Ernst Cassirer's psychology: II. The nature of thinking

Carini, Louis

doi:10.1002/1520-6696(197307)9:3<266::aid-jhbs2300090310>3.0.co;2-b

Cited by 14 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Equally, it may surprise students of Cassirer's work that Lewin ignored Cassirer's writings on psychology, where the great philosopher, citing Gestaltist ideas, stressed the importance of seeing humans as symbol‐using and symbol‐creating beings (e.g. Cassirer, 1944/1962; see also Cassirer, , and Carini, ). Lewin was aware that in drawing upon Cassirer, he was avoiding Cassirer's “treatment of specific problems of psychology” (Lewin (1949/1999, p. 23).…”

Section: Aristotelian and Galileian Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Kurt Lewin's Leadership Studies and His Legacy to Social Psychology: Is There Nothing as Practical as a Good Theory?

Billig

2014

J Theory Soc Behav

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper re‐examines Kurt Lewin's classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between advanced “Galileian” science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and backward “Aristotelian” science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value‐laden concepts that he criticised as “Aristotelian”. Such concepts, especially those of “democracy” and “autocracy”, affected the way that he analysed the results and the ways that later social scientists have understood, and misunderstood, the studies. It is argued that Lewin's famous motto—“there is nothing as practical as a good theory”—is too simple to fit the tensions between the leadership studies and his own views of what counts as good theory.

show abstract

Section: Aristotelian and Galileian Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%