In this new millenium it may be fair to ask, "Why look at Wundt?" Over
the years, many authors have taken fairly detailed looks at the work and
accomplishments of Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920). This was especially true
of the years around 1979, the centennial of the Leipzig Institute for
Experimental Psychology, the birthplace of the "graduate program" in
psychology. More than twenty years have passed since then, and in the
intervening time those centennial studies have attracted the attention
and have motivated the efforts of a variety of historians, philosophers,
psychologists, and other social scientists. They have profited from the
questions raised earlier about theoretical, methodological,
sociological, and even political aspects affecting the organized study
of mind and behavior; they have also proposed some new directions for
research in the history of the behavioral and social sciences. With the
advantage of the historiographic perspective that twenty years can
bring, this volume will consider this much-heralded "founding father of
psychology" once again. Some of the authors are veterans of the
centennial who contributed to a very useful volume, edited by Robert W.
Rieber, Wilhelm Wundt and the Making of a Scientific Psychology (New
York: Plenum Press, 1980). Others are scholars who have joined Wundt
studies since then, and have used that book, among others, as a guide to
further work. The first chapter, "Wundt before Leipzig," is essentially
unchanged from the 1980 volume.
