Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-frp75 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T22:22:49.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Discussion: Gestalt Switching: Hanson, Aronson, and Harré

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Edmond Wright
Edmond Wright*
Affiliation:
This discussion takes up an attack by Jerrold Aronson (seconded by Rom Harré) on the use made by Norwood R. Hanson of the Gestalt-Switch Analogy in the philosophy of science. Aronson's understanding of what is implied in a gestalt switch is shown to be flawed. In his endeavor to detach conceptual understanding from perceptual identification he cites several examples, without realizing the degree to which such gestalt switches can affect conceptualizing or how conceptualizing can affect gestalts. In particular, he has not confronted the possibility of such gestalt selection being involved in the basic identification of what we term “entities”
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , September 1992 , pp. 480 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

Send reprint requests to the author, Swedish Collegium for the Advanced Study of the Social Sciences, Götavägen 4, Uppsala, S - 752 36, SWEDEN.

References

Aronson, J. (1984), A Realist Philosophy of Science. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhaskar, R. (1986), Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Glasersfeld, E. von (1984), “An Introduction to Radical Constructivism”, in Watzlawick, P. (ed.), The Invented Reality. New York: Norton, pp. 17–40.Google Scholar
Hanson, N. R. (1958), Patterns of Discovery: An Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Science. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hamad, S. (1987), “Category Induction and Representation”, in Harnad, S. (ed.), Categorical Perception: The Groundwork of Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 535–565.Google Scholar
Harré, R. (1986), Varieties of Realism: A Rationale for the Natural Sciences. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. (1988), Representation and Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rescher, N. (1987), Scientific Realism: A Critical Reappraisal. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rundle, B. (1972), Perception, Sensation and Verification. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Schutz, A. (1962), “Common-sense and Scientific Interpretation of Human Action”, in Collected Papers. Vol. 1: The Problem of Social Reality. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 3–47.Google Scholar
Wiggins, D. (1986), “On Singling out an Object Determinately”, in Pettit, P. and MacDowell, J. (eds.), Subject, Thought and Context. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 169–180.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. (1967), Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wright, E. (1978), “Sociology and the Irony Model”, Sociology 12: 523–543.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, E. (1990), “New Representationalism”, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20: 65–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, E. (1992), “The Entity Fallacy in Epistemology”, Philosophy 67: 33–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar