Background
Biihler, Karl was born in 1879.
Biihler, Karl was born in 1879.
MD, PhD.
Dozent, University of Berlin. Assistant Professor, University of Wiirzburg, 1907-1908. Professor of Psychology, University of Bonn, 1909 13.
Professor of Psychology, University of Munich, 1913-1922. Professor and Chairman of Department of Psychology. University of Vienna, 1922-1938.
Biihler was a member of the Wiirzburg School of experimental psychology (1900-1909) that was based at the University of Wiirzburg. The school specialized in the psychological determination of the existence or non-existence of ‘imageless thought’. Biihler joined the school in 1907; it was disbanded in 1909. Biihler’s influence on the psychological community, and especially on the Wiirzburg School, was radical. Previously the School had adopted the so-called Aussagemethode in their study of ‘imageless thought’—the production of a thought without the mediation of an imaging or sensory element. But the method had a serious disadvantage in that it limited the school to searching for thoughts that lacked any sensory element. When Biihler joined, he quickly introduced a different experimental method, the Ausfragemethode. The essence of the new method was that it established a freer and sympathetic relationship between the questioner and the observer, with the former asking the questions and the latter answering as clearly as possible. For example, the observers would be told complicated problems, to which they were asked to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. When they reported that they could call to mind the meaning of what they were told, but could not explain how it was done, it proved to Biihler that such nonsensory dimensions were important to thought, and should be investigated. Biihler’s results unleashed a controversy that took some time to subside. On the one side were psychologists like Wundt, Dürr and Titchener, who doubted his results because of his lack of rigour in distinguishing between what is constitutive of mind and what can be said ‘about’ mind. On the other side were the defenders of the ‘imageless thought’, such as R. S. Woodsworth and C. C. Pratt. By the time the controversy subsided, a willingness to accept the existence of ‘impalpable materials as imageless thoughts' was already evident.
Gestalt theory; systems. Psychoanalysis; the psychological problem of the existence of ‘imageless thought’, of language, perception, and of child development.
Wurzburg School of Psychology (directed by Oswald Kiilpe); experimental psychological studies of Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka; psychoanalysis.