scholarly journals Nicolai Hartmanns Kritische Ontologie („wie sie als Grundlage der Gnoseologie anzustreben ist“) und der Kritische Realismus der Gestaltpsychologie („Berliner Schule“/Gestalttheorie)

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-364
Author(s):  
Hans-Jürgen P. Walter
Keyword(s):  
Critical Realism ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Critical Ontology ◽  
Nicolai Hartmann

Abstract The author exemplifies the congruency of essential foundations between the critical realism of the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology (Gestalt theory) and Nicolai Hartmann`s Critical Ontology. For instance, this congruency manifests in the importance given to critical-realistic epistemology - purified from idealistic prejudices, not least prejudices such as production-theoretical ones - connected with an unconditional phenomenology. Altogether, it results in a shared critical distance from scholars of Brentano, such as Husserl and Meinong, as well as from Neo-Kantianism.

scholarly journals Nicolai Hartmanns Critical Ontology and the Critical Realism of the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-30
Author(s):  
Hans-Jürgen P. Walter
Keyword(s):  
Critical Realism ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Critical Ontology

Summary The author exemplifies the congruency of essential foundations between the critical realism of the Berlin School of Gestalt Psychology (Gestalt theory) and Nicolai Hartmann’s Critical Ontology. For instance, this congruency manifests in the importance given to critical-realistic epistemology – purified from idealistic prejudices, not least prejudices such as production-theoretical ones – connected with an unconditional phenomenology. Altogether, it results in a shared critical distance from scholars of Brentano, such as Husserl and Meinong, as well as from Neo-Kantianism.

scholarly journals Nicolai Hartmann und die Gestalttheorie. Ein Vergleich unter dem Aspekt “Kausalität”

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-374
Author(s):  
Hans-Jürgen P. Walter
Keyword(s):  
Closed System ◽  
Physical Layer ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
Physical Context ◽  
General Law ◽  
Critical Ontology ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Nicolai Hartmann

Summary In 1919 Nicolai Hartmann (NH) convincingly justified that there cannot exist a “general law of causation” as A. Meinong had in mind. For him Meinong’s understanding of causation (linear, successive in time) was bound on the region of the physical layer of being, simultaneously postulating it as the only possible causation there. This is the starting point of the comparison between N. Hartmann‘s understanding of causation and that of the Gestalt Theory, for which neither in psychic nor in natural (physical) context linear-successive causality plays a part. Therefore NH’s conception of 1919 was still completely incompatible with that of the Gestalt Theory despite the fact that he was distancing himself from the “general law of causation” sensu Meinong. 20 years later he changed this by adding the “Wechselwirkung” (interaction) to the linear successive causation in the physical layer. In doing so he approached the Gestalt theoretical position but failed it insofar as for it his linear-successive understanding of causation generally has had its day with regard to natural processes, also consequently for the physical (instead interaction between system and border conditions applies, an interaction of field forces). Thus the term “causation“ had become free for a dynamic concept of causation which is equally appropriate for the physical and the psychic. NH makes this move not until 1949, shortly before his death, by writing: ... (see original quotation in the German summary above). It is the opinion of the author of this work that the ingenious systematics of NH‘s Critical Ontology (which is not a closed system) should make it possible to execute the necessary corrections in some details of his theory of layers without questioning the structure of his systematics, thus carrying out what NH was not able to do himself due to his death.

Gestalt Psychology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horst Gundlach
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Field Theories ◽  
Theoretical Ground ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Primary Material ◽  
The Mind

Gestalt psychology is an holistic approach to psychology launched in 1910 by three psychologists: Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka. It was conceived to oppose elementary or atomistic psychology, the conception that psychical processes consist of elements whose associations produce the contents experienced in the mind or soul. Instead, Gestalt psychology holds that configurations or, in German, Gestalten, not these hypothetical elements, are the primary material underlying experience. Beginning with research in perception, the Gestalt approach was soon applied to other fields of psychology. Gestalt theory, inspired by field theories in physics, tried to lay a common groundwork for psychology, physiology, and physics. The Gestalt movement originated in Germany, but the three protagonists for personal and political reasons resettled in the United States where the movement became an important force combatting the dominance of behaviorism. The Gestalt approach was especially fruitful in empirical psychology, but it did not fulfill the promise of turning psychology into a unified science based on a common theoretical ground.

Lukács' Critical Ontology and Critical Realism

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mário Duayer ◽  
João Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Critical Realism ◽  
Critical Ontology

Alltägliche Lebenswirklichkeit und ontologische Theorie

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-287
Author(s):  
Moritz von Kalckreuth
Keyword(s):  
Social Ontology ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
Critical Ontology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Nicolai Hartmann

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to discuss the relation between our experience in everyday life and ontological reflection. While many accounts in contemporary ontology still defend the idea that the world consists only of material objects, some new views on everyday metaphysics or social ontology which try to articulate the specific properties of the objects used and found in ordinary life have been established during the last years. In the critical ontology of Nicolai Hartmann, the social and cultural dimension of our life is situated in the sphere of spiritual being [Geistiges Sein]. By investigating the methodical relation of phenomenology and critical ontology as well as specific entities (objective spirit, cultural objects), it is established that Hartmann offers a wide and methodologically reflected view which could be able to satisfy the practical significance of these entities.

scholarly journals The ‘Good Form’ of Film

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Poulaki
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Dynamic Models ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Gestalt Psychology ◽  
Gestalt Theory ◽  
Good Continuation ◽  
Film Research ◽  
Film Form ◽  
Film Aesthetics

Summary This article questions certain assumptions concerning film form made by the recent (neuro)psychological film research and compares them to those of precursors of film psychology like Hugo Münsterberg and Rudolf Arnheim, as well as the principles of Gestalt psychology. It is argued that principles of Gestalt psychology such as those of ‘good form’ and good continuation are still underlying the psychological research of film, becoming particularly apparent in its approach to continuity editing. Following an alternative Gestalt genealogy that links Gestalt theory with more recent dynamic models of brain activity and with accounts of brain complexity and neuronal synchronisation, the article concludes that psychological research on film needs to shift the focus from form to transformation, both in conceiving the perceptual and cognitive processing of films and in approaching film aesthetics more broadly.

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