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Johann Friedrich Herbart, David E. Leary
Johann Friedrich Herbart, David E. Leary
Psychology Faculty Publications
German philosopher, psychologist, and educator. Herbart was among the first, early in the nineteenth century, to propose a mathematical psychology. Coming after Immanuel Kant's claim (in his Metaphysische Angangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft [Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Science], Riga, 1786) that there could be no such discipline, this was a bold proposal. which kept alive the eighteenth-century quest for a science of psychology. Even though Herbart himself denied the possibility of an experimental psychology, and despite the fact that his own psychology (as a branch of applied metaphysics) was largely conjectural, his example inspired subsequent scholars to work toward a quantitative, experimental …