Sundqvist (2007) The Gestalt Phenomena and Archetypical Rationalism (The Crossroads Between Empiricism and Rationalism: Part I)

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The Gestalt Phenomena and Archetypical Rationalism (The Crossroads Between Empiricism and Rationalism: Part I)

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CONTRIBUTORS:

Author:

Sundqvist, Fredrik (Gothenburg University)

JOURNAL:

Gestalt Theory - An International Multidisciplinary Journal, 29(1), 40 - 58.

YEAR:

2007

PUB TYPE:

Journal Article

SUBJECT(S):

Gestalt psychology, Gestalt theory, philosophy, epistemology

DISCIPLINE:

Psychology

HTTP:

http://gestalttheory.net/gth/

LANGUAGE:

English

PUB ID:

103-434-923 (Last edited on 2007/06/06 10:36:51 GMT-6)

SPONSOR(S):

ABSTRACT:
The concept of Gestalt is a signpost on an ontological/metaphysical crossroads. This crossroads concerns the nature of explanation in psychology and reflects traditional rationalist/ empiricist stances in epistemology. The rationalist road led to the concept of intentionality and to contemporary representational theories of mind, whereas the empiricist road was taken by Gestalt theory. In this first of three articles exploring the outline of the crossroads, I try to pinpoint some philosophical aspects of the rationalist perspective on psychology. I argue that the rationalist perspective of mind –– a perspective expressed by Helmholtz, Wundt and Husserl among others –– is ontologically blindfolded. Thus, this perspective cannot answer the type of questions Gestalt theory and modern brain science aim to resolv. eRationalist theories typically base their models of perception and cognition on a duality between the physical state and the meaning or ‘aboutness’ of the state. The distinction allows us to talk about ‘inner representations’ and of brain events as ‘information processing’. This level of description is not on a fine grained bioorganic process level since it tends to dismiss the material properties of the nervous system as unimportant: every specific psychophysical state is treated as just a sign; in this way all material and phenomenal aspects can be abstracted away from the analysis and conscious experience – the dynamics of the figure-ground organization for instance – and the biodynamic organization of the nervous system are thus considered completely irrelevant.

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