Wilhelm Peters (psychologist)

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Wilhelm Peters (born November 11, 1880 in Vienna ; † March 29, 1963 in Würzburg ) was a psychologist and university professor.

life and work

Peters attended elementary school in Vienna and then the humanistic grammar school . One of his classmates was Stefan Zweig .

He studied in Vienna , Strasbourg , Zurich and Leipzig and took courses in philosophy, in Zurich pedagogy with Ernst Meumann , in Leipzig physics and chemistry with Wilhelm Ostwald and completed a physics course in medicine . Finally, he did his doctorate in 1904 under Wilhelm Wundt on "The color perception of the retinal periphery".

From 1904 to 1906 he worked in Vienna at the Physiological Institute, then until 1908 in Munich under Emil Kraepelin in the Munich Psychiatric Clinic. Hermann Ebbinghaus encouraged him to move to Frankfurt am Main, where the Academy for Social and Commercial Sciences offered him a position. In 1910 he completed his habilitation with Karl Marbe in Würzburg and received the license to teach philosophy, psychology and education.

Here in Würzburg, the work that established his actual reputation as a scientist was soon created. With the support of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna, he began a schoolchildren and certificate examination. In Bavaria , Styria and Baden , the school reports of 1162 children, 344 pairs of parents and of 151 children the reports of all four grandparents were collected and critically analyzed using statistical methods. Peters came to the conclusion that the general speed of perception was particularly important for the grades in intellectual performance. Peters saw through the nature of the regression towards the center .

In 1919 Peters was appointed professor at the commercial college in Mannheim, in 1923 at the instigation of the social democratic state government against the bitter resistance of the philosophical faculty (see Thuringian university conflict ) at the University of Jena . When the Reichswehr marched into Thuringia in 1923 , Peters was the only university professor to protest against the military commander's attacks on the university.

The assignment of psychology to the mathematics and natural sciences faculty when the faculties were reorganized in 1925 ushered in a very fruitful creative period for Peters. His activities now focused mainly on the field of youth and developmental psychology and on the reform of teacher training .

In the run-up to the National Socialist seizure of power , Peters tried to resist the ever increasing demagogic propaganda on the racial issue and gave lectures that were conveyed by the socialist student group, among others.

On April 28, 1933, Wilhelm Peters, dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences since 1932 , was dismissed as a Jew . - Peters first emigrated to England. In 1937 he was appointed to the University of Istanbul , where he again built up a psychological institute. In 1952 he returned to Würzburg as an emeritus.

swell

  1. ↑ Christian Faludi: The “new” versus the “old spirit”. Willingness to reform and resistance at the University of Jena 1921-24 . In: Michael Dreyer, Andreas Braune (ed.): Weimar writings on the republic . tape 2 . Steiner, Stuttgart 2017, p. 285-306 .
  2. ↑ Volkmar Weiss : In memory of the 100th birthday of the psychologist Wilhelm Peters. Biological Rundschau 18 (1980) 295-300

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Peters, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Psychologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1963
Place of death Wurzburg