The Biological Psychology of José Ingenieros, some biographical points, and Wilhelm Ostwald’s (Nobel Prize Chemistry, 1909) Introduction to the 1922 German edition.

One of the earliest recorded works in Biological Psychology was published in 1910 by Argentinian psychiatrist José Ingenieros (1877-1925), Professor of Experimental Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires. Ingenieros, a multifaceted personality and prolific author and educator, has been considered a ‘luminary’ for young generations, ahead of his time, and was famous for his lapidary aphorisms. Physician, philosopher and political activist, he was the first psychologist who tried to establish a comprehensive psychological system in South America. His long list of publications includes 484 articles and 47 books, which are generally categorized in two periods: studies in mental pathology and criminology (1897-1908) and studies in philosophy, psychology and sociology (1908-1925). Some of his books continue to be published and to be best-sellers in the Spanish-speaking world; however, his works were never particularly available to English-speaking audiences. In the present study we present an overview of Ingenieros’ life and work, and an account of his profoundly interesting work Principios de Psicología Biologica, in which he analyzes the development, evolution and social context of mental functions. It is a hope, eighty years after his death, to bibliographically resurrect this ardent champion of reason in the English biomedical and psychological literature. We also provide the original German and an English translation of the Introduction contributed by Nobel laureate Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) to the 1922 German edition of Ingenieros’ Biological Psychology, pertinent to the energetic principles Ingenieros adopted and the study of Psychology as a natural science. (Article in English).