One Hundred Years of Empirical Aesthetics

This article reviews the history of empirical aesthetics since its foundation by Fechner in 1876 to Berlyne’s new empirical aesthetics in the 1970s. The authors explain why and how Fechner founded the field, and how Wundt and Müller’s students continued his work in the early 20th century. In the United States, empirical aesthetics flourished as part of American functional psychology at first, and later as part of behaviorists’ interest in reward value. The heyday of behaviorism was also a golden age for the development of all sorts of tests for artistic and aesthetic aptitudes. The authors end the article by covering the contributions of Gestalt psychology and Berlyne’s motivational theory to empirical aesthetics.

One hundred years of Empirical Aesthetics: Fechner to Berlyne (1876 – 1976)

In this chapter, we review the history of Empirical Aesthetics since its foundation byFechner in 1876 to Berlyne’s New Empirical Aesthetics in the 1970s. We explain whyand how Fechner founded the field, and how Wundt and Müller’s students continued hiswork in the early 20th century. In the United States, Empirical Aesthetics flourished aspart of American functional psychology at first, and later as part of behaviorists’ interestin reward value. The heyday of behaviorism was also a golden age for the developmentof all sorts of tests for artistic and aesthetic aptitudes. We end the chapter covering thecontributions of Gestalt psychology and Berlyne’s motivational theory to EmpiricalAesthetics.

A.F. Losev and Psychology

This article is devoted to the great Russian philosopher A.F. Losev (1983—1988) and his place in the history of evolution of Russian psychology. Losev’s attitude to his scientific advisor at the Institute of Psychology, G.I. Chelpanov, as well as to the ensuing discussions between G.I. Chelpanov and K.N. Kornilov in the 1920s are being considered. Attention is focused on the generation of Losev’s interest in psychology, and consequent transformation of the works of the 1910s directly devoted to psychological problems (“Criticism of modern functional psychology”, “Critical review of the basic teachings and methods of the Würzburg School”, “Research on philosophy and psychology of thinking”). The evolution of psychological views of the thinker is described – from the enthusiasm of his student years for experimental and functional psychology to the construction of psychology based on the “genetic method”, and then, in the late 1920s, to the Platonic-patristic psychology outlined in the “Supplement to the Dialectics of Myth”. Proceeding from the new European psychology, including F. Brentano and E. Husserl guided by Thomas Aquinas (and through him by Aristotle), Losev builds his “absolute mythology”, based on the opposite tradition going back to neoplatonism, Dionysius the Areopagite and Nicholas of Cusa. The article shows how in the 1920s Losev developed a new, sociological, vision, the belief that every being (physical, physiological, psychological and naturalistically-causally-sociological, etc.) “is, in comparison with social existence, a pure abstraction”, and this does not lead to the rejection of “materialistic idealism” and “absolute mythology”. This sociological stand promotes the description of “relative mythologies” (collective psychology, social “myths”). In the 1930s—1940s, knowledge gained in the walls of the Institute of Psychology as well as Losev’s habit of self-observation and reflection about his own experiences contributed to the writing of psychological musical-philosophical prose, where Losev conceptualizes problems also addressed in his “octateuch” of the late 1920s.

Person of the Issue: John Dewey (1859-1952)

John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the founders of functional psychology. A well-known public intellectual, he was also a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. Although Dewey is known best for his publications about education, he also wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics. John Dewey graduated from the University of Vermont and spent three years as a high school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania. He then spent a year studying under the guidance of G. Stanley Hall at John Hopkins University in America’s first psychology lab. After earning his Ph.D. from John Hopkins, Dewey went on to teach at the University of Michigan for nearly a decade. In 1894, Dewey accepted a position as the chairman of the department of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy at the University of Chicago. It was at the University of Chicago that Dewey began to formalize his views that would contribute so heavily to the school of thought known as pragmatism. The central tenant of pragmatism is that the value, truth or meaning of an idea lies in its practical consequences. Dewey also helped establish the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to directly his apply his pedagogical theories.