Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology". In 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research. This marked psychology as an independent field of study. By creating this laboratory he was able to establish psychology as a separate science from other disciplines. He also established the first academic journal for psychological research, Philosophische Studien, to publish the institute's research.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works that he had left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents of their philosophical vision.
Friedrich Eduard Beneke was a German psychologist and post-Kantian philosopher.
Ernst Kuno Berthold Fischer was a German philosopher, a historian of philosophy and a critic.
Wilhelm Dilthey was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held G. W. F. Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of scientific methodology, historical evidence and history's status as a science. He could be considered an empiricist, in contrast to the idealism prevalent in Germany at the time, but his account of what constitutes the empirical and experiential differs from British empiricism and positivism in its central epistemological and ontological assumptions, which are drawn from German literary and philosophical traditions.
Hans Bender was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg. For many years his pipe smoking, contemplative figure was synonymous with German parapsychology. He was an investigator of 'unusual human experience', e.g. poltergeists and clairvoyants. One of his most famous cases was the Rosenheim Poltergeist.
Psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes". Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India.
Karl Groos was a German philosopher and psychologist who proposed an evolutionary instrumentalist theory of play. His 1898 book on The Play of Animals suggested that play is a preparation for later life.
Carl Gustav Carus was a German physiologist and painter, born in Leipzig, who played various roles during the Romantic era. A friend of the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he was a many-sided man: a doctor, a naturalist, a scientist, a psychologist, and a landscape painter who studied under Caspar David Friedrich.
Moriz Carrière was a German philosopher and historian.
Georg Theodor Ziehen was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Frankfurt am Main. He was the son of noted author, Eduard Ziehen (1819–1884).
Robert Saudek was a Czech-born graphologist and writer of novels, stories, poems and plays. He had considerable influence on the content and standing of graphology worldwide. He also published numerous articles in many languages in periodicals as diverse as The Listener, Zeitschrift für Menschenkenntnis and the Journal of Social Psychology. He also founded the professional graphology society in the Netherlands. He also started two academic periodicals: one in Dutch and the other in English. Many graphologists worldwide today use Saudek’s work without knowing the origin.
Hans Martin Sutermeister was a Swiss physician and medical writer, politician, and activist against miscarriages of justice.
Georg Friedrich Meier was a German philosopher and aesthetician. A follower of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, he reformed the philosophy of Christian Wolff by introducing elements of John Locke's empiricist theory of knowledge.
Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch was a German mathematician, logician, psychologist and philosopher. His brother was the composer Karl Ludwig Drobisch (1803–1854).
Willy Moog was a German philosopher and educator.
Die Seele: Ihr Verhältnis zum Bewusstsein und zum Leibe is a book by the German philosopher and psychologist Joseph Geyser was published in the journal "Wissen und Forschen " in 1914.
Emil Karl Gustav Alfred Mattiesen was a Baltic Germans musician, music pedagogue, composer and philosopher. He composed lieder, song cycles, ballads, chamber music and organ music, but is better known for standard works in German on parapsychology. He was a professor of church music at the University of Rostock from 1929.
Theodor Elsenhans (1862-1918) was a German psychologist and neo-Kantian philosopher.
The Robert-Sommer Award is a prize awarded for scientific work done in the field of schizophrenia research. It has been awarded since 1996 by the Robert-Sommer Research Society. It commemorates Robert Sommer, a German psychiatrist born in Grottkau and first director of the Psychiatric University Hospital in Giessen. He is remembered for his work in experimental psychology.Traditionally the award is given to the recipient during the GISS conference in Giessen.
