S. Lehar, Review of The World in Your Head, a Gestalt View of the Mechanism of Conscious Experience, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ (2003)

The subtitle of the book – A Gestalt view of the mechanism of conscious experience – makes it clear that the notions of Steven Lehar are squarely situated in the tradition of Gestalt theory. Gestalt is a German term meaning form , outer shape or a whole at the perceptual level . Most people associate Gestalt theory with scholars who insist that our phenomenological experiences cannot be explained solely from the elementary perceptual stimuli that reach our senses. This characterization is, in itself, not wrong other than it is insufficient. The aim of Gestalt theory is to reveal the nature of consciousness and that is also the task that Lehar sets out to accomplish. His approach is reminiscent of the work of the well-known Gestalt theorist Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967). Köhler (1924) developed a theory that related phenomenological experiences to electro-chemical processes in the brain. That is, first he analyzed conscious experience and then he tried to explain the characteristics of consciousness through chemo-physical processes in the brain. His theory was inspired by the field theory of the physical chemist and