Salvaging Physiological Psychology

Extract

Bruno Petermann in his The Gestalt Theory and the Problem of Configuration (tr. Meyer Fortes, Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1932, Pp. 344) and S. H. MacColl in her A Comparative Study of the Systems of Lewin and Koffka with special reference to Memory Phenomena (Duke University Press: Durham, 1939, Pp. 160) have shown that the gestalt concept is fundamentally valid but that as a tool of psychological explanation it has been developed with unrecognized inconsistencies and without a successful correlation with physiological facts. And John J. Ryan in his “Volition” (Readings in Psychology, ed. Skinner, C. E., Farrar: New York, 1935, Pp. 853, p. 646) has shown that psychology must provide a place for ethical responsibility. The purpose of the present paper is to show that the gestalt concept when conceived in accord with the fundamentals of experimental psychology and of theoretical mathematics and physics: (1) avoids unrecognized inconsistencies; (2) opens the gates to an increasingly refined mensurational correlation between physiological facts and psychological experience; and (3) provides a place within a comprehensive psychology for freedom and purpose, integrated with conditioning, which result in understanding and cooperation in the achievement of ideal purposes.