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Time, Space and Gestalt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Oliver L. Reiser
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Extract

Time, space and matter are the most pervasive and inescapable aspects of the physical universe. And yet, notwithstanding the fact that they represent the most fundamental and ubiquitous characteristics of reality, they have always presented elements of mystery to the human mind. Thus on the level of common thought we ponder how the withering hand of time reaches from out the past into the future to bring decay and destruction to all things; and on the more sophisticated level, after the fashion of Immanuel Kant, we are puzzled by certain antinomies of thought concerning the necessity for an origin, and an end, of the universe in time and space, in the face of the equally necessary reasons for regarding the universe as being unlimited in its space and time dimensions. In either case, however, we are paying tribute to the tantalizing nature of these problems concerning the cosmic framework of space-time-matter in which we live, and move, and have our being. Indeed, it is not too much to say that genuine philosophy took its origin in Zeno's paradoxes of motion, and will have its final consummation when it solves Kant's antinomies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 1934 , pp. 197 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1934

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References

1. “The ‘Concept of Organism’ and the Relation Between Embryology and Genetics,” II, Quart. Rev. Biol., 1930, Vol. V, p. 449.

2. Science and the Modern World, 1926, p. 115.

3. “Relativity and Reality,” Monist, Vol. 41, 1931, 512–534.

4. “Philosophie des Organischen,” Lit. Ber. a. d. Geb. d. Phil., 1928, no. 17–18.

5. “Learning as a Property of Physical Systems,” J. Gen. Psychol., 1931, Vol. 5, 207–229.

6. “Time and Hereditary Mechanics,” Monist, Vol. 35, 70–80.

7. Cf. “The Biological Origins of Religion,” Psychoanalytic Review, 1932, Vol. 19, 1–22.

8. Colloid Chemistry, 1929, p. 25.

9. “A Biological Analysis of Sensation,” Psyche, 1931, Vol. 11, 26–47.

10. “Physiological Time,” Science, 1931, Vol. 74, 618–621.

11. The Essential of Psychology, 1922, p. 190.

12. Cf. The Field of Psychology, pages 137 and 233.

13. Sinnesphysiologische Untersuchungen, Leipzig, 1917, 485–495.

14. The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, Ch. XV.

15. On this matter consult Seeing, by M. Luckiesh and F. A. Moss, 1931, Ch. VII, and Principles of Experimental Psychology, by Henri Piéron, 1929, pp. 78 ff.

16. See Harry Helson's paper, “The Tau Effect—An Example of Psychological Relativity,” Science, 1930, Vol. 71, 536–537. The quantitative study appears in J. Exp. Psychol., 1931, Vol. 4, 202–217.

17. The Moon-Element, p. 90.

18. On this subject see the author's papers on “Physical Relativity and Psychical Relativity,” Psychological Review, 1930, Vol. 37, 257–263; and “Contributions of the New Physics to Philosophy and Psychology,” Psyche, 1930, Vol. 11, 65–87.

19. In the following papers: “Probability, Natural Law, and Emergence,” J. of Philos., 1926, Vol. 23, 421–434; “A Phenomenological Interpretation of Physico-Chemical Configurations and Conscious Structures,” Ibid., 1927, Vol. 24, 373–385; “Light, Wave-Mechanics, and Consciousness,” Ibid., 1928, Vol. 25, 309–317.

20. A beginning in this direction has been made in the following papers: “Biological Organization,” by D. L. Watson, Quart. Rev. Biol., 1931, Vol. 6, 143–166; “Quantitative Relations in Biological Processes and the Radiation Hypothesis of Chemical Activation,” by C. D. Snyder, Ibid., 1931, 281–305.

21. In his booklet on The Alchemy of Light and Color.

22. See Troland's treatise, Psychophysiology, 1932, Vol. iii, p. 121.

23. “Sind resonanzerscheinungen bei physikalisch-chemischen Periodizitäten möglich?,” Zsch. f. Phys., 1930, Vol. 65, 270–272.

24. The Principle of Relativity, 1922, p. 9.

25. Op. cit., p. 76; see also the paper “Uniformity and Contingency,” in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, N. S., Vol. 23, 1923, pp. 1–19.

26. The writer has tried to summarize the argument in a paper on “Gestalt Psychology and the Philosophy of Nature,” Phil. Rev., 1930, Vol. 34, 556–572.

27. Die physische Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationären Zustand, 1920.

28. Psychophysiology, Vol. iii, p. 46.

29. For a more extended statement of these ideas see the following papers: “The Logic of Gestalt Psychology,” Psych. Rev., 1931, Vol. 38, 359–368; and “Biological Relativity,” J. of Philos., 1931, Vol. 28, 701–715.

30. The Concept of Nature, p. 69.

31. For a discussion of the social nature of time see J. T. Shotwell's paper, “The Discovery of Time,” J. of Philos., 1915, Vol. 12, pp. 199, 253, 309, ff; the same fact is brought out by Mary Sturt in her book on The Psychology of Time and by G. H. Mead's The Philosophy of the Present.