再び術語について -音響の現象と過程- -「ゲシタルト」と「形態」-

抄録

There were many instances in psychology where technical terms carelessly used brought about unexpected misunderstandings and unnecessary debates among those who were interested in the same subject.
In scientific investigation, we give phenomenological description of facts as well as transphenomenal explanation of them, usually using common expressions for both, and thus occurs, occasionally, unnecessary misunderstanding. This must be avoided.
In order to get rid of this inconvenient circumstances, it is to be recommended to make a clear distinction between the terms in the phenomenal description and those in the transphenomenal (functional) explanation. An attempt of this kind was shown by the present author in his previous article pertaining to the perception of space, in which all phenomenal description was strictly distinguished from causal or conditional-genetic explanation in terminology.
In an example from the field of auditory and tactual experiences, carelessness in this respect is shown to the effect fatal to the scientific consideration. The same physical process, i. e. the vibration of such and such a frequency, may cause an auditory as well as a tactual vibratory perception, as is known from the investigation of D. Katz. Now, the vibratory process as such is not at all auditory in its nature, so that the term ‘sound’ or ‘tone’ applied to this physical process, as it happens usually in the ter inology of physicist, is often misleading and by no means adequate to our science. Such an expression as “the sound may be experienced as well by auditory sense (hearing) as by ‘vibration-sense’ (Vibrationssinn)” should be abolished in psychology.
Strict distinction of terminology between phenomenal and conditionalgenetic points of view is required in this field of investigation as in other fields of sensory psychology. Even if the usual terminology, in which the term ‘sound’ stands as well for experienced fact (phenomenal) as for condditional physical process (transphenomenal), is allowed in psychology, we must be careful to notify the difference of its scientific significance, in order to avoid any possible ‘experience-error’ (Köhler).
Precaution is also required in application of the term keitai or form' in order to indicate so far the notion as that of gestalt. In biology the term keitai has been used to denote morphological pattern in general for a long time, and as long as there was no intimate relation between biological and psychological sciences, the terminological usage in biology seemed to have nothing to do with psychological signification. Psychology is now well called a branch of biology in principal consideration, and appreciable interrelation between both sciences must be expected as a matter of course. Having no connection with biological conception, we can hardly perform any psychological investigation at present.
The development of our science in recent years have brought about, first in the field of sensory psychology and then in that of emotion and will as well as in genetic psychology, radical change in its fundamental ideas. All the functional problems can be solved only in the light of the dynamics of the processes in the whole structure. The focus of interest in gestalt psychology is found now-a-days not so much in sensory organization itself but in the dynamical character of functional whole.