The first independent chair of psychology

Psychology did not in fact develop into an independent discipline within either of the two statutory chairs of philosophy. Instead, the shift occurred across faculties. Psychology continued to form a unit within what had been divided into a Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and a Faculty of Science since the Basel University Act of 1937. Hence the fact that psychology professorships were first established at both faculties is only initially surprising.

Explanation vs. understanding – psychology between the humanities and natural sciences
Emerging from a broad understanding of philosophy, psychology maintained its breadth even after the faculty opted for division. Hans Kunz, a professor at Basel and a student of Jaspers and Häberlin, remained an advocate of such an understanding of psychology until his retirement in the 1970s. In an anniversary publication on research and teaching at the University of Basel in 1960, Kunz justified the indispensable dual character of psychological science: “For its object, the experiencing and acting human, or however one may define it, is accessible to knowledge through those paths that have been developed in both the natural sciences and the humanities, and not by exclusively following one or the other.”

 

Psychology receives its first representatives within the faculty
Hans Kunz completed a habilitation as professor in 1945 with his work Die anthropologische Bedeutung der Phantasie (The anthropological significance of fantasy) and was subsequently authorized to teach psychology. Promoted to extraordinary (associate) professor in 1951, he held the first professorship dedicated exclusively to psychology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Hans Kunz also received the first full professorship for psychology. In 1966, the university awarded him a personal chair, which he did not relinquish until 1974, at the age of seventy.

On the natural science side, the first institutional milestones were laid a bit earlier. Ernst Probst completed his habilitation in 1932 in applied psychology, which he then taught. In 1947, four years before Kunz, Probst was promoted to extraordinary (associate) professor at his faculty.

However, these developments in psychology do not mark the beginning of a secure situation and steady growth. The departure of Hans Kunz also meant the end of the personal chair. Although the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences had already requested in 1969 to replace the expiring professorship with two chairs, psychology was left without a representative among the academic faculty for four years after 1974. It was only with the establishment of the institute in 1978 that a period of secure professorships and continuity in teaching and research began.