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SYSTEMS 1)
by
EGON BRUNSWIK (Berkeley)
In the present paper the attempt is made to order systematically
some of the conceptual tools which have been used in dealing with
psychological topics. In the opinion of the author, a suitable starting
point for such a consideration is furnished by a scheme of the following kind (Fig. 1).
The drawing represents an organism within its surroundings
as described by an observing physicist in terms of measurement and
computation. This observer might be able to distinguish different
layers within the whole causal texture with reference to the organism. Some of these which became most outstanding in psychological discriminations might be designated by the terms (c) remote
past, (b) the realm of palpable bodies in the actual environment,
(a) stimulus events located on the retina or on other stimulus surfaces of the organism, (0) intraorganismic events, (A) muscular
reactions, or behavior in the narrower sense of the word, (B) effects of these reactions with regard to the relationship between
organism and surroundings, as e.g., the reaching of a goal, and
finally (C) the more remote consequences and final products of life
activities including stabilized mechanical or conceptual tools for
further use. For the purpose of further explanation, some of the
customary terms not used in this list are included in the chart.
The layers indicated are not supposed to designate singular sequences in time, but rather to furnish a general scheme for crosssectional classification and coordination of physical events, or
features of the physical world, with reference to their causal relationship to an organism. The scheme possesses a certain symmetry,
1) Paper sent in for the fourth International Congress for the Unity
of Science (Cambridge, England, 1938)"
LAYERS:
37
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Fig.
2.
Fig.
Early Behaviorism
Early Psychophysics
3.
1=,
Fig. 7. Introspectionism
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dent of each other underlying the countless variety of actual performances. This is one of the instances where the stage is set for a
genuinely psychological physiological psychology, focussed not
on layer (0), as such, or on its interrelations with layers (a) or (A),
but on the farreaching interrelations between (0), on the one hand,
and (B) - - or (b) - - , on the other.
A few words only about disciplines like social psychology, genetic
psychology, psychoanalysis. T h e y all seem to be focussed primarily
on molar interrelations of the organism in its actuality with some
complex features of the remote environment, present or past. T h e y
fulfill the requirements of a molar psychology as long as t h e y
concentrate upon an attempt to segregate abstractively the focal
or relevant traits within the patterns they investigate from the
actually irrelevant ones.
A certain type of genetic attitude possesses, however, a close
resemblance to molecularism. Considering the systematic description of gross achievement or adjustment of the organism to the environment as the primary subject matter of psychology, inquiry
about the history of such mechanisms in some cases might easily
loose contact with the essential features of the achievemental pattern actuaUy in question. In such instances, asking "why" becomes
comparable to the "how" problems of the mediationalistic type.
For example, to be concerned primarily as to whether a certain organismic instrument is due to heredity or to learning, might occasionally become just another burden for the investigator of that
instrument, coordinate with the claim of the physiologically minded
criticist whose first concern is to know as much as possible about all
the single steps involved in the mechanism in question. Like molecularism, geneticism for its own sake involves the danger of diverting psychology into knowing more and more for the price of
knowing it about less and less, or about smaller and smaller fragments of the units which constitute the task of psychology.
In the common language of science, molecular as well as gerretic
descriptions have often been called "explanations". In contrast
to that, molar achievemental analysis is "descriptive" in the most
restricted sense of the word. As a deliberate "lump" treatment, it
refuses to aim at explanation for its own sake. It is a psychology
"in terms of .. ", a terminological affair, a way of registering
and conceptually looking at gross correlations in their straightforward actuality.
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is indicated in Figure 7 by a dashed arrow 0 ~ b which is also pointing in the opposite direction from the corresponding arrow b -+ 0
in Figure 5. In philosophy, the problems of "dualism" have to a
large extent arisen from confusion and uncritical mutual substitution of the two cross-sectional layers structurally similar to
each other. This substitution is comparable to that committed b y
introspectionism. The fallacies of an uncontrolled substitution of
layers by each other have recently been emphasized by Heider.
Introspectionism can be subdivided into two main branches. The
one is represented by men like Wundt or Titchener, and also b y
Mach. It is sometimes called "Structuralism". Its chief feature is
to look for basic elements out of which all the complex experiences
m a y "consist" (without questioning whether the grammar of the
word "consist" permits such an application). Structuralism coincides
in time with the early molecular sensory psychology characterized
b y its emphasis upon mediational features like proximal stimulation
and the structure of the sense receptors. It is obvious that in this
general attitude - - sometimes characterised as "glorification of the
skin" - - the mosaic-nature of the events at the sensory surface has
been directly carried over to the hypothetical structure of inner
events (cf. Fig. 7). Thus these came to be understood after the pattern of the sense organ. In structuralism, therefore, not only layers
(0) and (A) and layers (0) and (b), but also layers (0) and (a) appear
in uncontrolled confusion.
The second branch of introspectionism might be called phenomenalism. It is somewhat related to act psychology, and sometimes the
term phenomenology is applied, not quite unmistakably, to it.
It is the kind of introspection represented by Gestalt psychology
and the Wtirzburg school of psychology of thinking. There was sufficient sophistication within phenomenalism about the naive
entanglement of structuralism with sensory elementarism, with
mediationalism and with functional "explanation". Unbiased
"description" of the preanalytically given was aimed at. The structuralist's "consist of" was given up in favor of the phenomenalist's
"resembles". E v e r y d a y language and even slang was used deliberately. Characteristic examples are the description of the phenomenon
of the shadow by Hering as a tiny skin of darkness lying upon the
surface of the object, the true color of which shines through the
former, or the introduction of the term "Aha-Erlebnis" by Bfihler
in order to refer to the experience of sudden insight. In this way,
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