Introspection and the Würzburg School

Abstract

Abstract. In the early 20th century, scholars of the so-called Würzburg School departed from the conventional approach of psychological enquiry and developed a unique type of introspection that uncovered promising findings and paved the road for important developments in experimental psychology. Despite their early success, introspection was subsequently criticized and the Würzburg School disappeared soon after its protagonists had died or separated. The classical explanation for this development is that introspection has ultimately been a subjective and flawed endeavor. In the current paper we argue, by contrast, that the way the Würzburgers conducted introspection was in fact more of an extended type of third-person observation, not a genuine form of first-person research. Hence, their approach did not constitute a strong counterweight to the emerging third-person doctrine of the time and there was thus little need to maintain introspection as an independent paradigm. Such methodological aspects, as well as, biographical and historical factors contributed to the decline of introspection more so than the claim that introspection is a flawed approach per se. We suggest that a more direct form of introspection is needed to explore important phenomena within psychology which so far have been often approached one-sidedly.

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