ABSTRACT
A characteristic of psychology as a science appears to be that it has been founded a number of times. The first founding is usually attributed to Wundt, who declared that psychology should be a science and proceeded to establish the first laboratory in 1879. For about three decades both content and methods of the new psychology were to a large extent determined by conceptions current in Wundt’s laboratory. A second founding may be said to have occurred when the phenomenological orientation became dominant in the study of perception about 1910. In the U.S.A. the phenomenological approach gained recognition mainly thorugh the Berlin Gestaltists, Wertheimer, Kohler, and Koffka. A better perspective on the history is probably achieved if not only the Berlin Gestaltists, but the phenomenological movement from the beginning of this century is included. Then, attention is given to the man who was probably the chief inspirer, Husserl, and also to research workers like Katz and Rubin, who were outside the group of Berlin Gestaltists. If Husserl is included, the continuity in the phenomenological movement from the early part of the century to the modern era is established.
