Anthropos 82.1987: 1-23
FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN
Wundt and Dürkheim a’IoAA
A Reconsideration of a Relationship
Jan Jacob de Wolf
1- Introduction
2- Gisbert’s Interpretation
3- Durkheim’s View
4- Durkheim and Experimental Psychology
5- Individual and Collective Representations
6- Rejection of Wundt’s “Völkerpsychologie”
7- Durkheim’s Review of Wundt’s “Ethik”
8. Wundt and the Development of Durkheim’s Views
on Morality
9. Conclusion
1. Introduction
In 1879 Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psy
chological laboratory at the University of Leip
zig. In 1979 the centennial of this event was
celebrated by psychologists all over the world,
and especially in the U. S. A., as the foundation
of experimental psychology. This occasion pro
vided the stimulus for the publication of several
studies which consolidated the thorough revi
sion of the received view of Wundt’s role in the
development of psychology, which had been
Jan Jacob de Wolf, M. Phil., Ph. D. (1967 and 1971
from the School of Oriental and African Studies, Lon on
University); 1968-1970 Research Fellowship Dutch Foun
dation for Tropical Research (Wotro); 1968-1969 anthro
pological fieldwork among the BaBukusu in Bungoma
District, Western Province, Kenya; associate member
Makerere Institute of Social Research; 1971 Researc
Officer Afrika Studiecentrum, Leiden, Netherlan s,
1971-1973 Lecturer in Rural Sociology, Faculty of Agri
culture, Makerere University, Uganda. Since 1974 Lectur
er, Department of Cultural Anthropology, Utrecht Uni
versity, Netherlands. Main publications: Differentiation
and Integration in Western Kenya (The Hague 1977); The
Diffusion of Age-group Organization in East Africa.
Reconsideration (Africa 1980); Circumcision and India
tion in Western Kenya and Eastern Uganda (Anthropos
1983); Dini Ya Msambwa: Militant Protest or Millenanan
Promise (Canadian Journal of African Studies 1983).
gathering momentum during the previous de
cade (Blumenthal 1975, 1977; Bringmann et al.
1975; Bringmann 1977; Anderson 1975; Danzi-
ger 1979; Leary 1979; Bringmann and Tweney
1980; Rieber 1980). To put it briefly, Wundt’s
psychology is reinterpreted in terms of the
German idealist philosophical tradition, in
which he was thoroughly immersed, while the
purported British sources of his approach to
psychology are being rejected as a historical
myth (Danziger 1980a: 76, 77).
If this revision of the standard account of
Wundt’s psychology is substantially true - which
I believe to be the case - then it becomes also
necessary to reconsider attempts to use this
distorted version to describe and explain
Wundt’s influence in other fields than psycholo
gy. Thus, this paper starts with a critique of
Gisbert’s thesis that Wundt’s psychological
system is “the key that will lay open the social
philosophy of Durkheim, at least in so far as
social facts are concerned” (Gisbert 1959: 360;
cf. Lukes 1973: 90). Whereas Gisbert infers that
Wundt’s principle of actuality implies that indi
vidual man disappears as a reality, in fact
Wundt stressed the role of individual motiva
tion so much that he called his psychology
voluntaristic (Danziger 19806: 96).
A clarification of certain misunderstood key
concepts of Wundt’s psychology is also useful
for an assessment of the way in which Durk
heim did in fact use certain of Wundt’s ideas.
This analysis can elucidate an important passage
in Durkheim’s book on the social division of
labour. It appears that at this stage Durkheim
was especially interested in Wundt’s work on
psycho-physiology but did not accept his ideas
on the importance of the relative autonomy of
mental life (Wundt 1880; Durkheim 1893/
1902).