Werner Traxel

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Werner Traxel (born December 6, 1924 in Hanau ; † September 1, 2009 in Bayreuth ) was a German psychologist and university professor. He worked as a professor at the universities in Bayreuth, Kiel and Passau with a focus on experimental psychology , methodology and the history of psychology .

Career

After military service and imprisonment, Traxel studied psychology from 1946 at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In 1949 he graduated with a diploma and received his doctorate in 1952 under Richard Pauli (1886–1951) on the experiment in contemporary psychology (Pauli died in 1951 and was unable to supervise the work to the end). He then went to Marburg as assistant to Heinrich Düker and was able to perfect his knowledge in experimental psychology there . In 1959, together with Düker, he organized the first conference of experimental psychologists (TeaP) in Marburg, which continues to take place annually to this day. He helped initiate a change of direction in the German psychology of the time to empirical-experimental work.

In 1959 he completed his habilitation at Düker on eidetic phenomena and dealt critically with Erich Rudolf Jaensch and Oswald Kroh . Results previously published by them could not be reproduced. The fact that eidetics kept reappearing later made him skeptical of the scientific community.

He was a professor in Bayreuth from 1962 and in Kiel from 1964 , but returned to Bayreuth in 1971 because of the student unrest in Kiel. He declined calls to Marburg (1964), Regensburg (during his time in Kiel) and Würzburg (1973). His book "Introduction of the Methodology of Psychology", published in 1964, is considered to be the first general methodology of psychology in Germany after World War II. In 1981 he accepted a position at the newly founded University of Passau . At the Institute for the History of Modern Psychology , which he founded there, he was able to build up a collection of psychological apparatus and documents, establish a series of publications on the history of psychology and organize various conferences on topics relating to the history of psychology.

In the so-called "language dispute " , Traxel argued that the disadvantages of disclosing the German language as a publication medium would outweigh the advantages of using the English language. The restriction to a single scientific language is paradoxical, translation is a problem, since one can only express oneself in one's mother tongue with the precision necessary for a scientific publication. This would apply in particular to the social sciences and humanities and would then not lead to more internationality, but to a new provincialism, which is characterized by the worldwide uniformity of the issues dealt with. The alternative is a psychology that differs in its basic ideas, work priorities and languages ​​in regional centers, which in turn have international connections. Gustav A. Lienert responded with a reply in the form of 13 theses, where he advocated extensive use of the English language in written and oral scientific communication as well as in teaching.

The Werner and Rosemarie Traxel Foundation was established in 2010 . The funds are intended to benefit the Adolf Würth Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Würzburg , which was the successor to the Traxel Institute for the History of Modern Psychology at the University of Passau in 1981 and was relocated to the University of Würzburg in 2009 with the name change.

Publications

  • Critical studies on eidetics . Habil. Writing d. Philos. Faculty of Marburg 1959. also: Archive for the whole of psychology, 114, 143–172. 1962.
  • Introduction to the methodology of psychology . Huber, Bern 1964.
  • About the subject and method of psychology . Huber, Bern 1968.
  • Basics and methods of psychology. 2nd Edition. Huber, Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna 1974.
  • (as co-editor) Dorsch Psychological Dictionary (6th edition 1959 to 8th edition 1970),
  • History for the present. Passauer Schriften zur Psychologiegeschichte (edited by the Institute for the History of Modern Psychology at the University of Passau) Volume 1 1985, Volume 2 1995.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pauli, Richard Maria in deutsche-biografie.de
  2. Werner Traxel in DORSCH Lexicon of Psychology
  3. ^ Obituary by G. Lüer and H. Gundlach Psychologische Rundschau, 61 (1), 2010, p. 51.
  4. Gundlach, H .; Stock, A. (2012) The Adolf Würth Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Würzburg Psychologische Rundschau (2012), 63, pp. 205–217.
  5. ^ W. Traxel (1975). Internationality or Provincialism? About the importance of the German language for German-speaking psychologists. Psychological Contributions, 17, 584-594.
  6. W. Traxel (1977). “Publish or perish!” - in German or in English? Psychological Contributions, 21, 62–77.
  7. ^ GA Lienert (1977). About Werner Traxel: Internationality or Provincialism, on the question: Should psychologists publish in English? Psychological Contributions, 19, 487-492.
  8. Werner and Rosemarie Traxel Foundation on deutsches-stiftungstentrum.de