Ziche P
Institut fur Geschichte der Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik Ernst-Haeckel-Haus - Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena.
Physis Riv Int Stor Sci. 1999;36(2):407-29.
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), the first to establish an Institute devoted exclusively to psychological research in Germany, started his career as a (neuro)physiologist. He gradually turned into a psychologist in the 1860's and 1870's, at a time when neuroscience had to deal with the problem of giving an adequate physiological interpretation of the data accumulated by neuroanatomy. Neither the functional interpretation of brain morphology, nor the options provided by the reflex model seemed acceptable to Wundt. In his Physiological Psychology, first published in 1874, Wundt adds another aspect to this discussion by showing that psychology may help, and indeed is required, to clarify some of the most controversial problems in brain research. He thus became a key figure in neuroscience's struggle to locate itself within the various research traditions. The following theses will be argued for: 1. Wundt's turn to psychology resulted from his view that the methodological basis of physiological brain research of the time was unsatisfactory. 2. Psychology, in its attempt to solve these problems, implied a new conception of an interaction between experimental and theoretical brain research. 3. Wundt tried to demonstrate the necessity of psychological considerations for experimental brain research. These points are discussed with reference to Wundt's treatment of the localization of functions in the brain. According to Wundt, psychology can show, by analyzing the complex structure of intellect and will, that mental phenomena can be realized in the brain only in the form of complex interations of the elements of the brain. The results of the psychological considerations imply that a strict localizations cannot be correct; but they are also turned against the conception of a complete functional equivalence of the various parts of the cortext. For Wundt, a reconstruction of brain processes cannot start with neurones, but only with patterns of a functional organization of brain activity. Wundt accordingly proposes a functional interpretation on the level of the physiology of nervous tissue as well as for the over-all organization of the brain.
威廉·冯特（1832 - 1920）是德国首位创建专门致力于心理学研究机构的人，他最初是一名（神经）生理学家。在19世纪60年代和70年代，当神经科学必须应对如何对神经解剖学积累的数据给出充分生理学解释这一问题时，他逐渐转变为一名心理学家。冯特认为，无论是对脑形态的功能解释，还是反射模型所提供的选项，似乎都不可接受。在1874年首次出版的《生理心理学》中，冯特通过表明心理学可能有助于，而且实际上是澄清脑研究中一些最具争议问题所必需的，为这一讨论增添了另一个层面。因此，他成为神经科学在各种研究传统中努力定位自身过程中的关键人物。以下论点将得到论证：1. 冯特转向心理学是因为他认为当时生理脑研究的方法基础不令人满意。2. 心理学在试图解决这些问题时，意味着一种关于实验性和理论性脑研究之间相互作用的新观念。3. 冯特试图证明心理因素对实验性脑研究的必要性。这些观点将结合冯特对脑功能定位的论述进行讨论。按照冯特的观点，心理学可以通过分析智力和意志的复杂结构表明，心理现象只能以脑元素的复杂相互作用形式在脑中实现。心理思考的结果意味着严格的定位不可能正确；但这些结果也与皮质各部分完全功能等效的观念相悖。对冯特来说，脑过程的重建不能从神经元开始，而只能从脑活动功能组织的模式开始。因此，冯特在神经组织生理学层面以及脑的整体组织方面都提出了一种功能解释。
