Skírnir - 01.04.2005, Page 34

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JORGEN L. PIND
SKÍRNIR
James, William. 1905. Ódauðleiki mannsins. Tvxr ímyndaðar mótbárur gegn
ódauðleikakenningunni. Guðmundur Finnbogason þýddi. Reykjavík: Guð-
mundur Gamalíelsson.
Koch, Carl Henrik. 2004a. Den danske idealisme 1800-1880. Kaupmannahöfn:
Gyldendal.
Koch, Carl Henrik. 2004b. Dansk filosofi ipositivismens tidsalder 1880-1910. Kaup-
mannahöfn: Gyldendal.
Lehmann, Alfred. 1893-1896. Overtro og trolddom I—IV. Kaupmannahöfn: Frimodt.
Rizzolatti, Giacomo og Laila Craighero. 2004. The Mirror-Neuron System. Annual
Review of Neuroscience 27:169-192.
Stefán Einarsson. 1948. Skáldaþing. Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfa Guðjóns Ó. Guðjóns-
sonar.
Thomsen, Ole B. 1975. Embedsstudiemes universitet. En undersogelse af Keben-
havns universitets fundats af 1788 som grundlag for vores nuvxrende stu-
diestruktur. Kaupmannahöfn: Akademisk Forlag.
Þórir Einarsson. 1997. Guðmundur Finnbogason og vinnuvísindin. I: Jóhann
Hauksson (ritstj.). Hugur rœður hálfri sjón. Um frxðastörf dr. Guðmundar
Finnbogasonar á fyrri hluta aldarinnar:58-77. Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan.
Summary
Guðmundur Finnbogason (1873-1944) served as editor of the journal Skírnir for
the years 1905-1907, 1913-1920, and 1933-1943. Finnbogason was educated at the
University of Copenhagen where he graduated with a master’s degree in philoso-
phy, with psychology as his main subject, in 1901. Following this he received a
grant from the Icelandic parliament to study children’s education in the Scandi-
navian countries. This led to his first book Lýðmenntun (General Education) in
1903. Subsequently he travelled around Iceland investigating the status of chil-
dren’s education in the country. The results of these studies were published in
1905. At the same time Finnbogason composed, at the request of the Icelandic
government, a bill on general education which was, with minor changes, passed by
the Icelandic parliament in 1907. This marks a turning point in the history of edu-
cation in Iceland. In 1907 Finnbogason received the Hannes Árnason grant for
philosophic studies and spent the next three years in Copenhagen, Paris and Berlin
working on his doctoral thesis, Sympathetic Understanding, which he defended at
the University of Copenhagen in 1911. In this work Finnbogason explores the role
of imitation in human life and advances the theory that people understand each
other to the extent that they imitate each other’s actions and moods. He considers
imitadon to be a perceptual process, thus forging a close link between sensory and
motor representations. Finnbogason argues his theory with verve and gusto and
the book ranks as a classic work of Icelandic psychology. Finnbogason became the
first professor of psychology at the University of Iceland in 1918. However, the
professorship was short-lived, being abolished in 1924. Finnbogason then became
director of the National Library, a post he held until his retirement in 1943.