Excerpt from Medicinische Psychologie oder Physiologie der Seele

Overview & Synopsis

Hermann Lotze (1817–81) is a neglected figure in the history of psychiatry although it has been claimed that his early views were influential, for example, on the young Griesinger. Trained as a physician, psychologist and philosopher he saw better than many the impending epistemological crisis that was to affect disciplines such as psychology and medical psychology as they were being taken over by the natural sciences. The problem he endeavoured to resolve was doubleheaded. On the one hand, Lotze believed that the mechanisms proposed by physiology and other relevant natural sciences were essential to the explanation of human behaviour provided that its meaning and context were respected; on the other, he wanted to do away with mysterious (metaphysical) explanations such as ‘vital force' which in his time were still popular in biology. The solutions he eventually offered can understandably be seen as a weak compromise and one which satisfied no one. Materialists à outrance such as Vogt, Büchner, Lange and Ribot though he was too ‘metaphysical'; spiritualist philosophers believed that he had surrendered too much to biology. It is likely that Lotze remained, in fact, a metaphysician as can be ascertained by studying his concept of Seele (soul, mind) into which he packed enough furniture to make many believe that he was an idealist thinker. This paper discusses some of these issues and justifies the choice of classic text, namely, Lotze's illuminating Introduction to his book Medicinische Psychologie oder Physiologie der Seele.