Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890-1967: Holism and the Quest for Objectivity (Cambridge Studies in the History of Psychology) [Hardcover]

Mitchell G. Ash (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521475406 | ISBN-13: 978-0521475402 | Publication Date: January 26, 1996 | Edition: 1St Edition

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 so. On the basis of rigorous experimental research and scientific argument as well as on philosophical grounds, the Gestalt theorists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mitchell Ash has written a book...that exemplifies the best current work in the social history of ideas." Geoffrey Cocks, Central European History

"Ash's book offers an ingenious web of various intertwined life histories....the book is a masterpiece....The book's expansiveness commands unadulterated admiration....His style undeniably displays an aesthetic view on research and writing....Ash writes in a clear, seeming effortless prose. His polished details include German words added between brackets. The well-chosen illustrations offer extra information and meticulously taken care of are the appendixes, notes and index." Trudy Dehue, Contemporary Psychology

"...a book that not only is the most comprehensive and authoritative narrative history of Gestalt psychology we are apt to see, but also a study concerened with recentering a number of our assumptions about what this research effort was all about-an effect achieved by situating it systematically in its various shaping, facilitating and constraining contexts: philosophical/intellectual....The work is particularly impressive for the author's dedication to integrating attention to the actual stuff of Gestalt psychology itself-the studies, what they were asking, how they were carried out-into a theoretically-sensitive, thickening and evolving narrative over more than a half-century of disciplinary formation, elaboration, and finally partially disintegration." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Science

Book Description

In the first full-length historical study of Gestalt psychology in Germany, this book challenges accepted viewpoints in the history of German science and culture. Although holism was widely linked with anti-modern opposition to natural science as well as political conservatism and later with Nazism, the Gestalt theorists tried to advance holistic thought within the natural sciences; and they stood on the modernist, democratic side in the Weimar period. The book also analyses the impact of the Cold War and the professionalization of psychology in Germany on the reception of Gestalt theory after 1945.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1St Edition edition (January 26, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521475406
• ISBN-13: 978-0521475402
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,976,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Origins of Gestalt Theory, August 1, 1999

By 

Simulacrum - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890-1967: Holism and the Quest for Objectivity (Cambridge Studies in the History of Psychology) (Hardcover)

Gestalt psychology was founded by three German psychologists (Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler) in 1910 in Frankfort. Reestablished after World War I at the University of Berlin, it flourished from the 1930s into the 1960s, then faded as its leaders aged and its major findings were absorbed by mainstream psychology. Today, the only surviving Berlin-trained gestaltist is the 95-year-old art theorist Rudolf Arnheim (author of Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye), who is still actively writing. Gestalt theory was and is important to different people for different reasons. In German, the word for "design" is gestalt, and one reason for its appeal to artists, architects, and graphic designers is that it provides scientific validation of age-old esthetic principles. For those who have gained from gestalt theory, whether artists, scientists, or psychologists, this is an invaluable, interesting book. As the first comprehensive history of the movement, it covers a wide range of material, beginning at the turn of the century with Carl Stumpf, Christian von Ehrenfels, and others who set the stage; moving on to the Berlin Psychological Institute, and the numerous teachers and students who left before and during World War II; and concluding in the 1960s, when Germany was still divided, with the fate of the few who preferred to remain. (Copyright by Roy R. Behrens from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, Summer 1999.)

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A difficult mountain to climb and not many blossoming trees, March 10, 2008

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Leslie Vaizey (FRANCE) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890-1967: Holism and the Quest for Objectivity (Cambridge Studies in the History of Psychology) (Paperback)

The book may become indispensable in getting to understand Gestalt Psychology but it is a tough wack to get through for the lay reader. I found many interesting, enlightening and thought provoking comments but also much that is long winded and painfully obscure.

I had to read the book to get to grips with this serrendipitus subject which might, after all just be an idealist projection of the unconscious Mother symbol on a reality that only works under Paternal authority and "Justice". In other words a comforting world view in what is really an inhospitable universe.