William Woodward

I propose to take a more proximate and micro-contextual approach to the history of cultural psychology, by focusing on the 1960s. In this historical snapshot, Jerome Bruner emerges as a consummate experimental scientist, organizer of scientific knowledge, and entrepreneur in education. Looking ahead, his work continued to evolve: from perceptual readiness and values in perception (1950s) to thinking and educational psychology (1960s). Then came developmental psychology and spiral curriculum (1970s), language as social interaction (1980s), the narrative turn to meaning (1990s), and legal psychology (2000s). His scientific biography resembles a prism, refracting myriad persons and cultures in which he moved. Within that context it is possible to trace several pathways to cultural psychology.

A MAJOR PHILOSOPHICAL INTERPRETER of Kant and critic of Herbart and Hegel, Hermann Lotze ( 1817-1881) is known to historians of psychology primarily for his theory of spatial perception.' As Professor of Philosophy at Gottingen University from 1845 to 1880, he published his theory of the physiological mechanism for spatial consciousness no less than six times.2 Standard accounts present his local sign theory as an associationistic, empiricistic, or empiristic view.3 Yet they also mention its influence among nativists such as Lotze's own student Carl Stumpf. Certainly there is an historical irony here which deserves explanation. This paper will describe Lotze's theory, indicate its origins in the work of scientists such as E. H. Weber and Johannes Muiller and philosophers such as Jakob Friedrich Fries and Johann Friedrich Herbart, and trace its transformation at the hands of psycholo- gists of various theoretical persuasions.4 The intent is not to argue for Lotze's personal influence so much as to illustrate how one fertile idea in the history of science can serve as the catalyst for a much broader conceptual development.