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Introduction to Max Wertheimer: Productive Thinking

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Max Wertheimer Productive Thinking

Part of the book series: Classic Texts in the Sciences ((CTS))

Abstract

The above motto is the main credo of the gestalt-theoretical approach in psychology (Westheimer, 1999), and is taken from Wertheimer’s original article which was published 20 years in advance of his book “Productive Thinking.” The book, which appeared posthumously in his New York exile (1945), advances the idea that

There are entities where the behavior of the whole cannot be derived from its individual elements nor from the way these elements fit together; rather the opposite is true: the properties of any of the parts are determined by the intrinsic laws of the whole.

Max Wertheimer (1925), Lecture at the KANT Society on 17 December, 1924.

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Sarris, V. (2020). Introduction to Max Wertheimer: Productive Thinking . In: Sarris, V. (eds) Max Wertheimer Productive Thinking. Classic Texts in the Sciences. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36063-4_1

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