Gestalt Psychology: The Definitive Statement of the Gestalt Theory

by Wolfgang Köhler

Wolfgang Koehler (1887-1967) was one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, the influential school that argues that perception is best understood as an organized pattern rather than as separate parts. This book presents Koehler's statement of Gestalt theory.

Genres: Psychology, Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

Reviews

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ... what can I say... I love psychology

[Jade Aslain · Rating 4 out of 5]

The discussions in this book get pretty hairy halfway through, and consequently frustrating, as Kohler very patiently withholds many answers to the presented problems until the second half of the book. Nevertheless, where the second half of the book is full of brilliant insight, all frustration subsides. If you feel like quitting halfway through, dont stop now, just keep reading. It gets easier.

[Aljoša Toplak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unsatisfied with introspectivism on the one hand and behaviorism on the other, Köhler presents an alternative explanation of mental phenomena that solve many of the problems of contemporary psychology. For a modern reader like me, his criticisms of behaviorism were relevant and helpful. He explicates very well what behaviorism amounts to and how to understand the mechanistic explanation of mind. Then he shows how the behavoiristic method is inconsistent, for while closing the "black-box" it still relies on concepts and terminology that refer to introspection.

Since I'm really interested in the philosophies of both Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty, it was insightful to see what their common denominator in their understanding of gestalt psychology had to say about the problems of contemporary psychology. Köhler's book runs really close to Phenomenology of Perception's quest of finding a synthesis between the empiricist and idealist traditions of pscychology. On the other hand, it goes in line with Wittgenstein's attacks on mechanistic theories of mind that Turing presented him with.

[Scott Pearson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book to read because I was interested in how the average computer user approaches a computer screen. I've been convinced for some time now (maybe 15-20 years) that people approach computers not through user manuals nor even through tips on how to use it. They approach the computer through their intuition.

Intuition has a lot to do with the psychological concept of Gestalt, so I've learned. The Gestalt of an experience is the essential insight that the outside world offers. For example, the Gestalt of a drop-down computer widget is to look for something to come down from it. This is the "insight" (the purpose of thought according to Koehler) that the experience offers. So one clicks and sees the result.

Koehler describes how we approach the world through our prior categories of understanding - behavior, introspection, recall, etc. - until we finally gain some insight into our experience. It's only when we meet this insight, this understanding, this Gestalt, that we reach our home and live more as we are supposed to live. We are happy, content, even joyful.

I share Koehler's despising of behaviorism. It provides for such a shallow psychology. I was surprised when he said that introspection was not the end. Instead, it is a step along our journey to insight.

This book is hard to understand - exactly as one might expect from a German psychologist. Nonetheless, it began to make sense at the very end, at the chapter for Insight/Gestalt. I'm grateful for a more in-depth understanding of this word and thus of myself.