[7] His father was the country court physician, and his immediate family included scientists and academicians, like his grandfather, who studied eighteenth century French literature and the philosophers Kant and Schelling.

[7] Stumpf attended the local Gymnasium, where he developed a passion for philosophy, especially the works of Plato, before enrolling at the University of Würzburg at the age of 17.

Brentano's lectures were also attended by Anton Marty, Carl van Endert, Ernst Commer, Ludwig Schütz, and Hermann Schell.

[7] He was awarded venia legendi for philosophy in 1870 after completing his thesis on mathematical axioms, which he wrote in Latin.

There Stumpf met Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner, and served as an observer in their psychological experiments.

In 1896, Stumpf presided over the Third International Congress of Psychology, and delivered the inaugural address on the relation between mind and body; he advocated an interactionalist position that opposed the popular notion of psychophysical parallelism.

Considered his greatest contribution to psychology, the study employs a combination of theoretical analysis and empirical observations.

He did a wide range of studies of the phenomenological characteristics of the sounds of different instruments, the determinants of melody, tonal fusion, and the consonance and dissonance of tones.

[8] However, the case of Clever Hans, an apparently brilliant horse owned by Wilhelm von Osten, was even more sensational.

Stumpf retired from the University of Berlin in 1921 and was succeeded as director of the psychological institute by his former student, Wolfgang Köhler.