Being Oriented - The Psychology of Karl Bühler

Karl Bühler (18791963) is one of the most important German-language psychologists of the th 20 century. His career reached its zenith at the University of Vienna, where he served as Professor of Philosophy, Psychology, and Experimental Pedagogics and as the director of the newly founded psychological institute. His work brings together important early-twentieth-century debates on the psychology of thinking, gestalt perception, instinct and intelligence behavior, and mental development. Bühlers 1934 published Theory of Language has become a classic in the field of linguistics. Many scholars have understood Bühlers work as part of the history of psychology or have mined it for ideas that can be brought to bear on current discussions. This project, by contrast, aims to be the first to offer a systematic reconstruction of Bühlers psychology based on the premise that the concept of orientation plays a central role in his theoretical and empirical research. For instance, Bühler argued as part of experiments conducted in 19071908 that a sense of direction and directedness guides the thought process. Moreover, the subject of guiding figures in Bühlers writings about biological behavior theory, and in Theory of Language he argues that a system of guidance auxiliaries and ordering implements are prerequisites for speech. This interpretation of Bühlers psychological thinking relies on a precise reconstruction of the influence of the Brentano School thinkers Alexius Meinong, Carl Stumpf, Edmund Husserl, Anton Marty, and Eduard Martinak and reveals Bühlers contributions to the empirical research program of phenomenology. Finally, it will explore Bühlers work on the psychology of life, which he began in the early 1930s and which has received scant attention so far. These studies will draw on materials from Bühlers literary estate that are stored at the Documentation and Research Center for Austrian Philosophy, in Graz; on the offprints collected by Bühler and his wife, which were moved to the Institute Vienna Circle in 2016 and on his writings in exile, which were acquired by the University of Vienna in 2017. This enables a detailed look at how Bühler worked, along with the evolution of his terminology and his views on particular topics and problems. In addition to the studies, the output includes a digital bibliography with detailed information on the genesis and interpretation of Bühlers manuscripts on the psychology of life and a critical edition of previously unpublished texts. Combining both hermeneutical-reconstructive and historical-conceptual analysis, the project addresses issues at the juncture of philosophy, psychology, and linguistics amid their gradual separation into individual fields at the beginning of the 20th century. It looks at questions raised by Bühler in his historical context as well as at their re-problematization in recent discussions.

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