Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890 1967

Holism and the Quest for Objectivity
Herausgeber: Ash, Mitchell G.; Woodward, William R.

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This is the first full-length historical study of Gestalt psychology - an attempt to advance holistic thought within natural science. Holistic thought is often portrayed as a wooly minded revolt against reason and modern science, but this is not necessarily so. On the basis of rigorous experimental research and scientific argument as well as on philosophical grounds, the Gestalt theorists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka opposed conceptions of science and mind that equated knowledge of nature with its effective manipulation and control. Instead, they attempted to establish dynamic principles of inherent, objective order and meaning - in current language, principles of self-organization - in human perception and thinking, in human and animal behavior, and in the physical world. The impact of their work ranged from cognitive science to theoretical biology and film theory. Based on exhaustive research in primary sources, including archival material cited here for the first time, this study illuminates the multiple social and intellectual contexts of Gestalt theory and analyzes the emergence, development, and reception of its conceptual foundations and research programs from 1890 to 1967 in Germany. The book challenges stereotypical dichotomies between modern and antimodern, rational and irrational, democratic and proto-Nazi thinking that have long dominated the history of German science and culture. It also contributes to the debate on continuity and change in German science after 1933 with a new look at Wolfgang Kohler's effort to resist Nazism, at the work of Gestalt theorists who remained in Nazi Germany after the founders emigrated, and at the impact of the Cold War andthe professionalization of psychology in Germany on the reception of Gestalt theory after 1945.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Seitenzahl: 528
• Erscheinungstermin: 2. Juli 2010
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 235mm x 157mm x 35mm
• Gewicht: 1001g
• ISBN-13: 9780521475402
• ISBN-10: 0521475406
• Artikelnr.: 22469914

Inhaltsangabe

List of illustrations
Preface
Introduction
Part I. The Social and Intellectual Settings: 1. The academic environment and the establishment of experimental psychology
2. Carl Stumpf and the training of scientists in Berlin
3. The philosophers' protest
4. Making a science of mind: styles of reasoning in sensory physiology and experimental psychology
5. Challenging positivism: revised philosophies of mind and science
6. The Gestalt debate: from Goethe to Ehrenfels and beyond
Part II. The Emergence of Gestalt Theory, 1910-1920: 7. Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler
8. Laying the conceptual and research foundations
9. Reconstructing perception and behaviour
10. Insights and confirmations in animals: Köhler on Tenerife
11. The step to natural philosophy: Die Physischen Gestalten
12. Wertheimer in times of war and revolution: science for the military and toward a new logic
Part III. The Berlin School in Weimar Germany: 13. Establishing the Berlin School
14. Research styles and results
15. Theory's growth and limits: development, open systems, self and society
16. Variations in theory and practice: Kurt Lewin, Adhemar Gelb and Kurt Goldstein
17. The encounter with Weimar culture
18. The reception among German-speaking psychologists
Part IV. Under Nazism and After: Survival and Adaptation: 19. Persecution, emigration and Köhler's resistance in Berlin
20. Two students adapt: Wolfgang Metzger and Kurt Gottschaldt
21. Research, theory and system: continuity and change
22. The post-war years
Appendices
List of unpublished sources
Notes
Index.