A Text-Book in Psychology an Attempt to Found the Science of Psychology, on Experience, Metaphysics, and Mathematics

by Johann Friedrich Herbart

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Genres: Psychology, Philosophy

254 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 2013

About the author

Johann Friedrich Herbart was a German philosopher, psychologist, and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline.

Herbart is now remembered amongst the post-Kantian philosophers mostly as making the greatest contrast to Hegel; this in particular in relation to aesthetics. That does not take into account his thought on education.

Reviews

[Erick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Herbart was a student of Fichte. But, like Schopenhauer, his philosophy was partially a reaction against Idealism. And, like Schopenhauer, Herbart was an influence on the burgeoning field of scientific psychology. Herbart's contribution was a little more direct in that he considered his philosophy to be a pretext to scientific psychology. Schopenhauer was incredibly influential in the field of psychology, but he was still working within the field of philosophical metaphysics primarily. Their antagonism to Idealism shouldn't be over estimated, though. Both shared much with their Idealist precursors.

This work was really interesting; although, I felt it was way too discursive. His terminology was often too obscure for me - not being sufficiently acquainted with his other works. More examples needed to be given as to the reaction of conscious and unconscious modes to concepts. His reference to "mechanical" and "statical" dispositions was intriguing, but it wasn't explained in enough detail here. He does provide more examples of the practical application of his terminology in the latter half of the book, but it was still insufficient. I would probably have to study his system in more detail to be able to fully appreciate his philosophy. What I was able to gather was really interesting, though. As I said above, Herbart shouldn't be removed from Idealism totally. His position on how concepts interact with each other still suggests an Idealist perspective to a degree. Partially because he saw concepts as embodying the thesis-antithesis-synthesis framework of Idealism. Concepts can either be in absolute conflict, or be seemingly compatible. He saw the relationship between concepts as an arch which suggests enough overlap to allow compatibility, but a tapering which moves into conflict. He also recognized the role that an unconscious dedication to concepts plays in how we react to new information, i.e. concepts. The longer a concept is held by a particular person, the more it becomes ingrained in the unconscious, thus the more difficulty in entertaining any contrasting concept. This seems to be relevant to how cognitive dissonance can influence a person's mental state. Apparently, to even entertain a conflicting concept means that the unconscious is already cognizant of the concept's merit.

His thought warrants more study. I give this a favorable review, but lament that there is insufficient detail here to really have an adequate understanding. It should probably be noted that you do have in Herbart one of the earliest uses of the word "ego" in a psychological setting. Herbart had a tendency to use the word "soul" (German Seele) rather than psyche though. At some point the Greek word for soul became a word denoting the human mind. By Jung, this had become commonplace. Herbart still had a notable amount of metaphysics in his psychology, including an obvious theism and a belief in life after death.