History of Psychology 2010 American Psychological Association

2010, Vol. 13, No. 4, 424 433 1093-4510/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0021641

FECHNERS INNER PSYCHOPHYSICS

David K. Robinson
Truman State University

Though psychologists are generally aware that Gustav Fechner introduced psycho-
physics and set down its essential methodology, most of them only know about the
part that Fechner called outer psychophysics. In his classic publication of 1860,
Fechner insisted that inner psychophysics was more important, yet this aspect of
Fechners work failed to receive any attention. The article reviews Fechners
presentation of inner psychophysics and suggests reasons why that part of his work
was neglected and has been forgotten.

Keywords: Gustav Fechner, inner psychophysics, thresholds, wave theory, panthe-

ism

In his influential history of psychology first published in 1929, Harvard

psychologist Edwin G. Boring pointedly dismissed the complaints of the early
William James, that Gustav Theodor Fechners thinking was muddled and mys-
tical, while his ponderous psychophysical methods produced little of interest to
psychology. Boring lent such importance to the technical methods of psycho-
physics that he considered Fechner to have equal ranking with Wundt, as founder
of experimental psychology.
Fechner, because of what he did and the time at which he did it, set experimental
quantitative psychology off upon the course which it has followed. One may call
him the founder of experimental psychology, or one may assign that title to
Wundt. It does not matter. Fechner had a fertile idea which grew and brought forth
fruit most abundantlyand the end of that growth is not yet.1

Later historians of psychology have pointed out that this assessment of

Fechners influence reflected Borings own view of the course of psychologys
historical development: he insisted that the quantitative and experimental work
had always made the most crucial contributions. Indeed, S. S. Stevens, who came
to Harvard as Borings assistant and later became his colleague, had a very
productive career doing laboratory work on sensory measurement; in 1962, a few
years before Borings death, Harvard even awarded Smitty the title of Professor
of Psychophysics.2 The methods of psychophysics, championed by Fechner and
others after him, undoubtedly constituted a crucial step toward scientific psychol-
ogy, though it can also be argued that they were not sufficient to solve all its
conceptual problems or to gain scientific status for the entire field of psychology,
as it flowered and developed in so many directions.
Although Fechners Elements of Psychophysics (1860) has been very influ-
ential and has been celebrated many times in the past, historians of psychology

David K. Robinson, Department of History, Truman State University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David K. Robinson, Department
of History, Truman State University, Kirksville, MO 63501. E-mail: drobinso@truman.edu

424
 SPECIAL SECTION: FECHNERS INNER PSYCHOPHYSICS 425

have so far made very little of Fechners crucial distinction between outer and
inner psychophysics. The methods of outer psychophysics are well-known to all
beginners in experimental psychology, and they have contributed to progress in
sensory psychology and sensory physiology, but what Fechner wrote about inner
psychophysics simply failed to attract much notice. Fechners mystical, panthe-
istic writings on philosophy and religion have received a little attention, but few
readers have realized how Fechner meant for inner psychophysics to serve as the
strongest glue between his technical achievements and his spiritual concerns, as
he sought to unite those interests rather than to separate them.
Both outer and inner psychophysics depended upon the fundamental argu-
ments of this new field of research, which Fechner based on an empirical finding
by Ernst Heinrich Weber during the 1840s and the research methods of a host of
sensory physiologists. Weber noticed that in many sensory systems the just
noticeable difference in stimulus (represented in formulas as R, Reiz in German)
is a constant ratio. In other words, we are able to notice a percentage change in
a stimulus (e.g., light, sound) rather than any absolute value of increase or
decrease in strength of that stimulus. In the 1850s Fechner elevated this empirical
finding into something much more general. Mathematically, Fechner integrated
Webers relationship: R/R c; doing so, he assumed that the just noticeable
difference, or threshold, was a stable unit of measurement related to sensation (S).
The result was S k log R, what Fechner called the Weber law, or the
fundamental formula of measurement.
Analysis of many measurements of various sensory systems filled the first 35
chapters of Elements, where Fechner richly illustrated his finding that the Weber
law, though generally applicable, was only approximate, and that in only some
ranges of sensory stimuli, usually not in the extremes. Those voluminous mea-
surements, analyses, and discussions constituted the findings of outer psycho-
physics, based on experiment, observation, and measurement. Inner psychophys-
ics would go beyond the physics and physiology of stimuli, to the minds
interpretation of sensation, to what Wilhelm Wundt and his contemporaries
sometimes called the purely psychological. Amazingly, though he had demon-
strated that the Weber law was only approximate in outer psychophysics, Fechner
insisted that it was strictly valid in inner psychophysics. As we shall see, he was
almost forced to believe this because of how he understood subliminal phenomena
(inner psychophysics below the threshold of consciousness) and how sensations
can rise above the threshold into consciousness. Fechners broad analogical
thinking leads us to believe that he considered the Weber law in some essential
way to be universally valid for all psychophysics, both outer and inner. Empirical
work in outer psychophysics would explain the apparent departures from the law;
the accomplishments of inner psychophysics would, Fechner hoped, convince
scientists and philosophers of its powerful explanatory power.
In the English-speaking world, our understanding of Fechners program for
psychophysics has been limited by at least two circumstances one outer and
the other inner, to borrow Fechners terminology. The major externality is that
only Volume 1 of Fechners classic has been published in English,3 and these 13
chapters deal only with outer psychophysics, and only with part of that subject.
Twenty-two more chapters on outer psychophysics and all of Fechners discus-
sion of inner psychophysics are contained in Volume 2, which has not yet
426 ROBINSON

appeared in English.4 A major internal difficulty in understanding Fechners

intentions is that his whole program for psychophysics, outer and inner together,
was intricately involved with his philosophy of science and worldview, and with
his religious beliefs. Some of those were strange enough at the time; they are
almost impenetrable to modern readers.
Though Fechners Elements stimulated work in the new psychology during
the late 19th century, it was necessarily couched in the physics and physiology of
the 1850s, and at that time German philosophy was bitterly divided into philo-
sophical schools. Consequently, modern readers face serious challenges under-
standing exactly what Fechner had in mind for the whole program of psycho-
physics, and for the role of inner psychophysics in that program. Fechner was
emphatic that inner psychophysics was, or would become, the culmination of
psychophysics and the key to scientific psychology. Wundt, like the other pio-
neers of modern psychology, began his work in experimental psychology about
the time that Fechners book appeared. He later joined the faculty of Leipzig
University, where Fechner held some celebrity. Why did Wundt and the others
refuse to champion inner psychophysics, indeed ignore it, if Fechner thought that
it was so important? Did their views of the relationship between psychophysics
and psychology change over time? For some insight into these questions, we have
to learn more about inner psychophysics, as Fechner presented it.
A survey of the literature reveals at least four strains of interpretation of inner
psychophysics: (1) it was a minor part of a major scientific breakthrough for
experimental psychology (Wundt, Boring, the received wisdom); (2) it was an
essential part of a broad system that failed, though outer psychophysics and its
methods flourished (more recent historians of psychology, such as William
Woodward and Marilyn Marshall);5 (3) it is a forgotten precursor of cognitive
psychology (Sheerer);6 alternatively, it is the beginning of a line of research that
led to modern signal-detection theory (Murray);7 or, most broadly, (4) it was an
essential part of a fundamental shift in philosophy of science, especially where
measurement theory was concerned, leading to Ernst Machs radical empiricism
and even Niels Bohrs theory of complementarity in nuclear physics (Heidel-
berger).8 Working with a translation in progress, this article explores the original
purposes and the intended scope of Fechners inner psychophysics; there will be
some implications for these various interpretations, but these will not be explored
systematically here.
At the end of his Forward to Volume 2 Fechner indicates that in 1860 he
had to remain modest about his claims for inner psychophysics; nevertheless, he
could not hide his enthusiasm about its future prospects.
One would seek in vain . . . for a complete and smoothly polished system of inner
psychophysics. Indeed entire, major areas that belong there are still missing.
Mainly it is a question of gaining, for the time being, a common point of view, as
well as a primary point of departure. From this position, it will be possible to carry
out research with growing accuracy.
The present work opens up expectations out of a general concept of psycho-
physics into the areas of natural philosophy and religion, and these are touched on
only slightly at the end of Chapter 45 . . . We can consider [this point of view] as
exact description only insofar as is allowed, at this time, by the nature of our
undertaking and our methods of knowing.. Although these opinions have not
 SPECIAL SECTION: FECHNERS INNER PSYCHOPHYSICS 427

previously had the pleasure of arousing the denunciation of the general public or
the theological and philosophical worlds (and could hardly hope to do so), the
probability of such a reaction cannot be overlooked with regard to the discussion
in chapters 45 and 46 of the present work. They represent only an anticipation of
the future goal of a psychophysics that would develop according to the basis
offered by principles of this work. This goal can only be accomplished when the
spiritual framework of the world has expanded in all directions, beyond the limits
that are now accepted. I state this with the conviction that the present resistance to
such views will have a negative effect on the acceptance of this psychophysics,
which carries the seed of this development, but also with the conviction that the
solid basis and future development of this theory will eventually destroy this
resistance. Leipzig, August 18, 1860.9

The chapter titles in the relevant section of Elements indicate Fechners

approach to inner psychophysics and his understanding of its scope:
Section Heading: Inner Psychophysics
Ch. 36: The Transition From Outer to Inner Psychophysics
Ch. 37: On the Seat of the Mind
Ch. 38: Application of Webers Law and the Existence of the Threshold in
Inner Psychophysics
Ch. 39: General Significance of the Threshold in Inner Psychophysics
Ch. 40: Sleep and Waking
Ch. 41: Partial Sleep; Attention
Ch. 42: The Relation Between General Consciousness and Its Special Phe-
nomena: The Wave-Pattern
Ch. 43: Relation Between Sensory and Representational Phenomena
Ch. 44: Observations and Remarks in Particular about the Relationship
between After-Images and Memory Images; Memory After-Images, Phe-
nomena of Sensory Recollection, Hallucinations, Illusions, Dreams
Ch. 45: Psychophysical Continuity and Discontinuity; Psychophysical Struc-
tural Stages of the World; The Connecting-point of Psychophysics to Natural
Philosophy and Religion
Ch. 46: Questions Concerning the Nature of Psychophysical Processes
In Chapter 36, the Transition From Outer to Inner Psychophysics, Fechner
introduces the subject in this way:

Up until now our investigations, results, and formulas were essentially in the
domain of outer psychophysics; occasionally and only incidentally have we
touched on those of inner psychophysics. Outer psychophysics, however, as I have
428 ROBINSON

earlier urged, is only the foundation and preparation for the more deeply significant
inner psychophysics.
Let us go back: the stimulus does not immediately arouse a sensation, but in
addition, an inner physical activity takes place between it and the sensation. In
short, according to one particular view, which we will decide about in the
following chapter, we call that which is aroused by the stimulus, and which now
carries directly along with it a sensation, the psychophysical activity. The lawful
relation between the outer and inner end-links of this chainnamely, stimulus and
sensationnecessarily translates itself into what occurs between the stimulus and
this middle link, on the one hand, and between the middle link and the sensation,
on the other hand.
In outer psychophysics, we have skipped this middle link, so to speak,
inasmuch as, subsequent to immediate experience, we were able directly to
establish only the lawful relation between the end-links of this chain, of which the
stimulus is the outer and the sensation is the inner experience. To enter into inner
psychophysics we have to make a transition from the outer end-link to the middle
link, in order further to consider this relationship, instead of the relation of the
outer to the inner. Thus, after it has served its purpose in bringing us to the middle
link, we shall drop consideration of the stimulus.
Fechner, in short, proposes the following schema to represent the entire
chain of activity in human psychology: stimulus (R) psychophysical pro-
cesses (PPP) sensation (S).
He admits that the internal mechanisms are beyond current science, but he is
convinced that the relationships between the phenomena of PPP can be studied
empirically; moreover, some theoretical conclusions can be drawn, just as had
been done in physics and chemistry.
Our information about the anatomy and physiology in the inner physical mecha-
nism that serves as a basis for our mental activity is presently far too imperfect to
allow for reliable inference about the general nature of psychophysical processes.
Are they electrical, chemical, or mechanical? Are they in some way made of a
perceptible or an imperceptible medium? Do we simply say we do not know? . . .
Indeed, it can be considered as one of our first formal principles that what remains
valid for all hypotheses can be put forward, while that which remains undecided
can be left undecided, so long as doubts about the decisions remain. In physics,
things have stood this way long enough with regard to the theory of light, and they
still stand in this way with regard to the theory of electricity. For what is
electricity? Do we simply say we do not know? And yet, how well developed the
science of electricity already is!10

As with the science of electricity (in the 1850s), so it should be with

psychophysics. A scientific investigator should not halt his work because the
ultimate essences are unknown, but should explore the functional relationships
that are apparent in the observed phenomena and, if possible, should apply those
relationships to produce further knowledge and theories that will lead to an
understanding of related phenomena, maybe someday even to an identification of
the essences.
. . . one has to distinguish between the following two questions and to treat them
separately: what is the nature of psychophysical processes, and on what relations
of these processes do the various relations of mental activity depend? The first
 SPECIAL SECTION: FECHNERS INNER PSYCHOPHYSICS 429

question is left undecided here, though a general view about it is given in one of
the final chapters [Chapter 45]. At present, we face only the problem of the second
sort and along with it merely those relations of psychophysical activity that remain
valid and are ultimately shown to be the basic nature of this activity.11

With this nonmetaphysical approach, unconcerned about the nature of the

ultimate elements, Fechner reviews current literature on brain and mind in
Chapter 37, coming to this general conclusion about the wider seat of the mind:

. . . the preservation of the mind in this life is based not on the preservation of a
special point or of the smallest corporal particle, but on the joint working together
of all parts and activities of the body in reciprocal supplementation and with the
possibility, up to certain limits, of reciprocal replacement. Consequently, the wider
seat of the mind discussed here is to be sought in the whole body.12

In Chapters 38 and 39, Fechner discusses the fundamental status and strict
validity of the Weber law, as well as the importance of the threshold and of the
just noticeable difference, in inner psychophysics. The threshold of sensation, in
addition to its usefulness in developing the Weber law out of Webers empirical
finding, also conveniently provides a division-point between consciousness and
unconsciousness. Assuming the real existence of such thresholds, Fechner imag-
ines dynamic movements above and below them. In Chapters 40 through 44, he
explores the interesting psychological phenomena of sleeping, waking, attention,
and so forth, to see how they might reflect underlying psychophysical processes
and the role of thresholds. In addition to a survey of the literature Fechner offers
elaborate introspective reports about attention, falling asleep, waking, dreaming,
threshold states, memory images, afterimages, illusions, hallucinations, and so
forth. These reports reveal his own experiences and those given to him by his
associates and even by his wife, Clara. These reports cover the widest possible
variety of and conditions for these mental phenomena, and Fechner does not
propose any controlled experimentation, as he does with stimulus experiments in
outer psychophysics. Instead, he searches for inductive principles that might
organize our understanding of such a variety of interior experiences.
In Chapter 42 Fechner proposes the wave-pattern, the most elaborately drawn
of his schemas for inner psychophysics, to illustrate how increased stimuli can
sum up to raise the level of the total wave of sensation to bring unconscious
sensations above the threshold, into consciousness. This approach is modeled on
the physics of acoustics and perhaps the wave theory of light, at a time when the
kinetic theory of heat was still in development.13

Imagine that all of the psychophysical processes of a human being are like a wave,
and that the quantity of these processes is described by the height of the wave
above a horizontal baseline or plane surface to which each psychophysically active
point contributes an ordinate . . . (T)he entire structure and the entire operation of
the conscious processes depend on the actual and subsequent developing form, the
rising and falling, of this wave, whereas the intensity of consciousness at each
moment depends on its respective height. The height of this wave somewhere and
somehow must exceed a certain limit, which we call the threshold, before con-
sciousness or waking can occur.
430 ROBINSON

This wave is called the whole wave, the principal wave, or the total wave, and the
corresponding threshold, the principal threshold . . . Now, let us represent the move-
ment of a longer period by means of a wave slowly oscillating back and forth and
changing the location of its peak depending on the general condition of our liveliness
and the direction of our attentionwe will call this the underwave. The movements of
shorter periods on which our special conscious phenomena depend are represented by
smaller waves that are imposed on the underwavewe will call them the overwaves;
as the overwaves change, they penetrate the upper area of the underwave, which, upon
being altered by the overwaves, becomes the total or the principal wave.
The greater the strength of the movements of the shorter period (the amplitude of
oscillation), the higher those peaks will raise the waves, which serve as their repre-
sentation, above the underwave, and the deeper the valleys will be imprinted into them,
according to whether the direction of their movement is the same or in opposition to
that of the underwave. It is by these risings and sinkings, which by their nature must
exceed a certain size limitwe call this the upper thresholdthat any special phe-
nomenon that is related to them can enter into consciousness.
With this schema, we are doing nothing else but describing graphically what was
said above with words, namely, that special conscious phenomena depend on special
forms of periodical movement that are considered to be modifications of a more
general form of periodical movement on which the general condition and working of
consciousness depend, and that these special processes, like the total process, have
their thresholds.14
Fechner even went so far as to connect these periodic phenomena to more
cosmic systems, his analogical, symmetrical thinking apparently influenced by
decades of work in physics:

Not only the system of psychophysical movements in men, but also the system of all
terrestrial movements is subject to the period of a day, since the entire earth turns
around once on its axis in 24 hours. In addition, innumerable parts of the earth have
their own special periodic movements: the sea in its ebb and flow, the atmosphere in
periodic rains and winds, organisms in their internal cycles. In spite of the fact that
these parts are also subject to the rotation of the earth, nothing prevents these general
periodic movements of the earth and the special periodic movements of their parts
from being separately understood, dealt with, or subjected to an account, in a particular
way and up to certain limits.
. . . Although such examples, not drawn from psychophysical systems, can by
themselves prove nothing about psychophysical systems, they nevertheless show,
according to the general laws of substantial possibilities, that we need no longer to be
surprised to find the same principles also realized in psychological systems. We will
therefore allow ourselves to make use of our schema in this sense, insofar as reality
reveals corresponding relationships.15

In Chapter 45, where he allows himself to speculate about the Connecting-

point of Psychophysics to Natural Philosophy and Religion, Fechner demon-
strates one of the most far-reaching features of his wave model:

Our principal waves, on which our principal consciousness depends, produce waves on
which our special conscious phenomena depend; but can our principal waves for their
part also be considered as overwaves of some larger principal wave? If physical waves
can work like this, why not also psychophysical? The total activity of the earthly
system can thus be represented under our schema as a larger wave, and the
 SPECIAL SECTION: FECHNERS INNER PSYCHOPHYSICS 431

systems of activity of the individual organic creatures are a part of it as mere

overwaves. The systems of activity of the heavenly bodies are likewise only
overwaves of the general system of the totality of the processes of nature. The
stepwise construction that goes on inside us also carries on outside of us.
Therefore, if the overwaves in us, on which our distinct conscious phenomena
depend, are discontinuous only above their own threshold but continuous above our
principal threshold, will not the principal waves, on which our principal consciousness
depends, also be discontinuous only above our threshold and then continuous above
some deeper principal threshold? This would mean that there must exist, beyond our
principal consciousness, a still more universal one that in the same way comprehends
our consciousness as part of its own particularities, just as our consciousness for its part
comprehends its own particularities.
The consequence of this conception leads to the view of an omnipresent, con-
scious God in nature, in whom all spirits live, move, and have their being, as He also
lives in them. The heavenly bodies and the individual spiritual intermediate beings
dwell in between Him and us, and these creature-spirits carry our sensory experiences
just as undivided and united in themselves, as for their part they are carried in the
divine God; like us, these creature-spirits carry their own sensory circles that carry
within them their own special perceptions. According to the principle of analogies and
interconnections that this apparent, stepwise construction already furnishes in man
himself, this view can thus be further developed and supported.
In this connection, we can see many reasons to consider the prospect of our own
future existence after death. In particular, the following point of view is suggested: If
an image in our eyes, connected with overwaves, after its extinction leaves a memory
aftereffect that enters into a more universal and higher realm of the memories and
thoughts of the common or principal consciousness, then we ought to believe that
something corresponding to this also happens to our principal waves, insofar as they
for their part are overwaves above a deeper threshold, and that our souls accordingly
enter into a higher spiritual realm in God after death.16

Fechner admits that, for the time being, psychophysics only furnishes some
connecting-points for exploring this worldview, but this passage clearly demon-
strates his mystical, naturphilosophisch theology, very much connected with his view
of inner psychophysics. He never offered any apology for it; indeed, he always
insisted that his Day View was fully consistent with empirical science, and he argued
that the consequences of the Night View of materialism was too limiting to human
understanding. Fechners religious thought was surely too pantheistic and too natural-
scientific to reassure any orthodox theologian of his day, but it is definitely a theistic
worldview, not deistic and definitely antiatheistic.
Few of his contemporaries working in psychology and sensory physiology
wanted to follow Fechner into such broad spiritual implications: it is indeed easy to
imagine how people with such widely varying scientific and philosophical views as
Wundt, Hermann Helmholtz, Ewald Hering, and Mach must have all winced when-
ever they read such passages as the previous one. Fechner obviously meant for inner
psychophysics to be the area of research that would reveal how conscious human
thought encounters divine cosmic spirit; indeed, those connections would be proven
by psychophysics. Fechners work in outer psychophysics had provided useful meth-
ods for gathering laboratory data, and so the other scientists followed their own
theoretical leanings as they dealt with only some of the deeper issues that Fechner had
gathered into his inner psychophysics: empiricism or nativism in perception, the
432 ROBINSON

nature of reported sensation, and so forth. Before he died, Fechner answered his critics
in several works,17 and he realized that outer psychophysics was the only part of his
work that any other significant researcher in the field ever cared about. (See Meis-
chner-Metge, this issue.)
In light of this outcome for Fechner, we can perhaps better understand
Wundts own modesty and his conclusion about Fechner in his memoir, when he
considered who fathered what:

Fechner, who was a few years younger, called Ernst Heinrich Weber the father of
psychophysics. I doubt whether this name fits. The creator of psychophysics was
certainly Fechner himself. I would rather call Weber the father of experimental
psychology . . . It was Webers great contribution to think of measuring psychic
quantities and of showing the exact relationships between them, to be the first to
understand this and carry it out.18
Although he took every opportunity to praise Fechner throughout his career
in Leipzig, when he set down his thoughts shortly before his death, Wundt
revealed this more careful, at the same time more general evaluation. After
decades of directing an important institute for experimental psychology, Wundt
preferred to emphasize the achievement of the pioneering sensory physiologist
who first noticed a path to this work, rather than those of Fechner or himself, the
ones who tried to turn that path into a grand road to knowledge about human
thought and behavior. Wundts path was ambitious enough but remained earth-
bound; Fechners found its limits only in the mind of God and the universe.

Endnotes
1. Edwin G. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology (New York: D. Apple-
ton - Century, 1929), 286.
2. George A. Miller, Stanley Smith Stevens, in Biographical Memoirs, National
Academy of Sciences, Vol. 47 (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 1975),
424 459; 425.
3. Gustav Theodor Fechner, Elements of Psychophysics, Vol. 1, trans. H. E. Adler,
ed. D. H. Howes and E. G. Boring (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966).
4. A complete translation, including the heretofore un-translated Vol. 2, is sched-
uled for publication in 2011: Gustav Theodor Fechner, Elements of Psychophysics, ed.
David K. Robinson and Robert W. Rieber (New York: Springer, forthcoming). The basis
for this edition will be the second, essentially a reprint with corrections and some updated
notes: Fechner, Elemente der Psychophysik, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel,
1889). In this article, the quotations from Vol. 2 come from this version, referenced as
Elemente (1889); translations are by David K. Robinson.
5. William R. Woodward, Fechners panpsychism: A scientific solution to the
mind-body problem, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 8 (1972),
367386; see also his article, Wundts program for the new psychology: Vicissitudes of
experiment, theory, and system, in The Problematic Science: Psychology in Nineteenth-
century Thought, ed. William R. Woodward and Mitchell G. Ash (New York: Praeger,
1982), 167197; Marilyn E. Marshall, Physics, metaphysics, and Fechners psychophys-
ics, in The Problematic Science: Psychology in Nineteenth-century Thought, ed. William
R. Woodward and Mitchell G. Ash (New York: Praeger, 1982), 65 87.
6. Eckart Sheerer, Fechners inner psychophysics: Its historical fate and present
status, in Cognition, Information Processing, and Psychophysics: Basic Issues, ed.
 SPECIAL SECTION: FECHNERS INNER PSYCHOPHYSICS 433

Hans-Georg Geissler, StephenW. Link, and James T. Townsend (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum,
1992), 321.
7. David J. Murray, A perspective for viewing the history of psychophysics,
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1993): 115186. Murrays target article is followed
by comments from Horst Gundlach, Michael Heidelberger, Gail Hornstein, and Stephen
Link, among many others.
8. Michael Heidelberger, Nature from Within: Gustav Theodor Fechners Psycho-
physical Worldview, trans. Cynthia Klohr (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
2004), 192193, and ch. 8.
9. Elemente (1889), Vol. 2, viii-x.
10. Elemente (1889), Vol. 2, 377378.
11. Elemente (1889), Vol. 2, 378.
12. Elemente (1889), Vol. 2, 426.
13. For a wonderfully organized and informative guide to all the scientific and
philosophical literature that Fechner drew upon for his work in psychophysics, see Horst
Gundlach, Index Psychophysicus: Bio- und bibliographischer Index zu Fechners El-
ementen der Psychophysik und den Parerga: Users Guide in English, Passauer Schriften
zur Psychologiegeschichte, Nr. 7 (Passau: Passavia Universitatsverlag, 1998).
14. Elemente (1889), Vol. 2, 454 456.
15. Elemente (1889), Vol. 2, 458 459.
16. Elemente (1889), Vol. 2, 541543.
17. Fechner responded to critics in some articles and in two lengthy books: In
Sachen der Psychophysik (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1877) and Revision der Haupt-
puncte der Psychophysik (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1882).
18. Wilhelm Wundt, Erlebtes und Erkanntes (Stuttgart: Alfred Krner, 1920), 38.
Received September 12, 2010
Accepted September 16, 2010 y