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Phenomenology and Mathematics pp 183–211Cite as

On Referring to Gestalts

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Part of the book series: Phaenomenologica ((PHAE,volume 195))

Abstract

This paper discusses a fresh approach to formal semantics based on mereology and Gestalt Theory. While Wiegand (2007, Spacial Cognition & Computation, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum) unfolds the technical details of this new approach, the following paper aims to discuss the philosophical motivation an implications of what I have called mereological semantics. Particular attention will be given to an ongoing debate on the nature of relations.

The time has come to enrich formal logic by adding to it some other fundamental notions.

Stan Ulam 1

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This motto is a remark made by Stan Ulam in a conversation with Gian-Carlo Rota. The conversation is summarized in Rota (1985), see also Barwise’s epilogue to his Situation in Logic, entitled “Toward a Mathematical Theory of Meaning.”

  2. 2.

    See Wiegand (2007). Mereology is the theory of Parts and Wholes.

  3. 3.

    See Rock and Palmer (1990), Rock (1985), Kellman (2000) for a more detailed description of the notion of Gestalt.

  4. 4.

    See also Simons (1987) on that concept.

  5. 5.

    See Lakoff (1977, 1986), Talmy (2000), Langacker (1987, 1991) et al.

  6. 6.

    See Gurwitsch (1929), 364 ff, see Wiegand (2001).

  7. 7.

    See Davey and Priestley (2002).

  8. 8.

    PCO is a modified version of SA3 in Simons (1987), 28. We subscribe to his view that the chain-models (d) and (e) are counter-intuitive in that they imply the idea of a whole containing merely a single part. (f) would have to be understood as a whole, all of whose parts overlap each other. It seems, however, counter-intuitive to assume such objects. See the discussion of SA3 in Simons (1987).

  9. 9.

    As regards the notion of partially ordered set (po-set for short) see Section I.I above.

  10. 10.

    See definition (1) above.

  11. 11.

    See Wiegand (2001) for an explication of the notion of being singled out.

  12. 12.

    “The specification ‘nontrivial’ is required in order to exclude integrated wholes being defined on the basis of relations such as difference or identity”(Moltmann 1997).

  13. 13.

    See Barcan-Marcus (1962).

  14. 14.

    See (2) of Section I.I.

  15. 15.

    See Wiegand 2007, and Moltmann’s concept of reference-situation.

  16. 16.

    See Gurwitsch (1959)

  17. 17.

    Cf. Gurwitsch (1936), Kap. III.

  18. 18.

    See Seebohm (1991)

  19. 19.

    Quotes from Köhler (1971), my italics. See also Köhler [1925], 1999.

  20. 20.

    See also Johansson (2006)

  21. 21.

    See Gurwitsch (1982) or Gurwitsch (1940).

  22. 22.

    See Gurwitsch (1940).

  23. 23.

    See Wiegand (2000).

  24. 24.

    Cf. the introduction to the Fourth Logical Investigation. See also Appendix I of FTL.

  25. 25.

    Associationist psychology is opposed to the Gestalt approach. Basically, the former kind of psychology understands conscious acts merely as the results of the composition and modification of sensual contents. The psychological laws in accordance with which those compositions and modifications work are called “laws of association”. Associationism can be traced back to British empiricism, but Joseph Priestley, James Mill, and Johann F. Herbart are also eminent figures in that tradition. From the viewpoint of Gurwitschian phenomenology, the psychological atomism and the “psychophysics” of Gustav Theodor Fechner and Hermann von Helmholtz must also be regarded as a physicalistic branch of associationism. The main reason why Gurwitsch has severely criticized associationist psychology is that physical stimuli or psychological laws of association—they need not be the Humean laws—assume the role of causes. In this sense causal explanation is the main methodological tool of associationist psychology, whereas Gestalt psychology—like phenomenological method—descriptive in nature. Gestalt psychology does not distinguish between the stimuli and the laws of association that cause a certain unity among an in-itself scattered and unstructured manifold of sense data. Gurwitsch formulates the main tenet of a strictly descriptive approach to the psychological as follows: “for intentional analysis the ultimate fact and datum is the sense or meaning itself as a structured whole” (“Phenomenology of Thematics and of the Pure Ego,” 257). For a summary of Gurwitsch’s critique of associationism (where he also mentions Hobbes, Locke, and Herbart) see “The Place of Psychology in the System of Sciences,” in Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, 56–68.

  26. 26.

    Wertheimer [1947] 1982, Chapter I, III.34.

  27. 27.

    in Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology (1966: 175 ff.).

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Acknowledgement

 I wish to thank Mirja Hartimo for helping me to bring this paper into shape. I am grateful to Dorothea for having communicated her understanding of wholeness to me.

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  1. University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Olav K. Wiegand

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  1. Dept. Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 40 A, Helsinki, 00014, Finland

    Mirja Hartimo

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Wiegand, O.K. (2010). On Referring to Gestalts. In: Hartimo, M. (eds) Phenomenology and Mathematics. Phaenomenologica, vol 195. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3729-9_9

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