Around the middle of the century, there was a first, weak dissemination of sensualist and associationist ideas mainly due to French influence. A small but active phrenologist group also appeared, headed by Mariano Cubi (1801-1875), familiar with European and American tradition and concerned about the diagnostic usefulness of the brain localization theory (GRANJEL, 1973; DOMENECH, 1977).
Later, in the last quarter of the century, groups that favoured a reconciliation with Europe, and the cultural and scientific movement it entailed, began to appear. In psychology, as well as in philosophy, and in other areas of our culture, we should perhaps mention the existence of two groups, which we will call a "Madrid School" and a "Barcelona School", with certain links between them.
The "Madrid School" was established by a group of professors and savants, organized around a private cultural centre, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institute of Education), which, to a great extent, determined contemporary culture in Spain. The Institute promoted a bourgeois and intelectual reformism, and represented "the most serious attempt to create the intellectual preconditions of liberal democracy" (Carr, 1966). They wished to carry out social reform through education and changing the prevailing mind of our society. Their interest in providing a scientific basis for their reforms turned them towards the new social sciences, and specifically towards psychology, appreciated not only for its educational aspects, but also for its therapeutic and socio-industrial applications.
Such a group of intellectuals, frequently known as "Krausists" - so called due to their closeness to the philosophical ideas of the German idealist philosopher K.C.F. Krause (1781-1832) , and his Belgian follower G. Tiberghien (1819-1901) - owe much to the undisputed teachings of Francisco Giner de los Rios (1839-1915), educator, lawyer, philosopher, and also interested in psychology. He was a broad-minded person who contributed the most to the training of a liberal, reformist, layman's and Pro-European awareness in modern Spain (MADARIAGA, 1964). Independent, though close to the former, was Urbano Gonzalez-Serrano (1848-1904), interested in psychophysics and psychosocial questions. Although he and some of his students were interested in psychological problems, it was Luis Simarro (1851-1921), a psychiatrist, disciple of Charcot, friend and rival of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (Nobel Prize for medicine 1906), who came to be appointed in 1902 to the first chair of experimental psychology created at Madrid University. He supported a position in which English associationism and German psychophysiologist experimentalism would become integrated. Very few written works remain from him, and they do not give us either a good description of his personality or of his theories.
A group of teachers developed around him, among whom were Martin Navarro, Francisco Santamaria, Fermin Herrero, Domingo Barnes and Juan Vicente Viqueira, authors of educational works and well-informed elementary textbooks (except for the case of Viqueira, who covered a broader range of topics).
The "Barcelona School" seems to have followed a rather different direction, possibly due to Catalonia's different social framework, with a greater industrial development and having many social problems (SIGUAN, 1982). Dominated by a Middle-class spirit, oriented towards practical goals, but also guided by Romantic ideals of re-establishing their own language, Catalan, and their old traditions, Catalonians were able to gain important local autonomy. Their goverment promoted social welfare policy and mayor protection measures for workers, including psychological and educational care.
The first name to mention here is that of Ramon Turró (1854-1926), biologist and philosopher, concerned with experimental and physiological studies carried out in Barcelona's Municipal Laboratory, in which he stressed a biological view of man. He relates knowledge to hunger, conceiving learning as a process based on trophic reflexes that would satisfy needs, and which would supply the organism with specific substances. Familiar with Pavlov's works, and well trained in positivist philosophy, Turró criticised Kant's statements by suggesting a trophic root for intelligence itself and human knowledge.
One of Turrós' students, physiologist Augusto Pi-Sunyer (1879-1965), offered an interesting view in which the organism is set forth as a real "functional unit",both a somatic and psychological one, thanks to its physiological correlation mechanisms. This more biological approach would influence psychology in the 20th century thanks to the efforts of one of his students, Emilio Mira-López, one of the Spain's leading psychologists of that time, as we shall see.
Apart from these schools but also close to psychology was Ramon y Cajal's school of neurologists and histologists, whose contributions provided the foundation for the present scientific knowledge of the nervous system. Santiago Ram6n y Cajal (1852-1934), who developed the neuronal theory, drew up some suggestions and hypotheses about psychological processes, supporting them with his broad knowledge of nervous mechanisms. However these suggestions, based on an associationist concept, were far from possessing the weight and strength of his anatomical findings.
Finally, there was a line of thought led by the European neoscholastics, who, under the influence of the Belgian school at Louvain University, headed by Cardinal D.Mercier, inspired authors such as J. Zaragüeta (1883-1974) and P. Marcelino Arnaiz (1867-1930), attracted by experimental psychology and interested in reconciling it with Christian anthropology. This was a religious group, interested in approaching science and thus promoting the new psychology among its followers.
These early authors were, in general, primarily interested in theory, including some philosophical aspects of psychology, although they began to take advantage of some technical dimensions in order to promote applications, especially in education. However, interest in psychology grew. Several critical intellectual groups appeared, among which we must mention the writers of the Generation of 1898, whose concern for Spain was one of their main themes and sources of literary inspiration. One of its members, the philosopher and novelist Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) increased the references to psychological aspects of the individual when analysing the problems of life, death and the person through his literary works. Above all, however, a "Europeanization" of the country was demanded, in particular by philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955),this was a process to be achieved by a social and political transformation of the prevailing mentality, that also included the incorporation of modern science and technology to our society.
It can be said that, at the beginning of the 20th century, a certain dissemination of ideas about psychology had taken place in Spain, but this was mainly an affair for writters and intellectuals, as there were neither psychologists to develop them actively nor social resources to back a practical intervention (CARPINTERO, 1982).
JOSÉ RAMÓN CORREAS GONZALEZ
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