“What is Gestalt theory and what does it intend? Gestalt theory was the outcome of concrete investigations in psychology, logic, and epistemology. The prevailing situation at the time of its origin may be briefly sketched as follows. We go from the world of everyday events to that of science, and not unnaturally assume that in making this transition we shall gain a deeper and more precise understanding of essentials.”

"Gestalt Theory," 1924

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Max Wertheimer15

Co-founder of Gestalt psychology 1880–1943

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“A theory of haptics is expounded which the author feels will establish "a foundation for the Haptics of form and the psychology of the blind." He differentiates between "Haptics of an essentially optical character" and "pure or autonomous Haptics" such as is experienced by those blind from early childhood. The weaknesses of certain psychological theories such as Gestalt, are discussed in terms of Révész's haptic theory. Part II of the book analyzes the aesthetics of haptic form and the art of the blind. The work of blind sculptors is presented and is analyzed.”

Géza Révész (1878–1955) Hungarian psychologist and musicologist

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“Our first objective in undertaking the experimental program described here has been to gain some understanding of what goes on in long sequences of plays of Prisoner's Dilemma. We have attempted to gain this understanding by postulating a system going through a sequence of states and by attempting to formulate some mathematical models from which the dynamics of the system could be deduced. Once such a model is found, its parameters, properly interpreted, become the key terms in the emerging psychological theory. This strategy can be deemed successful, if the parameters so discovered are independent of the process itself, if they suggest further investigation, and if the further investigations, in turn, lead to a more inclusive theory.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Source: 1960s, Prisoner's dilemma: A study in conflict and cooperation (1965), p. 185

“(Game theory is) essentially a structural theory. It uncovers the logical structure of a great variety of conflict situations and describes this structure in mathematical terms. Sometimes the logical structure of a conflict situation admits rational decisions; sometimes it does not.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

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“What is reality? What is space? And what is time? These are the three questions that we want to investigate taking into account the knowledge that we have gained by modern physics. Our intuitive prescientific conception of the world in relation with these three concepts is not very precise but could be summarised as follows.
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Till the birth of relativity theory all physical theories where compatible with this intuitive scheme. But when relativity theory entered the scene, these intuitive conceptions of space and time, and what is less recognised even till today, also the conception of reality, has got into problems.”

Diederik Aerts (1953) Belgian theoretical physicist

Diederik Aerts (2001) " Time, space and reality : an analysis from physics. http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/aerts/publications/2001TimeSpaceReality.pdf"

“The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces, but conversely; what happens to a part of the whole is, in clear-cut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole.”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

Source: Productive thinking, 1945, p. 84

“To make psychology into experimental epistemology is to attempt to understand the embodiment of mind. Here we are confronted by what seem to be three questions, although they may ultimately be only one. The three exist as categorically disperate desiderata.
The first is at the logical level: We lack an adequate, appropriate calculus for triadic relations.
The second is the psychological level: We do not know how we generate hypotheses that are natural and simple.
The third is that the physiological level: we have no circuit theory for the reticular formation that marshals our abductions.
Logically, the problem is far from simple. To be exact, no proposed theory of relations yields a calculus to handle our problem. When I was growing up, only the Aristotelian logic of classes was ever taught, and that badly. The Organon itself contains only a clumsy description of the apagoge - perhaps from the notes of some students who have not understand his master…”

Warren S. McCulloch (1898–1969) American neuroscientist

Source: Embodiments of Mind, (1965), p. 389, Chapter " What's in the brain that ink may character http://vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/mcculloch_whats-in-the-brain.pdf"

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Fritjof Capra (1939) American physicist

Source: The Web of Life (1996), p. 32.

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John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Sweet Morality (p. 224)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)

“Darwin’s model of evolution. . . , being basically a theory of historical reconstruction,. . . is impossible to verify by experiment or direct observation as is normal in science. . . Moreover, the theory of evolution deals with a series of unique events, the origin of life, the origin of intelligence and so on. Unique events are unrepeatable and cannot be subjected to any sort of experimental investigation.”

Michael Denton book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis

Source: Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), p. 75

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Max Wertheimer15

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