Max WertheimerDied 12 Oct 1943 at age 63 (born 15 Apr 1880). Czech psychologist who co-founded the Gestalt movement in psychology (with two younger men, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler). The prevailing approach had been to reduce a complex psychological phenomenon into the sum of its parts, and focus separately on the component elements rather than the whole. In a sense, that would ignore a melody but study its notes. He disagreed with that piecemeal form of analysis. Instead, in Gestalt thinking, he took an overall landscape psychological view. He maintained that wholes have their own properties and tendancies which are not evident from looking too closely at their isolated parts. He had moved to Germany for study and then teaching there, but with the rise of Hitler in 1933, Wertheimer, being of Jewish heritage, decided to emigrate with his family to the U.S.A.« |
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