Oswald Külpe

Theodor Oswald Rudolph Külpe (; 3 August 1862 – 30 December 1915) was a German structural psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th century. Külpe, who is less well-known than his German mentor, Wilhelm Wundt, revolutionized experimental psychology at his time. In his obituary, Aloys Fischer wrote that, “undoubtedly Külpe was the second founder of experimental psychology on German soil; for with every change of base he made it a requirement that an experimental laboratory should be provided.”

Külpe studied as a doctoral student and assistant to Wundt at the University of Leipzig, though his ideas differed from Wundt's as he developed his own research (Boring, 1961). Külpe made significant contributions to the field of psychology, some of which are still relevant, including the systematic experimental introspection, imageless thoughts, mental sets, and abstraction.

Biography In August 1862, Oswald Külpe was born in Kandau, Courland, one of the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire, to Baltic German parents. Consequently, Külpe's native tongue was German. His father was a notary, while a brother, Alfons Külpe, was a clergyman, and a sister was a nurse. He lived a large portion of his life with his older, unmarried cousins, Ottillie and Marie Külpe, at their residences in Leipzig, Würzburg, Bonn, and Munich. It was said that Külpe would joke that science was his bride. He learned Russian during his training at the Gymnasium in Libau, where he graduated in 1879. He then taught history and other subjects at a boys’ school for a year and a half before relocating to Leipzig. In between 1882 and 1883, Külpe studied at the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Heinrich von Treitschke, a nationalist German historian. Following his studies in Berlin, he transferred to Göttingen, where he spent two years as a student of Georg Elias Müller, where it is said he received the idea for his doctoral dissertation. He received a private endowment and he managed to make it one of the foremost psychological institutes, second only to the University of Leipzig. At the Würzburg school, a key area of focus was the development and formation of concepts. Külpe and his students expanded the use of introspection and were the first to research thought processes using experimental methods (Watson, 1978). In doing so, they developed and improved the process of what became known as systematic experimental introspection, which was the retrospective reporting of the experiences of a subject after performing a complex task involving thinking, remembering, or judging. Abstraction experiments were especially important in distinguishing relevant features of objects for individuals in differing stages of development. Throughout his time at Würzburg he acted as a devoted teacher and administrator. In fact, most of his prestige comes from his dedication to his students and the hard work he directed towards his teaching duties.

Though he published many of his own personal works, Külpe never penned any of the traditional Würzburg papers, so it is difficult to specify his personal interpretation of the work of the school. However, in many of his personal works, he often anticipated notions that were later discussed by his students. This research established a strong foundation for the Gestalt psychologists who were to come. This research was not the only notable contribution to psychology made by the Würzburg school. The emphasis on motivation and the role that it plays in the results of thinking was stressed at the school and is still relevant today. Today, it is still a widely accepted principle that motivation is a variable that affects thinking outcomes. Another contribution from the school was the theory that the behaviour of the ‘id’ depended not only on the element within the thinker's consciousness, but that there were unconscious determinants of behaviour as well. This is another notable idea born from the Würzburg school that is still relevant and widely accepted in psychology today.

Imageless thought Perhaps the most famous psychological contribution to come out of the Würzburg Laboratory was related to Külpe's beliefs in philosophical realism. The work focused on the idea of imageless thought, which is the belief that there is an objective significance that can be found within experiences that are not necessarily associated with specific words, symbols or signs.

Abstraction and attention In the early 1900s, Külpe performed experiments on the concept of abstraction at the Würzburg School. Külpe defined abstraction as a process in which one focuses on certain aspects of reality while ignoring others. The item people could describe with the highest level of accuracy was always the item they were instructed to observe. These results indicated that the subjects of the experiment would abstract the requested features, while at the same time remaining “unconscious” to all of the other present features. He defined psychology as "the facts of experience," as the book concerned itself strictly with scientific fact. The lack of focus on the concept of thought in his book is interesting because the Würzburg school greatly researched mental set and imageless thought. He once wrote to a colleague, however, that the concepts behind the book were, “the source of the investigations in the psychology of thinking.

In 1895, Külpe published a handbook called Einleitung in die Philosophie (which translates to Introduction to Philosophy). This book was a guide to both past and present philosophy at the time, and a basic text for German university students of not just general philosophy, but psychology, logic, ethics, and aesthetics as well. In the book, Külpe also looks at the relations of the body and the mind, and in doing so, takes a dualistic position. Külpe also gives a clear description of the relationship between physical and psychical, or in other words, natural science and psychology. He identifies the possibility of what he refers to as a mind substance. He theorized that both matter and mind are abstractions from thought experience. He believed that if matter required the idea of substance, why would the mind not require substance as well? The book is less than 350 pages and went through seven editions and four translations, including into English by W. B. Pillsbury and Titchener under the title Introduction to Philosophy.

In 1912, Külpe published Über die moderne Psychologie des Denkens, which translates into English as On the Modern Psychology of Thinking. In this book, he was looking back on his focus on the systematic experimental introspection method. He believed that before systematic experimental introspection existed, research on thought was incomplete. He also believed that having the subject report only on sensations, feelings, and presentations in thought research was severely limiting in that it did not provide an acceptable opportunity to identify what could be considered neither sensation, feeling, nor presentation. Once they were given the opportunity to objectively self-observe and describe what was neither sensation, feeling, nor presentation, yet was still a thought process, Külpe and his colleagues identified the need for new definitions and concepts aside from those that already exist. As Külpe wrote: “The subjects began to speak in the language of life and assign less importance to the presentations for their inner world. They knew and thought, they judged and understood, they grasped the meaning and saw connections without receiving any real help from occasionally occurring imagery.”

Die Realisierung, a three-volume text composed of Külpe's lectures, was published from 1912 through 1923. Other notable publications include the publication of a monograph, Zur Katagorienlehre, which was presented in the year of his untimely death, 1915, before the Bavarian Academy of Science. Other books by Külpe include the 1912 publication of Psychologie und Medizin and Philosophie der Gegenwart.