Wilhelm Max Wundt (August 16, 1832-August 31, 1920), German physiologist and psychologist, is generally acknowledged as the founder of experimental psychology. His chief method of investigation was introspection; he asked participants to look inwards and then describe how they saw their minds as functioning. Special training was supposed to make them more complete and careful in their observations, and to prevent them from interpreting their own minds too much. This experimental introspection was in contrast to what had been called psychology until then, a branch of philosophy where people introspected themselves, rather than being studied by a psychologist.

Wundt subscribed to a "psycho-physical parallelism", which was supposed to stand above both materialism and idealism. His epistemology was an eclectic mixture of the ideas of Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel.