Herbart and the evolving of experimental psychology. Degrees and limen of consciousness

As long as psychology was still understood as an affiliated science with philosophy, its main function was epistemological: it was mainly concerned with human beings‖ manner of obtaining their knowledge. With the increasing independence of psychological research and its orientation towards the processes of perception and knowledge, the methods applied by it became differentiated according to the consequent requirements of empirical knowledge as well. The English tradition of empirism and associationism, that Boring considers the philosophical parent of experimental psychology, became thus first embodied in physiological psychology. (Boring 1950: 168–169.) According to Boring (ibid. 246), from the German philosophers Kant, Herbart and Lotze had the greatest influence on the emergence of the new scientific psychology. Moreover, in comparison with Kant, Fichte and Hegel, Herbart represents a transition from the pure speculative philosophy to the antimetaphysical experimentalism of Helmholtz, Fechner and Wundt. Boring claims that Herbart‖s effect upon experimental psychology was not generally through the Herbartians at all. In fact, his work directly influenced Fechner and Wundt both in respect of what they borrowed from it and also in respect of what they positively rejected. (Ibid. 261.)

In his objective to measure as accurately as possible the elemental psychical occurrences Gustav Fechner (1801–1887, thirty-one years Wundt‖s senior), professor of physics at Leipzig University, was directed towards mathematics and, above all, towards physics. In his work Elemente der Psychophysik (Leipzig, 1860)²²⁹ Fechner attempted to indicate the way sensory perceptions vary according to the change of the sensory volume and to describe the connections of psychical phenomena to physical phenomena including their conformities with mathematical formulas. (Boring 1942: 34.) This work can still be considered to lie at the basis of the new psychology and its methodology.²³⁰ According to Fechner, it is meant to be a text of the “exact science of the functional relations or relations of dependency between body and mind” (Boring 1950: 281). Before Fechner, the notion of measuring and mathematizing mind in psychological research was already made respectable by Herbart, although he was against experimental measurement in psychology. According to Boring (1942: 35), this was due to Herbart‖s inclination to Cartesian dualism, which held that mind is incorporeal and does not occupy space. Thus also sensation was immeasurable.

Even psychophysical parallelism, which was coming more and more to represent the

229 Even before this Ernst H. Weber, also a Leipzig scholar, had published his texts De tactu: annotationes anatomicae et physiologicae (1834) and Der Tastsinn und das Gemeingefühl (1846), in which he aimed at the experimental investigation of the psychophysiology of tactual stimuli and common sensibility. (Boring 1950:

110.)

230 In consequence of a period of ailment that interrupted his academic career, Fechner began to show interest also in philosophical questions (Nanna oder das Seelenleben der Pflanzen, 1848; Zend-Avesta, oder über die Dinge des Himmels und des Jenseits, 1851). Fechner‖s program of psychophysics was already molded in the latter work. (Boring 1950: 278–280.)

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thinking of experimental psychologists about mind, seemed to leave sensation on an unquantifiable side of a dichotomy.

As Boring (1942: 34) nevertheless points out, there was in the 19th century the general awakening of science, the experimental investigation of everything, the invention and improvement of instruments of observation, including the telescope and the microscope.

The development of science thus brought along also the refinement of observation and measurement. This also resulted in the re-evaluation of the concept of the limen of consciousness, a crucial element in Fechner‖s psychological investigations. It was actually through Herbart that Fechner was supplied the concept of the limen. This concept in turn is detectable in Leibniz‖s doctrine of different levels of perception and consequently also different degrees of consciousness, as discussed in the previous chapter. A weak idea, in competition with stronger ideas, does not, as Herbart thought, enter consciousness. It is not apperceived, but, being inhibited, remains in a state of tendency. (Boring 1942: 35.) This corresponds to the idea of a potentially conscious substance, that is, the relative unconsciousness of the petites perceptions in Leibnizian sense. This can be seen as the philosophical background for the conception of the limen of consciousness that was to become fundamental in psychophysical investigations.

In his Psychologie als Wissenschaft (1824–25) Herbart argued mathematically how ideas of different strengths interact with one another. As Boring (1950: 256) has identified, Herbart was offering a mechanical explanation for the fundamental fact of the limited range of consciousness. In being under opposition the weaker ideas only lose in intensity or clearness and shift to a state of tendency. This transitive conception of the ideas was expressed by Herbart as follows: “By the limen of consciousness I mean those limits that an idea seems to overleap in passing from a state of complete inhibition to a state of real idea.”

In preserving themselves the strong ideas are above the limen and therefore conscious, whereas the inherently weak ideas may lie below the limen and be thus unconscious.²³¹ According to Herbart‖s psychology, only those ideas that fit in with the apperceptive mass can have the possibility of rising above the limen and becoming conscious. In other words, to become conscious the ideas need to be in consonance with each other. (Ibid.)

Fechner adopted from Herbart the notion of the measurement of the magnitude of conscious data and the notion of the limen, as he himself had stated (Murray & Bandomir 2002: 6).²³² In measuring the psychophysiological sensations Fechner limited himself to the intensities of sensations. According to Fechner sensations themselves could not be measured, but it was possible to measure the threshold values of the stimuli behind these sensations. He distinguished between absolute and differential sensitivity, which correspond respectively to the absolute and differential limens. (Boring 1950: 286–287.) The absolute limen is the critical point that marks the end of a sensory scale—the threshold for intensity, the limits of audible frequency for sound, or the limits of visible spectral wave-lenght for light. The differential limen stands for a just noticeable difference in the

231 In Herbart‖s view, if all active ideas are driven below the threshold or the limen, we have the unconsciousness that is deep sleep.

232 Herbart‖s term for the “threshold” or “limen” is ―Schwelle‖. As Murray and Bandomir (2002: 4, 6) note, Herbart himself thought that this concept was not spatial: the threshold can be seen as a purely mathematical boundary condition determined by the ―Vorstellungen‖ currently in consciousness, and not by all the

―Vorstellungen‖ that a person has ever experienced. Although the level of the threshold is very low, Herbart explicitly said that a ―Vorstellung‖ never has a negative value. Boring (1950: 253) remarks that the concept of the limen, or threshold, was in fact one of the major reasons that made psychophysics possible.

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intensity between the stimulus. (Boring 1942: 41–42.) Consequently, Fechner also established new methods of measurement in psychological experiments. These were the method of just noticeable differences (method of limits), the method of right and wrong cases (method of constant stimuli), and the method of average error (method of adjustment or reproduction). Although Fechner‖s views were criticized later among others by William James, Boring (1950: 293) points out that these methods have actually stood the test of time in psychological research.

Reminiscent of Leibniz‖s petites perceptions and Herbart‖s inhibited ideas are sensations that Fechner defined as “negative sensations”. The intensity of the negative sensations remains below the limen. This is caused either by the fact of the limited range of consciousness or the weakness of the sensory stimuli. When the attention of consciousness is already directed towards other sensations, a new sensation can not enter until it overcomes the limen. Boring illustrates the latter case of the negative sensations by the example of the invisibility of the stars in daylight. (1950: 286, 293.) The diagram given below, known as Fechner‖s law (S = k log R, Fig. 1), exemplifies these different values of the stimuli and their sensations. Accordingly, the negative sensations have in the diagram a subliminal value.²³³ When S (sensation) in the diagram is zero, r represents the limen. When R (stimulus) varies between r and 0, S passes through an indefinite number of negative values before reaching the stage of perception (Boring 1950: 290):

Figure 1. Fechner‖s law: S = k log R

Hermann von Helmholtz and Wilhelm Wundt conducted further psychophysiological investigations to these studies, as examined in due course during Chapter II.3. Wundt elaborated on the concept of the degrees of consciousness in his doctrines of long- and short-term memory. Helmholtz and Wundt inspired Janáček particularly to apply the scientific-experimental approach to examine psychological and musical phenomena.²³⁴

233 This conception of subliminal, unconscious psychical values can together with Leibniz‖s and Herbart‖s views on the degrees of consciousness be considered as belonging to the precursors of the doctrine of the unconscious. As Boring (1950: 257) puts it, Leibniz foreshadowed it, but Herbart actually began it.

234 As Racek (1968a: 15) and Gardavský (1963: 99, fn 6) mention, Janáček‖s interest in experimental psychology became apparent already during his studies at the Teachers‖ Training Institute in Brno (1869–

1872), where this subject formed part of the curriculum. Josef Parthe who lectured on psychology was an important figure for the arousal of Janáček‖s intensive interest in particular.

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II.2.3.1 Herbart and the Kantian heritage in 19th century aesthetic formalism

In addition to the development of psychology and educational sciences, Herbart‖s influence on the supporters of aesthetic formalism was remarkable especially in the Austro-German cultural areas. Thinkers from diverse fields represent this philosophical tendency: the Austrians Robert Zimmermann (who was based in Prague and Vienna) and Eduard Hanslick, the Czechs Josef Durdík and Otakar Hostinský, and even Gustav Fechner, as far as his investigations on the Golden Section is concerned. In this section I will make a brief review on the backgrounds of Herbartian aesthetics and examine how its configurations were transmitted to the aesthetic thinking in the mid-19th century. In the history of aesthetics Benjamin (2001: 92) regards Herbart as “(a) founder of formalism” and Lippman (1994: 293) as “the first significant proponent of formalism in nineteenth-century aesthetics”.

However, in the philosophy of art, Herbart does not stand alone as an isolated originator of aesthetic formalism. As Lippman (ibid. 292) remarks, 19th-century formalism in aesthetics doubtless has its chief source in Kant‖s Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790).²³⁵ In consistency with his philosophical outlook, Kant set the importance in aesthetical judgement on form instead of the material that is formed. The apprehension of form, therefore, is judged to be the ground of aesthetic pleasure. Thus, the determining ground of a judgment concerning taste or “free beauty” (as opposed to

“adherent” or “dependent” beauty) is solely the purposiveness of the form of the object (ibid. 129). The task of aesthetics is to deal with this judgment (ibid. 292). In addition to providing a substantial foundation for the development of aesthetic formalism, Lippman considers Critique of Judgment as the definitive foundation of the whole circle of 19th-century formalist conceptions (ibid. 293, 296). As Lippman (ibid. 293) and Jones (1975:

100–162)²³⁶ point out, on a general level in the history of philosophy, Kant‖s influence is often quite conspicuous by the authors who followed him.

In their review on music and aesthetics in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, le Huray and Day (1981: 214) consider Kant as the first German thinker of world significance who devoted a considerable part of his philosophical system to the theme of aesthetics.²³⁷ In Kant‖s philosophy beauty stood for a symbol of moral virtue, and aesthetics was an aspect of ethics (ibid. 216). For instance, music remains a mere entertainment if it is intended to give only pleasure. As Kant formulates it in his Critique:

235 The two major works by Kant were published earlier: Kritik der reinen Vernunft (“Critique of Pure Reason”, 1781) contains his views of epistemological problems, and Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (“Critique of Practical Reason”, 1788) discusses problems concerning ethics. As le Huray and Day (1981: 215) note, the university at Königsberg, where Kant was educated, was strongly influenced by Leibnizian rationalism.

236 According to Jones (1975: 107, 158), Kant‖s exclusion of the possibility of metaphysical knowledge—the knowledge of things-in-themselves (noumena)—merely prepared the way for the development of a new metaphysics—especially that of Hegel and Schopenhauer. Jones further remarks that a more or less directly Kantian starting point became manifest also in the secularistic bias of the post-Kantian thinkers and their efforts to write metaphysics off as a massive delusion (ibid. 160–161).

237 Le Huray and Day (1981: 214) mention A. G. Baumgarten (Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus, 1735; Aesthetica, 1758) as the promoter and initiator of the term aesthetics from the Greek

―aistheta‖ (things perceived as opposed to things known, ―noeta‖).

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Pleasurable arts are those intended merely for enjoyment.²³⁸ . . . Fine art,²³⁹ on the other hand, is a manner of representation that is an end in itself.²⁴⁰ It is one that promotes the development of the personality and its capacity for social communication, regardless of ulterior motive. (le Huray and Day 1981: 220.)

Chiefly because of its enjoyable nature and its effect on us by means of mere sensations without concepts, Kant regards music to be of less value than the other fine arts. However, as the language of the affections (Affekten), music can communicate in its most intensive form. According to Kant, these affections have an affinity to speech and its tonal modulations, which music can imitate. The forms of music (harmony and melody), in which emotions are arranged, shape the aesthetic idea in all its inexpressible fullness, devoid of concepts or definite ideas (le Huray and Day 1981: 221–222). Kant emphasized also the role of mathematical relationships between notes or sounds and the vibrations of the air at a given instant and their effect on the elastic parts of the body, perceived by the senses (ibid. 221–222). This conception seems to conjoin to that of Leibniz, as he stated in his Monadology that even the pleasures of sense are really intellectual pleasures confusedly known. According to Leibniz, the beauty of music is found only in the harmonies of numbers and in the counting of the beats (of which we are unconscious but which nevertheless the soul does make) or the vibrations of sounding bodies (le Huray and Day 1981: 15).

However, by the early years of the 19th century, reason—not only having been reinterpreted in the light of empiricism—had been dethroned in favour of Romantic speculation and the creative imagination stimulated by the emotions (ibid. 16).

Nevertheless, Kant‖s view of the play of tonal sensations as a condition for musical beauty suggests a formalist ingredient of aesthetics that belongs to the future, as Lippman points out. There is no question that Kant conceives music in its own terms, as absolute rather than vocal (Lippman 1994: 133).

Kant‖s influence is significant in the eclectic aesthetics of Friedrich von Schiller²⁴¹ (1759–

1805), who set a decisive role to form in his conception of beauty. Schiller believed that music conveys only the form of feelings. In his Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen²⁴² (1795, the twenty-second letter), he defined the work of art as follows:

In a truly beautiful work of art the content should do nothing, but the form everything. . . . However sublime and comprehensive it may be, the content always has a restrictive action upon the spirit, and only from the form is true aesthetic freedom to be expected (Lippman 1994: 134).

238 For example Tafelmusik, background music at a banquet, cannot be described as the source of aesthetic experience, because such music has a function beyond the experience itself, namely to relax the guests, encourage conversation and aid the digestion (le Huray and Day 1981: 1, 220).

239 Kant divides the fine arts into three kinds: the arts of speech (rhetoric and poetry), the formative arts (sculpture, architecture, and painting), and the art of the play of sensations (music and the art of color) (Lippman 1994: 131).

240 “Purposiveness-without-purpose” (Jones 1975: 96–98).

241 As le Huray and Day (1981: 235) remind, Schiller is best known to musicians as the author of the ode An die Freude (1785) and through his plays that were transformed into operas by Donizetti and Verdi.

242 Usually referred to as the Erziehungsbriefe (ibid.).

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According to Lippman (ibid.), Schiller‖s conception of beauty as a necessary stage in the education of man was pressed on him by the reign of terror that followed the French Revolution. Just as the freedom of form, so would aesthetic freedom pave the way for moral and political freedom. (Lippman 1994: 133–134.) Lippman (ibid. 136) regards the aesthetics of the era, especially that of Christian Gottfried Körner‖s (Ueber Charakterdarstellung in der Musik, 1795), as the aesthetic counterpart to the mature Classical style of Haydn and Mozart. Körner (1756–1831) was intimately acquainted with their music, and he tried to apply Schiller‖s theories to music. (le Huray and Day 1981: 236;

Lippman 1994: 134, 136.) This combination of an ideal and edifying moral character with a unity based on thematic workmanship and the integration of motives was achieved for the first time in the instrumental music of Viennese Classicism, as Lippman (1994: 136) points out. These features still reflect the proximity of the Age of Enlightenment in the late–18th-century formalist aesthetics.

Herbart‖s philosophical output does not include a major aesthetic work, but his considerations in aesthetics follow those outlined by Kant. Lippman (1994: 293–294) mentions two works that include Herbart‖s aesthetic views. These are his Schriften zur Einleitung in die Philosophie (1813) and Kurze Enzyklopädie der Philosophie aus praktischen Gesichtspunkten (1831). In consistency with his philosophical views, Herbart‖s interest in aesthetics focuses on the relationships between the aesthetic elements of the objectively beautiful. For example, in music these elements are tones and the combination of their relations.

John Benjafield (2001: 92) reminds us that Herbart‖s psychology naturally seems to lead to the view that it is the relations between the various parts of an aesthetic experience that determine how beautiful or ugly it will be by its observer.²⁴³ According to the Herbartian view, aesthetics were exclusively concerned with relations. This view implies the meaning of a work to be irrelevant to its beauty. The Herbartian aesthetic program involved searching “for relations, indefinite in number, of variable elements” (Benjafield quotes Gilbert and Kuhn 1972, p. 514). This idea is put by Herbart himself in the following words:

Aesthetic philosophy, as the establishment of aesthetic principles, would properly be bound not to define or to demonstrate or to deduce, nor even to distinguish species of art or argue about existing works, but rather to put us in possession of all the single relations, however many they be, which in a complete apprehension of anything produce approval or distaste.²⁴⁴ (Benjafield 2001: 93).

Naturally, this view of indefinite relations (ultimately, of ideas, i.e., the Herbartian Vorstellungen) is also in harmony with the mathematical background and construction of Herbart‖s philosophical and psychological system.

This argument on “simple relations, however many there might be”, is also pointed out by Beckerman (1994: 17). As Beckerman points out, this consisted of articulating elements into their smallest possible components, which accordingly are understood as fixed and

243 Benjafield himself refers to K. E. Gilbert‖s and H. Kuhn‖s A history of esthetics, New York, 1972, p. 515.

244 This quotation comes from Herbart‖s text Practical philosophy (1808), published in English in E.F.

Carritt‖s (ed. & trans.) Philosophies of beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931, p. 154). The italics come from the original text.

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unchanging entities. It was this reduction and atomism which was the most characteristic feature of Herbartian philosophy, the idea that reality must be understood in terms of the relations of simple entities. (Ibid. 16.) This idea converges some features in Janáček‖s speech melody theory and his peculiar outlook on the psychology of composition.

As le Huray and Day (1981: 452) write:

Herbart‖s philosophical system involves a remarkable attempt to reconcile metaphysics, logic and aesthetics. . . . Throughout his investigations, he emphasizes the need to prove his points

Herbart‖s philosophical system involves a remarkable attempt to reconcile metaphysics, logic and aesthetics. . . . Throughout his investigations, he emphasizes the need to prove his points