Wolfgang Kohler - Böcker

The volumes in this set take a comparative approach to human and animal psychology and give a valuable insight into thinking about similarities and differences between humans and animals prevalent in the 1920s and 1930s.

Contents: Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967), by Carroll C. Pratt. I. Early Developments in Gestalt Psychology. II. Gestalt Psychology and Natural Science. III. Recent Developments in Gestalt Psychology. IV. What is Thinking? Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contents: Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967), by Carroll C. Pratt. I. Early Developments in Gestalt Psychology. II. Gestalt Psychology and Natural Science. III. Recent Developments in Gestalt Psychology. IV. What is Thinking? Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this important and challenging book, Wolfgang Köhler's subject is value, or what he calls the "requiredness" of an object or activity. Starting with a descriptive account of values as we become aware of them, he finds that, inside certain contexts, parts of such structures do not appear as indifferent facts. They are experienced as belonging there intrinsically or, also, as being out of place in their contexts.Köhler's closely reasoned analysis, drawing on the fields of psychology, biology, and physics, centers around this concept of requiredness. Certain things in nature belong together or require the presence of one another in such a way that fitness or requiredness constitutes a principles of association between them. This same principle of association, Köhler suggests, may help to explain the idea of value and lay a foundation for the scientific solution of ethical problems.

Koehler's classic analysis of the intelligence of apes marks a turning point in the psychology of thinking. Through meticulously described experiments, his two-fold aim is to ascertain the degree of relationship between the intellectual capacity of anthropoid apes and of man and to gain insight into the nature of intelligent acts.

Wolfgang Köhler (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. Penetrating in its insights and lucid in presentation, Gestalt Psychology (1947) is Köhler’s definitive statement of Gestalt theory.

One of the pioneers of Gestalt psychology, Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) broke new ground in numerous areas of human thought. This collection of writings spans Köhler's brilliant and productive career, beginning with his earliest formulations of Gestalt theory through to his last scientific paper--a perceptive overview of the significant advances of Gestalt psychology. Many of these essays have never before been published in English. Together they illustrate the diversified, highly innovative contributions of this great psychologist. But they go beyond that to clarify problems in psychology, philosophy, natural science, biology, and anthropology through the Gestalt approach.

Along with Freud, Jung, Adler, and William James, Wolfgang Kohler, co-founder of Gestalt Psychology, is one of the most valuable and innovative thinkers in modern psychology. Dynamics in Psychology is his most important statement of the application of the Gestalt approach to psychological thinking generally and to perception and memory in particular. He argues here that psychological theories cannot be restricted to the realm of psychology proper, that they must refer to biological and physical concepts. Kohler's scientific precision and continual respect for the whole human being gives his work its lasting value.

Wolfgang Köhler demonstrated that chimpanzees could solve problems by applying insight. His research showed that the intellectual gap between humans and chimpanzees was much narrower than previously thought. The work was revolutionary when originally published in 1917 in German, but it was largely ignored for decades because it violated the conventional wisdom that animal behavior is simply the result of instinct or conditioning.However, Köhler's research showed this was not the case. He used four chimps in his experiments, Chica, Grande, Konsul, and Sultan. The experiments consisted of placing chimpanzees in an enclosed area and presenting them with a desired object that was out of reach. In one experiment, Köhler placed bananas outside Sultan's cage and two bamboo sticks inside his cage which needed to be put together to reach the bananas. Köhler demonstrated the solution to Sultan by putting his fingers into the end of one of the sticks. After some contemplation, Sultan put the two sticks together and was able to reach the bananas.As Jaan Valsiner shows in his introduction to this classic work, Köhler's analysis of the intelligence of apes marked a turning point in the psychology of thinking and the continuing struggle between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. Köhler achieved his two-fold aim: to determine the relationship between the intellectual capacity of higher primates and man, and to gain insight into the nature of intelligent acts.