Max Wertheimer and Gestalt Theory

The ideas of Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), a founder of Gestalt theory, are discussed in almost all general books on the history of psychology and in most introductory textbooks on psychology. This intellectual biography of Wertheimer is the fi rst book-length treatment of a scholar whose ideas are recognized as of central importance to fi elds as varied as social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, problem solving, art, and visual neuroscience.

Michael Wertheimer

1: Introduction; 2: Ancestry, Family, and Childhood; 3: Formal Education, 1898-1904; 4: Years of Incubation, 1905-1910; 5: Emergence of Gestalt Theory, 1910-1913; 6: The World War One Period, 1914-1921; 7: The Gestalt Movement Matures, 1922-1929; 8: Wertheimer at Frankfurt, 1929-1933; 9: Wertheimer's Everyday Life in the United States, 1933-1943; 10: Early Reception of Gestalt Psychology in the United States; 11: Wertheimer's Correspondence with Three Psychologists: Boring, Hull, and Luria; 12: The Social Conscience of a Humble Empiric; 13: Personal Challenges; Productive Students; 14: The Dynamics and Logic of Productive Thinking: The Crystallization of a Life Study; 15: The Legacy of Max Wertheimer and Gestalt Psychology