Book Description

Excerpt from The Psychology of Sound I have undertaken this work in the interests of a purely psychological theory of the senses. A purely psychological analysis and theory of sensory experience has seemed to me for some years to be not only ideally desirable and even necessary, but really also possible. I have made two previous statements of the case for hearing. The first, published in 1911 in The British Journal of Psychology (vol. IV.), formed an incident in a general programme and tentative sketch of this pure psychology. The second, published in the same journal in 1914 (vol. VII.), was planned to meet the numerous attempts that had appeared in the intervening years to reform the elementary psychology of hearing. These attempts made strong appeals towards other lines of construction than those I had advocated; but I had confidence enough in the inherent appropriateness or, as it might be called technically, in the phenomenological correctness, of my 'idea' to be eager to come to grips with these others both in detail and in general. These new movements have since gained in interest and weight by the fact that Stumpf, in reviewing them in 1914, has seen fit to abandon his own generally accepted position, held since 1883, and to put himself at the head of one of the movements, though rejecting the special arguments brought forward for it by its first public exponents. From my second statement it may still not have been clear to many that the ground and basis of my analysis and theory of hearing are as purely psychological as I believe them to be. Such revolutionary teaching in psychology must needs have the most explicit statement. I hesitate to say that this doctrine is fundamentally new. In philosophy there is nothing so new under the sun. But at least in respect of the material to which the primary general principles of science have been applied, if not also in respect of the special principles that have sprung from the new rock that has been struck, there is surely much in my doctrine that is fresh growth and that will in its time give both blossom and fruit. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.