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M aja S pener Describing experience in terms of fundamental organizational features, such as object constancy, was a far cry from the sparse features figuring in Wundt’s constrained introspective investigation or Titchener’s unconstrained systematic introspective analysis Two specific changes are relevant from our point of view The first is a deliberate return to a less liberal introspective experimental method Gestalt psychologists attempted to avoid or minimize problems associated with the demand character of systematic introspection and the involvement of memory by including checks of overt behaviour in their experimental techniques (Danziger 1980) The second is a full-throated endorsement of the need for a phenomenological description of experience which is naïve or pre-theoretical In doing this they rejected both, Titchener’s introspective analysis and Wundt’s restriction on the scope of introspective investigation Gestalt psychologists thereby manifested their affinity with the Würzburg school and Husserl’s work on phenomenology (Koffka 1924, 150) As Kurt Koffka emphasizes, at the centre of their approach to psychology is the ‘phenomenological method’: In reality experimenting and observing must go hand in hand A good description of a phenomenon may by itself rule out a number of theories and indicate definite features which a true theory must possess We call this kind of observation ‘phenomenology,’ a word which has several other meanings which must not be confused with ours For us phenomenology means as naïve and full a description of direct experience as possible In America ‘introspection’ is the only one used for what we mean, but this word has also a very different meaning in that it refers to a special kind of such description, namely the one which analyses direct experience into sensations of attributes, or some other systematic but not experiential ultimates (Koffka 1935, 73) Indeed, Gestalt psychologists saw themselves in a kind of Goldilocks position between (systematic and analytical) introspectionism and behaviourism Koffka and Köhler took great pains to explain how their approach differed from, overlapped with – and, of course, improved upon – introspectionism, as well as behaviourism (Koffka 1924; Köhler 1930, 1–77) Both types of experimental psychology were accused of ‘remoteness from life’ Behaviourism is criticized for leaving our experience altogether: In their justified criticism they threw out the baby with the bath, substituting pure achievement experiments and tending to leave out phenomenology altogether. . . Without describing the [conscious character of experience] we should not know what we had to explain (73) 164
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