Overview
- This book is a scientific biography of Edgar Rubin
- Argues for the importance of description in psychology
- This book deals in detail with Rubin's education at the University of Copenhagen where Ruben was taught by two professors with international standing in psychology at the turn of the twentieth century
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: History and Philosophy of Psychology (HPPS)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Reviews
"...Edgar Rubin and Psychology in Denmark: Figure and Ground is such a welcome addition to the literature. It presents material that only a writer intimately familiar with the language and customs of Denmark could present. Another reason is that it tells an important story...The author draws on a variety of sources to provide a rich portrayal of academic life in the early 20th century. The recreation of an oral examination in philosophy is spine tingling to read for those of us who have suffered through our own oral exams. Pind describes many of the difficulties facing scholars at the time, including their infighting. The competition among scholars for positions during this period in Denmark was fierce...Pind has given us a volume with a leisurely pace and a relatively narrow national focus. Readers expecting to immediately leap into the life of Edgar Rubin will have to sit back and relax. The author has a larger story to tell. He also takes many side tracks, a style that can be intriguing at the same time that it is frustrating. About Rubin himself, the story tells us that the figure–ground phenomenon, for which he was most famous, was about so much more than the figure of a vase. It became the model that infused much of Rubin’s research during a long and influential career."
John D. Hagan
PsycCRITIQUES
January 27, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 4, Article 1
"Pind’s well-researched book provides an insight into the confined world of philosophy and psychology at the University of Copenhagen in the period from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. His accounts of Rubin’s Visually Experienced Figures will broaden the appreciation of a seminal work in the history of perception for English readers."
Nicholas J Wade School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK
Perception, 2014, volume 43, pages 595 – 604
"The book is the product of very dedicated and persistent work with manykinds of materials (yearbooks, letters, many different kinds of text genres, interviews, etc.). This is history of science at its best, and Pind tries with success to avoid undocumented rumors and its like. The primary focus is on Rubin's scientific development and the necessary sources to describe this with. It is done in a very serious and informative way. The book will be a standard work for anyone interested in Edgar Rubin and the scientific investigation of perception."
Simo Koppe, Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 51(2), 231-232
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Edgar Rubin and Psychology in Denmark
Book Subtitle: Figure and Ground
Authors: Jörgen L. Pind
Series Title: History and Philosophy of Psychology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01062-5
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science, Behavioral Science and Psychology (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-01061-8Published: 19 August 2013
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-03314-3Published: 23 August 2015
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-01062-5Published: 13 August 2013
Series ISSN: 1572-1914
Series E-ISSN: 1574-9029
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 228
Topics: History of Psychology, History of Philosophy, Clinical Psychology