PSY 731 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Kurt Koffka, John Stuart Mill, Max Wertheimer
29 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
Behaviourists started to apply its principles beyond understanding the mind and thought. The soviet psychologists were instrumental in this process. As behaviourists were rebelling against structuralism in the us, a group in germany was also. Focus of the attack was on the study of consciousness and introspection- consciousness rebelling cannot be elementized. We know things not in pieces but rather in meaningful intact con guration. s. German word for con guration or whole is gestalt. Gestaltists were opposed to breaking down consciousness into elements, they were also opposed to the belief that all behaviour should be broken down into stimulus response contingencies study known as materialism and positivism. Behaviourism follows from aristotle, empiricism, as well as some philosophies we did not. Gestalt follows plato, descartes, kant, rationalism and nativism. Kant believed that conscious experience was the result of an interaction between sensory stimulation and the faculties of the mind.
