Abstract

WUNDT, Wilhelm  and  FREIXO, Estevão de Carvalho. Elements of folk psychology: the beginnings of language and the thinking of primitive man. Psicol. educ. [online]. 2013, n.37, pp. 91-101. ISSN 1414-6975.

This paper is a translation of two sections of the work Elemente der Völkerpsychologie, by Wilhelm Wundt, and it has been done from the English version, which has as title Elements of Folk Psychology. The translated sections were "The beginnings of language" and "The thinking of primitive man". Within the translated content, Wundt investigates the origin and development of human thought from the comparative study of the language of primitive tribes, also using as an example the language of gestures and child language, with which draws comparisons of syntax and tonality. The author identifies ways of thinking that are revealed through the structure of primitive languages, noticing, however, that the implicit content in their formal characteristics, of a sense perception nature, and not conceptual, is not inherent to the forms of these languages, being necessary the examination of the ideas in themselves and the feelings and emotions associated with them, a task that falls to Experimental Psychology.

Keywords : thinking; language; History of Psychology.

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