Gerd Jüttemann’s “historical psychology”: Why it should have succeeded,why it was ignored,and what that means for the future

The illusion of an Archimedean point

As briefly sketched above, Jüttemann argues that mainstream psychology relies on a natural-science perspective on the human psyche, which translates into the use of quantitative-empirical methods as well as the overall goal to arrive at nomological conclusions. More generally speaking, it shapes the kind of research that is being conducted and the kinds of theories that are being developed: by presupposing that the human psyche can be analyzed in a natural-science framework, researchers create experimental settings, observational data, and theoretical models that create the impression that the human psyche can indeed be understood this way. The seemingly neutral and objective observations are actually theory-laden. This is what Jüttemann calls system immanence, which he believes psychology must get rid of. What Jüttemann is hoping for is an Archimedean point, “the development of an unassailable research program” (Jüttemann, 1992, p. 96) that does not presuppose any specific perspective on the human psyche and that enables pure observation.

As most philosophers of science would agree nowadays, however, pure observation is impossible (for an overview, see Boyd & Bogen, 2021): the theory ladenness of empirical results cannot be avoided. The best that researchers can do is to reflect their theoretical presuppositions and to take the limitations of their methodological approaches into account. Hence, it does not seem necessary to claim that a natural science perspective on the human psyche is inadequate. It would suffice to say that a natural science perspective is not the only valuable perspective in order to conclude that more methodological pluralism as well as a historical perspective on the subject matter is needed (see Hutmacher & Mayrhofer, 2021). Inversely, it would be wise to accept “the coexistence of different grammars” as a “consequence of the multidimensionality of psychology’s object of knowledge” (Cornejo, 2014, p. 263).

By stating that he can offer a value-free and theory-free approach to the human psyche, Jüttemann inadvertently exposes himself to the same criticism that he had applied to mainstream psychology. It has been argued, for instance, that Jüttemann’s idea of a value-free theory of the psychogenesis of humankind is an “epistemological fossil” (Spode, 2011, p. 93; see also Slunecko & Wieser, 2011). In short, these critics hold that Jüttemann’s historical psychology suffers as much from system immanence as mainstream psychology does, bringing it into a difficult position from the very beginning. Although I do in principle share this concern, I believe that it should not be used to discard the relevance of Jüttemann’s approach to historical psychology. Just as quantitative-experimental psychologists may provide interesting insights into the functioning of the human psyche despite a lack of reflection on their theoretical presuppositions, historical psychology could be an important addition to the field even if it is not able to provide a theory-free and value-free point of view.

A mere declaration of intent? The lack of actual research in historical psychology

In his introduction to the first edited volume on historical psychology, Jüttemann (1986b, p. 19) writes that the contributions do not yet include specific studies on the historicity of the psyche because the volume should rather be seen as a first attempt to establish the relevance of a historical perspective on the subject matter of psychology. Almost 30 years later, Jüttemann (2013b) introduces the first volume of his book series on the Psychogenesis of Humankind by stating that the book series is dedicated to conducting “first pioneer work” in the field (p. 11). Seeing this, a malevolent reader could conclude that Jüttemann’s efforts never really moved beyond a mere declaration of intent. In this spirit, A. C. Brock (2011) writes: “The whole area is a jungle of proposals and counterproposals.... What is needed is good historical research in order to show that history can make an important contribution to our understanding of psychology’s subject-matter” (p. 19). Brock certainly has a point here: it is not enough to repeat that historical psychology is relevant. The relevance has to be demonstrated empirically by conducting respective research. It should be noted in defense of Jüttemann that he has tried to provide a platform for research in the field of historical psychology (e.g., by cofounding the journal Psychologie und Geschichte) and that he has also published edited volumes that included specific studies (e.g., Jüttemann et al., 1991). In addition, the book series on the Psychogenesis of Humankind includes contributions from different authors with different perspectives on the subject matter (e.g., Lange & Schwarz, 2015; Seidel, 2018). Nevertheless, Brock’s overall impression seems accurate that the field of historical psychology—as imagined by Jüttemann—has not reached the stage of a fully fleshed out research program.

The lack of actual research is related to a second problem: given that material remains are relatively scarce for large parts of the history of humankind and that we have no immediate access to the inner life of long-deceased individuals from societies of the past, the question how historical psychology can arrive at meaningful and well-founded insights is highly relevant (Reinhard, 2011; Stubbe, 2011). However, it remains quite vague throughout the publications and decades what kind of research methods Jüttemann considers appropriate. While Jüttemann states that he does not merely want to replace the use of “quantitative operationalizations . . . by the formation of qualitative categories” but hopes for studies that can address the complexities of historical–psychological processes “realistically and appropriate for the subject matter” (Klotter, 2000, p. 76), it is not specified what exactly these studies could look like (but see Jüttemann & Mack, 2010, for some potentially helpful methodological proposals). While mainstream psychology suffers from what Jüttemann calls “inversion,” that is, while mainstream psychology suffers from the dominance of the quantitative-experimental paradigm and the lack of a properly defined subject matter, the opposite seems to be true for historical psychology: although there is some basic consensus that historical psychology deals with the historicity of the psyche, the appropriate methods for investigating the subject matter remain unclear. ⁴ However, one could also argue that embracing methodological pluralism should be seen as a strength rather than a weakness (cf. Mayrhofer & Hutmacher, 2020). In this sense, the problem with Jüttemann’s version of historical psychology would not so much be the lack of methodological consensus but the lack of elaborating the different methods and applying them to specific settings.

Taking the wrong turn? Jüttemann’s “fundamental theory.”

One attempt to get rid of this vagueness was the development of Jüttemann’s (2011a, 2011b) fundamental theory. Although there were positive and encouraging voices among the 41 comments that were published together with the original article, the overall tone of many comments was negative. While I cannot repeat all the arguments here, I want to summarize the main points in order to illustrate why the formulation of Jüttemann’s fundamental theory was met with skepticism.

First, it is argued that the whole notion of a fundamental theory is misguided. As A. C. Brock (2011) puts it, referring to Jüttemann’s fascination for Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie, the idea that the history of humankind can be analyzed as a coherent whole and that there are several stages of human development that follow one after another “is a typical 19th-century view and it is there that the view belongs” (p. 18). The reasons that can be given for this quite harsh evaluation are manifold. First and foremost, history seems to be too diverse and too complex to be summed up in a universal framework that diagnoses a linear development. In other words, Jüttemann’s fundamental theory is too broad and too general to be convincing; it “is ultimately unable to adequately describe . . . the anthropological peculiarities of specific communities” (Cornejo, 2014, p. 263; see also Chakkarath, 2011; Friedlmeier, 2011). Moreover, formulating a universal history of humankind always runs the risk of providing a posthoc rationalization of historical processes (D. Brock, 2011; Flammer, 2011): one should not forget that historical changes and events tend to appear more logical and inevitable in hindsight than they actually were. Even those who sympathize with the overall vision of a fundamental theory, that is, even those who think that it could, in principle, be possible to identify overarching regularities in the history of humankind, argue that formulating a fundamental theory before engaging in specific research on the subject matter means doing things in the wrong order (see A. C. Brock, 2011; Friedlmeier, 2011; Teo, 2011). In order to advance, historical psychology does not need more abstract theories, but concrete studies.

Second, Jüttemann’s critics argue that the conceptualization of his fundamental theory is Eurocentric in at least two ways. On the one hand, the term autogenesis is considered problematic. Anticipating possible criticism, Jüttemann (2011a, p. 4) stated that he thinks of autogenesis as a neutral term that can capture both positive and negative developments and that should not be confused with value-laden concepts such as self-actualization. However, the mere fact that Jüttemann decides to use the—successful or unsuccessful—autonomous development of the individual as a starting point for his entire framework, can be seen as mirroring the typical structure of modern Western thinking about psychological issues, which is certainly not universal (Reichholf, 2011; Spode, 2011). On the other hand, Jüttemann’s narrative of progress is questioned: not only because it remains relatively unclear what kind of progress Jüttemann is referring to (Thies, 2011) but also because it is far from obvious that humankind progresses as a whole (Friedlmeier, 2011; Kölbl, 2011):

The successful history of the human soul that Jüttemann describes is easier to follow if you live in Europe, North America, or Japan. It is unfortunately harder to agree with when you take into consideration the zones of the globe that seem to be ignored or minimized when making such self-pleasing statements. . . . It is Western man [sic] and not necessarily the whole of humankind that is more clever, happier, and more peaceful today than ever before. (Cornejo, 2014, p. 261)

To summarize, Jüttemann’s critics argue that his fundamental theory creates more problems than it solves, as it provides neither a plausible explanation of the history of humankind nor a framework that is sketched well enough to guide future research. Nevertheless, Jüttemann’s courage to come forward with a broad theoretical framework aimed at bringing different fields of research together should be acknowledged. In times of an ongoing academic specialization in which the focus of many researchers seems to become narrower and narrower, the attempt to bring the big questions of psychology back to the table is refreshing.

Lack of interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary co-operation

Although historical psychology has never found a place within academic mainstream psychology, it is important to keep in mind that psychologists are not the only researchers with an interest in the historicity of the human psyche. In fact, the topic is pursued by scholars from other disciplines such as the history of mentalities (Burke, 1986; Hutton, 1981) and the history of everyday life (Lüdtke, 1995; Steege et al., 2008), but also cognitive archeology (Henley et al., 2019; Renfrew, 2008), historical anthropology (Wulf, 2013), and cultural history (Burke, 2019; Green, 2008). Surprisingly, references to these fields of research are quite rare in Jüttemann’s writings. While he acknowledges their existence in some of his publications (e.g., Jüttemann, 1988b, 2011a, 2011b) and has published one edited volume with the historical anthropologist Christoph Wulf (Jüttemann et al., 1991), neither the theoretical and methodological approaches nor the results of these disciplines seem to have been included systematically in Jüttemann’s thinking. This is seen as a major weakness of his approach to historical psychology by several commentators who find it “incomprehensible why [Jüttemann] neglects the broad spectrum of psychology, ethnology, and anthropology” (Friedlmeier, 2011, p. 35; see also D. Brock, 2011; Nolte, 2011; Reichholf, 2011). As one may argue, historical psychology could only thrive as an integrative approach that is open to insights from various fields and traditions. Especially in the face of the fact that historical psychology has produced a limited amount of original research so far, ignoring the state of the art in neighboring disciplines is certainly not optimal.

Interestingly, Jüttemann seems to share this insight in principle when he states that the research questions at hand can only be addressed adequately from an interdisciplinary perspective (e.g., Klotter, 2000). However, he attributes the lack of co-operation across disciplines to a “fear of contact” with psychology on the part of the historians (Klotter, 2000, p. 77) as well as to the historians’ and sociologists’ unwillingness to accept that “historical explanations are primarily psychological or psycho-diagnostic explanations” (Jüttemann, 2011b, p. 117). No matter who was ultimately responsible for the lack of interdisciplinary co-operation, it cannot be denied that historical psychology will only have a future if it starts to play an active and constructive role within the discourse on the historicity of the human psyche. This could also help to clarify what constitutes the genuinely psychological perspective on the subject matter that goes beyond the perspectives already covered by other disciplines. As A. C. Brock (2011) has emphasized, “psychologists do not usually have training in the theories and methods of history” (p. 17). Hence, he argues that psychologists interested in the historicity of the human psyche should “acquire the specialist skills and knowledge of the historian” (p. 17) before they begin to conduct research. However, this would mean that a historical psychologist is nothing but a psychologist with some additional training in historical methods. Instead, it could also be worth considering whether psychology has concepts and methods to offer that can add a new facet to the study of the past. For instance, one might point out that the expertise of psychologists lies in their trained ability to analyze and interpret human thinking and behavior in a structured and systematic manner—while (at least some) historians lack this expertise and consequently refer to their everyday psychological intuitions when explaining historic phenomena.

In addition to the lack of interdisciplinary co-operation described so far, there is also a lack of intra-disciplinary co-operation. As already briefly mentioned in the introduction, Jüttemann is not the only psychologist within the 20th century who has developed an interest in the historicity of the human psyche (e.g., Barbu, 1960; Danziger, 2003; Gergen, 1973; Meyerson, 1987; Smith, 2005; van den Berg, 1961). However, Jüttemann has failed to build bridges between the approaches of these other scholars and his own. This seems particularly regrettable, as these writings might have had insights to offer that could have enriched Jüttemann’s perspective. For instance, Ignace Meyerson (1987) has carefully argued against the naturalization of the human mind and a teleological understanding of history while pointing out the importance of taking all manifestations of human activity into consideration when conducting research in historical psychology (for an overview, see Pizarroso, 2013, 2020). This line of reasoning directly speaks to different aspects within Jüttemann’s publications that have repeatedly attracted criticism, such as the absence of specific studies dealing with concrete historical material or the idea of developmental and cultural stages (see above). Moreover, Jüttemann could have benefited from considering the impact of the writings of eminent figures such as Kurt Danziger (2003, 2008, 2012), Kenneth Gergen (1973), or Roger Smith (2005), who have invested a lot of effort into elaborating why psychological categories should not be treated as natural kinds but as historically and socially constructed entities. Given that Jüttemann often operates on a very abstract level (using categories such as autogenesis and heterogenesis) without taking the characteristics of specific historical and societal circumstances into account, one could imagine that even (Soviet) cultural–historical psychology (for an overview, see Yasnitsky et al., 2014) or German critical psychology as represented by Klaus Holzkamp (1983; see also Teo, 1998) would have had important ideas to offer. This is not to say, of course, that Jüttemann should have blindly followed these authors. However, engaging more explicitly and more intensively with the propositions brought forward within academic psychology could have sparked controversial and inspiring conversations. In addition, it probably would have made his ideas more visible within the intra-disciplinary discourse—which brings us to a second practical problem for the reception of Jüttemann’s historical psychology.

German solipsism

Jüttemann has exclusively published in German, which means that much of his thinking “is unknown in the English-speaking world” (A. C. Brock, 2016, p. 184). Teo (2011), who believes that it would be important that Jüttemann’s “ideas are presented to the English-speaking world because he has provided an original and important perspective” (pp. 100–101), attributes this fact to a tendency that he calls German solipsism:

Communication with English-speaking colleagues means sharing with them that there exist current innovative psychologies outside of North America . . .. The problem that I encounter is that a small group of German psychologists that have the intellectual caliber to shape discourses in North America do not seem to be interested in influencing the North American psychological community. This German solipsism includes a refusal to publish in English-speaking journals, to develop concepts that can resonate with English-speaking audiences, [and] to look for American publishers and translators. (p. 100)

In the context of the present paper, it is not important whether Teo’s speculation is correct that Jüttemann is one of those German scientists who are not interested in communicating with English-speaking colleagues, or who even refuse to do so. What is important, however, is the fact that publishing (exclusively) in German and using nonpeer-reviewed edited volumes as the primary publication format conflicts with the contemporary conventions and practices of the academic discipline. Even the best ideas need a forum to be spread and discussed. The forum that Jüttemann has chosen, however, makes it quite unlikely that his ideas will be picked up by a broader audience. On a positive note, it should be added that Jüttemann has repeatedly used his edited volumes as a platform for younger scientists who were given the opportunity to develop their own interests and to find their own voice. Judging from the list of authors included in his edited volumes, a diverse subset of (German) psychologists from more than one generation has—at least at some point in their career—thought about questions in the field of historical psychology.