A digital edition of the original text of the Magazine of Empirical Psychology, the earliest German psychological journal (1783-1793), available for the first time in a scientifically reliable version.

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A page from the digital edition

Das Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde was hugely important in the foundation of anthropology and psychologically-oriented medicine. However, the journal is difficult to obtain in printed form and as a whole had not previously been scientifically edited.  From the end of 1782 to 1793 the journal was published in 3 parts per year. In 1978/79 a facsimile edition was published.  However, when assembling the edition, pages from the 6th volume of the journal were incorrectly inserted in the 7th volume, resulting in corrupt texts.  In 1986 a reprint of the journal volumes was published.  Numerous printing errors in the original were corrected, but the corrections were not identified, meaning the edition cannot be used for critical reading. In addition, numerous undocumented editorial interventions were made.

Both the facsimile edition and the reprint have been out of print for some time. The original pages of the journal volumes from 1783-1793 were recently retrodigitized by Bielefeld University Library. This website provides access to a transcribed and searchable version of this text.  The edition presented goes beyond a facsimile and offers a scientifically reliable edited text and contextual information. The text of the journal is made freely available to the public.