TY - JOUR

T1 - Gestalt psychology, frontloading phenomenology, and psychophysics

AU - Feest, Uljana

N1 - Funding Information: I would like to thank audiences in Edinburgh and L?beck as well as two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. In particular, I thank Dave Ward and Alistair Isaac for inviting me to the conference this paper was written for, Gary Hatfield for helpful bibliographical references and Alistair Isaac for additional insightful feedback. The article draws on archival research that was made possible by the MPI for the History of Science in Berlin.

PY - 2021/5

Y1 - 2021/5

N2 - In his 1935 book Principles of Gestalt Psychology, Kurt Koffka stated that empirical research in perceptual psychology should begin with “a phenomenological analysis,” which in turn would put constraints on the “true theory.” In this paper, I take this statement as a point of departure to investigate in what sense Gestalt psychologists practiced a phenomenological analysis and how they saw it related to theory construction. I will contextualize the perceptual research in Gestalt psychology vis-a-vis Husserlian phenomenology on the one hand and mainstream psychophysics on the other, and I will argue that Gestalt psychologists practiced a form of “frontloading” phenomenology: Instead of requiring experimental subjects to engage in experiential reflections, such reflections were—in a sense—already engrained in the experimental designs used by researchers. This type of phenomenology was decidedly anti-“introspectionist” and as such was compatible with some of Husserl’s basic commitments, while at the same time bearing a surprising resemblance with the methods employed by psychophysicists like E. Boring and S.S. Stevens. This latter point will prompt me to explore what the difference between Gestalt-psychology and psychophysics amounted to. My analysis will reveal some disagreements and misunderstandings, especially with regard to the notions of isomorphism and introspection.

AB - In his 1935 book Principles of Gestalt Psychology, Kurt Koffka stated that empirical research in perceptual psychology should begin with “a phenomenological analysis,” which in turn would put constraints on the “true theory.” In this paper, I take this statement as a point of departure to investigate in what sense Gestalt psychologists practiced a phenomenological analysis and how they saw it related to theory construction. I will contextualize the perceptual research in Gestalt psychology vis-a-vis Husserlian phenomenology on the one hand and mainstream psychophysics on the other, and I will argue that Gestalt psychologists practiced a form of “frontloading” phenomenology: Instead of requiring experimental subjects to engage in experiential reflections, such reflections were—in a sense—already engrained in the experimental designs used by researchers. This type of phenomenology was decidedly anti-“introspectionist” and as such was compatible with some of Husserl’s basic commitments, while at the same time bearing a surprising resemblance with the methods employed by psychophysicists like E. Boring and S.S. Stevens. This latter point will prompt me to explore what the difference between Gestalt-psychology and psychophysics amounted to. My analysis will reveal some disagreements and misunderstandings, especially with regard to the notions of isomorphism and introspection.

KW - Experimental phenomenology

KW - Gestalt psychology

KW - History of psychology

KW - Introspection

KW - Psychophysics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064670493&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11229-019-02211-y

DO - 10.1007/s11229-019-02211-y

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85064670493

VL - 198

SP - 2153

EP - 2173

JO - Synthese

JF - Synthese

SN - 0039-7857

ER -