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21 February 2022

PS450: Fechner & Psychophysics Assignment

Gustav Fechner’s 19th century founding of Psychophysics, which served as the beginning of modern psychology, was an attempt to formally study the human soul; that is, create a mathematical description of the relationship between the world described by physics and the human soul represented by consciousness.

You will read the manuscript “The Man who Introduced Soul to Science: Gustav Theodor Fechner” and write a critical analysis/response. Your response should be 5-8 pages and include the following:

1) A summary of the reading describing the central points, issues, or themes.

2) An explanation of the significance of this manuscript to the history of psychology

3) A detailed explanation of the position described drawing on outside sources to shape your explanation. You should include the following:

a. Define Fechner’s Psychophysics

b. Naturphilosophie (Natural Philosophy) is considered the precursor of modern natural science. What was its goal?

c. Fechner earned his medical degree in 1822 and became a Dozent in physiology at Leipzig Medical School. Within a couple of years his academic interests changed. What did they change to and what were the underlying reasons for the change?

d. In December 1839, he resigned his professorship and went into a lengthy period of seclusion. Why?

e. Between 1851 and 1860, Fechner worked out the rationale for measuring human sensory experience in terms of thresholds and just noticeable differences. What, in Fechner’s Psychophysics, is a threshold and what does it imply?

f. What is Fechner’s relationship to Wilhelm Wundt?

Fechner Assignment

PS450-02

The history of modern science can be traced back to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Thus, this time in history can be understood as a progressive movement away from the influence of theology and philosophy, and toward a more mechanistic and material description of the universe (Fox, 2021). In its entirety, there was a progression away from studying the soul. How so?**

Despite this progression, Gustav Fechner attempted to continue his formal study of the human soul. Fechner was doing something pretty unique here. What was the status of the human soul in pre-Fechner science – do some exploration**. His work in this area became known as Psychophysics, a term referring to the mathematical relationship between the physical world and the human soul (Fox, 2021). In this context, the human soul was represented by consciousness (Fox, 2021).

While Fechner studied in medical school, he was exposed to and became devoted to Natural Philosophy, or Naturphilosophie. This study was considered the precursor of modern natural science, and had the goal of unifying nature (Fox, 2021). This unity was seen in the romantic worldview of Johann von Goethe and Georg Hegel (Fox, 2021). What was this romantic world view? Who were Goethe & Hegel & what was their worldview.**

Fechner earned his medical degree in 1822 and began lecturing in physiology at the Leipzig Medical School, but his academic interests soon changed. After doing translation for Jena Baptiste’s, “Précis élémentaire de physique expérimentale”, or “The element of experimental physics,” Fechner appreciated the precise results produced from careful experimentation and observation in physics, and as a result, changed his field to physics and began lecturing and researching in this discipline (Fox, 2021). This is basically good – but why was he translating physics? What was lacking in physiology of the time that was present in physics?**

However, by 1839, Fechner resigned his professorship. This was due to a combination of physical and emotional symptoms resulting from the immense amount (of what**) stemming from his professorship (Fox, 2021). (was it simply his professorship – he had that since 1823**) Fechner’s symptoms included headaches, insomnia, and symptoms of neurosis, and he eventually developed a debilitating eye disorder (Fox, 2021). Why did he develop these disorders?** This eye disorder caused Fechner to be unable to read and write, which ultimately led to his resignation as a professor and his entering into a period of seclusion (Fox, 2021).

After a lengthy process of recovery, Fechner returned to professorship in the field of philosophy (Fox, 2021). Why switch fields?** After some time, he determined that a scientific foundation was needed to explain the relationship between the physical world and the human soul, which began his study and development of psychophysics. Between 1851 and 1860, as part of his study of psychophysics, Fechner studied human sensation using thresholds and just-noticeable differences (Fox, 2021). He described the threshold as the point between where the mind/soul is consciously aware of physical stimulation, and where the mind/soul is not consciously aware of this information (Fox, 2021). This implies that there must be some conditions that allow some stimulations to occur unconsciously, and other conditions that allow stimulation to occur consciously (Fox, 2021). Essentially, there must be some relationship between the physical world and the mind/soul’s awareness of it. Why is this important?**

The way in which Fechner studied psychophysics became a newly emerging scientific psychology. His methods inspired Wilhelm Wundt, a physician and neurophysiologist who created the first laboratory where the conscious experience could be scientifically studied (Fox, 2021). Why is this important?** Wundt felt that this study of the conscious experience was best done through Fechner’s psychophysics, which allowed understanding of the complexity of the unconscious mind (Fox, 2021). Overtime, Wundt and Fechner developed a close relationship, illustrated by the fact that Wundt edited and published Fechner’s Theory of Measuring Collectives and Elements of Psychophysics after Fechner’s death (Fox, 2021). Wundt remembered Fechner as the father of psychophysics (Fox, 2021).

Reference

Fox, C.R. (2021). The man who introduced Soul to Science: Gustav Theodor Fechner. Paradigm

Explorer.

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The Man who
Introduced
Soul to Science:
Gustav Theodor
Fechner
Charles R Fox, O.D., Ph.D.

This article provides a
fascinating insight into an
important but relatively
neglected figure.

In Carl Gustav Jung’s autobiography
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
(1961/1989), he talks about his medical
education. Jung originally entered medical
school intending to pursue internal
medicine; as he progressed, he was invited
to become an assistant to Fredrich von
Müller and was on the path to specializing
in this field. Throughout medical school,
he was uninterested in psychiatry, a field
generally held in contempt by the medicine
of the time. What shifted his medical
specialization to psychiatry was preparing
for the state examination. As he was
finishing up his exam preparations, he
had a revelation upon read Krafft-Ebing’s
Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie (Textbook of
Psychiatry, 1879).

“My excitement was intense, for it
had become clear to me, in a flash of
illumination, that for me the only possible
goal was psychiatry. Here alone the two
currents of my interest could flow together
and in a united stream dig their own bed.
Here was the empirical field common
to biological and spiritual facts, which
I had everywhere sought and nowhere
found. Here at last was the place where
the collision of nature and spirit became
a reality.”

My own career in psychology had a
similar progression as my undergraduate
interests in philosophy, theology,
natural sciences, and biological sciences
coalesced into the study of experimental
psychology. It is only recently, since I
have been studying and teaching the

history of psychology, that I started truly
understanding how the very roots of
psychology included the scientific study of
the soul.

The concept of a human soul has a
long history, yet modern science largely
rejects this concept leaving it to the
more traditional domains of theology
and philosophy. The history of modern
science, tracing from the Renaissance, to
the Enlightenment, to Darwin’s theory
of Evolution by Natural Selection, etc.,
can be seen as a progressive movement
away from the influence of theology
and philosophy to a more mechanistic
and material description of the universe;
that is, a movement away from studying
the soul. However, Gustav Fechner’s
19th century founding of Psychophysics,
which served as the beginning of
modern psychology, was an attempt to
formally study the human soul; that is,
create a mathematical description of the
relationship between the world described
by physics and the human soul represented
by consciousness.

Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801 – 1887)
came from a religious family. His father
and grandfather were pastors and his
mother came from a family of pastors.
At the age of sixteen, he entered the
University of Leipzig School of Medicine;
this was the same year that Ernst Weber
joined as a Dozent (a mid-level academic
rank). During his medical education,
his interest in religious faith decreased

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while his interest in the natural sciences
increased. Even so, he soon became
disillusioned with his medical studies
though he did complete a degree allowing
him to teach. His disillusionment with
medicine lead him to seek out lectures
on sensory physiology by Weber and
mathematics by Karl Mollweide. Both of
these men worked in perception, an area
of increasing interest for Fechner.

In 1820, while still in medical school, he
was introduced to ‘Natural Philosophy’
through reading Lorenz Oken’s Lehrbuch
zur Naturphilosophie (1809). Natural
Philosophy was the prescientific,
philosophical study of the physical
universe; it is considered the precursor of
modern natural science. In 19th century
Germany, Naturphilosophie was an
attempt to unify nature as seen in the
romantic worldview of e.g., Johann
von Goethe and Georg Hegel versus the

more mechanical worldview of e.g., John
Locke and Isaac Newton. Fechner was
excited by Oken’s speculations about the
unity of nature in contrast to medicine’s
more mechanistic view. Fechner wrote
“A new light seemed to me to illuminate
the whole world and the sciences of the
world; I was dazzled by it.” For the next
four years, Fechner devoted himself to
Naturphilosophie. However, he was
critical of its methods and in fact wrote,
under the pseudonym Dr. Mises, a satire
on them (Stapelia mixta, 1824). He soon
became frustrated by Naturphilosophie.

Fechner earned his medical degree in 1822
and the next year he started lecturing
in physiology at his Alma Mater, the
Leipzig Medical School. To help support
himself, he also began translating Précis
élémentaire de physique expérimentale
(The element of experimental physics)
by French physicist Jena Baptiste

Biot. He noted that Biot, by following
careful methods of experimentation and
observation, produced precise results
of the type missing in both Natural
Philosophy and medicine. By 1824,
Fechner changed his field and began
doing research in and lecturing on
physics. Still needing additional income,
Fechner continued translating science
writings and by 1830 he had translated
more than twelve volumes of physics
and chemistry. By 1834, with over 40
publications in physics, he was appointed
professor of physics at Leipzig and soon
created the first Institute for Physics in
Germany. A few years later, his interest
in psychology began manifesting and,
in 1838 and 1840, he published papers
investigating the connection between the
physical phenomenon of light and its
subjective perception. At this same time,
he wrote, again under the nom-de-plume
of Dr. Mises, The Little Book on Life
After Death maintaining that individual
consciousness (i.e., soul) survived after
death. This indicates Fechner’s lifelong
dual interest in philosophical metaphysics
and experimental science.

Fechner’s professorship and heavy
translating load resulted in a great deal of
stress and, in the autumn of 1839, Fechner
was emotionally exhausted and suffering
from headaches, insomnia, lethargy, and
symptoms of neurosis; modern authors
suggest he was suffering from serious
neurotic depression with hypochondriacal
preoccupation. In addition to these
physical and mental issues, Fechner was
nearly blind. In doing his experimental
work studying sensory after-images, he
spent extended amounts of time looking
directly at the sun. This resulted in a
painful and debilitating eye disorder, most
likely solar retinopathy. This disorder is
damage to the nerves in the back of the
eye (the retina) from prolonged exposure
to solar radiation; these retinal nerves
transmit information to primary visual
cortex of the brain (and elsewhere) and
allows us to see.

Light was very painful for Fechner
to the point where he had to live in a
completely darkened room and to wear
a blindfold; he was unable to read or
write. In December 1839, he resigned his
professorship and went into a lengthy
period of seclusion. His mental health
continued to decline, most likely due
to ‘black patch psychosis.’ This is a
condition seen in some patients who have
both eyes patched closed and, in severe
cases, can result in auditory and visual
hallucinations as well as delusions. At the

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time, little was known of these disorders
and no medical treatment helped him;
desperate, his doctors attempted a remedy
from traditional Chinese medicine. This
treatment resulted in no improvement and
in fact created GI problems that quickly
emaciated him.

Fechner wrote that only two things
prevented him from sinking into complete
oblivion: the care of his wife and his
religious faith (remember he came from
a line of pastors). Slowly, a process of
recovery began and by Christmas of 1843,
Fechner believed “…God himself…”
called him to do extraordinary things.
Three years later he returned to a
professorship at Leipzig. During his period
of seclusion, his interests increasingly
focused on metaphysics and, returning
to Leipzig, he requested returning as a
professor of philosophy. He had no formal
lecturing responsibilities but voluntarily
gave lectures, frequently on the soul. His
1848 manuscript, Nanna, oder Über
das Seelenleben der Pflanzen (Nanna, or
About the Soul Life of Plants), contains
his first explicit, philosophical treatment
of the problem of the relationship of soul
to body.

In his 1851 book, Zend-Avesta oder über
die Dinge des Himmels und des Jenseits
(Zend-Avesta, or Concerning Matters of
Heaven and the World to Come), Fechner
set forth a more detailed theory of human
soul-body relations. He postulated that
human, indeed all things, had a soul and
that the human soul has an effect on the
body.1

Fechner thought that this philosophical
framework required a solid scientific
foundation. He reported that on the
morning of 22 October 1850, the general
outline of the solution came to him and
Fechner laid out the basic framework for
psychophysics. It has been suggested that
this general outline was highly influenced
by earlier work of Weber but we have
Fechner’s statement that it didn’t and, even
though the two men were colleagues at the
same university, Weber did not do much
to emphasize this aspect of his work. Still,
as Fechner developed his framework, he
acknowledged Weber’s work and clearly
differentiated his (Fechner’s) work from
Weber’s. Between 1851 and 1860, Fechner
worked out the rationale for measuring
human sensory experience in terms of
thresholds and just noticeable differences.
That is, how much does a sensation have
to change before we are consciously

aware of it existing or being ‘noticeably
different’.

Most relevant here is his concept of the
threshold. Fechner reasoned that we are
constantly receiving stimulation from the
world but we are not conscious of most of
this information. The mind/soul somehow
becomes consciously aware of some of it,
that which is above threshold, while most
of it remains unconscious, that is, remains
below threshold. The key question is what
are the conditions that allow unconscious
things to raise to the conscious state
and for conscious things to sink to the
unconscious state. Fechner developed
a formal procedure for measuring this
process. Similarly, he formalized the
concept of a differential threshold; that
is, how much does a sensation have to
change before we are consciously aware of
the new stimuli being ‘noticeably different’
from the original stimuli. With this work,
Fechner developed a mathematic of the
mind/soul.

His 1860 book, Elemente der
Psychophysik (Elements of Psychophysics),
further developed this mathematical thesis
stating that Elemente is “… a text of the
exact science of the functional relations
or relations of dependency between the
body and the soul ….” With this, Fechner
sought to use the techniques of science
and mathematics to study the human
soul. Fechner showed that non-physical
events such as those of mind or soul, not
only could be measured, but measured
in terms of their relationship to physical
events2. In achieving this milestone,
Fechner established psychophysics as one
of the core methods of the newly emerging
scientific psychology. As Boring (1950)
noted, before Fechner, there was only the
early ‘philosophical psychology’ such as
that of Gottfried Leibniz and John Locke
and the more modern ‘physiological
psychology’ such as that of Johannes
Müller and Ernst Weber. Fechner’s
experimental method began an entirely
new wave in psychology, which became
the basis for experimental psychology. His
techniques and methods inspired Wilhelm
Wundt, who created the first laboratory
for the scientific study of conscious
experience, opening the door to the
scientific study of mind.

As Fechner was putting the finishing
touches on the Elemente, a young
physician and neurophysiologist, Wilhelm
Wundt, became a Dozent in physiology at
Heidelberg. He began the study of sense

perception that led to his 1862 Beiträge
zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung
(Contributions to the Theory of Sensory
Perception). The Beiträge is notable
for its introduction on methods that
marked the emergence of Wundt’s
plan for an experimental psychology.
Rejecting a metaphysical foundation
for psychology, Wundt argued that the
study of consciousness was best done
through newly emerging sciences including
Fechner’s psychophysics. He stated that
only this scientific approach would allow
understanding of the “complex products
of the unconscious mind.” Right before
moving to Leipzig to accept a chair in
philosophy in 1875, Wundt collected his
physiology lectures into Grundzüge der
physiologischen Psychologie (Principles
of Physiological Psychology), the first
comprehensive handbook of modern
experimental psychology. In the Winter
of 1879, he created the first laboratory
devoted to original psychological research;
its opening is usually thought of as the
beginning of modern psychology.3

When Wundt arrived at Leipzig, Fechner
was a rather old man at 74 years old and
had not been very actively involved in
the life of the university for decades. Yet
he was still an active and sought-after
scholar. He received visits from such noted
scholars as philosopher Franz Brentano,
physicist Ernst Mach, psychologist Carl
Stumpf, and American psychologist and
Clark University President G. Stanley
Hall. Sigmund Freud attended Fechner’s
lectures in Leipzig and gave him the title
“The great G. T. Fechner.” It is clear that
Wundt was very close to Fechner. He
delivered Fechner’s eulogy and inherited
his papers. After Fechner’s death, Wundt
and his associates edited and published
Fechner’s largest posthumous publication,
Theory of Measuring Collectives (1897),
as well as an edited edition of Elements
of Psychophysics (1889). Marking the
centennial of Fechner’s birth, Wundt
remembered him not only as the father
of psychophysics, but also as a model, to
his final days, of scientific and scholarly
dedication.

However, even though Wundt adopted
Fechner’s psychophysical methods,
he never adopted his metaphysics.
In defining experimental psychology,
Wundt established a modern psychology
that existed between philosophy and
physiology. In place of the metaphysical
definition of psychology as a science of
the soul, Wundt defined experimental

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psychology as a psychology of
consciousness that precisely analyzes
the processes of consciousness, to assess
the complex psychological connections,
and to find the laws governing such
relationships. He specifically excluded the
individual soul from his new psychology.
Wundt also rejected any subconscious
mental processes as a topic of scientific
psychology. In Grundzuge, he specifically
stated that the actively organizing
processes that results in consciousness will
no longer be explained by means of an
immortal soul. In perhaps the only extant
letter from Fechner to Wundt, Fechner
stated:

“I don’t see why we should argue about
this anymore; I would rather not argue
with you on this subject at all, since we
are both convinced that we cannot change
one another’s opinion on the issues at
hand. You will continue to recognize
spiritism as something that cannot be
investigated, that is not factual, and I will
continue to say that it is factual and will
try to investigate it.”

Fechner was not as popular among the
younger generation of scientists who
were warry of his metaphysical position
in Nanna and Zend-Avesta. Wundt and
others were part of a younger, more
mechanistic generation of scientists who
were trained after the Naturphilosophisch
influence. For example, the physicists
Hermann von Helmholtz (20 years
Fechner’s junior) and Ernst Mach (37
years Fechner’s junior) both adopted
Fechner’s methods as they explored
sensory physiology and perception but
ignored his metaphysics. Wundt (31 years
Fechner’s junior), in papers published
in 1862 and 1863, drew attention to
Fechner’s psychophysical methods while

ignoring his metaphysics. However, to
Fechner, psychophysics was not simply
a useful methodology for approaching
some problems in sensory physiology and
experimental psychology; it was the way
to discover the true connection between
matter and soul.

Even though psychology began as the
formal scientific investigation of the
soul, such work was soon abandoned
in favor of studying the mind. Further,
contemporary psychology frequently
ignores the mind in favor of behavior with
Behaviorism stating that mind is not a part
of psychology. Still, modern areas such as
cognitive science, cognitive and systems
neuroscience, and artificial intelligence are
reviving the scientific interest in mind, and
perhaps we will soon see Fechner’s insight
revived by a reintroduction of soul into
modern scientific theory.

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