Zwischen System und Experiment. Johann Gottlob Krügers Versuch einer Experimental-Seelenlehre

Johann Gottlob Krüger’s Experimental psychology (1756) is commonly considered as one of the first empirical anthropologies in the German-speaking space. On closer examination, however, the foundations of his psychology appear to be both Wolffian rationalism and an epistemological empiricism of Lockean origins. His methodical conception of experimentalism, thus, expands Wolffian empirical psychology. On this basis, Krüger also supplies a quite precarious defence of materialism, and a view of experiments on humans that conflicts radically with present standards.