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.

This book presents new research on spaces for science and processes of interurban and transnational knowledge transfer and exchange in the imperial metropolis of Vienna in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapters discuss Habsburg science policy, metropolitan natural history museums, large technical projects including the Ringstrasse and water pipelines from the Alps, urban geology, geography, public reports on polar exploration, exchanges of ethnographic objects, popular scientific societies and scientifically oriented adult education. The infrastructures and knowledge spaces described here were preconditions for the explosion of creativity known as 'Vienna 1900.'

This book presents new research on spaces for science and processes of interurban and transnational knowledge transfer and exchange in the imperial metropolis of Vienna in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapters discuss Habsburg science policy, metropolitan natural history museums, large technical projects including the Ringstrasse and water pipelines from the Alps, urban geology, geography, public reports on polar exploration, exchanges of ethnographic objects, popular scientific societies and scientifically oriented adult education. The infrastructures and knowledge spaces described here were preconditions for the explosion of creativity known as 'Vienna 1900.'

The dismissal of civil servants on racist or political grounds in April 1933 marked the beginning of a massive, forced exodus of mainly Jewish scholars and scientists from Nazi Germany--a phenomenon unprecedented in the modern history of academic life. The essays in this volume examine whether that "exodus of reason" led to significant scientific change, and if so, how that change should be characterized. Written by a multidisciplinary group of German, British, and American scholars, the essays consider the natural and medical sciences, psychology, pedagogy and psychoanalysis as well as the social sciences.

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.

The dismissal of civil servants on racist or political grounds in April 1933 marked the beginning of a massive, forced exodus of mainly Jewish scholars and scientists from Nazi Germany--a phenomenon unprecedented in the modern history of academic life. The essays in this volume examine whether that "exodus of reason" led to significant scientific change, and if so, how that change should be characterized. Written by a multidisciplinary group of German, British, and American scholars, the essays consider the natural and medical sciences, psychology, pedagogy and psychoanalysis as well as the social sciences.

Das Buch erarbeitet erstmalig einen umfassenden Uberblick uber die Geschichte der Psychologie des 20. Jahrhunderts im deutschsprachigen Raum. In die Darstellung der grossen theoretischen Ausrichtungen des Faches wird der kulturelle, politische und soziale Kontext der Psychologie einbezogen.