Abstract
Psychology historically is the science of the soul—a mysterious organ projected into the body of the self-reflexive human beings. Up to the first half of the nineteenth century was that of the soul (Seele) in its various manifestations. It was built on the focus on nature and nature was seen in its constant flow and transformation. The idea of metamorphosis was natural for the societal discourses of the time. Human beings developed and so did societies under the ruptures of revolutions, from 1789 onward. Over the nineteenth century, such ruptures created social turmoil in recurrent fashion. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic era were followed by the revolutions wave of 1830 and 1848–1849. All of these were in the background of the development of ideas in the biological and social sciences.
Social turmoil was based on mutually opposing and non-reconcilable differences in ideologies. In Europe, these were politically enacted yet based on religious histories of societies. Countering rapid changes was a target for existing societal orders many of which were fortified by Protestant religious efforts to control the human conduct. That control since the Protestant Reformation was delegated to the person oneself. This was complicated because of the dynamic nature of persons’ self-reflections. Such reflections could fortify the existing social order—but could also break it. The focus on issues of development in the nineteenth-century sciences coincides the societal turmoil over the century.
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Notes
- 1.
Karl Ernst von Baer on Entwicklungsgeschichte der Thieren, 1828. The focus on history of developmental biological phenomena became crucial from here onward.
- 2.
Jean Baptiste Lamarck on Philosophie Zoologique, 1809, a landmark work on development which was ridiculed by opponents of the developmental idea.
- 3.
Johann Christian August Heinroth (1775–1843)—known in psychiatry for his introduction of the notion of psychosomatic illnesses—was Professor der psychisches Heilkunde at the University of Leipzig, which in our times would translate as Professor of Mental Health. The domain of mental health is as much intertwined with our societal ideological frame as the Heilkunde was with religion two centuries ago. Heinroth had degrees both in medicine and theology and believed in the causation of mental disorders in terms of sinfulness of the human beings, a clear transposition of the Protestant ideology into medicine. While having been a teacher for Carus in the latter’s medicine studies, Heinroth continued as important reference person until his death in 1843, visiting Dresden multiple times.
- 4.
Carus was well known in Dresden higher society—both by his position as the Royal Physician and by the high prestige of his private praxis that he had achieved during his time of practicing physician. The highest members of the royalty—crown princes Friedrich and Johann (with whom he had befriended in their trip to Italy) and even their important visitor from Prussia, crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm—was in the audience, not to speak of Saxon political leaders (Bernhard von Lindenau; Carus, 1831a, p. iv) and members of the art and music community of the Saxon capital. The audience was small, limited by the living quarters of Carus where it took place but all the more dedicated to knowledge. In our present-day terms, we could consider Carus’ lectures as popular science enterprise rather than deep monographic work, which would explain the conversational style evident in the 1831 book.
- 5.
“Entwicklung der senslbeln Sphäre im Organismus. Ein In sich geschlossenes, unendlich viel Thelle enthaltendes, nach der Idee höchster Innerer Einheit und Zweckmässigkeit geordnetes, durch sich selbst bestehendes und thätiges Ganze, nennen wir Organismus. Es entspricht diesem Begriff, streng genommen, einzig der Weltorganismus (Makrokosmus) und ausser diesem können wir mit einem gewissen Rechte nur diejenigen Individuen durch Namen bezeichnen, welche den Wcltorganlsmus mehr oder weniger vollkommen in sich wiederholen (Mikrokosmen). So wie überhaupt in jedem Object der Sinnenwelt, so vermögen wir auch im Organismus die räumliche und thätige Form desselben zu unterscheiden. Aber so wie dort hat auch hier dieser Unterschied nur für den Verstand Realität” (Carus, 1814, p, 13).
- 6.
“Einführen der Idee der Genesis in der Pflanzenkunde “für eine” wichtige Epoche in der Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften.“ Goethe habe” den lebendigsten Ueberblick von der mannichfaltigen Umbildung der Pflanze eröffnet “und sich glücklicherweise – eine Distanzierung gegenüber der spekulativen Naturphilosophie – gehütet,” in ein eigentliches Systematisiren oder Formalisiren zu verfallen” (Carus, 1832).
- 7.
Carus owned a copy of Melencolia. Together with a copy of Rider, Death and Devil (Fig. 11.1b). Both of which were for him linked with his Dante fascination. Both engravings are considered to belong to the golden heritage of Dürer’s art deeply meaningful in the context of German affective history as a macro-culture.
- 8.
Carus introduced the distinction between PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE (1856a, 1856b, p. 137) adding “…and this way of looking at things has become intertwined with the life of man that in truth it would be virtually impossible to completely disguise it” (“Und diese Anschauungsweise hat sich hergestellt mit dem Leben des Menschen verflochten dass in Wahrheit es geradezu unmöglich wäre, ihrer sich gänzlich zu entäuschen”). For any focus on development, the contrast of PAST and FUTURE as backgrounds for the actual developmental process (in the PRESENT) is a necessity, while in everyday life, cognitive economy of looking at our lives in terms of being (rather than becoming) the developmental time of functional PRESENT becomes disguised as ontological PRESENT.
- 9.
Owen’s use of Carus’ materials is documented elaborately by Richards (2020, p. 365–367). Coming from the side of comparative anatomy, both Owen and Carus operated with concrete materials of the skeletons of different species that would not be productive basis for speculations about natural selection. They hence were not enthused by Darwin and his followers.
- 10.
See Richards (2018, 2020) on the various conceptualizations of the Urtyp in German natural sciences of the time. From Carus’ perspective, the analysis of archetypes could be made if one assumes basic similarity in form of all specimens of a species to one another (Carus, 1828a, 1828b). At the level of skeletons, that is a reasonable assumption—but not if it comes to functioning of the bodies of the animals in their habitats. Here, the large divide between the thinkers who start from the archetypes and those who look into the development of the species through the adaptation to task demands and some form of selection linked with it.
- 11.
- 12.
There were no other ways. Contact of human beings with the psychological—behavioral, affective, and cognitive—aspects of other species was limited to pragmatic connection points in the nineteenth century. First of all, it was limited to domesticated animals used for human purposes, such as horses, hunting birds, and dogs. Secondly, the knowledge was possible in the practice of hunting, knowing the habits of the hunted animals was important. Of course, the newly emerging animal show facilities—the zoos—required from their personnel good understanding of zoo animals’ psyche. The oldest zoo in Europe—London Zoo—was opened in 1828, followed by a few in Germany, where in Dresden, the zoo started in 1861. Systematic study of the behavior of other species was the invention of ethology in mid-twentieth century.
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Valsiner, J. (2024). Beginnings of Developmental Science. In: The Moonlight Doctor. Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52531-5_11
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