In the present chapter we shall deal with the birth of the theory of Gestalt, and particularly with the essay “On ‘Gestalt Qualities’” by Christian von Ehrenfels, published in 1890. It will become clear in the course of this chapter that the Gestalt psychologists of the Berlin school, above all Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, were part of a wider Gestalt tradition whose roots l...
