Examine the Influences of Gestalt Psychology on Modern Cognitive Psychology

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING BEFORE THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION:

Otto Selz on Problems, Schemas, and Creativity

Michel ter Hark University of Groningen

Otto Selz has been hailed as one of the most important precursors of the cognitive revolution, yet surprisingly few studies of his work exist. He is often mentioned in the context of the Würzburg School of the psychology of thinking and sometimes in the context of Gestalt psychology. In this paper, it is argued that Selz’s emphasis on the role of problems and schemas in the direction of thought processes and creativity sets him apart from the program of the Würzburg School. On the other hand, 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 Köhler. Special emphasis is given in this paper to Selz’s use of the concept of problem or task and the concept of the schema. It is further argued that the concept of the schema is the result of Selz’s adaptation of the theory of relations as developed by the philosopher Meinong. The paper begins with a sketch of Selz’s life that ended so tragically.

Keywords: Selz, problem solving, schema, creative thinking

Otto Selz is not a household name in the historiography of 20th century cognitive psychology. Apart from Robert Woodworth (1938), most of the stan- dard histories and experimental psychology texts of the time that comprehensively covered all other major strands of cognitive psychology do not mention him (Boring, 1950; Brett, 1953). Woodworth (1938) referred to Selz seven times in his chapter on thinking. A few years before the cognitive revolution took place, George Humphrey’s (1951) Thinking appeared, in which for the first time a full chapter was devoted to Selz’s achievements. By the 1960s, when Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon (1958) had pointed out the similarities between their “Logic theorist” and the work of Selz that had come to them via Adriaan de Groot (1946), the first English translation of one of Selz’s articles appeared (Mandler & Mandler, 1964). The tributes paid to Selz by eminent scientists like Newell et al. (1958), Jean Piaget (1947), and the philosopher who put problem solving on the agenda of philosophy, Karl Popper (1928/2006), would still earn him no place in the history of 20th century psychology. He was not mentioned in the list of great psychologists (Watson, 1963). Commemorating Selz’s birthday, the Dutch psychologists Nico Frijda and De Groot (1981), both of whom had known Selz during his exile in Amsterdam during the Second World War, edited a book which includes, apart from an essay by Simon, translations of chapters of his major work, as well as a translation of Selz’s 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: michel.ter.hark@rug.nl

History of Psychology 2010, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2–24

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

This article, then, tracks Selz’s innovations in the field of cognitive psychol- ogy from the earliest stirrings in Würzburg. Following a brief description of Selz’s life, the article focuses on the concept of the schema and the role that the concept played in Selz’s theory of reproductive and creative thinking. Full attention is given to Selz’s lifelong philosophical commitments, such as his embrace of the theory of relations and complexes of Alexius Meinong and Carl Stumpf, as well as his critical elaboration of the work of the psychologists Karl Bühler and George Elias Müller. In closing, I discuss Selz’s tense relation with Gestalt psychology.

Life and Work

Selz (1881–1943) lived much of his life in seclusion, cherishing the tranquil- ity he needed to develop his epistemological, psychological, and pedagogical ideas. 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 into conflict with proponents of the sciences of mind and culture, the Geisteswissen- schaften, who blamed him for endorsing a mechanist view of man. Seeking to reconstruct psychological phenomena on the basis of their elements, Gestalt psychologists considered him an atomist. Closely allied to the Würzburg School of 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 Groot and F. W. Prins (1951), who applied his ideas in respectively psychology and pedagogy, he never founded a school, and after 1933 his name disappeared almost completely from the German psychological literature.

Selz was born on 14 February 1881, in München, as the son of a well-to-do partner in the banking house Fränkel and Selz. His father was one of the many children of a country rabbi and had married the daughter of a rich vinegar manufacturer. Selz’s mother was descended from a family of Spanish Jews with a long tradition of refined culture: “Well-read and a proficient pianist she cared little for cooking or household matters” (Seebohm, 1981, p. 1). The only other child was a daughter four years younger than Otto.

At the Royal Ludwig Gymnasium in Munich, Selz was a highly gifted student whose academic achievements were so brilliant that he was excused from the oral part of his final examinations in 1899. The following comment by his examiners on his way of writing would have great predictive value: “Among his examination papers 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 problem solving but also his completely neglected essays on the phenomenology of perception (Métraux & Herrmann, 1991).

2 In more recent publications (Michel ter Hark, 1993, 2004a, 2004b, 2007), I presented a historical reconstruction of (young) Popper’s roots in Selz’s psychology of thinking.

3OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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to achieve prominence at the expense of emphasis on the main theme, but it is fluently written” (Seebohm, 1981, p. 2). As Seebohm comments, this tendency to get down to the final detail, with the risk that the reader in the end loses the thread of the argument, was to remain a characteristic of all Selz’s scientific writings.

Pressed by his father into a legal career, Selz studied law, but in spite of being admitted to the bar in 1908 he felt no vocation for an occupation as lawyer and asked for his name to be deleted from the list again. All his life, he was to bemoan the loss of five years. He had simply done what his father demanded. It is hypothesized by Seebohm that his highly ritualized contacts with his father lay at the basis of his lifelong difficulty in engaging in personal relationships. He never married. In controversies with his colleagues about scientific matters, such as with Narziss Ach and Müller, and even when plagiarism was at stake, such as with Kurt Koffka, Selz refrained from personal attacks and instead defended his work with vigor. In a letter to Bahle, Selz mentions that Bühler once said to him: “Where you have hacked about, grass will never grow again.” He adds, “I have always 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 München and with Stumpf in Berlin. In 1909, he took his PhD in philosophy at the University of München. In his dissertation “The psychological theory of thinking and the transcendence problem” (Selz 1910a), Selz was concerned with the question, much debated in the 17th and 18th centuries, whether there is an objective world outside our consciousness and how to know this world. He rejected the empiricist theory of “immanence” and instead argued that the hypothesis of an objective world independent of consciousness most satisfied our cognitive needs. Selz did not pursue this philosophical theme after 1910, yet his critical reading of John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume undeniably supplied his later arguments against the association psychology of Müller with logical rigor.

After earning his PhD, Selz moved to Bonn to do experimental investigations in the laboratory of Oswald Külpe. Both Külpe and Bühler were among his subjects, and he probably attended some of their seminars. These investigations resulted in his first major work, The Laws of Ordered Thinking. An Experimental Investigation (Über die Gesetze des geordneten Denkverlaufs. Eine experimen- telle Untersuchung; Selz, 1913).3 Taking his cue from the theory of “imageless thought,” developed in the Würzburg School, Selz, according to Külpe, made a significant step forward in the psychology of thinking (Seebohm, 1970, p. 15). In fact, the drift away from the program of the Würzburg School was more radical than Külpe would acknowledge. Already perceptible in 1910, the incipient rift between Selz and the Würzburg School became more obvious in the wake of a devastating review of Ach (Selz, 1910b).4

3 The first two chapters served as Selz’s Habiliation at the Faculty of Philosophy in Bonn in 1912. The third chapter on the important notion of the “total task” (Gesamtaufgabe) was drawn from a paper presented in 1912 at the 5th Congress for Experimental Psychology in Berlin at which Koffka 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 after having been wounded, he was decorated with the Iron Cross in 1917. After the war, he returned to Bonn for several years as “Privatdozent.” He lectured on the psychology of knowledge, the history of philosophy, and the theory of the genesis of cognitive functions. The publication of his second major work in the psychol- ogy of thinking, On the Psychology of Productive Thinking and Errors (Zur Psychologie des produktiven Denkens und des Irrtums; Selz, 1922) was postponed owing to the First World War. Once it was published after the War, Selz’s intellectual prestige was incontestably on the increase, and in 1923 he was called for the chair of Philosophy, Psychology and Pedagogy at the Handelshochschule in Mannheim. The practical orientation of the Handelshochschule more or less forced Selz to work also on the practical applications of his psychology. In spite of the abstract nature of his psychology, he succeeded in pointing out its relevance for pedagogy, in particular its usefulness in fostering intellectual achievements, a project undertaken with some of his pupils (Selz, 1935).

Meanwhile, the Psychological Institute of Mannheim headed by Selz, who became Rector of the Handelshochschule in 1929 –1930, flourished and after receiv- ing the Ius Promovendi, the first dissertations on the psychology of thinking and pedagogy began to appear, among them Bahle’s cognitive psychological investiga- tions of musical composition (Bahle,1930). All this came to a sobering halt after January 30, 1933, when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The Ministry of Culture and Education issued an edict in the spring of 1933 demanding that Otto Selz resign his work, the official reason being the maintenance of security and order in Baden. Selz was no longer allowed to continue neither his teaching activities nor his research at the Institute. On October 25, the Handelshochschule was finally closed, and the Institute became incorporated within the University of Heidelberg. Since Heidelberg had made no arrangements for Selz, the official reading asserted, Selz was unceremoniously stripped of his career and livelihood. The truth of the matter was, of course, Selz’s being a non-Aryan.

Most expelled psychologists left Germany and migrated to the United States. Not so Selz. He led a withdrawn life in Mannheim, where the opportunities to do experimental work being gravely diminished, he threw himself into purely theoretical work on the construction of the phenomenal world. After the “Reichskristallnacht,” he was caught and deported to the concentration camp of Dachau from which he was released 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 apartment in the Cliostraat. The one desirable outcome of this shameful episode was that Selz came into contact with the Dutch pedagogues Philip Kohnstamm and De Groot. Selz taught at the Amsterdam Teachers Seminar (Nutsseminarium) on psychology and pedagogy 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 Koffka’s efforts nothing came out of it.5 He declined the offer of his Dutch friends to find a hiding place for him, replying that the Iron Cross he had won during the First World War would surely protect him. He would not be spared the horrors of the Holocaust,

5 This is explained in Beckmann (2001, pp. 13–15).

5OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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though. In July 1943, he was caught again by the Nazis and sent to the deportation camp 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 703 to Auschwitz. He either “died” in transit from suffocation or exhaustion— he was suffering from heart problems— or was murdered by being sent into the gas chambers.

The Würzburg School

The work of the Würzburg School has been so thoroughly discussed in review and criticism that I shall content myself with a bare enumeration of its principal phases, zooming in only on the work of Bühler.6 The school was founded by the philosopher Külpe. Külpe was born in Candau, Courland, one of the Baltic Provinces, and now part of Lettland. After completing the Gymnasium, he studied history in Leipzig. There he came into contact with Wilhelm Wundt who diverted him to philosophy. He became Wundt’s assistant, and, in 1894, was called to Würzburg as “ordinarius” for both philosophy and aesthetics in succession to Hans Volkelt, founding there, by 1896, a psychological laboratory which became, next to Leipzig, the outstanding institute of Germany. Külpe worked there for 15 years and for that reason his pupils and followers are referred to as the Wür- zburger School of the psychology of thinking. In 1909, he moved to Bonn and next to Munich, where he died in 1915.

The psychology of thinking had its beginning with the publication of papers by August Mayer and Johannes Orth (1901) on the qualitative nature of associ- ation, followed by Karl Marbe’s (1901) experimental study on judgment. These researches of Külpe’s 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 of existence than sensations and to contribute to the experimental analysis of thought as a category sui generis, thereby departing from Wundt, who believed thought was not amenable to scientific treatment. As Külpe summarized the first achieve- ments of the School, these were largely negative: the traditional contents of consciousness, sensation, feeling, and images—the very substance of Wundtian psychology—proved inadequate to account for the intellectual processes of thoughtful association and judgment. In one of Marbe’s experiments, a subject had to lift two weights and to judge which is the heavier. The subject reported that different sensations and images accompanied the task, but that they were not the elements underpinning the judgment. The judgment simply came, and usually right, but with nothing in the subject’s consciousness to indicate why they were judgments. Marbe coined the term Bewusstseinslage (state of awareness) for this phenomenon and used it as a mere negative description for states of consciousness that were certainly present but seemed to defy closer analysis.

Ach’s (1905) careful experimentation resulted in the more precise description of the important influence of the task on thinking and the “determining tenden- cies” which issued from it, as had already been foreshadowed by Külpe’s

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

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

The notion of imageless thought was further analyzed by Bühler. Bühler joined the Würzburger School around 1906 and remained there until 1909, the year he followed Külpe to Bonn. In Würzburg, he wrote his most important contribution to the psychology of thinking, his Habilitation, “Facts and Problems of a Psychology of Thought Processes” (Tatsachen und Probleme zur einer Psychologie der Denkvorgänge; Bühler, 1907, 1908). Bühler’s subjects had to answer questions for which there could be no cut-and-dried answer, such as, “Was the Pythagorean theorem known to the Middle Ages?” The subjects then gave a retrospective account of the processes intervening between the presentation of the task and their answer. Bühler concluded from these protocols that there were basic unanalyzable units in the thinking process, which should simply be called “thoughts” (Gedanken). Thoughts, he argued, are independent of any sensory factors. In particular, images are too fragmentary and sporadic to be essential to thought. Put more strongly, the occurrence of images is neither necessary nor sufficient for the occurrence of thoughts. Bühler next distinguished between different types of thoughts. It is here that the influence of the philosophers Edmund Husserl and Meinong became apparent. The influence of Meinong is evident in Bühler’s discussion of thoughts in the sense of “pure intentions” (Wissen um etwas). Subjects did not report any mental images at all, yet their consciousness was not devoid of mental occurrences. They often reported a certain direction upon the objects of thinking or a kind of order. Bühler analyzed such thoughts in terms of determinations of logical space (logische Platzbestim- mtheiten). In such cases, Bühler argued, the object of thinking is determined not through its intrinsic properties, but indirectly through its relations with other objects that are part of the same logical space (Bühler, 1907, p. 358). In a footnote, Bühler referred to Meinong’s discussion of indirect determinations. Selz would pick up this idea and use it as a starting-point for his theory of successive stages in problem solving.

The Würzburg psychologists paid only marginal attention to the active processes of thinking and seemed to be harking back to the static classificatory schemes of the early associationists. Ach dubbed the term “determining tendencies” for the directive influence of the task on the outcome of thinking. This determining tendency was distinct from, and opposable to, associative tendencies. According to Ach, determining tendencies explained the ordered and purposeful character of thought processes; they ruled out irrelevancies and

7 In later work (Ach, 1910), Ach was concerned with the experimental investigation of voluntary acts themselves. The debate with Selz to which I referred earlier concerned the role voluntary 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 failures could 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 carefully the pitfalls surrounding the use of introspection.

7OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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

Selz’s Theory of Relations and Complexes

To a certain extent, Selz continued the experimental tradition initiated by Külpe 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 design of the study of thought processes. One of the drawbacks of the experimental design of his predecessors was that the presentation of the task before the display of the stimulus word led to a constant focus on the task and to insufficient attention to the stimulus word. In this way, the exploration and construction of the task by the subject could not be studied in detail. To prevent one-sided focus upon the task and attendant stereotyped solutions, Selz offered task and stimulus word at the same time. In this way, Selz could vary task and stimulus word independently of each other and, in particular, change the task at each new trial. Subjects were now forced to construct the task at each new trial. In a single trial, the course of thinking could be studied in its entirety. To study thought processes by making use of retrospection, the nature of the task needed to be relatively simple. On the other hand, it had to be complex enough in order to trigger genuine thinking, rather than simply reproduction. Selz solved this dilemma by selecting task and stimulus word so that his subjects really had to overcome a difficulty. One type of task was to look for a whole of which the stimulus word was a part, or, to look for a part belonging to the stimulus word. Another type was more conceptual. Thus, subjects were asked to look for the superordinate, the subordinate, or the coordinate of a certain stimulus word.

Selz introduced not only semantic relations (Sachbeziehungen), like “part of . . . ,” “subordinate to . . . ,” in the investigation of thought processes, but he 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 thinking as the capacity to extract relational structures (Beziehungsganze, Sachverhält- nisse) from concrete experience and to store this information into memory so that it could be retrieved for later purposes. Although Selz’s theory of relational structures contained new elements, it is also evident that he heavily relied on philosophical sources, in particular Meinong’s Hume-Studies (Hume- Studien; Meinong 1877, 1882), his later “theory of objects” (Gegenstands- theorie; Meinong, 1904), Stumpf’s Appearances and psychic functions (Ers- cheinungen und psychische Funktionen; Stumpf, 1907), and Husserl’s Logical Investigations (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 Meinong’s view of abstraction and relations.8

Meinong

Meinong first of all argued against Hume’s “nominalism,” how little mere association 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 this “shape.” Because ex hypothesi we cannot think of a circle in abstracto; it follows that when we happen to see, on a walk through the country, a square cornfield, it would never occur to us to call to mind that shape and to give the name “shape” likewise 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 mental life.

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

By arguing that relations were brought into being by acts of comparison, Meinong’s stance was wholly psychological. His mature view of what relations really are, however, was partly determined by Christian von Ehrenfels’s (1890) famous article On “Gestalt qualities” (Über “Gestalt qualitäten”). Von Ehrenfels introduced the term “Gestalt quality” to denote the perception of form or melody that, though based on sensory elements, can in no sense be reduced to such elements. Meinong agreed with von Ehrenfels’s negative argument but objected to the term “Gestalt property,” and instead proposed the term “complexion,” or what would probably be better to call “complex.” Taking von Ehrenfels’s notion of a foundation upon which Gestalt properties were based as his cue, Meinong added 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 an “object of higher order.” Objects of higher order have an intrinsic lack of independence. For instance, diversity can only be thought of in relation to differing terms. Diversity and all objects of higher order are based on others as indispensable presuppositions. The term “complex” was used by Meinong to refer to the whole of inferius and superius. Thus, a melody is a complex, which contains both the founding objects (the various notes sung or played) and the founded objects, the new factor emerging when the notes are taken together.

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

9OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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Meinong’s theory of complexes implied an intimate connection with the theory of relations. Indeed, if one takes the meaning of the term “relation” sufficiently broadly, every relational fact is also a complex fact; relations cannot exist 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 rather elementary forms of reproduction, such as the recognition of a melody, pattern recognition, and reproduction of words. Like Meinong, he maintained that such perceptual and quasi-perceptual complexes are not aggregates in which the specific (temporal or spatial) order of the elements a�b�c�d is indifferent, but objects-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 such complexes. Thus, the recognition of the national anthem depends on the specific temporal order of the individual tones rather than on the tones themselves. Played in a different key, it will have no disturbing effect upon recognition. The specific temporal 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 associations between complexes.

It is important to note here that Selz duly acknowledged the contribution made by other researchers, notably Müller (1913), Müller and Schumann (1894), and Külpe (1893). His main point in his argument with Müller, however, was that his findings and arguments were not decisive to prevent supporters of a constellation theory from reducing properties of complexes to associational interactions of their elements, as was 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 discussed below under the head of the notion of “complex completion” (Komplexergän- zung). Here, I will discuss only Selz’s complex-completion on the basis of a schema. Selz opened his discussion of schemata by suggesting that in many cases of memory retrieval, subjects already know that the information at hand is a piece of a larger complex. Indeed, they even often know what kind of complex to which the piece belongs. Giving the example of a candidate in an oral examination trying to remember the Melanchton, and who is assisted by the examiner’s giving the first three letters “Mel,” Selz explains, “The awareness of the word sought is changed from the awareness of a not yet further specified concrete word to the awareness of a word beginning with Mel . . . We have to conceive of the genesis of this awareness like the way in which the empty scheme of a concrete word is partly filled out by the insertion at its beginning of the sounds spoken in anticipation . . .” (Selz, 1913, pp. 113–114). A schema is formed, which organizes itself around a few outstanding elements. The schema is incomplete in the sense that it contains a “gap” (Leerstelle), but it is this schematic whole that finally produces the outcome.

9 By not mentioning this background Kusch’s (1999, p. 66) portrayal of Selz is slightly misleading in suggesting that the theory of complex association is one of the major features of his program.

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Relational Facts

Selz’s next important step was to apply the laws of complex-completion to reproductive memory processes and thought processes. Meinong’s common treat- ment of complexes and relations surely paved the way for Selz’s generalization of the laws of complex-completion, yet the further elaboration and, in particular, the adduced empirical evidence for the great explanatory power of this move were unique. Selz defined relational facts as “the fact that certain objects stand in a certain relation” (Selz, 1913, p. 142).10 A relational fact can neither be reduced to the objects that stand in the relation nor to the relation itself, because it includes both.

Put otherwise, they display the same sort of lack of independence as Meinongian complexes. For instance, the relation of similarity that exists between two objects can only be thought of in relation to objects that are similar.11

Relational facts, then, are “objects of higher order.” The notion of relational fact was meant to be encompassing and to include

mathematical, physical, and psychological facts, yet Selz was mostly concerned with relational facts as psychological objects. Relations between psychological objects, for example, experiences of color, Selz argued, are themselves items in the psychological realm. Qua relational fact, such psychological objects, are not independent items like an individual mental image, but dependent on other psychological objects.12 By virtue of this intrinsic lack of independence, relational facts could be present within a subject’s phenomenal field without being “noticed” (bemerken). Selz here relied on A. Grünbaum’s (1908) influential experiments on abstraction. These experiments showed that subjects perceived simultaneously presented figures without becoming aware of the fact that they were similar. “Positive abstraction,” however, was also demonstrated. In such cases, Selz argued, 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, a relational structure in itself, which subsequently might be transposed to all sorts of concrete problem situations. Selz, therefore, made a distinction between, on the one hand Erkenntnis or Einsicht and, on the other hand, knowledge of relational facts already at one’s disposal, hence “dispositional knowledge.”13 Selz’s 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 “Sachverhältnis.” Stumpf took the term from J. Bergmann in his work General Logic. Bergmann was a pupil of Lotze the lectures of which were also attended by Stumpf. On the history of the term “Sachverhalt,” see Barry Smith, 1989.

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

12 Selz speaks here of “dependent moments within conscious experience” (unselbständige Momente; Selz, 1913, p. 147).

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

11OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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or newly abstracted from experience, in both cases processes of complex- completion were involved. For instance, a subject’s coming to know that “death is coordinate with sleep” is not to be explained as an aggregate of separate reproductive tendencies tied by association, but as the awareness of a relational fact, that is, the fact that death can be conceived as coordinate with sleep.14

Selz’s Theory of Schematic Anticipations

The philosophers Meinong, Stumpf, and Husserl, as well as the psychologists of the Würzburg School, contributed to the study of thought processes, yet no general theory of thinking was forthcoming. Admittedly, this seemed not to have been their ambition. For instance, Henry J. Watt and Ach were focused more on describing certain characteristic patterns of thinking, and especially in showing the role played by respectively the task and determining tendencies, than offering an encompassing theory. One reason for this lack of ambition may have been the dominance of the association theory of mind. Indeed, as Selz himself was the first to point out, Ach’s view of the role of determining tendencies in the process of thinking was still committed to the principle of association. By assuming that a directive and selective factor, that is, a determining tendency, gives to reasoning and thinking their most fundamental character, Ach dethroned blind association but still subscribed to its basic tenets. In particular, determining tendencies acted like separate factors.

Selz’s goal, by contrast, was to develop a general theory of thinking that not only explained the steps that lead from constructing a problem to achieving a solution but also replaced the dominant associationist explanation of thinking by means of substitution. Frequency and recency, similarity and contiguity, or any other laws of association are inadequate to explain the particular kinds of linkage and direction found in problem solving. Even the most sophisticated theory of association, Müller’s “constellation theory,” put forward as a reply to Ach’s theory of determining tendencies, was inadequate to this task.

The Constellation Theory: Müller and Selz

To appreciate Selz’s critique of Müller, it is necessary to explain the latter’s view in more detail. Müller’s constellation theory intended to serve as a correction of associationism, according to which the mind is an unstable arena of sensations and mental images perpetually jostling for monopoly of attention. None of the elements, however, ever achieves this monopoly finally, so that fleeting experiences remain subliminally 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 this incontrovertible fact, the theory claimed that only the association most strongly linked to the initial mental image held permanent sway. This lawful repression of weaker associations by the strongest associations is the only directive factor in thinking. Müller, however, made a significant contribution to this classical picture. When confronted with a task and stimulus word, the subject’s mental state did not consist

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

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simply of associative links between the separate elements of his answer, but in addition all the elements will be drawn toward the task. By thus functioning as a “directive representation,” the task intensifies associative bonds of individual ele- ments that belong to the content of the task, while simultaneously inhibiting those associations 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 favors associative bonds of elements appropriate to the task.

Selz’s objection proved devastating, however. He argued that even when the constellation is fairly strong pointless errors are not excluded by the theory. For instance, the principles of the constellation theory would not exclude the pointless answer “line” to the question “What is the whole with respect to ‘page’?”15 For it is very likely that among the concepts triggered by “whole” would also be “line,” which is the whole with respect to individual words and syllables. Moreover, it is very likely that “page” triggers “line” as well. In his 1924 synopsis, Selz formulated his critique even more forcefully: “Suppose, for instance, that the task calls, not for the generic concept, but for a coordinate, parallel notion. Since for the majority of concepts a parallel notion can be found, it would follow that the majority of notions would be put in heightened readiness. Among these there would always be notions that are indeed associated with the stimulus word - without for that reason being related to it in the manner prescribed by the task” (Selz, 1924, p. 29). A constellation theory at best limits the range of possibilities, but it still allows many senseless errors to occur. The fact that such errors do not occur, neither in daily life nor in the lab, shows the fundamental weakness of the constellation theory.

The “Total Task”

Selz contrasted his own “complex-theory” of thinking to the constellation theory.16 The distinctive feature of the complex-theory was that the whole course of problem solving was explained without invoking factors that lie outside the psychological (phenomenal or intentional) realm. In addition, Selz eschewed the principle of association, without at the same time having recourse to determining tendencies or other mysterious effects emanating from the problem as Ach had done. The important notion of the total task, already presented by Selz at the 5th Congress for Experimental Psychology in 1912, served to explain problem solv- ing as a process of tentative and phased transformations that were intrinsic to the phenomenal 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 subject as 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, and Selz, 1927.

16 The term “complex-theory” was coined by Selz in his discussion with Müller. Müller, however, did not mention this and called his own theory a complex-theory, thereby ignoring the differences with Selz. Koffka (1925b), in his turn, first called Müller’s theory a complex theory (p. 543) and then Selz’s (p. 569), without indicating the differences. This terminological confusion prompted Selz to conclude: “My complex theory is only opposed to a constellation theory, but is itself a ‘Gestalt theory’” (Selz, 1926, p. 168).

13OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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

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

By his specific experimental design discussed above, Selz discovered that task and stimulus word do not become effective separately, but that, even before the actual process of finding a solution for the problem has begun, they are integrated into a unitary whole, that is, the total task. The total task has the structure of a question, or problem, so that Selz’s theory of thinking has to be conceived as a theory of problem solving. This is also evidenced by his innovative use of the term “method of solution” (Lösungsmethode) for explaining the subsequent course of thinking.17 The process of problem solving, Selz’s protocols demonstrated abun- dantly, did not begin before the subject’s comprehension of the problem situation as a whole. For instance, one observer, confronted with the task “Cancer (Krebs): Cause or effect,” reported:

As soon as I’d read the word “Cancer,” I conceived it in a zoological sense, and had a weak mental image. I then went on and now read the task properly for the first time. Now the thing struck me as comical, because I was still thinking of the animal and also had this mental image. I told myself there must be a solution all the same. Cancer must have another meaning. Then I became conscious that in fact there is another meaning and eventually the meaning cancer as a disease came clearly 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 simply taken over by Köhler in his study of apes without crediting him (Selz, 1926, p. 194).

problem situation

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goal situation

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

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word was achieved, the subject noticed a conflict. The subject understood that there was something wrong within the situation as given. In this particular case he experienced this “gap” as “comical,” but in other cases it may be more trouble- some. What the total task appears to call for—the cause of Krebs in a zoological sense— does not make sense. This predicament induces all sorts of control processes, which, in their turn, lead the subject to explore the possibility of a proper solution. The outcome is that the stimulus word has been misconceived.

Not until a meaningful total task had been constructed, that is, one in which the meaning of the stimulus word Krebs is adapted to the meaning of the task and taken in the sense of a disease, the process of solving the problem sets in.18 As Selz’s careful analysis of the protocols bears out, subsequent phases in the course of problem solving were subordinated to the formation of the total task and, most importantly, may change in character in the light of the subject’s knowledge of the whole. This was especially evident with cases of problem solving Selz called “successive actualizations of knowledge” (Selz, 1913, p. 45, p. 62). These obtained when the subject was unable to circumvent the problem immediately. Selz observed that with more complicated problems, subjects typically first searched for more general knowledge about the problem situation, because it was more familiar than specific knowledge.

What he discovered at the same time was even more important. Finding a general property of a solution to be attained, consisted in “transforming” (Trans- formation) the original problem. Consider this example. A number of subjects confronted with the task to find a coordinate concept of “railway platform” proceeded by first searching for “another part of the concrete spatial whole which included ‘railway platform’” (Selz, 1922, p. 142). A railway platform is part of a number 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 rail transportation belong, subjects could solve the task of finding a coordinate concept by searching for one of these parts. This detour via a superordinate concept was a transformation of the original problem, which was defined more generally by Selz: “. . . the substitution for the task of another task, through whose solution the original problem is also to be solved” (Selz, 1922, p. 41). The substituted task was a subproblem and, hence, subordinate to the original problem.19 If subjects did not succeed in the preceding transformation of the original task, they may take recourse to other kinds of transformation. For instance, they may seek to trans- form the original problem into the subordinate problem of searching for an object that fulfills the same purpose as the objects referred to by the stimulus word. This general description of a property of what is sought for may in its turn be replaced by a more specific description, such as to look for an object that among other forms 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 well as from more indirect sources. Thus, before the task was understood, Selz observes, subjects often took no more than cursory notice of the stimulus-word; once the task being understood, the subject’s awareness of the meaning of the stimulus word took a more concrete shape; reports of mental images occurred only after the task was understood.

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

15OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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

Typically, the genesis of a problem solving process displays several transi- tions deviating from the main—and straight—line to achieving the goal. At these junctures, subjects learn from mistaken transformations and may revert to the stage of one of the preceding reformulations of the problem. For instance, subjects may 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 (Rücklaufigkeit) of problem solving is characteristic 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 the starting position.

The discovery of the total task implied a crucial difference with the associa- tionist paradigm. Within Selz’s conception, the relation between the different stages of transformation is determined by the meaning or content of the problem and not by an intermediary associative tie, the description of which does not depend on meaning at all. In modern parlance, Selz’s interpretation of the protocols is at the purely psychological or intentional level. For instance, if the task is to indicate the cause of frost, subjects may insert frost qua effect in the abstract schema of a causal relation. From then on, however, if the original problem is to maintain its meaning, the attempt to further concretize it is no longer arbitrary. On the contrary, the sought-for concept, that is, the gap, has to conform itself to the partly concrete and specified structure. The process of problem solving is intentionally driven.

Creative Thinking

When a person is confronted with a new problem, Selz argued, actualizing dispositional knowledge is no longer an option. Instead, there is a need to actualize familiar solving-methods (Mittelaktualisierung). Applying familiar solv- ing-methods to new problems, changing material, or in different situations, he averred, is the route to understanding creative thinking.20 Selz’s thinking here is too complex to deal with in this essay, so I will confine myself to only one of his heuristics, the abstraction of means. Selz described this heuristic: “. . . the result of abstraction is schematically anticipated as an, as yet unknown, solution-method which 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 sets in when no knowledge of applied methods or other memory structures are available. In such a case, chance may help. The solution here is not achieved top-down, that is, by means of the schematic anticipation of what is sought for, but bottom-up: one “stumbles on the solution” and then the schematic anticipation is triggered and the solution recognized as a solution. This, in essence, was Selz’s explanation of a number of scientific discoveries. As Selz explained, Benjamin

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

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

Another example discussed by Selz is Michael Faraday’s discovery of electro- magnetic induction (Selz, 1924). Faraday became interested in experiments of rotating a copper disk underneath a suspended compass-needle. When this disk was 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 to electricity. For several years, however, he was unable to demonstrate the truth of this assumption. But, in 1831, he began a series of experiments that established forever the fact of electro-magnetic induction. His aim was to produce electricity from a magnet. The partial result was to cause a deflection of a galvanometer needle. Happening one day to be moving a magnetic core in and out of a coil connected with the galvanometer, Faraday observed a deflection in the attached galvanometer. This trifling occurrence, Selz argued, sufficed to make him see that in the closed but uncharged circuit a current must have been generated by the movement of the magnet. Selz argued that a specific event, when occurring by accident, may prompt the scientist to abstract the appropriate means-end relation. Accordingly, the fact that insights appear suddenly does not mean that they are uncaused at an explanatory level. Indeed, the undeniably passive character of sudden insights is best explained by assuming their being caused by “the stubborn persistence 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 famous colleagues, such as Bühler, Koffka and Köhler did, yet in a way his attitude toward psychology was strikingly modern. Consider this letter to Bahle, Novem- ber 23, 1935, when he had been dismissed from his position in Mannheim and had to carry on his research all alone at home:

To be a theorist means first and foremost not to engage, like the old-style humanists, in building ever new theoretical edifices but, like the great physical scientists, to build on to the achievements of others, that is to say, to improve and complete them but not to insist on changing everything at any price. The latter together accomplish the building of a science, the former write one book each (like Spranger and Charlotte B.). Our colleagues are more and more losing sight of this goal and where Duncker is concerned I must at least give him credit for his concern with the continuity of science (Seebohm, 1981, p. 7).

As we have seen, Selz continued the work of others (e.g., Meinong, Bühler, Müller) and improved upon the theory of others. For instance, he could explain many of Müller’s findings in terms of his complex-theory. The same applies to a topic I have not entered upon, Selz’s explanation of Köhler’s findings in animal

17OTTO SELZ ON PROBLEMS, SCHEMAS, AND CREATIVITY

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psychology in terms of his theory of creative thinking.21 Selz’s relation with Gestalt psychology, however, is complicated owing to the debate over priority with Koffka and to a lesser extent Köhler. On the one hand, there was a serious overlap between Selz’s theory of complexes and problem solving and Gestalt psychology. Selz acknowledged the overlap and wanted the other party to do the same. Instead, Koffka sought to set Selz apart by calling his theory mechanist and behaviorist. On the other hand, there were deep differences of which Selz only lately became aware. In this final section, I will first deal with the priority issue and then move on to discuss the intellectual differences between Selz and Gestalt psychology.

In the first half of the 1920s, Selz found himself involved in a controversy over priority of ideas. Koffka, a leading contributor to Gestaltpsychology, wrote a chapter on current psychology in Max Dessoir’s Lehrbuch der Philosophie (1925), which, although incontestably drawing on Selz’s theories, never men- tioned him at crucial places. Koffka’s article provoked the outrage of Bühler who accused him of having taken his Gestalttheory from Selz (Bühler, 1926). At the same time, Selz responded by showing that Koffka had borrowed key concepts from Selz’s work and that his criticism of association psychology copied Selz’s own earlier rebuttal (Selz, 1926).

Koffka’s article included a section on the refutation of the constellation theory and a section on “The Gestalt theory of thinking.” Selz complained that he was not mentioned, or only in passing, in the first two sections whereas it could easily be demonstrated that Koffka’s refutation exploited Selzian sources. Selz correctly pointed out that Koffka’s and Köhler’s refutation was simply a terminological revision of Selzian concepts, for example, Selz’s concept of an “aggregate of elements” was replaced by (the much better sounding) “and-connections” of Köhler. At the same time, Selz’s complaints seem a little paranoid, because at other places both Koffka and Köhler did credit him for having refuted the constellation theory.22

Things were different as regards the constructive part of Koffka’s essay, the Gestalt theory of thinking. Gestalt psychology replaced the law of reproductive association by the law of “Gestalt completion” (Gestaltergänzung; Koffka, 1925b, p. 576), according to which every part of a Gestalt has the tendency to complete the whole Gestalt. In the first edition of an earlier work, however, Koffka had credited 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 the role 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 clear formulation of the Gestalt theorist point of view. Selz’s critique, however, did not so much concern the question as to the priority of having discovered the pivotal role played by relations. As pointed out above, he relied on Meinong as well as on Stumpf. He even referred positively to an early publication by Koffka (1912) and pointed out that his own conception of association by contiguity in terms of complex-associations bore a resemblance with the view developed by Koffka (Selz, 1913, p. 129, Footnote). Selz’s main point of critique was that he was not credited for his specific refutation of the constellation theory, which was much more sophisticated than the theory of association Stumpf was concerned with.

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(Koffka) had outlined (Koffka, 1921, p. 176). But in the second edition, the “similarity” was reduced to a mere “formal” similarity (Koffka, 1925a, p. 125). In his reply, Selz painstakingly made clear that the “formal similarity” was, so to speak, a mere rhetorical device for appropriating another one’s ideas (Selz, 1926). For instance, in outlining the law of Gestalt completion, Koffka made use of an example that was virtually the same as the one Selz had used in illustrating his law of completion on the basis of a schema. Thus, where Selz used the example of the first 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 answer ‘Qualle’ is extremely easy. Under different conditions, however, one will have difficulties in proceeding from the word ‘Qual’ to the word ‘Qualle.’ In the first case, the syllable ‘Qual’ has precisely the character of the first syllable, but in the second it is one syllable, a complete word” (Koffka, 1925a, pp. 184 –185). Despite this similarity in content, Selz was not mentioned.

An important source of this controversy was a negative and biased review of Selz’s second volume on the laws of ordered thinking (Selz, 1922) by Koffka’s colleague, W. Benary (1923). Benary called Selz’s theory a “machine-theory” in which no place was accorded to the important phenomenon of insight that played such a prominent role in Gestalt psychology.23 As Selz rightfully retorted, the similarity between Gestalt psychology and his own complex-theory was much closer than the use of ideological adjectives like “mechanistic” suggested, because Köhler himself relied on Selz’s theory of relational facts. Indeed, before his first great work in Gestalt psychology appeared (Köhler, 1919), Köhler (1917, 1918) made use of Selz’s insight into the nature of relational facts, but rephrased it in slightly different terms. In his study on chimps and chicken (Köhler, 1918), Köhler argued that the perception of Gestalten, for example, two shades of color and of relations between colors has much in common. In both cases, the individual colors attain an “inner union,” which is the opposite of an association by contiguity, and which depends on “togetherness” or “structure-function” (Strukturfunktion; Köhler, 1918, p. 16). He cited specific pages of Selz (1913) in support of his theory. A few paragraphs further, he discussed the application of structure-functions to the study of memory and again referred to Selz’s critique 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 were obliterated by ideological phrases. For instance, both Benary and Koffka (1923) tried to distance themselves from Selz by calling his theory mechanistic, even behavioristic. A striking example of this ideological stance was Benary’s rejection of Selz’s detailed explanation of Köhler’s findings with chimps in terms of schematic anticipations (Selz, 1922). On the other hand, Selz observed that to explain the findings of a theory by means of another theory was the ideal of verification (Selz, 1926, p. 168). Moreover, Koffka’s 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 piece of fruit which is beyond reach, Koffka argued “An open Gestalt, the way to the fruit, gets its completion from another completed Gestalt, and that happens because a part of this Gestalt undergoes a change” (Koffka, 1925b, p. 578). A branch, part of a fixed Gestalt, that is, a tree, is abstracted 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 the completion of a schematic anticipation. In his diagrams of problem solving, the open Gestalten, or gaps were even pictured black (Selz, 1926, p. 169). The metaphors used by Koffka as well as Wertheimer (i.e., umwandeln, hineinspringen) were merely paraphrases of what Selz called the method of means abstraction.

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his chapter on complexes (Köhler, 1918, pp. 38 –39). In his much more famous book on the mentality of apes (Köhler, 1917), he again argued that what associationist theories of intelligent animal behavior cannot explain, is the “grasp of a material, inner relation of two things to each other” (sachlichen, inneren Bezugs; Köhler, 1925, p. 219). By “relation” he meant the “interconnexion based on the properties of these things themselves, not a ‘frequent following each other’ or ‘occurring together’” (Köhler, 1925, p. 219).24 As Selz complained, Köhler’s “inner relations” are nothing other than his own “relational facts” (Selz, 1926, p. 193–194).25 The notion of insight was also the same as the concept of “knowledge” used in Selz (1913), namely, the “newly acquired consciousness of a relational fact” (Selz, 1926, p. 193).

What became increasingly clear to Selz, however, was the difference between his outlook on psychology and the outlook of Gestalt psychology. What he in particular opposed was the radical “top-down” approach of Gestalt psychology. In rejecting the bottom-up approach of association psychology and opting for the opposite view of the primacy of the whole, Selz now argued (Selz, 1927), Gestalt psychology overlooked the implications of a theory of schematic anticipations for a bottom-up approach. By means of phased development, as exemplified by the notion of transformation, wholes are constructed out of “elements.” However, the elements are not meaningless units subject (only) to principles of spatial and temporal contiguity; rather, the elements are themselves 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 constructive bottom-up approach to problem solving for other fields of psychology, such as the development of motor responses or skills. In his synopsis (Selz, 1924), he explicitly applied his earlier theory to skills. Skilled behavior, he explained, displays a structure in which the type of response given depends on the specific nature of the conditions of elicitation. In contrast to a purely associationist system, with skilled behavior the character of sensorimotor reactions is relevant to the entire structure. Selz even went so far as to say that, “. . . Perhaps our era is witnessing the beginnings of a ‘biology of 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, ultimately leading to the disappearance of psychology as an autonomous science, but rather a 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 its emphasis on the relation between physics and psychology.

In Selz’s completely ignored phenomenological writings on the construction of our perception of the outside world, the difference between Köhler and Selz came to the fore. It is interesting to note that Selz pointed out that the associationist explanation of the perception of the phenomenal world had something in common with the Gestalt approach. Both schools acknowledged only a physiological-genetic approach. To be

24 Selz’s use of the concept of relational fact was already known by Gestaltpsychologists, in particular Koffka, who was present at the same conference 1912 where Selz for the first time presented 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 personally that the theory of relational facts outlined in Selz (1913) had been of formative influence on Köhler’s work on “physical Gestalten.” (Seebohm, 1970, Appendix, p. 32).

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sure, association psychology argued that the main features of perceptual wholes, such as unity, connectedness, or size, could be explained genetically in terms of the association between psychic elements, whereas Gestalt psychology argued that it was impossible to come to a synthesis on the basis of elements. Gestalt psychology proceeded from the assumption of the primacy of the whole. Nevertheless, Selz argued, Gestalt psychology explained the construction of perceptual wholes on the model of the construction of physical wholes and objects (Selz, 1941). The laws of the dynamics of Gestalten postulated by, among others, Köhler, therefore, are to be seen as laws for the causal and genetic explanation of perceptual wholes. On the other hand, Selz’s theory of the construction of perceptual wholes is based on phenome- nological laws. These laws concern pure phenomenological principles of perception and as such must not be confused with physiological-genetic laws.

Despite his outdated and complicated style of writing, Selz is a strikingly modern author. One of his most relevant contributions is to have shown, both in his work on problem solving and on perception, the importance of investigating mental life at a purely psychological level. As his painstaking study of protocols demonstrated, human thinking can be described and explained as a series of processes directed by the subject’s 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 conscious processes such as the completion of schematic anticipations. To be sure, Selz did not deny 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 of premature conceptual reduction of psychology to physiology, as was the case with association psychology, or to physical models, as in Gestalt psychology. It seems to be 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 well established. According to Selz, psychology is no exception to this rule.

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Received February 2, 2009 Revision received July 23, 2009

Accepted July 25, 2009 yy

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