Book | Chapter

Unconscious Gestalts

Theodor Lipps vs. Stumpf and Ehrenfels

Riccardo Martinelli (University of Trieste)

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Lipps and the School of Brentano

1In his obituary of Theodor Lipps, Georg Anschütz attempted to sketch a preliminary classification of the development of his mentor’s thought. The task was not easy: Lipps frequently changed his mind and went through different phases. Occasionally, he reformulated his own doctrines in a slightly different manner and partially with a new language. This attitude frequently puzzles both the reader – who struggles to tell superficial makeup from profound innovation – and the historian, who sometimes helplessly seeks to find coherence in Lipps’ thought. Anschütz managed to distinguish three main phases: in the first one, Lipps was under Herbart’s influence; in the second one, he autonomously developed his most fortunate psychological concepts (e.g. Ein|fühlung); finally, after the turn of the century, the confrontation with the School of Brentano became one of his main occupations (Anschütz 1915).1 As to Lipps’ third period, it is well known that a major challenge came from the first edition (1900) of Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations, where he was overtly charged of psychologism (Husserl 2001 [1900], 40; 42). But the relationship with Husserl – who later took back his disapproving judgement – is not the whole story about Lipps and the (broadly construed) school of Brentano. Another interesting chapter is that of the phenomenology of perception: in fact, Lipps had his say concerning Stumpf’s “tonal fusion” and Ehrenfels’ “gestalt qualities”. These two issues deserve a special place within the psychological debate of the time. Despite their apparent distance, both tonal fusion and gestalt qualities concern psychical multiplicity and the problem of the normative autonomy of mental phenomena. Interestingly, throughout his confrontation with Stumpf and Ehrenfels, Lipps avoided the elusive tone of many of his books and proved, indeed, to be a keen psychologist and a scrupulous observer. In what follows I will highlight the historical relevance of these discussions (§ 1). I will then go into the detail of Lipps’ remarks on gestalt qualities (§ 2) and on tonal fusion (§ 3). In the final section (§ 4), I will draw some conclusions on his theory of the human mind.

2Wolfgang Köhler (1920, 24) once famously affirmed that Stumpf’s tonal fusion and Ehrenfels’ gestalt qualities were the main conceptual ancestors of Gestalt psychology (see also: Ash 1995). Despite his disagreement on specific points, then, Köhler conceded that Ehrenfels and Stumpf paved the way to the subsequent, more radical achievements of Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler himself. Indeed, the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology owes much to the preparatory stages of the holistic psychology developed within the school of Brentano. What was at stake in this process was not only the methodological preeminence of analysis or synthesis in the explanation of mental facts: the main goal was to reaffirm the active character of mental phenomena against the widespread attempts to regard them as mere reduplications of physical stimuli. That mental multiplicities can be always decomposed into their (alleged) elementary components without any loss or distortion, is now regarded as a prejudice that must undergo careful evaluation. For this generation of scholars, in short, the intentional character of the mind is at odds with the picture of a mosaic-like, atomistic reconstruction of mental phenomena. This is why so many outstanding authors insist on what may appear, on superficial analysis, a triviality such as, e.g. “the whole is more than its parts”. What these researchers actually implied is that a mental whole is indeed a mental one: As such, it obeys specifically mental laws, whose discovery and elaboration became one of the main tasks for an entire generation of thinkers.

3The concept of tonal fusion was discussed at length in the second volume of Stumpf’s Tonpsychologie (1890). In the same year, Ehrenfels published his seminal essay entitled On Gestalt qualities (1987 [1890]).2 Stumpf’s tonal fusion refers to the content of sensation evoked by two (or more) tones, which nevertheless “approximate the impression of one single tone”, according to specifically psychological laws. For a while, tonal fusion was a hot topic among psychologists in the German-speaking world. For instance, Husserl took up Stumpf’s idea and terminology in his Philosophie der Arithmetik (2003 [1891], 74; 218; see also: Holenstein 1972, 124). Meinong referred to it in his essay Zur Psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationen (Meinong 1969 [1891]), where he exploited and modified Ehrenfels’ gestalt qualities (see also: Martinelli 2020a). Needless to say, however, many others criticized it sharply. Most remarkably, Brentano completely disagreed with Stumpf on this point and, more generally, on the psychology of perception (Martinelli 2013).3 With the concept of gestalt quality, Ehrenfels singled out the class of mental presentations that have the character of organized wholes. With this, he triggered considerable criticism and discussion among psychologists (Smith 1988).4 On the whole, Stumpf and Ehrenfels both insisted on the specificity of some supervenient quality of mental organized wholes. Yet there are many striking theoretical differences in the two cases.5 By considering them together in this essay, then, I neither claim that Stumpf and Ehrenfels shared a robust theory of sense phenomena, nor that tonal fusion and gestalt qualities imply each other in some way. Rather, following Köhler’s hint, it can be argued that – for all divergencies – both constructs helped draw attention upon perceptual organization against associationism.

Lipps on Tonal Fusion

4The concept of fusion has a long history in 19th century psychology. When it comes to its origin, commentators usually begin with Johann Friedrich Herbart, who undoubtedly exerted a deep influence over the whole Austro-German psychology of the 19th century. After Kant’s notorious dismissal of empirical psychology, Herbart reinstated the ideal of scientific psychology as a legitimate philosophical task. His major work in this field, Psychologie als Wissenschaft (1989a [1824], 1989b [1825]) soon became a reference point. Herbart thinks of the human mind as a sort of inner theater stage, where mental presentations come and go, and interact with each other. The mutual relations among presentations are determined by their vivacity: Basically, what happens is that brighter presentations inhibit fainter ones. Based on this general presuppositions, Herbart develops a highly complicated picture of the mind, which involves the extensive application of mathematical tools, under the metaphysical hypothesis of the unity of the soul. At the core of Herbart’s psychological calculus we find the concepts of “vivacity” of the presentations, and of the “contrast” between them (Herbart 1989a [1824], 18; 151).6 This sketchy description, insufficient as it is to properly describe Herbart’s psychological system, may suffice to introduce his concept of fusion. Whereas presentations of different kind (e.g. a color and a tone) can easily form a unitary whole, those of the same species (e.g. two tones) never totally coalesce because of their permanent “contrast”: Accordingly, they can be conjoined only partially. For instance, the idea of the shape of an apple and that of its flavor naturally merge into one; but the presentation of C can never totally melt with that of D or G, because they contrast each other. In the former case, that of the apple, Herbart speaks of “complication”; in the latter, that of tones, of “fusion” [Verschmelzung] (Herbart 1989a [1824], 200).7

5Like Herbart, though with some slight semantic differences, in Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens (1883) Lipps distinguishes between “fusion” and “complication”.8 However, complication becomes secondary for Lipps, who mostly speaks of fusion. To avoid misunderstandings, Lipps makes it clear how not to understand fusion, i.e. not as “coalescence of some presentations […] into a new one, which somehow comprises them as non-distinguishable elements” (Lipps 1883, 44). In other terms, if fusion is conceived of rather literally, that is, in analogy with metallurgy, then no fusion whatsoever occurs in the mind. In a smithy, two melting metals (e.g. tin and copper) disappear as such as soon as the alloy (bronze) comes into existence. If compared with its components, the alloy is “something new, with new properties”. Now, Lipps contends that nothing of this sort ever happens within the mind. Rather, what actually happens is “the inception of a content of presentation from many unconscious processes, which are by their own nature unknown, or else the mere substitution of one presentation by other presentations” (Lipps 1883, 44). Herbart’s influence is evident here. Lipps thinks of presentations as forces, striving against each other on the internal scene of the mind. Presentations tend to self-affirmation: the stronger this drive, the higher their reluctance to meld with other presentations. In fact, stronger presentations successfully impose themselves and, for the same reason, effectively resist fusion with other ones (Lipps 1883, 479).

6In chapter eleven of Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens, devoted to the sensations of tone, Lipps insists on the above mentioned features of fusion. There is never an actual coalescence of two tones into a new one. Rather, fusion typically occurs when several unconscious “partial tones” merge into a complex sound [Klang] (Lipps 1883, 242). This well-known acoustic phenomenon had been recently discussed by Hermann von Helmholtz. Whenever e.g. a piano string is struck, it gives off the so-called “fundamental” tone together with a multiplicity of higher-pitch fainter tones: the so-called “upper partials”. These supplementary tones often go unnoticed, and yet – as Helmholtz demonstrated – they influence the overall effect and determine the “color” of a sound, the quality which distinguishes, for instance, a violin from a flute (Helmholtz 1870, 36). Lipps only admits this kind of fusion between sensations of tone.

7Carl Stumpf introduces tonal fusion in the first volume of Tonpsychologie (1883). In the first, theoretical, section, Stumpf exposes his aims and methods. Stumpf’s investigation concerns sense-judgments about sounds and their relations: For instance, judgments like “this tone is A, or the Third of F”. In Stumpf’s philosophical system, sense-judgments represent one of the most important classes of “mental functions”. He sharply distinguishes between mental functions and appearances, that is, mental phenomena and their intentional objects (Stumpf 1906). Psychology investigates mental functions and seeks to find their laws, whereas phenomenology investigates appearances (phenomena) as such: In this respect, Stumpf’s idea of phenomenology deeply differs from Husserl’s (Rollinger 2000; Fisette 2015). Interestingly, Stumpf counts relations among appearances. Reality is not made up of elementary, mosaic-like facts upon which the mind imposes abstract relations. No less than the related elements themselves, relations are “eo ipso given to us together with current sensations, given in them, and fully determined by them” (Stumpf 1883, 97). This said, Stumpf enucleates the four main classes of relations within sensibility: Multiplicity, increase, similarity and fusion. Fusion, then, is included in this core group. One should keep in mind that Stumpf’s fusion is a relation among mental appearances, the result of which is that these two appearances are harder to distinguish from each other. Stumpf is adamant in claiming that “for us, fusion is not a process, but rather an existing relation” (Stumpf 1890, 129). As I shall show in § 2, Lipps embraces the opposite option: He assigns paramount importance to mental (unconscious) processes.

8In the second volume of Tonpsychologie of 1890, Stumpf specifically deals with tonal fusion. His discussion marks a turning point in the history of the concept. In the words of a coeval commentator: “[F]rom Herbart to Lipps […] we trace what may be called the traditional use of the term. When, however, we turn to C. Stumpf’s interpretation of fusion, we note a radical change in the employment of the word” (Bentley 1903, 65). In fact, Stumpf’s definition of fusion owes nothing to Herbart. As Stumpf (1883, 100) himself suggests, another outstanding German scholar influenced him in this respect: Ernst Heinrich Weber, the man whose name was later to merge with Fechner’s in the ubiquitous and yet ambiguous formula “Weber-Fechner’s psychophysical law”. A famous physiologist whom young Stumpf met and highly respected, Weber had ascertained some intriguing experimental fact concerning, among other things, subjective weighing. When two bodies are weighed simultaneously, using both hands, the evaluation is rather imprecise: for instance, even significative differences in weight fail to be noted. Evaluation becomes comparatively far more reliable when the two bodies are weighed in succession with one hand.9 Whence this unpredictable difference? In simultaneous weighing (the former case), the two resulting sensations mix up and confound the subject. Weighing one body after another suffices to avoid this deceptive effect. This is precisely Stumpf’s idea of tonal fusion. Whenever we hear two notes simultaneously, the two sensations of tone mix up and make it difficult for us to distinguish them exactly.

9To sum up, in the late 19th century, German psychologists could refer to two distinct and alternative pictures of “fusion”: The Herbartian, developed by Lipps, and the Weberian, embraced by Stumpf. With this in mind, one can easily understand what happened in the year 1883, when Lipps published Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens and Stumpf the first volume of Tonspychologie. Lipps adopted Herbart’s concept of Verschmelzung, and Stumpf advocated Weber’s: The two traditions fatally clashed.

10Three years after the publication of the two volumes, it was Lipps who initiated hostilities. In 1886 he reviewed Stumpf’s essay Musikpsychologie in England (1885). This essay is not entirely devoted to tonal fusion, yet Lipps did not miss this chance to criticize it harshly: Stumpf, he predicts, will not be able to manage tonal fusion without invoking unconscious elements at some stage (Lipps 1886). In Lipps’ view, fusion is indeed an essentially unconscious phenomenon. Four years after Lipps’ review, in the Preface to the second volume of Tonpsychologie (1890, 212), Stumpf comments Lipps’s concerns rather mockingly, without explicitly mentioning him. Stumpf now illustrates tonal fusion [Tonverschmelzung] at length, defining it as follows:

The relation between two contents, more specifically between contents of sensation, whereby these do not constitute a mere sum but rather a whole [ein Ganzes]. The consequence of this relation is that, for its higher degrees, the overall impression – on the same terms – increasingly approaches that of a single sensation, and is increasingly more difficult to analyse. (Stumpf 1890, 128)

11In Stumpf’s view, the cause of tonal fusion is physiological. In this case, the “specific energies” underlying the different degrees of fusion are excited by two stimuli: criticizing Helmholtz’s auditive theory, Stumpf speaks of second-order specific energies, or specific synergies (Stumpf 1890, 214).

12Two years later, in 1892, Lipps attacks Stumpf in a long essay-review, this time entirely focused on tonal fusion (Lipps 1892). Stumpf is now charged of using an ambiguous notion. While allowing for tonal fusion when many simple tones [Töne] coalesce into a sound [Klang], Lipps is skeptical of the alleged qualitative aspect of fusion in Stumpf’s sense. More generally, Lipps goes back to the problem of the unconscious nature of psychological facts, including those related to tonal fusion. Stumpf, he notes, speaks of unnoticed [unbemerkt] sensations instead of unconscious [unbewußt] ones. In this way, however, he unfairly eludes the problem rather than solving it. What is worse, with the hypothesis of the “specific synergies” Stumpf buries his head in the sand. Failing to clarify what actually happens, Stumpf delegates any explanation to physiology (the so-called “genetic psychology”), which he nevertheless scorns, with the effect of shifting the main question into the realm of unknowable facts. Lipps has a point here. However, it is hard to resist the temptation to submit Lipps’ own doctrine to the same critical standards: It would hardly pass this test. When it comes to his positive theory of consonance, in fact, Lipps appeals to what he calls “affinity” between the different “rhythms” belonging to each note: From him, these numeric-based affinities “somehow” penetrate into conscience and determine musical consonance (Lipps 1905, 118; see also : Martinelli 2002).

13In addition, Lipps raises another argument against Stumpf’s tonal fusion: If one defines musical consonance (as Stumpf essentially does) as the outcome of tonal fusion, then two consecutive notes could never be consonant or dissonant (Lipps 1892, 562). Lipps was probably the first to point out this issue. Technically speaking, Stumpf invited his readers not to draw conclusions about his theory of consonance from his considerations of tonal fusion (Stumpf 1890, vii). However, in the long run this objection would be among the fatal ones for Stumpf’s doctrine of fusion. A more refined version of this criticism was provided in a dissertation – defended under Stumpf’s commendably liberal direction – by Catharina von Maltzew, who argued that the impression of an ascending interval is different from that of the descending interval made up by the same notes (Malzew 1913).

14Lipps, then, deserves an important place in the debate about tonal fusion. His commentary on Stumpf’s doctrine is a curious mix of keen observation, sharp critical skills – and an implausible alternative construction of his own.

Lipps on Gestalt Qualities

15Ehrenfels’ essay on gestalt qualities was published in 1890. In his view, gestalt qualities are “positive presentation contents”, which differ essentially from the “basis” on which they are founded: The basis is the mere sum of its components, the gestalt quality is not (Ehrenfels 1988 [1890], 82). Perceiving a melody is a typical instance of this phenomenon. The single sensations of tone make up the basis; the perceived melody is the gestalt quality. Whenever we hear a melody, in our mind there are not simply various auditory sensations (the basis), but rather one content of presentation: “the melody”. This mental presentation, the gestalt quality, displays some emerging features of its own. For instance, it resists “transposition”, that is, the melody can be played on different keys, and yet it appears the same. For Ehrenfels, then, a gestalt quality is a unitary, objectively existent mental presentation, which cannot be reduced it to its basic individual components.

16Ehrenfels started off from Ernst Mach’s remarks in his book Analysis of Sensations (19062). Commenting on Helmholtz’ theory of tone sensations, Mach noted a flaw: allowing for a single “specific energy” for each different pitch is at odds with the epistemological principle of economy of thought. Helmholtz had famously compared the human ear with a keyboard instrument: Each sensation of tone corresponds to a single neural fiber (belonging to the cochlea), just like in a piano each note corresponds to a single string. This is unacceptable for Mach. In the theory of vision, three basic colors suffice to originate any other chromatic shade: analogously, Mach believes, a small number of common elements must suffice to account for the great variety of tone sensations. Additionally, he argues, Helmholtz’s theory proves vulnerable from another point of view, as it is unable to account for musical transposition:

If two series of tones be begun at two different points of the scale, but be made to maintain throughout the same ratios of vibrations, we recognize in both the same melody, by a mere act of sensation, just as readily and immediately as we recognize in two geometrically similar figures, similarly situated, the same form. Like melodies, differently situated on the scale, may be termed tonal constructions of like tonal form [gleiche Tongestalt], or they may be termed similar tonal constructs. (Mach 1959 [1906], 285)

17Admittedly, Ehrenfels’ starting point was Mach’s somewhat “paradoxically sounding” claim that “we are able directly to ‘sense’ spatial shapes and even tone-Gestalts or melodies” (Ehrenfels 1988 [1890], 82). More clearly, this amounts to asking whether e.g. a melody is “a mere sum of elements” or “something novel in relation to this sum, something that certainly goes hand in hand with it, but is distinguishable from, the sum of elements” (Ehrenfels 1988 [1890], 83). Endorsing the latter option, Ehrenfels allows for a “positive content of presentation bound in conscience with the presence of complexes of mutually separable (i.e. independently presentable) elements” (Ehrenfels 1988 [1890], 93). Such elements are given simultaneously and “without any activity of mind specifically directed towards them” (Ehrenfels 1988 [1890], 112).

18The idea of gestalt qualities as introduced by Ehrenfels soon generated controversy. Among the authors involved, I will consider Friedrich Schumann, Alexius Meinong and Hans Cornelius. A thorough analysis of their ideas reaches far outside the scope of this essay: the aim of the following remarks is merely to introduce Lipps’ stance on this theme.

19Ehrenfels was severely attacked by Friedrich Schumann in an essay entitled Zur Psychologie der Zeitanschauung (1898), where Schumann did little more than applying the psychological theories of his mentor Georg Elias Müller to the specific case of gestalt qualities. Schumann consider Ehrenfels’ construct irremediably pointless. There are no gestalt qualities: rather, there are “modifications” of simple qualities, and “relations” among complex ones. The alleged gestalt qualities are, in fact, quite ordinary relations. Ehrenfels had insisted upon a perceptual and involuntary mechanism; for Schumann, it is indeed the analytic power of reason that allows us to grasp relations. In David Hume’s words concerning this distinction of reason:

When a globe of white marble is presented, we receive only the impression of a white colour dispos’d in a certain form, nor we are able to distinguish the colour from the form. But observing afterwards a globe of black marble and a cube of white, and comparing them with our former object, we find two separate resemblances, in what formerly seem’d, and really is, perfectly inseparable. (Hume 2007 [1739-1740], 21-22).

20In reply to Schumann, Meinong rehabilitates gestalt qualities, while amending Ehrenfels’ explanation of them. Meinong carefully distinguished (Schumann’s) relations from what he called complexions: given e.g. the relation R between a and b, a complexion is made up of “a, b, and R” (Meinong 1987 [1891], 66). A melody is not the relation between the notes. Rather, it is that relation taken together with the notes: in his terms, a complexion. Accordingly, Ehrenfels’ gestalt qualities become a special case – possibly the most important one – of a Meinongian complexion. In turn, Meinong’s explanation was tackled by Hans Cornelius. Cornelius argued once again that gestalt qualities originate from a cognitive act, which in his view coincides with the recognition of a similarity between two contents. In other terms, Cornelius aimed at solving the problem of gestalt qualities within the framework of his theory of abstraction – which, by the way, was severely criticized by Husserl (Rollinger 1991). The mental phenomenon of attention, in Cornelius’ theory, amounts to the cognition of a similarity: The mind isolates a content and recognizes its similarity (under a certain respect) with a previously formed group of contents. Whereas Schumann totally debased the concept of gestalt quality, Cornelius liber|ally allows for it. Yet he introduces a downgrading caveat. In his view, gestalt qualities do not explain anything: Rather, they are a suitable way to describe the situation.

21So far, then, two tendencies can be distinguished in this debate: The holistic one, championed by Ehrenfels and Meinong, and the reductionistic one of Schumann and Cornelius. With this in mind, one can understand Lipps’ contribution. Remarkably, Lipps enters this debate as Cornelius’ opponent; yet, as we shall see, this does not necessarily mean that he subscribes to the holistic tendency.

22In a short essay (1900) Lipps harshly criticizes Cornelius’ alleged philosophical inconsistency. Knowledge of similarity never rests upon the coincidence of the corresponding mental contents: indeed, what is coincidence if not a known similarity? Cornelius miserably begs the question.10 Against him, Lipps argues that (1) knowledge of similarity rests upon the coincidence of the mental processes involved, not of the corresponding contents, and (2) this coincidence is not grasped through a cognitive act, as Cornelius wrongly claimed. When you hear two similar melodies, your mind follows the same path twice, as it were: Hence your knowledge of a similarity (1). Moreover, Lipps goes on, what you detect here is not a cognitive act, but a feeling (2): the “sentiment of similarity” which is the “conscious symptom” of the peculiar relation which defines a gestalt quality (Lipps 1900, 383).11 To be sure, Lipps’ “sentiment of similarity” has nothing to do with the elementary feelings of pleasure and displeasure. As a kind of mental residuum, it signalizes the unconscious process lying behind the phenomenal appearance of a gestalt quality. Accordingly, for Lipps, gestalt qualities are “modes of a psychic relation between psychic processes that are not given within conscience”. Lipps’ explicit polemical target is Cornelius, not Ehrenfels. However, Lipps is clearly far from defending Ehrenfels. Implicitly, with his rebuttal of Cornelius’ cognitive content and his insistence on the mental process, Lipps disavows Ehrenfels’ core idea of a “new content of presentation” as well.

23In 1902, Lipps reopens the question in Einheiten und Relationen (1902). This book reformulates much of Lipps’ previous doctrines in the light of “apperception”, that is, the subject’s self-relatedness: A mental phenomenon which is now granted a crucial role in Lipps’ work. Apperception is indeed the most fundamental relation, which grounds every mental fact. Lipps draws attention to three different moments within it: The ways in which “in my apperception”, I am related to “objectivity” (1), to “myself” (2), and to the modes in which “the objects are related to each other, in and through my apperception” (3) (Lipps 1902, 3). In a way that is somehow reminiscent of Fichte, everything is given within self-awareness: The self, its objects, and their relations. As a balancing counterpart of apperception, Lipps introduces the concept of objective requiredness [Forderung]. Some objects, so to speak, demand more than others to be merged by apperception into a single apperceptive act. Acts of apperception, then, incessantly follow one another, according to the respective objective “requirement”. For instance, musical notes can be heard separately; sometimes, however, they are “intermingled by apperception” and form a melody. Needless to say, gestalt qualities become entirely superfluous: apperception does the whole job. Interestingly, Lipps claims that nothing in psychology should be built upon contents, which are the mere “material” of the soul. This rules out Ehrenfels’ explanation – based on the “new content” of presentation – from the very beginning. Lipps frankly avows his preference for a more traditional approach:

Objective data stemming from the senses, or from the reproductive faculty, are nothing but material and, as such, peripheral. This material, i.e. this periphery, stands in front of something of which this objectivity is the material. This entity creates the specifically spiritual content, according to its own laws. All this may remind one of the psychology of the faculties. But that old psychology – and even the traditional triad of body, soul and spirit – was in the position to understand our spiritual life much better than any psychology that aims at explaining spiritual content starting from its material. (Lipps 1902, 105)

Conclusion

24In his discussion, Lipps proves to be a keen observer. As for tonal fusion, his objection concerning the consonance of subsequent notes was valid, and would be eventually accepted on a larger scale – often without any reference to him. His stance on gestalt qualities is highly interesting because, against Cornelius, Lipps resorts to the idea of a “sentiment” of similarity, which resembles William James’ analogous explanations of psychological similarity. In spite of this assonance, though, James deeply disagreed with Lipps as regards the doctrine of space. In 1886 James wrote to his friend Stumpf, against Lipps: “The feeling of distance is a feeling, or nothing is a feeling”. However, he recognized that Lipps was “evidently a very able writer, with whom one must reckon in Psychology” (Martinelli, 2020a, 70).12 The subsequent evolution of Lipps’ thought is less incisive: He asks too much of the concept of “apperception”. This is unsurprising: Lipps is more effective in his polemics than in his constructs. In his polemical writings, he meticulously analyses and tackles the opponents’ arguments one by one. When he is supposed to offer an explanation of his own, Lipps is less convincing: Both his theory of consonance in terms of unconscious “rhythms” and his gestalt-as-apperception hypothesis were doomed to be inconsequential within the psychological debate of his time. Furthermore, many of his books lack standard procedures of quotation, so that his argumentation often appears self-referential. This peculiarity probably concurred to limit the impact of his views.

25That said, Lipps interestingly intertwines his doctrine of the unconscious with the problem of gestalt perception. In his view, the emergence of super-additive entities within the human mind (e.g. fused tones and gestalt qualities) depends on unconscious processes. This is interesting because most of his colleagues simply denied any value to unconscious data in psychology. For instance, a wide section of Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1995 [1874], 79-106) is explicitly devoted to an allegedly rigorous demonstration that there cannot be unconscious mental phenomena. Unsurprisingly, then, Lipps happened to influence Sigmund Freud much more than any other academic psychologist of the time (Rotella, 2017-2018).13 On the other hand, though Stumpf and Ehrenfels never endorsed explanations based on unconscious mental phenomena, it is questionable whether they actually adhered to Brentano’s doctrines. A careful reading of Stumpf’s Tonpsychologie shows that the opposite is true: as early as 1883, Stumpf did not subscribe to Brentano’s doctrine of the evidence of internal perception; moreover, as previously pointed out, the the two philosophers disagreed on tonal fusion and on sensibility as a whole. In sum, Stumpf and Ehrenfels diverged both from Brentano and from each other in many ways. Still, the distance between them remains negligible if compared to that between Lipps and any other (more or less orthodox) member of the school of Brentano. Be that as it may, suggesting a direct link between gestalts and the unconscious, Lipps deserves a unique position in the psychology of his time.

    Notes

  • 1 A more sophisticated analysis, in four phases, was recently proposed by Fabbianelli (2013, xxiii-xxvii). For further references, see Fidalgo (1991) and the essays collected in Besoli, Manotta & Martinelli (2002).
  • 2 On Stumpf and Ehrenfels, see Fisette & Martinelli (2015) and Fabian (1986).
  • 3 For a survey of the debate on tonal fusion, see Nadel (1927).
  • 4 As regards Schumann, Meinong and Corenlius, see below, § 2.
  • 5 Though Stumpf never criticized Eherenfels directly, so did Adhémar Gelb (1911) in his dissertation under Stumpf’s direction, subsequently published in a leading journal.
  • 6 For an introduction to Herbart, see Beiser (2014).
  • 7 On Herbart, Stumpf and fusion, see Moro (2011).
  • 8 In the course of a “complication” the qualitative contents remain preserved: This is its main difference from fusion. As to Lipps’ divergence from Herbart on fusion, see Bentley (1903).
  • 9 On Weber’s concept of fusion and for further reference, see Martinelli (2013, 342-343).
  • 10 Lipps was to express his total dissatisfaction with Cornelius in a letter to Husserl of 1903. See Schuhmann & Schuhmann (1994, 121-122). On Cornelius and abstraction, see also Rollinger (1993, 75-76).
  • 11 On similarity, see Smid (1983).
  • 12 James to Stumpf, 1st January 1886. Stumpf frankly answered: “I do not think quite so favorably of Lipps as you do; he seems to me indeed full of talent, but not very mature. It would be useful for him if he paused his publishing activities for some years and did not conduct his academic studies before the public” (Martinelli, 2020b), Stumpf to James, 8 September 1886, 76).
  • 13 Freud’s library hosted several essays by Lipps, including the above mentioned Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens (1883), Einheiten und Relationen (1902), and Psychologische Studien (1905). See also Weissberg (2009).

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Publication details

Published in:

Romand David, Tchougounnikov Serge (2021) Theodor Lipps (1851-1914): psychologie, philosophie, esthétique, langage/psychology, philosophy, aesthetics, language. Genève-Lausanne, sdvig press.

DOI: 10.19079/138650.2

Full citation:

Martinelli Riccardo (2021) „Unconscious Gestalts: Theodor Lipps vs. Stumpf and Ehrenfels“, In: D. Romand & S. Tchougounnikov (eds.), Theodor Lipps (1851-1914), Genève-Lausanne, sdvig press.