The Methodology of Wilhelm Wundt's V?lkerpsychologie and Its Contemporary Significance
Wilhelm Wundt's Völkerpsychologie extends the research object from the individual study framed by experimental psychology to the study of family,tribe,community and other social groups,with the intention of analyzing the spiritual activities displayed by these social groups as a whole,and seeking the understanding and explanation of conscious activities in the cultural blot of folk collective life.Cultural products such as religion,social customs,mythology,history,language,morality,art,and law are the object of Völkerpsychologie.The vertical and horizontal perspectives of historical product analysis and psychological phenomenon analogy as the specific methods of Völkerpsychologie.From the perspective of methodology,his research reflects the subject orientation of human science,the research prin-ciple of holism and the subjective research method,which is a methodological subjective paradigm.Under the background of biological-ization of psychology,it is necessary to re-examine Wundt's methodology of Völkerpsychologie and discuss its historical value,and dis-cuss the inspiration of this methodology for the construction of Chinese cultural psychology.
WundtVölkerpsychologiemethodologysubjective paradigmChinese cultural psychology