The Psychology Book

24

CONCEPTS BECOME

FORCES WHEN THEY

RESIST ONE ANOTHER

JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART (1776–1841)

J

ohann Herbart was a German

philosopher who wanted to

investigate how the mind

works—in particular, how it

manages ideas or concepts. Given

that we each have a huge number of

ideas over the course of our lifetime,

how do we not become increasingly

confused? It seemed to Herbart that

the mind must use some kind of

system for differentiating and

storing ideas. He also wanted to

account for the fact that although

ideas exist forever (Herbart thought

them incapable of being destroyed),

some seem to exist beyond our

conscious awareness. The 18th-

century German philosopher

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Structuralism

BEFORE

1704 German philosopher

Gottfried Leibniz discusses

petites perceptions (perceptions

without consciousness) in his

New Essays on Human

Understanding.

1869 German philosopher

Eduard von Hartmann

publishes his widely read

Philosophy of the Unconscious.

AFTER

1895 Sigmund Freud and

Josef Breuer publish Studies

on Hysteria, introducing

psychoanalysis and its

theories of the unconscious.

1912 Carl Jung writes The

Psychology of the Unconscious,

suggesting that all people have

a culturally specific collective

unconscious.

Experiences and sensations

combine to form ideas.

One idea is forced

to become favored

over another.

The favored idea stays

in consciousness.

Similar ideas can

coexist or combine.

The unfavored idea leaves

consciousness; it becomes

an unconscious idea.

Dissimilar ideas resist

one another and become

forces in conflict.