarded as antecedents to the mental development of man, for the mental life of animals shows itself to be throughout, in its elements and in the general laws governing the combination of the elements, the same as the mental life of man.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Our mind is so fortunately equipped, that it brings us the most important bases for our thoughts without our having the least knowledge of this work of elaboration. Only the results of it become unconscious.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Hence, wherever we meet with vital phenomena that present the two aspects, physical and psychical there naturally arises a question as to the relations in which these aspects stand to each other.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
On the other hand, ethnic psychology must always come to the assistance of individual psychology, when the developmental forms of the complex mental processes are in question.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
The task of physiological psychology remains the same in the analysis of ideas that it was in the investigation of sensations: to act as mediator between the neighbouring sciences of physiology and psychology.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Experimental psychology itself has, it is true, now and again suffered relapse into a metaphysical treatment of its problems.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
In the animal world, on the other hand, the process of evolution is characterised by the progressive discrimination of the animal and vegetative functions, and a consequent differentiation of these two great provinces into their separate departments.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
The general statement that the mental faculties are class concepts, belonging to descriptive psychology, relieves us of the necessity of discussing them and their significance at the present stage of our inquiry.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
The materialistic point of view in psychology can claim, at best, only the value of an heuristic hypothesis.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
There are other sources of psychological knowledge, which become accessible at the very point where the experimental method fails us.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Physiology is concerned with all those phenomena of life that present them selves to us in sense perception as bodily processes, and accordingly form part of that total environment which we name the external world.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Hence, even in the domain of natural science the aid of the experimental method becomes indispensable whenever the problem set is the analysis of transient and impermanent phenomena, and not merely the observation of persistent and relatively constant objects.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
Now, there are a very large number of bodily movements, having their source in our nervous system, that do not possess the character of conscious actions.
Wilhelm Wundt
Image
We speak of virtue, honour, reason but our thought does not translate any one of these concepts into a substance.
Wilhelm Wundt