15.4.1880: Born in Prague
1890-1898: attends the Neustädter Gymnasium in Prague
1898-1901: studying jurisprudence at the University of Prague; attending lectures in psychology, musics, philosophy,
physiology, history of arts
1901-1904: studying philosophy and psychology at the universities of Prague (Ehrenfels, Marty), Berlin and Würzburg
1905: received his doctorate (his dissertation: "Tatbestandsdiagnostik", supervisor: Külpe)
1905-1912: private university studies at psychological institutes in Berlin, Würzburg, Frankfurt, at physiology institutes in
Prague and Vienna, at psychiatric hospitals in Prague, Frankfurt, and Vienna, at the ethno-music institute in Berlin
1906: controversy with C.G. Jung about word association technique
1910-1914: working on the fundamental ideas of Gestalt theory and decisive experiments on Gestalt laws with Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka in Frankfurt
1912: Habilitationsschrift at the Handelsakademie Frankfurt: "Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung"
1912-1916: Privatdozent in Frankfurt
1916-1922: Privatdozent in Berlin; first contacts with Albert Einstein
1921: co-founder of the journal "Psychologische Forschung" (with Köhler, Koffka, Goldstein,
Gruhle)
1922: appointed ausserordentlicher Professor of psychology
1922/1923: "Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt"
1923: Max Wertheimer marries Anna Caro (four children: Rudolf, born 1924; Valentin, born 1925; Michael, born 1927;
Lise,born 1928)
1929-1933: professor of psychology at the University of Frankfurt
1933: emigrates to the United States via Czechoslowakia
1933-1943: faculty member of the New School for Social Research, "The University in Exile," New York City
1943: finishes his work on "Productive Thinking"
12.10.1943: dies in New Rochelle, New York.
Gestalt theory: "The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening
in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces, but conversely; what happens to a part of the whole is, in clearcut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole." |
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