Gibt es eine österreichische Psychologie?

Abstract

This article, inspired by Rudolf Haller’s thesis of an independent, specific, and unitary Austrian tradition of scientific philosophy, develops the idea of a specific Austrian tradition of psychological research, as distinguished in its development from that in Germany. This tradition was shaped by two phenomenological trends, which were merged into unity in Prague by Carl Stumpf and Brentano’s students of the second generation. One trend traces back to Goethe and was continued in Prague by the physiologists Jan E. Purkinje and Ewald Hering, culminating in the work of Ernst Mach. The other trend was initiated by Franz Brentano and spread through his school. Stumpf was the key integrator of these two traditions, which he then partially passed on to his Berlin students and founders of Gestalt psychology. Finally, Karl Bühler’s “reimport” of the Brentanian psychological legacy into the Vienna of the First Republic is briefly illustrated.