On 'gestalt Qualities'*

The discussions which follow have the aim of giving scientific expression to a psychological problem often noticed in philosophy but not yet, as we believe, made fully precise. Our task-already intimated in the title in the employment of an unusual and therefore only partially intelligible termcan be characterized briefly as one of explaining and defining the new concept signalled by this term and of demonstrating the existence of corresponding objects in the world of nature. The starting point for what follows is a series of remarks and indications in Mach's Beitrage zur Analyse der Empfindungen (1886) which, although they seem to have arisen in a quite different context, have yet brought about an important consolidation of my own views concerning the relationships here presented. As the passages to be cited below will demonstrate, Mach made the (certainly for many somewhat paradoxically sounding) claim that we are able directly to 'sense' spatial shapes and even tone-Gestalten or melodies. Now the second, at least, ofthese two theses must-undoubtedly appear contradictory, not merely superficially but in its content, if it is not immediately pointed out that we are not talking here of 'sensing' in the usual sense. For if we can sense only that which is simultaneously present to us, then a melody, which is played out in time, cannot serve as an object of sensation. This is of course admitted by Mach as much as by anyone