Psychology as a science of conscious experience The Nature of Science

A science is an organized body of reliable information. Such a

body of knowledge does not grow as a result of speculation alone, nor

does it develop from random observations. Its accumulation depends

on the use of special procedures whichconstitute scientific method.

In the early stages of a science, moreover, the importance of the pro_

cedure used far outweighs that of the information obtained.

Psychology, like every other science, acquired scientific status

when (1) its observations became systematic rather than aimless;

(2) its observations became impersonal — that is to say, when psy_

chologists honestly sought information instead of attempting to

prove their own ideas by a prejudiced selection of facts, and (3) it

became possible for any qualified investigator to repeat the observa_

tions of another, under essentially the same conditions, and to verify

the results.

The requirements of science are most closely fulfilled when investiga_

tors use experimental methods, when instead of observing what occurs

spontaneously, they change aspects of nature and note the effect of these

changes on phenomena which come within the range of their inquiry.

Psychology achieved scientific status when it became experimental. As

we shall see, experimental procedure in psychology was first applied to

analyses of conscious experience.

Analysis of Consciousness

The formal launching of psychology as a separate science occurred

in 1879 whenWilhelm Wundt opened his Psychological Institute at the

University of Leipzig. Wundt was a physiologist and philosopher who

had made contributions to both of these fields. In addition to his exper_

iments in psychology, he was to continue making important contribu_

tions to philosophy.

The new movement was not so much a revolt against mental philos_

ophy as an attempt to get psychology out of an impasse, by utilizing the

experimental method of physiology and physics.

No science is, in an absolute sense, independent of philosophy. Psy_

chology has never completely broken away from philosophy and the

two disciplines will always have much in common, since scientific

endeavours psychological or otherwise, are preceded and followed by

speculation. Today there is a flourishing branch of philosophy, the phi_

losophy of science, which critically examines the aims, methods and

conclusions of all sciences.

Scientific psychology at first took over the same apparatus and

methods with which physiologists and physicists had been investi_

gating behaviour and experience. Very soon, however, psychologists

were finding new problems and devising apparatus and procedures

of their own.

Most of the early psychological experiments dealt with experience.

There was only incidental interest in a scientific study of behaviour as

such: that is, in what persons said and did. Individual observers were

trained to attend to and describe their experience while the experi_

menter made various changes in light, sound and other external con_

ditions. He also made experimental changes in physiological condi_

tions (fatigue, hunger, thirst). The method of attending to and

describing experiences under known external and internal conditions

was called experimental introspection.

The chief aim of Wundt and his students was to discover the ingre_

dients of conscious experience. It was claimed, that it could be ana_

lyzed into its elements (sensations and so on). Especially there was an

effort to discover the relations between stimuli, physiological struc_

tures, and particular types of experience. Because of emphasis upon

conscious experience, psychology was at that time designated the sci_

ence of consciousness.