Kurt Koffka

Person · Open Library

Born

1886

Died

1941

Works

18

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type

Person

Gender

Male

Origin

United States

Active from

1900-03-02

Active to

1950-04-03

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

1. The PHQ-9

   · 2001 · cited 39,499x

2. A Brief Measure for Assessing Generalized Anxiety Disorder

   · 2006 · cited 28,961x

3. Multilayer feedforward networks are universal approximators

   · 1989 · cited 18,306x

4. Bioconductor: open software development for computational biology and bioinformatics

   · 2004 · cited 10,286x

5. A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

   · 2012 · cited 9,264x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

• “The general aim of my book has been but to point out a way in which a solution of these numerous problems (behavior and development) can be attained. The nature of mental development as it has been revealed to us is not the bringing together of separate elements, but the arousal and perfection of more and more complicated configurations in which both the phenomena of consciousness and the functions of the organism go hand in hand.”
• “To apply the category of cause and effect means to find out which parts of nature stand in this relation. Similarly, to apply the gestalt category means to find out which parts of nature belong as parts to functional wholes, to discover their position in these wholes, their degree of relative independence, and the articulation of larger wholes into sub-wholes.”
• “Things look as they do because of the field organization to which the proximal stimulus distribution gives rise. This answer is final and can be so only because it contains the whole problem of organization itself.”
• “The second factor, equally important, is that of good continuation and good shape. The things which we see have a better shape, are bounded by better contours, than the holes which we might see but do not. Therefore, when in exceptional circumstances these conditions are reversed, we see the hole and not the things, as the shape of a gap between two projecting rocks with sharp profiles, which may look like a face, an animal, or some other object, while the shape of the rock disappears.”
• “A complete theory would have to answer, among others, the following questions, given two adjoining retinal areas of different stimulation, under what conditions will the corresponding parts of the behavioural (perceptual) field appear of different whiteness but equal brightness (or "illumination"), when of different brightness but equal whiteness? A complete answer to this question would probably supply the key to the complete theory of colour perception in the broadest sense.”
• “In our theory the total field of excitation is divided into two major sub-systems, each containing numerous sub-systems of its own: the Ego and the environment. And the trace field which is created by the excitation field contains the same dichotomous organization.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born

March 17, 1886 ( 1886-03-17 ) , Berlin , German Empire

Died

November 22, 1941 (1941-11-22) (aged 55), Northampton, Massachusetts , U.S.

Alma mater

University of Edinburgh , University of Berlin

Era

20th-century philosophy

Region

Western philosophy

School

Gestalt psychology , Berlin School of experimental psychology

Main interests

Social psychology , Gestalt psychology

via Wikipedia infobox