Sens et temps de la Gestalt (Gestalt theory: critical overview and contemporary relevance)

Abstract

Rather than mere psychological doctrine, Gestalt theory was conceived of as a general theory of form and organization deemed to lay a unified groundwork for several domains of scientific endeavor. Our aim in this article is to assess the legacy of this framework, and examine its relevance for present-day research in cognitive science. We thus survey the intellectual contexts within which Gestalt theory originated and evolved, and review some of its central features: a phenomenological approach to philosophy and science; grounding in the field theory of physics and in the theory of dynamical systems in mathematics; perception viewed as a general structure of cognition; intrinsic interrelatedness of forms and values; unitary approach to perceiving, acting, and expression. We hope this review will allow for a clarification of the status of Gestalt concepts in cognitive and language sciences, both with respect to fields of inquiry wherein they continue to exert substantial influence as well as in regard to fields from which all reference to Gestalt ideas has long since disappeared. We submit that the legacy of Gestalt theory will be most usefully reappraised with respect to its dynamic principles, although this reappraisal would entail a critical examination of the customary Gestalt concepts of time and psychogenesis, as well as a reconsideration of the status of motion and action in form (and/or meaning) constitution.