The Psychology of Thinking Before the Cognitive Revolution…

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING BEFORE THECOGNITIVE REVOLUTION:

Otto Selz on Problems, Schemas, and Creativity

Michel ter HarkUniversity of Groningen

Otto Selz has been hailed as one of the most important precursors of the cognitiverevolution, yet surprisingly few studies of his work exist. He is often mentioned inthe context of the Wurzburg School of the psychology of thinking and sometimesin the context of Gestalt psychology. In this paper, it is argued that Selzs emphasison the role of problems and schemas in the direction of thought processes andcreativity sets him apart from the program of the Wurzburg School. On the otherhand, by developing a theory of thinking that is exclusively at the intentional level,Selz also differs from psychologists that take physics as a model for psychology,such as the Gestalt psychology of Wolfgang Kohler. Special emphasis is given inthis paper to Selzs use of the concept of problem or task and the concept of theschema. It is further argued that the concept of the schema is the result of Selzsadaptation of the theory of relations as developed by the philosopher Meinong. Thepaper begins with a sketch of Selzs life that ended so tragically.

Keywords: Selz, problem solving, schema, creative thinking

Otto Selz is not a household name in the historiography of 20th centurycognitive psychology. Apart from Robert Woodworth (1938), most of the stan-dard histories and experimental psychology texts of the time that comprehensivelycovered all other major strands of cognitive psychology do not mention him(Boring, 1950; Brett, 1953). Woodworth (1938) referred to Selz seven times in hischapter on thinking. A few years before the cognitive revolution took place,George Humphreys (1951) Thinking appeared, in which for the first time a fullchapter was devoted to Selzs achievements. By the 1960s, when Allen Newell,J. C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon (1958) had pointed out the similarities betweentheir Logic theorist and the work of Selz that had come to them via Adriaan deGroot (1946), the first English translation of one of Selzs articles appeared(Mandler & Mandler, 1964). The tributes paid to Selz by eminent scientists likeNewell et al. (1958), Jean Piaget (1947), and the philosopher who put problemsolving on the agenda of philosophy, Karl Popper (1928/2006), would still earnhim no place in the history of 20th century psychology. He was not mentioned inthe list of great psychologists (Watson, 1963). Commemorating Selzs birthday,the Dutch psychologists Nico Frijda and De Groot (1981), both of whom hadknown Selz during his exile in Amsterdam during the Second World War, editeda book which includes, apart from an essay by Simon, translations of chapters ofhis major work, as well as a translation of Selzs synopsis of his massive writings

Michel ter Hark, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michel ter Hark, Faculty of

Philosophy, University of Groningen. Oude Boteringestraat 52, 9712GL, Groningen, The Nether-lands. E-mail: [email protected]

History of Psychology2010, Vol. 13, No. 1, 224

2010 American Psychological Association1093-4510/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0017442

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(Selz, 1924).1 With some of his work having become accessible in the Englishlanguage one would have expected more attention to Selz, but again, if he ismentioned at all in the history of early German psychology, it is only briefly andsubservient to other goals, such as the program of the Wurzburg School or Gestaltpsychology (Ash, 1998; Kusch, 1999).2

This article, then, tracks Selzs innovations in the field of cognitive psychol-ogy from the earliest stirrings in Wurzburg. Following a brief description of Selzslife, the article focuses on the concept of the schema and the role that the conceptplayed in Selzs theory of reproductive and creative thinking. Full attention isgiven to Selzs lifelong philosophical commitments, such as his embrace of thetheory of relations and complexes of Alexius Meinong and Carl Stumpf, as wellas his critical elaboration of the work of the psychologists Karl Buhler and GeorgeElias Muller. In closing, I discuss Selzs tense relation with Gestalt psychology.

Life and Work

Selz (18811943) lived much of his life in seclusion, cherishing the tranquil-ity he needed to develop his epistemological, psychological, and pedagogicalideas. Only a passport photograph has remained of him. In his scientific work,Selz was increasingly marginalized owing to his unremitting criticism of col-leagues and also to his formidably complex style of writing. Selz came intoconflict with proponents of the sciences of mind and culture, the Geisteswissen-schaften, who blamed him for endorsing a mechanist view of man. Seeking toreconstruct psychological phenomena on the basis of their elements, Gestaltpsychologists considered him an atomist. Closely allied to the Wurzburg Schoolof the psychology of thinking (Denkpsychologie), he did not shrink from launch-ing frontal attacks on the ideas of some of its members. Aside from one pupil,Julius Bahle, who closely collaborated with Selz, and the Dutch scholars De Grootand F. W. Prins (1951), who applied his ideas in respectively psychology andpedagogy, he never founded a school, and after 1933 his name disappeared almostcompletely from the German psychological literature.

Selz was born on 14 February 1881, in Munchen, as the son of a well-to-dopartner in the banking house Frankel and Selz. His father was one of the manychildren of a country rabbi and had married the daughter of a rich vinegarmanufacturer. Selzs mother was descended from a family of Spanish Jews witha long tradition of refined culture: Well-read and a proficient pianist she caredlittle for cooking or household matters (Seebohm, 1981, p. 1). The only otherchild was a daughter four years younger than Otto.

At the Royal Ludwig Gymnasium in Munich, Selz was a highly gifted studentwhose academic achievements were so brilliant that he was excused from the oralpart of his final examinations in 1899. The following comment by his examinerson his way of writing would have great predictive value: Among his examinationpapers the German essay in its effort at completeness allows subordinate matters

1 More recently a selection of his writings appeared including not only his work on problemsolving but also his completely neglected essays on the phenomenology of perception (Metraux &Herrmann, 1991).

2 In more recent publications (Michel ter Hark, 1993, 2004a, 2004b, 2007), I presented ahistorical reconstruction of (young) Poppers roots in Selzs psychology of thinking.

3OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

to achieve prominence at the expense of emphasis on the main theme, but it isfluently written (Seebohm, 1981, p. 2). As Seebohm comments, this tendency toget down to the final detail, with the risk that the reader in the end loses the threadof the argument, was to remain a characteristic of all Selzs scientific writings.

Pressed by his father into a legal career, Selz studied law, but in spite of beingadmitted to the bar in 1908 he felt no vocation for an occupation as lawyer andasked for his name to be deleted from the list again. All his life, he was to bemoanthe loss of five years. He had simply done what his father demanded. It ishypothesized by Seebohm that his highly ritualized contacts with his father lay atthe basis of his lifelong difficulty in engaging in personal relationships. He nevermarried. In controversies with his colleagues about scientific matters, such as withNarziss Ach and Muller, and even when plagiarism was at stake, such as withKurt Koffka, Selz refrained from personal attacks and instead defended his workwith vigor. In a letter to Bahle, Selz mentions that Buhler once said to him:Where you have hacked about, grass will never grow again. He adds, I havealways hit out only in factual matters and fought shy of personalities (Seebohm,1970, Appendix, p. 24).

After finishing his studies of law, Selz went his own way. In the meantime,he also studied philosophy with Theodor Lipps in Munchen and with Stumpf inBerlin. In 1909, he took his PhD in philosophy at the University of Munchen. Inhis dissertation The psychological theory of thinking and the transcendenceproblem (Selz 1910a), Selz was concerned with the question, much debated inthe 17th and 18th centuries, whether there is an objective world outside ourconsciousness and how to know this world. He rejected the empiricist theory ofimmanence and instead argued that the hypothesis of an objective worldindependent of consciousness most satisfied our cognitive needs. Selz did notpursue this philosophical theme after 1910, yet his critical reading of John Locke,George Berkeley, and David Hume undeniably supplied his later argumentsagainst the association psychology of Muller with logical rigor.

After earning his PhD, Selz moved to Bonn to do experimental investigationsin the laboratory of Oswald Kulpe. Both Kulpe and Buhler were among hissubjects, and he probably attended some of their seminars. These investigationsresulted in his first major work, The Laws of Ordered Thinking. An ExperimentalInvestigation (U ber die Gesetze des geordneten Denkverlaufs. Eine experimen-telle Untersuchung; Selz, 1913).3 Taking his cue from the theory of imagelessthought, developed in the Wurzburg School, Selz, according to Kulpe, made asignificant step forward in the psychology of thinking (Seebohm, 1970, p. 15). Infact, the drift away from the program of the Wurzburg School was more radicalthan Kulpe would acknowledge. Already perceptible in 1910, the incipient riftbetween Selz and the Wurzburg School became more obvious in the wake of adevastating review of Ach (Selz, 1910b).4

3 The first two chapters served as Selzs Habiliation at the Faculty of Philosophy in Bonn in1912. The third chapter on the important notion of the total task (Gesamtaufgabe) was drawn froma paper presented in 1912 at the 5th Congress for Experimental Psychology in Berlin at whichKoffka was also present. See further below on the relation Selz-Koffka.

4 See below footnote 6.

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In the First World War, Selz served in the army at the Western-front, and afterhaving been wounded, he was decorated with the Iron Cross in 1917. After thewar, he returned to Bonn for several years as Privatdozent. He lectured on thepsychology of knowledge, the history of philosophy, and the theory of the genesisof cognitive functions. The publication of his second major work in the psychol-ogy of thinking, On the Psychology of Productive Thinking and Errors (ZurPsychologie des produktiven Denkens und des Irrtums; Selz, 1922) was postponedowing to the First World War. Once it was published after the War, Selzsintellectual prestige was incontestably on the increase, and in 1923 he was calledfor the chair of Philosophy, Psychology and Pedagogy at the Handelshochschulein Mannheim. The practical orientation of the Handelshochschule more or lessforced Selz to work also on the practical applications of his psychology. In spiteof the abstract nature of his psychology, he succeeded in pointing out its relevancefor pedagogy, in particular its usefulness in fostering intellectual achievements, aproject undertaken with some of his pupils (Selz, 1935).

Meanwhile, the Psychological Institute of Mannheim headed by Selz, whobecame Rector of the Handelshochschule in 19291930, flourished and after receiv-ing the Ius Promovendi, the first dissertations on the psychology of thinking andpedagogy began to appear, among them Bahles cognitive psychological investiga-tions of musical composition (Bahle,1930). All this came to a sobering halt afterJanuary 30, 1933, when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The Ministryof Culture and Education issued an edict in the spring of 1933 demanding that OttoSelz resign his work, the official reason being the maintenance of security and orderin Baden. Selz was no longer allowed to continue neither his teaching activities norhis research at the Institute. On October 25, the Handelshochschule was finally closed,and the Institute became incorporated within the University of Heidelberg. SinceHeidelberg had made no arrangements for Selz, the official reading asserted, Selz wasunceremoniously stripped of his career and livelihood. The truth of the matter was, ofcourse, Selzs being a non-Aryan.

Most expelled psychologists left Germany and migrated to the United States. Notso Selz. He led a withdrawn life in Mannheim, where the opportunities to doexperimental work being gravely diminished, he threw himself into purely theoreticalwork on the construction of the phenomenal world. After the Reichskristallnacht, hewas caught and deported to the concentration camp of Dachau from which he wasreleased again in December 1938. In May 1939 he finally emigrated to the Nether-lands, first to Bilthoven and then to Amsterdam, where he lived in a small apartmentin the Cliostraat. The one desirable outcome of this shameful episode was that Selzcame into contact with the Dutch pedagogues Philip Kohnstamm and De Groot. Selztaught at the Amsterdam Teachers Seminar (Nutsseminarium) on psychology andpedagogy and participated in scientific discussions at the Faculty of Psychology,hugely enriching the field of psychology. After the German invasion in May 1940,Selz corresponded with Koffka, who had emigrated to America, but despite Koffkasefforts nothing came out of it.5 He declined the offer of his Dutch friends to find ahiding place for him, replying that the Iron Cross he had won during the First WorldWar would surely protect him. He would not be spared the horrors of the Holocaust,

5 This is explained in Beckmann (2001, pp. 1315).


though. In July 1943, he was caught again by the Nazis and sent to the deportationcamp of Westerbork. A postcard stating that he wanted to give courses in West-erbork was the last sign of his life. On August 24, he was put on train Nr. DA 703to Auschwitz. He either died in transit from suffocation or exhaustionhe wassuffering from heart problemsor was murdered by being sent into the gaschambers.

The Wurzburg School

The work of the Wurzburg School has been so thoroughly discussed in reviewand criticism that I shall content myself with a bare enumeration of its principalphases, zooming in only on the work of Buhler.6 The school was founded by thephilosopher Kulpe. Kulpe was born in Candau, Courland, one of the BalticProvinces, and now part of Lettland. After completing the Gymnasium, he studiedhistory in Leipzig. There he came into contact with Wilhelm Wundt who divertedhim to philosophy. He became Wundts assistant, and, in 1894, was called toWurzburg as ordinarius for both philosophy and aesthetics in succession toHans Volkelt, founding there, by 1896, a psychological laboratory which became,next to Leipzig, the outstanding institute of Germany. Kulpe worked there for 15years and for that reason his pupils and followers are referred to as the Wur-zburger School of the psychology of thinking. In 1909, he moved to Bonn andnext to Munich, where he died in 1915.

The psychology of thinking had its beginning with the publication of papersby August Mayer and Johannes Orth (1901) on the qualitative nature of associ-ation, followed by Karl Marbes (1901) experimental study on judgment. Theseresearches of Kulpes graduates were given direction and point by his determi-nation to show that it is impossible to analyze thought into sensory elements,thereby discrediting Ernst Mach, who refused to recognize any other form ofexistence than sensations and to contribute to the experimental analysis of thoughtas a category sui generis, thereby departing from Wundt, who believed thoughtwas not amenable to scientific treatment. As Kulpe summarized the first achieve-ments of the School, these were largely negative: the traditional contents ofconsciousness, sensation, feeling, and imagesthe very substance of Wundtianpsychologyproved inadequate to account for the intellectual processes ofthoughtful association and judgment. In one of Marbes experiments, a subjecthad to lift two weights and to judge which is the heavier. The subject reported thatdifferent sensations and images accompanied the task, but that they were not theelements underpinning the judgment. The judgment simply came, and usuallyright, but with nothing in the subjects consciousness to indicate why they werejudgments. Marbe coined the term Bewusstseinslage (state of awareness) for thisphenomenon and used it as a mere negative description for states of consciousnessthat were certainly present but seemed to defy closer analysis.

Achs (1905) careful experimentation resulted in the more precise descriptionof the important influence of the task on thinking and the determining tenden-cies which issued from it, as had already been foreshadowed by Kulpes

6 See for instance, Humphrey (1951), Odgen (1951), Titchener (1909), and more recentlyKusch (1999) and Janke & Schneider (1999).

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writings. He was the first to state clearly that in the experimental afterperiod, theperiod of introspection, observers often reported that a complex conscious contentwas simultaneously present as knowledge. This imageless presentation of a totalknowledge-content is termed by Ach, Bewusstheit, which was translated byEdward Bradford Titchener (1909) as awareness.7

The notion of imageless thought was further analyzed by Buhler. Buhlerjoined the Wurzburger School around 1906 and remained there until 1909, theyear he followed Kulpe to Bonn. In Wurzburg, he wrote his most importantcontribution to the psychology of thinking, his Habilitation, Facts and Problemsof a Psychology of Thought Processes (Tatsachen und Probleme zur einerPsychologie der Denkvorgange; Buhler, 1907, 1908). Buhlers subjects had toanswer questions for which there could be no cut-and-dried answer, such as, Wasthe Pythagorean theorem known to the Middle Ages? The subjects then gave aretrospective account of the processes intervening between the presentation of thetask and their answer. Buhler concluded from these protocols that there were basicunanalyzable units in the thinking process, which should simply be calledthoughts (Gedanken). Thoughts, he argued, are independent of any sensoryfactors. In particular, images are too fragmentary and sporadic to be essential tothought. Put more strongly, the occurrence of images is neither necessary norsufficient for the occurrence of thoughts. Buhler next distinguished betweendifferent types of thoughts. It is here that the influence of the philosophersEdmund Husserl and Meinong became apparent. The influence of Meinong isevident in Buhlers discussion of thoughts in the sense of pure intentions(Wissen um etwas). Subjects did not report any mental images at all, yet theirconsciousness was not devoid of mental occurrences. They often reported acertain direction upon the objects of thinking or a kind of order. Buhler analyzedsuch thoughts in terms of determinations of logical space (logische Platzbestim-mtheiten). In such cases, Buhler argued, the object of thinking is determined notthrough its intrinsic properties, but indirectly through its relations with otherobjects that are part of the same logical space (Buhler, 1907, p. 358). In a footnote,Buhler referred to Meinongs discussion of indirect determinations. Selz wouldpick up this idea and use it as a starting-point for his theory of successive stagesin problem solving.

The Wurzburg psychologists paid only marginal attention to the activeprocesses of thinking and seemed to be harking back to the static classificatoryschemes of the early associationists. Ach dubbed the term determiningtendencies for the directive influence of the task on the outcome of thinking.This determining tendency was distinct from, and opposable to, associativetendencies. According to Ach, determining tendencies explained the orderedand purposeful character of thought processes; they ruled out irrelevancies and

7 In later work (Ach, 1910), Ach was concerned with the experimental investigation ofvoluntary acts themselves. The debate with Selz to which I referred earlier concerned the rolevoluntary acts could have in counteracting failed attempts or simply mistakes. According to Ach,strong voluntary acts were the only means to counteract failures. To this, Selz objected that failurescould be avoided simply by focusing on the structure of the task (i.e., awareness of the total task).There was no need to overexert oneself as Ach maintained. In his final response to Selz, Ach (1911)honored some of his objections but stuck to his earlier view. But it led him to reconsider carefullythe pitfalls surrounding the use of introspection.


prevented chance stimuli from distracting the course of thought processes.They accomplished this by favoring those reproductive tendencies that were inline with the aim of the subject. For instance, the presentation to a subject ofthe numbers 6 and 2 may yield a reaction of 8, 4, or 12, depending on whetherthe task prescribed was adding, subtracting, or multiplying. The aim of thesubject determined the reaction rather than the stimuli or their associativetendencies.

Selzs Theory of Relations and Complexes

To a certain extent, Selz continued the experimental tradition initiated byKulpe and the members of his school. Like his predecessors, Selz experi-mented with task and stimulus words. Yet, already at this stage of his work,he made significant alterations and improvements in the experimental designof the study of thought processes. One of the drawbacks of the experimentaldesign of his predecessors was that the presentation of the task before thedisplay of the stimulus word led to a constant focus on the task and toinsufficient attention to the stimulus word. In this way, the exploration andconstruction of the task by the subject could not be studied in detail. Toprevent one-sided focus upon the task and attendant stereotyped solutions,Selz offered task and stimulus word at the same time. In this way, Selz couldvary task and stimulus word independently of each other and, in particular,change the task at each new trial. Subjects were now forced to construct thetask at each new trial. In a single trial, the course of thinking could be studiedin its entirety. To study thought processes by making use of retrospection, thenature of the task needed to be relatively simple. On the other hand, it had tobe complex enough in order to trigger genuine thinking, rather than simplyreproduction. Selz solved this dilemma by selecting task and stimulus word sothat his subjects really had to overcome a difficulty. One type of task was tolook for a whole of which the stimulus word was a part, or, to look for a partbelonging to the stimulus word. Another type was more conceptual. Thus,subjects were asked to look for the superordinate, the subordinate, or thecoordinate of a certain stimulus word.

Selz introduced not only semantic relations (Sachbeziehungen), like partof . . . , subordinate to . . . , in the investigation of thought processes, buthe also provided a general, phenomenological theory of relations supple-mented with a theory as to how relations are extracted from the data, that is,a theory of abstraction. Armed with this theory, Selz defined directed thinkingas the capacity to extract relational structures (Beziehungsganze, Sachverhalt-nisse) from concrete experience and to store this information into memory sothat it could be retrieved for later purposes. Although Selzs theory ofrelational structures contained new elements, it is also evident that he heavilyrelied on philosophical sources, in particular Meinongs Hume-Studies (Hume-Studien; Meinong 1877, 1882), his later theory of objects (Gegenstands-theorie; Meinong, 1904), Stumpfs Appearances and psychic functions (Ers-cheinungen und psychische Funktionen; Stumpf, 1907), and Husserls LogicalInvestigations (1901). Because the influence of the former on Selz seems to

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have been greater, it is instructive to have a brief look at Meinongs view ofabstraction and relations.8

Meinong

Meinong first of all argued against Humes nominalism, how little mereassociation without abstraction was able to achieve. To give one of his examples,suppose we have a round piece of paper, or a millstone before us, and we call thisshape. Because ex hypothesi we cannot think of a circle in abstracto; it followsthat when we happen to see, on a walk through the country, a square cornfield, itwould never occur to us to call to mind that shape and to give the name shapelikewise to the cornfield. On the view that we are capable of thinking in abstracto,however, all would be plain sailing. Meinong further pointed out that not asso-ciation, but the self-conscious activity of attention is the main originator of mentallife.

Meinong published his theory of relations in a separate volume of hisHume-Studies, yet the connection with the theory of abstraction was evident.Relations were important for abstract thinking, but the mainstream of Britishempiricists had failed to account for them properly. Following Locke and Her-mann Lotze, Meinong argued that relations involve an activity of the subject, thatis, comparing. The mental operation of comparing involves the shifting ofattention from one of the terms of the relation to another. Comparison impliedabstraction, according to Meinong, because to compare objects means to comparethem in certain respects and, hence, necessarily to leave out other aspects fromconsideration.

By arguing that relations were brought into being by acts of comparison,Meinongs stance was wholly psychological. His mature view of what relationsreally are, however, was partly determined by Christian von Ehrenfelss (1890)famous article On Gestalt qualities (U ber Gestalt qualitaten). Von Ehrenfelsintroduced the term Gestalt quality to denote the perception of form or melodythat, though based on sensory elements, can in no sense be reduced to suchelements. Meinong agreed with von Ehrenfelss negative argument but objectedto the term Gestalt property, and instead proposed the term complexion, orwhat would probably be better to call complex. Taking von Ehrenfelss notionof a foundation upon which Gestalt properties were based as his cue, Meinongadded objects that were founded on them. A founding object, he called an inferius,as it is of lower order with respect to its superior object. Such a superius is anobject of higher order. Objects of higher order have an intrinsic lack ofindependence. For instance, diversity can only be thought of in relation todiffering terms. Diversity and all objects of higher order are based on others asindispensable presuppositions. The term complex was used by Meinong to referto the whole of inferius and superius. Thus, a melody is a complex, whichcontains both the founding objects (the various notes sung or played) and thefounded objects, the new factor emerging when the notes are taken together.

8 The two most elaborated accounts of Selzs theory, Humphrey (1951) and De Groot (1965)leave out the Meinongian background. The same applies to shorter treatments of Selz, for instanceKusch (1999).


Meinongs theory of complexes implied an intimate connection with thetheory of relations. Indeed, if one takes the meaning of the term relationsufficiently broadly, every relational fact is also a complex fact; relations cannotexist where there are only atomic facts, hence no relation without complexion.

The Role of Complexes in Association

Selz first of all elaborated his ideas about complexes in the context of ratherelementary forms of reproduction, such as the recognition of a melody, patternrecognition, and reproduction of words. Like Meinong, he maintained that suchperceptual and quasi-perceptual complexes are not aggregates in which thespecific (temporal or spatial) order of the elements abcd is indifferent, butobjects-taken-in-relation (Selz, 1913, p. 97). Knowing or recognizing these tem-poral and spatial relations is also at the basis of the reproduction of suchcomplexes. Thus, the recognition of the national anthem depends on the specifictemporal order of the individual tones rather than on the tones themselves. Playedin a different key, it will have no disturbing effect upon recognition. The specifictemporal arrangement of the sounds (or the spatial arrangement of visual ele-ments) is a property of the complex (Komplexbestimmtheit), not of its elements.Associations between perceptual complexes, therefore, are reciprocal associationsbetween complexes.

It is important to note here that Selz duly acknowledged the contribution made byother researchers, notably Muller (1913), Muller and Schumann (1894), and Kulpe(1893). His main point in his argument with Muller, however, was that his findingsand arguments were not decisive to prevent supporters of a constellation theory fromreducing properties of complexes to associational interactions of their elements, aswas evident in the writings of William James, Ebbinghaus, and Theodor Ziehen (Selz,1920, p. 216).9

More complicated cases of the reproduction of complexes are discussedbelow under the head of the notion of complex completion (Komplexergan-zung). Here, I will discuss only Selzs complex-completion on the basis of aschema. Selz opened his discussion of schemata by suggesting that in many casesof memory retrieval, subjects already know that the information at hand is a pieceof a larger complex. Indeed, they even often know what kind of complex to whichthe piece belongs. Giving the example of a candidate in an oral examination tryingto remember the Melanchton, and who is assisted by the examiners giving thefirst three letters Mel, Selz explains, The awareness of the word sought ischanged from the awareness of a not yet further specified concrete word to theawareness of a word beginning with Mel . . . We have to conceive of the genesisof this awareness like the way in which the empty scheme of a concrete word ispartly filled out by the insertion at its beginning of the sounds spoken inanticipation . . . (Selz, 1913, pp. 113114). A schema is formed, which organizesitself around a few outstanding elements. The schema is incomplete in the sensethat it contains a gap (Leerstelle), but it is this schematic whole that finallyproduces the outcome.

9 By not mentioning this background Kuschs (1999, p. 66) portrayal of Selz is slightlymisleading in suggesting that the theory of complex association is one of the major features of hisprogram.

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Relational Facts

Selzs next important step was to apply the laws of complex-completion toreproductive memory processes and thought processes. Meinongs common treat-ment of complexes and relations surely paved the way for Selzs generalization ofthe laws of complex-completion, yet the further elaboration and, in particular, theadduced empirical evidence for the great explanatory power of this move wereunique. Selz defined relational facts as the fact that certain objects stand in acertain relation (Selz, 1913, p. 142).10 A relational fact can neither be reduced tothe objects that stand in the relation nor to the relation itself, because it includesboth.

Put otherwise, they display the same sort of lack of independence asMeinongian complexes. For instance, the relation of similarity that exists betweentwo objects can only be thought of in relation to objects that are similar.11Relational facts, then, are objects of higher order.

The notion of relational fact was meant to be encompassing and to includemathematical, physical, and psychological facts, yet Selz was mostly concernedwith relational facts as psychological objects. Relations between psychologicalobjects, for example, experiences of color, Selz argued, are themselves items inthe psychological realm. Qua relational fact, such psychological objects, are notindependent items like an individual mental image, but dependent on otherpsychological objects.12 By virtue of this intrinsic lack of independence, relationalfacts could be present within a subjects phenomenal field without being noticed(bemerken). Selz here relied on A. Grunbaums (1908) influential experiments onabstraction. These experiments showed that subjects perceived simultaneouslypresented figures without becoming aware of the fact that they were similar.Positive abstraction, however, was also demonstrated. In such cases, Selzargued, the subject noticed the fact that certain objects stand in a certain relation.This capacity, he maintained, is crucial for the discovery of new information.What the subject discovered in such cases, Selz believed, is something general, arelational structure in itself, which subsequently might be transposed to all sortsof concrete problem situations. Selz, therefore, made a distinction between, on theone hand Erkenntnis or Einsicht and, on the other hand, knowledge of relationalfacts already at ones disposal, hence dispositional knowledge.13 Selzs proto-cols made clear that whether knowledge of relational facts was merely actualized

10 Selz took the term Sachverhalt from Stumpf (1907) and changed it into Sachverhaltnis.Stumpf took the term from J. Bergmann in his work General Logic. Bergmann was a pupil of Lotzethe lectures of which were also attended by Stumpf. On the history of the term Sachverhalt, seeBarry Smith, 1989.

11 Selz did not use the term objects of higher order and instead called relational factsmitgegeben. He distinguished between various classes of relational facts. One class of relationalfacts concerns relations between objects, e.g. similarity, difference, and size. Another class concernsrelations of order, such as temporal co-existence, and spatial contiguity. Yet other classes concernsymmetrical relations and asymmetrical relations.

12 Selz speaks here of dependent moments within conscious experience (unselbstandigeMomente; Selz, 1913, p. 147).

13 In 1913, Selz speaks only of knowledge, but in 1922, he argues that what he calls knowledgeis identical with what the members of the Brentano school as well as Wolfgang Kohler call insight.See further below.


or newly abstracted from experience, in both cases processes of complex-completion were involved. For instance, a subjects coming to know that deathis coordinate with sleep is not to be explained as an aggregate of separatereproductive tendencies tied by association, but as the awareness of a relationalfact, that is, the fact that death can be conceived as coordinate with sleep.14

Selzs Theory of Schematic Anticipations

The philosophers Meinong, Stumpf, and Husserl, as well as the psychologistsof the Wurzburg School, contributed to the study of thought processes, yet nogeneral theory of thinking was forthcoming. Admittedly, this seemed not to havebeen their ambition. For instance, Henry J. Watt and Ach were focused more ondescribing certain characteristic patterns of thinking, and especially in showingthe role played by respectively the task and determining tendencies, than offeringan encompassing theory. One reason for this lack of ambition may have been thedominance of the association theory of mind. Indeed, as Selz himself was the firstto point out, Achs view of the role of determining tendencies in the process ofthinking was still committed to the principle of association. By assuming that adirective and selective factor, that is, a determining tendency, gives to reasoningand thinking their most fundamental character, Ach dethroned blind associationbut still subscribed to its basic tenets. In particular, determining tendencies actedlike separate factors.

Selzs goal, by contrast, was to develop a general theory of thinking that notonly explained the steps that lead from constructing a problem to achieving asolution but also replaced the dominant associationist explanation of thinking bymeans of substitution. Frequency and recency, similarity and contiguity, or anyother laws of association are inadequate to explain the particular kinds of linkageand direction found in problem solving. Even the most sophisticated theory ofassociation, Mullers constellation theory, put forward as a reply to Achstheory of determining tendencies, was inadequate to this task.

The Constellation Theory: Muller and Selz

To appreciate Selzs critique of Muller, it is necessary to explain the latters viewin more detail. Mullers constellation theory intended to serve as a correction ofassociationism, according to which the mind is an unstable arena of sensations andmental images perpetually jostling for monopoly of attention. None of the elements,however, ever achieves this monopoly finally, so that fleeting experiences remainsubliminally present. Accordingly, a written or heard word, for example, farmer,prompts all the mental images that were familiar to the subject from earlier experi-ence. Assuredly, association psychology acknowledged that by no means all repre-sentations associated with farmer returned upon its recurrence. To explain thisincontrovertible fact, the theory claimed that only the association most strongly linkedto the initial mental image held permanent sway. This lawful repression of weakerassociations by the strongest associations is the only directive factor in thinking.Muller, however, made a significant contribution to this classical picture. Whenconfronted with a task and stimulus word, the subjects mental state did not consist

14 The example is from Selzs protocols. (Selz, 1913, p. 29).

12 TER HARK

simply of associative links between the separate elements of his answer, but inaddition all the elements will be drawn toward the task. By thus functioning as adirective representation, the task intensifies associative bonds of individual ele-ments that belong to the content of the task, while simultaneously inhibiting thoseassociations that divert from it, the result being that all active representations corre-spond to it. In other words, the task brings about a constellation, which favorsassociative bonds of elements appropriate to the task.

Selzs objection proved devastating, however. He argued that even when theconstellation is fairly strong pointless errors are not excluded by the theory. Forinstance, the principles of the constellation theory would not exclude the pointlessanswer line to the question What is the whole with respect to page?15 For it isvery likely that among the concepts triggered by whole would also be line, whichis the whole with respect to individual words and syllables. Moreover, it is very likelythat page triggers line as well. In his 1924 synopsis, Selz formulated his critiqueeven more forcefully: Suppose, for instance, that the task calls, not for the genericconcept, but for a coordinate, parallel notion. Since for the majority of concepts aparallel notion can be found, it would follow that the majority of notions would be putin heightened readiness. Among these there would always be notions that are indeedassociated with the stimulus word - without for that reason being related to it in themanner prescribed by the task (Selz, 1924, p. 29). A constellation theory at bestlimits the range of possibilities, but it still allows many senseless errors to occur. Thefact that such errors do not occur, neither in daily life nor in the lab, shows thefundamental weakness of the constellation theory.

The Total Task

Selz contrasted his own complex-theory of thinking to the constellationtheory.16 The distinctive feature of the complex-theory was that the whole courseof problem solving was explained without invoking factors that lie outside thepsychological (phenomenal or intentional) realm. In addition, Selz eschewed theprinciple of association, without at the same time having recourse to determiningtendencies or other mysterious effects emanating from the problem as Ach haddone. The important notion of the total task, already presented by Selz at the 5thCongress for Experimental Psychology in 1912, served to explain problem solv-ing as a process of tentative and phased transformations that were intrinsic to thephenomenal material of the problem itself. In Selz, problem solving, therefore,was essentially a dynamic process in which the construction of the total task(Gesamtaufgabe) leads to a schematic anticipation of the goal to be achieved(Figure 1). From the start, the solution of the problem is represented by the subjectas a more or less indeterminate part within the relational structure presented by the

15 See Selz, 1913, p. 281. Different versions of this critique can be found in Selz, 1924, andSelz, 1927.

16 The term complex-theory was coined by Selz in his discussion with Muller. Muller,however, did not mention this and called his own theory a complex-theory, thereby ignoring thedifferences with Selz. Koffka (1925b), in his turn, first called Mullers theory a complex theory(p. 543) and then Selzs (p. 569), without indicating the differences. This terminological confusionprompted Selz to conclude: My complex theory is only opposed to a constellation theory, but isitself a Gestalt theory (Selz, 1926, p. 168).


total task initially only in terms of its general features but made concrete byfurther transformations. The dynamic interplay between superordinate and sub-ordinate processes triggers as a whole the final solution. The solution is not relatedto the problem as one heterogenous element to another, mediated by a thirdequally heterogenous element, for example, Mullers goal representation. Rather,they relate as the schema or blanket of a relational fact, with one unknownelement or relation, to the completed relational fact (Selz, 1922, p. 370).

The theory of schematic anticipations, however, was far more complex anddynamic than this diagram suggests. For what the diagram does not represent, butwhat is essential to its conception, is the dynamic role of the total task and theattendant notion of transformation.

By his specific experimental design discussed above, Selz discovered that taskand stimulus word do not become effective separately, but that, even before theactual process of finding a solution for the problem has begun, they are integratedinto a unitary whole, that is, the total task. The total task has the structure of aquestion, or problem, so that Selzs theory of thinking has to be conceived as atheory of problem solving. This is also evidenced by his innovative use of the termmethod of solution (Losungsmethode) for explaining the subsequent course ofthinking.17 The process of problem solving, Selzs protocols demonstrated abun-dantly, did not begin before the subjects comprehension of the problem situationas a whole. For instance, one observer, confronted with the task Cancer (Krebs):Cause or effect, reported:

As soon as Id read the word Cancer, I conceived it in a zoological sense, andhad a weak mental image. I then went on and now read the task properly for thefirst time. Now the thing struck me as comical, because I was still thinking of theanimal and also had this mental image. I told myself there must be a solution allthe same. Cancer must have another meaning. Then I became conscious that in factthere is another meaning and eventually the meaning cancer as a disease cameclearly to mind . . . (Selz, 1913, p. 222)

The stimulus word Krebs is initially understood in a zoological sense, as crab,but then it is seen in the light of the task. Once this integration of task and stimulus

17 He used this term for the first time in 1912 (Selz, 1912) and complained that it was simplytaken over by Kohler in his study of apes without crediting him (Selz, 1926, p. 194).

problem situation

goal situation

Figure 1. Diagram of problem solving after Selz, 1924. The figure on the left handrepresents a problem situation. The symbol stands for a relation, for example,part of. The symbol A stands for an item of knowledge; the black squarerepresents the unknown item of knowledge. The figure on the right hand representsthe solution of the problem situation. It relates to the figure on the left hand as thecompletion of a schematic anticipation of a relational whole.

14 TER HARK

word was achieved, the subject noticed a conflict. The subject understood thatthere was something wrong within the situation as given. In this particular case heexperienced this gap as comical, but in other cases it may be more trouble-some. What the total task appears to call forthe cause of Krebs in a zoologicalsensedoes not make sense. This predicament induces all sorts of controlprocesses, which, in their turn, lead the subject to explore the possibility of aproper solution. The outcome is that the stimulus word has been misconceived.

Not until a meaningful total task had been constructed, that is, one in whichthe meaning of the stimulus word Krebs is adapted to the meaning of the task andtaken in the sense of a disease, the process of solving the problem sets in.18 AsSelzs careful analysis of the protocols bears out, subsequent phases in the courseof problem solving were subordinated to the formation of the total task and, mostimportantly, may change in character in the light of the subjects knowledge of thewhole. This was especially evident with cases of problem solving Selz calledsuccessive actualizations of knowledge (Selz, 1913, p. 45, p. 62). Theseobtained when the subject was unable to circumvent the problem immediately.Selz observed that with more complicated problems, subjects typically firstsearched for more general knowledge about the problem situation, because it wasmore familiar than specific knowledge.

What he discovered at the same time was even more important. Finding ageneral property of a solution to be attained, consisted in transforming (Trans-formation) the original problem. Consider this example. A number of subjectsconfronted with the task to find a coordinate concept of railway platformproceeded by first searching for another part of the concrete spatial whole whichincluded railway platform (Selz, 1922, p. 142). A railway platform is part of anumber of physical constructions, such as railroads, a train station, and so forth,which together make up rail transportation. By first considering railway plat-form under the same superordinate concept to which the other parts of railtransportation belong, subjects could solve the task of finding a coordinateconcept by searching for one of these parts. This detour via a superordinate conceptwas a transformation of the original problem, which was defined more generally bySelz: . . . the substitution for the task of another task, through whose solution theoriginal problem is also to be solved (Selz, 1922, p. 41). The substituted task wasa subproblem and, hence, subordinate to the original problem.19 If subjects did notsucceed in the preceding transformation of the original task, they may takerecourse to other kinds of transformation. For instance, they may seek to trans-form the original problem into the subordinate problem of searching for an objectthat fulfills the same purpose as the objects referred to by the stimulus word. Thisgeneral description of a property of what is sought for may in its turn be replacedby a more specific description, such as to look for an object that among otherforms of traffic fulfills the same purpose (Selz, 1922, p. 143). Via a series of such

18 The evidence for the formation of a total task came from direct reports of the subjects as wellas from more indirect sources. Thus, before the task was understood, Selz observes, subjects oftentook no more than cursory notice of the stimulus-word; once the task being understood, the subjectsawareness of the meaning of the stimulus word took a more concrete shape; reports of mental imagesoccurred only after the task was understood.

19 Selz speaks of a subproblem (Unteraufgabe; Selz, 1913, p. 87).


transformations, or reformulations of the original problem, general knowledgebecomes successively more and more specific.

Typically, the genesis of a problem solving process displays several transi-tions deviating from the mainand straightline to achieving the goal. At thesejunctures, subjects learn from mistaken transformations and may revert to thestage of one of the preceding reformulations of the problem. For instance, subjectsmay revert to the stimulus word and pay closer attention to it, for example,pronouncing it several times. Or they may set an earlier subproblem anew.According to Selz, this retrogression (Rucklaufigkeit) of problem solving ischaracteristic of goal-directed processes (Selz, 1913, p. 197; Selz, 1922, p. 122).To be sure, subjects do not return to the earlier phase as if nothing has happened,rather they learn from mistakes and seek to proceed in a different way from thestarting position.

The discovery of the total task implied a crucial difference with the associa-tionist paradigm. Within Selzs conception, the relation between the differentstages of transformation is determined by the meaning or content of the problemand not by an intermediary associative tie, the description of which does notdepend on meaning at all. In modern parlance, Selzs interpretation of theprotocols is at the purely psychological or intentional level. For instance, if thetask is to indicate the cause of frost, subjects may insert frost qua effect inthe abstract schema of a causal relation. From then on, however, if the originalproblem is to maintain its meaning, the attempt to further concretize it is no longerarbitrary. On the contrary, the sought-for concept, that is, the gap, has to conformitself to the partly concrete and specified structure. The process of problemsolving is intentionally driven.

Creative Thinking

When a person is confronted with a new problem, Selz argued, actualizingdispositional knowledge is no longer an option. Instead, there is a need toactualize familiar solving-methods (Mittelaktualisierung). Applying familiar solv-ing-methods to new problems, changing material, or in different situations, heaverred, is the route to understanding creative thinking.20 Selzs thinking here istoo complex to deal with in this essay, so I will confine myself to only one of hisheuristics, the abstraction of means. Selz described this heuristic: . . . the resultof abstraction is schematically anticipated as an, as yet unknown, solution-methodwhich will effect a known aim, namely to bring about a determinate partial result(Selz, 1924, p. 55). An interesting subclass of this method is the method that setsin when no knowledge of applied methods or other memory structures areavailable. In such a case, chance may help. The solution here is not achievedtop-down, that is, by means of the schematic anticipation of what is sought for, butbottom-up: one stumbles on the solution and then the schematic anticipation istriggered and the solution recognized as a solution. This, in essence, was Selzsexplanation of a number of scientific discoveries. As Selz explained, Benjamin

20 He distinguished two main cases of heuristics: methods used for the finding of solvingmethods (Mittelfindung) and methods for applying solving methods (Mittelanwendung). The firstgroup consist of three chief cases: the methods of routine actualization of solving methods,abstraction of solving methods, and productive use of previously established abstractions.

16 TER HARK

Franklin had conceived the plan to draw off the electric charge of a thundercloudby using the principle of arc discharge. His goal was to bring down the lightningfrom the clouds. He knew that in order to realize this goal he had to make aconnection between the cloud and the earth. His problem was to find a means thatwould establish the required connection. From the sight of kites being flown, Selzexplained, Franklin abstracted the fact that a kite may form a connection betweenthe earth and clouds, and this abstraction of solving methods may have led him toactually sending up a kite on a wire.

Another example discussed by Selz is Michael Faradays discovery of electro-magnetic induction (Selz, 1924). Faraday became interested in experiments ofrotating a copper disk underneath a suspended compass-needle. When this diskwas rotated rapidly, the needle was deflected in a manner quite inexplicable.Faraday at once conceived the idea that the cause of this rotation was due toelectricity. For several years, however, he was unable to demonstrate the truth ofthis assumption. But, in 1831, he began a series of experiments that establishedforever the fact of electro-magnetic induction. His aim was to produce electricityfrom a magnet. The partial result was to cause a deflection of a galvanometerneedle. Happening one day to be moving a magnetic core in and out of a coilconnected with the galvanometer, Faraday observed a deflection in the attachedgalvanometer. This trifling occurrence, Selz argued, sufficed to make him see thatin the closed but uncharged circuit a current must have been generated by themovement of the magnet. Selz argued that a specific event, when occurring byaccident, may prompt the scientist to abstract the appropriate means-end relation.Accordingly, the fact that insights appear suddenly does not mean that they areuncaused at an explanatory level. Indeed, the undeniably passive character ofsudden insights is best explained by assuming their being caused by the stubbornpersistence of engrossing problems (Selz, 1924, p. 65).

Selz and His Contemporaries: Gestalt Psychology

Selz did never partake in a research school as many of his more famouscolleagues, such as Buhler, Koffka and Kohler did, yet in a way his attitudetoward psychology was strikingly modern. Consider this letter to Bahle, Novem-ber 23, 1935, when he had been dismissed from his position in Mannheim and hadto carry on his research all alone at home:

To be a theorist means first and foremost not to engage, like the old-stylehumanists, in building ever new theoretical edifices but, like the great physicalscientists, to build on to the achievements of others, that is to say, to improve andcomplete them but not to insist on changing everything at any price. The lattertogether accomplish the building of a science, the former write one book each (likeSpranger and Charlotte B.). Our colleagues are more and more losing sight of thisgoal and where Duncker is concerned I must at least give him credit for hisconcern with the continuity of science (Seebohm, 1981, p. 7).

As we have seen, Selz continued the work of others (e.g., Meinong, Buhler,Muller) and improved upon the theory of others. For instance, he could explainmany of Mullers findings in terms of his complex-theory. The same applies to atopic I have not entered upon, Selzs explanation of Kohlers findings in animal


psychology in terms of his theory of creative thinking.21 Selzs relation withGestalt psychology, however, is complicated owing to the debate over prioritywith Koffka and to a lesser extent Kohler. On the one hand, there was a seriousoverlap between Selzs theory of complexes and problem solving and Gestaltpsychology. Selz acknowledged the overlap and wanted the other party to do thesame. Instead, Koffka sought to set Selz apart by calling his theory mechanist andbehaviorist. On the other hand, there were deep differences of which Selz onlylately became aware. In this final section, I will first deal with the priority issueand then move on to discuss the intellectual differences between Selz and Gestaltpsychology.

In the first half of the 1920s, Selz found himself involved in a controversyover priority of ideas. Koffka, a leading contributor to Gestaltpsychology, wrotea chapter on current psychology in Max Dessoirs Lehrbuch der Philosophie(1925), which, although incontestably drawing on Selzs theories, never men-tioned him at crucial places. Koffkas article provoked the outrage of Buhler whoaccused him of having taken his Gestalttheory from Selz (Buhler, 1926). At thesame time, Selz responded by showing that Koffka had borrowed key conceptsfrom Selzs work and that his criticism of association psychology copied Selzsown earlier rebuttal (Selz, 1926).

Koffkas article included a section on the refutation of the constellation theoryand a section on The Gestalt theory of thinking. Selz complained that he was notmentioned, or only in passing, in the first two sections whereas it could easily bedemonstrated that Koffkas refutation exploited Selzian sources. Selz correctlypointed out that Koffkas and Kohlers refutation was simply a terminologicalrevision of Selzian concepts, for example, Selzs concept of an aggregate ofelements was replaced by (the much better sounding) and-connections ofKohler. At the same time, Selzs complaints seem a little paranoid, because atother places both Koffka and Kohler did credit him for having refuted theconstellation theory.22

Things were different as regards the constructive part of Koffkas essay, theGestalt theory of thinking. Gestalt psychology replaced the law of reproductiveassociation by the law of Gestalt completion (Gestalterganzung; Koffka, 1925b,p. 576), according to which every part of a Gestalt has the tendency to completethe whole Gestalt. In the first edition of an earlier work, however, Koffka hadcredited Selz for having formulated a theory that was similar to the one he

21 Selz, 1922, pp. 610.22 As an anonymous referee pointed out, Koffka was supervised by Stumpf who in his work on

the perception of space and the perception of tone was clearly antiassociationist and emphasized therole played by relations. In his article on Gestalt experiences and movement experiences, Koffka(1915) criticized Meinong and the theory of his pupil Vittorio Benussi. In it, he gave the first clearformulation of the Gestalt theorist point of view. Selzs critique, however, did not so much concernthe question as to the priority of having discovered the pivotal role played by relations. As pointedout above, he relied on Meinong as well as on Stumpf. He even referred positively to an earlypublication by Koffka (1912) and pointed out that his own conception of association by contiguityin terms of complex-associations bore a resemblance with the view developed by Koffka (Selz,1913, p. 129, Footnote). Selzs main point of critique was that he was not credited for his specificrefutation of the constellation theory, which was much more sophisticated than the theory ofassociation Stumpf was concerned with.

18 TER HARK

(Koffka) had outlined (Koffka, 1921, p. 176). But in the second edition, thesimilarity was reduced to a mere formal similarity (Koffka, 1925a, p. 125). Inhis reply, Selz painstakingly made clear that the formal similarity was, so tospeak, a mere rhetorical device for appropriating another ones ideas (Selz, 1926).For instance, in outlining the law of Gestalt completion, Koffka made use of anexample that was virtually the same as the one Selz had used in illustrating his lawof completion on the basis of a schema. Thus, where Selz used the example of thefirst three letters of Melanchton (see above), Koffka used the following example:If one asks for the name of an animal that begins with Qual, then the answerQualle is extremely easy. Under different conditions, however, one will havedifficulties in proceeding from the word Qual to the word Qualle. In the firstcase, the syllable Qual has precisely the character of the first syllable, but in thesecond it is one syllable, a complete word (Koffka, 1925a, pp. 184185). Despitethis similarity in content, Selz was not mentioned.

An important source of this controversy was a negative and biased review ofSelzs second volume on the laws of ordered thinking (Selz, 1922) by Koffkascolleague, W. Benary (1923). Benary called Selzs theory a machine-theory inwhich no place was accorded to the important phenomenon of insight that played sucha prominent role in Gestalt psychology.23 As Selz rightfully retorted, the similaritybetween Gestalt psychology and his own complex-theory was much closer than theuse of ideological adjectives like mechanistic suggested, because Kohler himselfrelied on Selzs theory of relational facts. Indeed, before his first great work in Gestaltpsychology appeared (Kohler, 1919), Kohler (1917, 1918) made use of Selzs insightinto the nature of relational facts, but rephrased it in slightly different terms. In hisstudy on chimps and chicken (Kohler, 1918), Kohler argued that the perception ofGestalten, for example, two shades of color and of relations between colors has muchin common. In both cases, the individual colors attain an inner union, which is theopposite of an association by contiguity, and which depends on togetherness orstructure-function (Strukturfunktion; Kohler, 1918, p. 16). He cited specific pages ofSelz (1913) in support of his theory. A few paragraphs further, he discussed theapplication of structure-functions to the study of memory and again referred to Selzscritique of the constellation theory and his treatment of spatial-temporal structures in

23 Selz complained that the points of contact between his theory and gestalt psychology wereobliterated by ideological phrases. For instance, both Benary and Koffka (1923) tried to distancethemselves from Selz by calling his theory mechanistic, even behavioristic. A striking example ofthis ideological stance was Benarys rejection of Selzs detailed explanation of Kohlers findingswith chimps in terms of schematic anticipations (Selz, 1922). On the other hand, Selz observed thatto explain the findings of a theory by means of another theory was the ideal of verification (Selz,1926, p. 168). Moreover, Koffkas own description of animal psychology relied on Selzian sources.For instance, in discussing how an animal recognizes a branch of a tree as a stick to obtain a pieceof fruit which is beyond reach, Koffka argued An open Gestalt, the way to the fruit, gets itscompletion from another completed Gestalt, and that happens because a part of this Gestaltundergoes a change (Koffka, 1925b, p. 578). A branch, part of a fixed Gestalt, that is, a tree, isabstracted from this Gestalt and jumps into (hineinspringen) another Gestalt (bridge to the fruit).As Selz pointed out, this idea was already put forward by him in 1912, where he spoke of thecompletion of a schematic anticipation. In his diagrams of problem solving, the open Gestalten, orgaps were even pictured black (Selz, 1926, p. 169). The metaphors used by Koffka as well asWertheimer (i.e., umwandeln, hineinspringen) were merely paraphrases of what Selz called themethod of means abstraction.


his chapter on complexes (Kohler, 1918, pp. 3839). In his much more famous bookon the mentality of apes (Kohler, 1917), he again argued that what associationisttheories of intelligent animal behavior cannot explain, is the grasp of a material,inner relation of two things to each other (sachlichen, inneren Bezugs; Kohler, 1925,p. 219). By relation he meant the interconnexion based on the properties of thesethings themselves, not a frequent following each other or occurring together(Kohler, 1925, p. 219).24 As Selz complained, Kohlers inner relations are nothingother than his own relational facts (Selz, 1926, p. 193194).25 The notion of insightwas also the same as the concept of knowledge used in Selz (1913), namely, thenewly acquired consciousness of a relational fact (Selz, 1926, p. 193).

What became increasingly clear to Selz, however, was the difference between hisoutlook on psychology and the outlook of Gestalt psychology. What he in particularopposed was the radical top-down approach of Gestalt psychology. In rejecting thebottom-up approach of association psychology and opting for the opposite view of theprimacy of the whole, Selz now argued (Selz, 1927), Gestalt psychology overlookedthe implications of a theory of schematic anticipations for a bottom-up approach. Bymeans of phased development, as exemplified by the notion of transformation, wholesare constructed out of elements. However, the elements are not meaningless unitssubject (only) to principles of spatial and temporal contiguity; rather, the elements arethemselves from the start determined by their place, that is, their system of relations,in larger wholes. Selz increasingly came to see the implications of his constructivebottom-up approach to problem solving for other fields of psychology, such as thedevelopment of motor responses or skills. In his synopsis (Selz, 1924), he explicitlyapplied his earlier theory to skills. Skilled behavior, he explained, displays a structurein which the type of response given depends on the specific nature of the conditionsof elicitation. In contrast to a purely associationist system, with skilled behavior thecharacter of sensorimotor reactions is relevant to the entire structure. Selz even wentso far as to say that, . . . Perhaps our era is witnessing the beginnings of a biologyof the inner. Psychology thus enters the ranks of the biological sciences (Selz, 1924,p. 73).

Biology of the inner was not meant as a reductive proposal, ultimatelyleading to the disappearance of psychology as an autonomous science, but rathera reminder of the functional, organic organization of adapted mental activities.The biological approach to problem solving would be taken up by both Piaget(1947) and Popper (1972), but it was missed by Gestalt psychology with itsemphasis on the relation between physics and psychology.

In Selzs completely ignored phenomenological writings on the construction ofour perception of the outside world, the difference between Kohler and Selz came tothe fore. It is interesting to note that Selz pointed out that the associationist explanationof the perception of the phenomenal world had something in common with the Gestaltapproach. Both schools acknowledged only a physiological-genetic approach. To be

24 Selzs use of the concept of relational fact was already known by Gestaltpsychologists, inparticular Koffka, who was present at the same conference 1912 where Selz for the first timepresented his ideas on the total task and responded to him (Selz, 1912).

25 In a letter to Bahle dated January 14, 1937, Selz reported that Stumpf had told him personallythat the theory of relational facts outlined in Selz (1913) had been of formative influence on Kohlerswork on physical Gestalten. (Seebohm, 1970, Appendix, p. 32).

20 TER HARK

sure, association psychology argued that the main features of perceptual wholes, suchas unity, connectedness, or size, could be explained genetically in terms of theassociation between psychic elements, whereas Gestalt psychology argued that it wasimpossible to come to a synthesis on the basis of elements. Gestalt psychologyproceeded from the assumption of the primacy of the whole. Nevertheless, Selzargued, Gestalt psychology explained the construction of perceptual wholes on themodel of the construction of physical wholes and objects (Selz, 1941). The laws of thedynamics of Gestalten postulated by, among others, Kohler, therefore, are to be seenas laws for the causal and genetic explanation of perceptual wholes. On the otherhand, Selzs theory of the construction of perceptual wholes is based on phenome-nological laws. These laws concern pure phenomenological principles of perceptionand as such must not be confused with physiological-genetic laws.

Despite his outdated and complicated style of writing, Selz is a strikingly modernauthor. One of his most relevant contributions is to have shown, both in his work onproblem solving and on perception, the importance of investigating mental life at apurely psychological level. As his painstaking study of protocols demonstrated,human thinking can be described and explained as a series of processes directed by thesubjects zooming in on the structure of the task. From this intentional and phenom-enal perspective, Selz could bring into focus a number of hitherto ignored consciousprocesses such as the completion of schematic anticipations. To be sure, Selz did notdeny that there is a relation between the intentional and the physiological level.Rather, his worry was that the dominant theories of his time were the result ofpremature conceptual reduction of psychology to physiology, as was the case withassociation psychology, or to physical models, as in Gestalt psychology. It seems tobe the case that explanations in science in terms of more basic (i.e., underlying)processes have occurred after the more complex observations and theories were wellestablished. According to Selz, psychology is no exception to this rule.

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The Psychology of Thinking Before the Cognitive Revolution…