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Gustav Fechner
Gustav Fechner
Gustav Fechner
Born April 19, 1801
Muskau
Died November 28, 1887
Nationality German
Fields psychology

Gustav Theodor Fechner (April 19, 1801 – November 28, 1887), was a German experimental psychologist. Events 1012 - Martyrdom of Alphege in Greenwich London. 1529 - At the Second Diet of Speyer Year 1801 ( MDCCCI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting on Tuesday Bad Muskau (ˌbaːt ˈmʊskʰaʊ̯ formerly Muskau, Sorbian: Mužakow) is a Spa town in Upper Lusatia, Germany, being For the town in Argentina, see 28 de Noviembre. Events Year 1887 ( MDCCCLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Events 1012 - Martyrdom of Alphege in Greenwich London. 1529 - At the Second Diet of Speyer Year 1801 ( MDCCCI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting on Tuesday For the town in Argentina, see 28 de Noviembre. Events Year 1887 ( MDCCCLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Mental health professional A psychologist is a practitioner of Psychology, the systematic investigation of the mind including Behavior, Cognition, An early pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics, he inspired many 20th century scientists and philosophers. Psychophysics is a subdiscipline of Psychology dealing with the relationship between physical stimuli and their subjective correlates or Percepts The twentieth century of the Common Era began on He is also credited to have created the formula "S = KLogI" that proved the existence of a scientific connection between the body and the mind.

He was born at Gross Särchen, near Muskau, in Lower Lusatia, where his father was pastor. Bad Muskau (ˌbaːt ˈmʊskʰaʊ̯ formerly Muskau, Sorbian: Mužakow) is a Spa town in Upper Lusatia, Germany, being Upper and Lower Lusatia Upper Lusatia ( Oberlausitz or Hornja Łužica) is today part of the German state of Saxony except for a small part east of A pastor is an official person within a Protestant group of people and related to the positions of Priest or Bishop within the Anglican, Roman Catholic He was educated at Sorau and Dresden and at the University of Leipzig, the city in which he spent the rest of his life. Żary (Sorau is a town in western Poland with 39900 inhabitants (2006 Dresden (etymologically from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the riverside forest, Drježdźany is the Capital city of the German The University of Leipzig (Universität Leipzig located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities In 1834 he was appointed professor of physics, but in 1839 contracted an eye disorder while studying the phenomena of color and vision, and, after much suffering, resigned. Year 1834 ( MDCCCXXXIV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Physics (Greek Physis - φύσις in everyday terms is the Science of Matter and its motion. In Psychology, visual perception is the ability to interpret information from Visible light reaching the Eyes The resulting Perception is also Subsequently recovering, he turned to the study of the mind and its relations with the body, giving public lectures on the subjects dealt with in his books. MIND ( Moving In New Directions) (est 1975 is an alternative education high school in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Contents

Contributions

Gustav Fechner published chemical and physical papers, and translated chemical works by J. B. Biot and Louis Jacques Thénard from the French language. Jean-Baptiste Biot (21 April 1774 Paris &ndash 3 February 1862 Paris) was a French Physicist, Astronomer and Mathematician Louis Jacques Thénard ( May 4, 1777 in the village of La Louptière, Aube - June 21, 1857 in Paris) was a French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people A different but essential side of his character is seen in his poems and humorous pieces, such as the Vergleichende Anatomie der Engel (1825), written under the pseudonym of "Dr. Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke Laughter and provide Amusement Mises. "

Fechner's epoch-making work was his Elemente der Psychophysik (1860). He starts from the monistic thought that bodily facts and conscious facts, though not reducible one to the other, are different sides of one reality. Monism is the metaphysical and Theological view that all is one that all reality is subsumed under the most fundamental category of being or existence His originality lies in trying to discover an exact mathematical relation between them. The most famous outcome of his inquiries is the law known as the Weber–Fechner law which may be expressed as follows:

"In order that the intensity of a sensation may increase in arithmetical progression, the stimulus must increase in geometrical progression. The Weber–Fechner law attempts to describe the relationship between the physical magnitudes of stimuli and the perceived intensity of the stimuli "

Though holding good within certain limits only, the law has been found to be immensely useful. Fechner's law implies that sensation is a logarithmic function of physical intensity, which is impossible due to the logarithm's singularity at zero; therefore, S. S. Stevens proposed the more mathematically plausible power-law relation of sensation to intensity in his famous paper entitled "To Honor Fechner and Repeal His Law. Stanley Smith Stevens (1906 &ndash 1973 was an American Psychologist who founded Harvard 's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory and is credited with the introduction "

Fechner's general formula for getting at the number of units in any sensation is S = c log R, where S stands for the sensation, R for the stimulus numerically estimated, and c for a constant that must be separately determined by experiment in each particular order of sensibility. Fechner's reasoning has been criticized on the grounds that although stimuli are composite, sensations are not. "Every sensation," says Professor James, "presents itself as an indivisible unit; and it is quite impossible to read any clear meaning into the notion that they are masses of units combined. For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation William James (January 11 1842 – August 26 1910 was a pioneering "

He also studied the still-mysterious perceptual illusion of Fechner color, whereby colors are seen in a moving pattern of black and white. Fechner color is an Illusion of Color seen when looking at certain rapidly changing or moving black-and-white patterns

Influence

Fechner, along with Wilhelm Wundt and Hermann Helmholtz is recognized as one of the founders of modern, experimental psychology. Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt ( August 16 1832 - August 31 1920) was a German medical doctor psychologist physiologist and professor Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and His clearest contribution was the demonstration that because the mind was susceptible to measurement and mathematical treatment, psychology had the potential to become a quantified science. Theorists such as Immanuel Kant had long stated that this was impossible, and that therefore, a science of psychology was also impossible. Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg

Though he had a vast influence on psychophysics, the disciples of his general philosophy were few. Psychophysics is a subdiscipline of Psychology dealing with the relationship between physical stimuli and their subjective correlates or Percepts His world concept was highly animistic. He felt the thrill of life everywhere, in plants, earth, stars, the total universe. Man stands midway between the souls of plants and the souls of stars, who are angels. God, the soul of the universe, must be conceived as having an existence analogous to men. Natural laws are just the modes of the unfolding of God's perfection. In his last work Fechner, aged but full of hope, contrasts this joyous "daylight view" of the world with the dead, dreary "night view" of materialism. The Philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is Matter, and is considered a form of Physicalism. Fechner's work in aesthetics is also important. Aesthetics or esthetics ( also spelled æsthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values sometimes called He conducted experiments to show that certain abstract forms and proportions are naturally pleasing to our senses, and gave some new illustrations of the working of aesthetic association.

Fechner's position in reference to predecessors and contemporaries is not very sharply defined. He was remotely a disciple of Schelling, learnt much from Johann Friedrich Herbart, Schopenhauer, and Christian Hermann Weisse, and decidedly rejected Georg Hegel and the monadism of Rudolf Hermann Lotze. Johann Friedrich Herbart ( May 4, 1776 - August 11, 1841) was a German Philosopher, Psychologist, and founder Christian Hermann Weisse ( August 10, 1801 &ndash September 19 1866) was a German Protestant religious Philosopher Rudolf Hermann Lotze ( 21 May, 1817 – 1 July, 1881) was a German Philosopher and Logician.

Works

References

Integral Psychology by Ken Wilber

Modern discussions

Fechner's introduction of quantitative methods into psychology is discussed by

The standard intellectual biography of Fechner and his work in English is

External links

The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin was established in March 1994
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