Abstract

ARAUJO, Saulo de Freitas. The Role of Christian Wolff in the History of Psychology. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2012, vol.11, n.3, pp.1013-1024. ISSN 1657-9267.

Christian Wolff (1679-1754) was a central figure not only in the German culture from the eighteenth century, but also in the historical development of psychology. However, his work remains largely unknown by most contemporary psychologists. The aim of this paper is to show Wolff's important role in the historical formation of psychology. We begin by offering a brief context of German Enlightenment in its historical-cultural aspects. Afterwards the close relationship between his psychological thought and his philosophical system will be shown. Finally, a few cases that illustrate Wolff's influence on the posterior development of psychology will be presented. We conclude that he deserves much more attention than he has received so far in the historiography of psychology in general.

Keywords : Christian Wolff; history of psychology; historiography of psychology.

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