Abstract
Takahashi (2016) found “miscarried epistemological revolution” in Gestalt psychology. To examine her idea, this paper investigated the nature of the psychological explanation in Gestalt psychology. The law of proximity, one of the Gestalt laws of perceptual organization, was examined. As a result, two points were suggested. First, this “law” does not refer to the causal relationship in the so-called scientific explanation, but to the meaningful relationship between two subjective impressions. Second, the latter relationship can be phenomenologically elucidated on the basis of “figure and ground,” the most fundamental phenomenological structure in perception. Phenomenological elucidation is a process of identifying phenomenological structures behind each individual case of experience. This method may be applied not only to Gestalt psychology but also to other domains with psychoanalytic concepts such as “identity.” Finally, the possibility of rewriting the history of psychology was discussed, while reexamining a considerable number of psychological concepts and explanations by the method. This effort of “rewriting” would make a starting point from the “miscarried epistemological revolution” toward an alternative psychology.
