How does Brentano’s act psychology differ from Wundtian psychology?
Brentano was a psychologist with varied interests. He differed from Wundt on some topics. According to him, in psychology primary thing is observation and not experimentation. Wundt psychology was experimental while Brentano’s psychology was empirical.
Brentano refuted the characteristic idea of Wundt, which was the study of psychology based on conscious of experience. To him psychology was more of a mental activity and mental action. He argued that the mental act of seeing, holds much more importance than the mental content of what an individual witnesses.
He wanted to separate the experience as activity, and experience as structure of content. For example, when looking at the blue sky, the sensory content of looking at the sky is different from the act of experiencing the blueness.
He stressed upon the fact that the act of actual seeing the blueness of the sky is the mental activity. He admitted that for anything to be seen, there has to be an object to be seen. He also did not agree with the concept of internal perception because, acts unlike sensory contents could not be assessed via introspection.