Wilhelm Witte (psychologist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm Witte (born January 8, 1915 in Hattingen ; † May 30, 1985 in Regensburg ) was a German psychologist and university professor .

Life and workstations

After the Abitur at grammar school in Hattingen 1933 Witte started first at the Georg-August University of Göttingen to study mathematics and physics at David Hilbert and Robert Pohl - were conducting the process in his own words "the deep desire and the downright selfish desire to To learn to understand the world (with earth, stars, plants, animals and people) from the ground up. "

With Pohl he learned that in addition to physical laws, psychological facts - such as the perception of colors, shine, tones, sounds, shapes, forms - must be taken into account and expanded his studies to include psychology , which was represented in Göttingen by Narcissus Ach , a representative of thought psychology , who u. a. developed the method of systematic experimental self- observation.

After two semesters at the University of Bonn , Wilhelm Witte finally finished his studies with Willy Hellpach in Heidelberg in 1937 with a dissertation on the metaphysics of Ludwig Klages . He then first worked in labor administration and at the Bonn Institute for Clinical Psychology in the specialist ward for brain injured persons. In 1942 Witte accepted an assistant position at Hellpach in Heidelberg and qualified as a professor in 1944 with a paper on experimental characterology . In 1946 Witte received the Venia legendi , during this time he also worked on the training of deaf-mute teachers in Heidelberg . At the University of Heidelberg he was appointed adjunct professor in 1952 and associate professor in 1954 . Appointed professor . In the same year he became director of the psychological institute of the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen and here in 1962 full professor . In 1964, Wilhelm Witte moved to the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster as full professor for applied psychology and became the second professor for psychology alongside Wolfgang Metzger - until now he had represented the subject alone. After Metzger's retirement in 1968, Witte became Professor of General and Applied Psychology in Münster . In 1974 he took over the chair for general and applied psychology in Regensburg , which he held until his retirement in 1983. He then represented this chair for another year until it was replaced in 1984 by Alf Zimmer ; he died in 1985.

Focus of work

Wilhelm Witte was well educated and had a wide range of interests. His research focuses and publications are correspondingly diverse, in which theoretical analysis and experimental procedures meet in multiple ways. A special focus for him was always the research of psychic reference systems ; he links v. a. to a term from Gestalt psychology that deals with the connections between perception and knowledge processes.

As a result of his work on various forms of disability and their confluences, which he has been doing over and over again for decades , he founded a psychology of disability and rehabilitation in which general and applied topics of psychology were concretized in the early 1970s . Especially from 1974/75 in Regensburg this area became a focus of work. Again and again, however, Witte also took up sensory-psychological topics; he was particularly interested in the field of haptics ; the workshops in his institutes manufactured a whole range of examination devices for this purpose. Finally, Witte's interest in the history of psychology should be mentioned , which he repeatedly presented in lectures. A more detailed scientific appreciation can be found under the obituaries on the occasion of Witte's death.

He also offered his employees and students - including many women - a wide range of work opportunities. For example, the Münster institute not only had an animal laboratory for studies on comparative psychology, but also probably one of the first institute computers in Germany - at that time, in the early days of digitization, it was almost a room-sized computer. Wilhelm Witte was a special academic teacher and his main focus of work consisted of fruitful research and graduate seminars. In addition to countless other research projects, well over 100 diploma theses and almost as many dissertations were created under his leadership . A whole series of former Witte doctoral students later continued their scientific work in their own professorships - shaped a. a. through Witte's demands on her independence. He promoted the conversation “on a large scale” a. a. as host of the 25th Congress of the German Society for Psychology in 1966 in Münster. One of his merits is the emphatic support of the Münster honorary doctorate for Wolfgang Köhler , one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, who was one of the very few university lecturers who protested publicly against the dismissal of Jewish professors in 1933 and left Germany himself in 1935.

Witte was also a willing and generous laudator , who contributed a whole series of challenging articles to commemorative publications for friends and colleagues on the occasion of milestone birthdays or academic honors . In the opposite case, a commemorative publication that a number of friends and students had put together on the occasion of his 65th birthday (“perceiving-judging-acting”) could only be made palatable by omitting any direct reference.

review

The University of Regensburg honored Wilhelm Witte with a ceremony on July 5, 1985 . On this occasion the “Regensburger Universitätsreden, Heft 2” was published, which, in addition to the speeches at the ceremony, also contains a self-portrait of Witte from July 21, 1983 on the occasion of his retirement and a list of publications.

Wilhelm Witte's scientific estate is located at the University of Würzburg in the Adolf Würth Center for the History of Psychology and can be accessed via the finding aid.

Publications (selection)

  • The metaphysics of Ludwig Klages. Würzburg: Tritsch, 1939. (Additional Univ.-Diss.)
  • The methodology of experimental characterology. Heidelberg: 1944, typewritten. (Habilitation thesis)
  • Clinical possibilities of experimental psychodiagnostics. In: W. Hellpach (ed.), Clinical Psychology. Stuttgart: Thieme, 1946. pp. 189-216.
  • Experimental psychological foundations of the doctrine of the human environment. In: J. v. Allesch u. a. (Ed.), Characterological Writings of the Professional Association of German Psychologists , Issue 1. Hamburg: Nölke, 1948. pp. 87-102.
  • On the history of the psychological concept of wholeness and gestalt. Studium Generale, Vol. 5, 1952, 455-464.
  • On the psychology of the deaf and mute. In: Heidelberg State School for the Deaf (ed.), 50 years of education for the deaf and dumb. Heidelberg: 1954. pp. 24-34.
  • About the structure of reference systems. In: A. Wellek (ed.), Report on the 20th Congress of the German Society for Psychology. Göttingen: Hogrefe, 1956. pp. 137-139.
  • Current genesis of memory. Journal of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Volume 6, 1959. pp. 508-518.
  • Structure, dynamics and genesis of reference systems. Psychological Contributions, Volume 4, 1960. pp. 218-252.
  • Sport as a game and its meaning for modern man. Studium Generale, Volume 13, 1960. pp. 48-62
  • Experimental studies on the dynamics of perception. Psychological Contributions, Volume 5, 1960. pp. 458-468.
  • Together with O. Heller: Category systems and perceptual dynamics. Psychologie und Praxis, Volume 5, 1961. pp. 63-65.
  • Somesthesia and haptic perception. Studium Generale, Volume 17, 1964. pp. 596-608.
  • On the relationships between practical psychology, applied psychology and basic psychological research. Psychological Contributions, Volume 9, 1966. pp. 368-377.
  • Feel. In: W. Metzger (ed.), Handbuch der Psychologie , Volume 1,1. Göttingen: Hogrefe, 1966. pp. 498-517.
  • The problem of the frames of reference. In: W. Metzger (ed.), Handbuch der Psychologie , Volume 1,1. Göttingen: Hogrefe, 1966. pp. 1003-1027
  • For the analysis of the absolute assessment of athletic performance. Journal for Experimental and Applied Psychology, Volume 18, 1971. pp. 678-691.
  • Studies on the obstruction of thinking through intuition. Psychological Contributions, Volume 16, 1974. pp. 277-287.
  • On the gestalt and system character of psychic reference systems. In: S. Ertel u. a. (Ed.), Gestalt theory in modern psychology: Wolfgang Metzger on his 75th birthday. Darmstadt: Steinkopff, 1975. pp. 76-93. ISBN 978-3-7985-0400-4 .
  • Haptic illusions for sighted and blind people. In: GB Flores d'Arcais (ed.), Studies in Perception. Milano, Firence: Martello, 1975. pp. 312-325.
  • The essence of disability. In: D. Rüdiger & M. Perrez (eds.), Anthropological Aspects of Psychology , Salzburg: Müller, 1979. pp. 76–82. ISBN 978-3-7013-0583-4 .
  • (posthumous) introduction to rehabilitation psychology. Edited and edited by Rainer Brackhane. Bern, Stuttgart, Toronto: Huber, 1988. ISBN 978-3-456-81569-5 .

editor

  • Co-editor of Psychologia Universalis since 1952
  • Co-editor of the Psychological Articles since 1953

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Witte - curriculum vitae (p. 27) . In: Regensburg University Speeches, Book 2 - Academic commemoration for Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Witte (8.1.1915 - 30.5.1985) on July 5, 1985. Published by the President of the University of Regensburg.
  2. ↑ Self-presentation by Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Witte during the retirement ceremony on July 21, 1983 (pp. 23-26) . In: Regensburg University Speeches, Book 2 - Academic commemoration for Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Witte (8.1.1915 - 30.5.1985) on July 5, 1985. Published by the President of the University of Regensburg.
  3. ↑ Short biography (p. 2) . In: Finding Aid for Wilhelm Witte. Property of the Adolf-Würth-Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Würzburg (Finding aid on the estate of Wilhelm Witte).
  4. ↑ Scientific appreciation by Prof. Dr. G. Haubensak (pp. 10-17) . In: Regensburg University Speeches, Book 2 - Academic commemoration for Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Witte (8.1.1915 - 30.5.1985) on July 5, 1985. Published by the President of the University of Regensburg.
  5. ^ Lists of diploma theses and dissertations (pp. 18-37) . In: Finding Aid for Wilhelm Witte. Property of the Adolf-Würth-Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Würzburg (Finding aid on the estate of Wilhelm Witte).
  6. ↑ Köhler, Wolfgang. Retrieved August 5, 2020 .
  7. ^ Festschrift Wilhelm Witte . In: Perceiving - Judging - Acting: Research in the field of tension between general and applied psychology. Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna: Huber 1980.
  8. ↑ Academic commemoration for Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Witte (8 January 1915 - 30 May 1985) on July 5, 1985 . In: Regensburger Universitätsreden, Heft 2 Edited by the President of the University of Regensburg. Regensburg: Mittelbayerische Druckerei- und Verlags-Gesellschaft 1985 .
  9. ^ Finding aid W. Witte. Retrieved August 5, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Witte, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Hattingen
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1985
Place of death regensburg