The Austrian path toward Gestalt psychology

from Brentano to Benussi, via Meinong

pp. 3-100

in: Mauro Antonelli, Vittorio Benussi in the history of psychology, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

Around 1900, when Vittorio Benussi's research and publications began to appear, psychology was already an established science. By comparison, in previous decades, the new science of experimental psychology had displayed impressive growth, but all the while proceeding in a confused and disorganised manner. With the participation of many researchers from different European countries contributing insights from many diverse fields, such as philosophy, physiology, neurology, psychiatry, and biology, the modern psychologists became an active research community who could count on well-equipped laboratories, scientific societies, specialised journals, national and international conferences, and other means of communication to advance their discipline. Psychology was thus a science that "had freed itself from its national confines" (Ebbinghaus 1901, p. 60), and was developing on the basis of a multidisciplinary approach (Gundlach 2004a).