KURT KOFFKA – ORDER

Kurt Koffka, 1932 – Principles of Gestalt Psychology

Order. Let us now turn to “order,” the concept derived from the sciences of life. Can we give a satisfactory definition of this con- cept? We speak of an orderly arrangement of objects when every object is in a place which is determined by its relation to all others. Thus the arrangement of objects thrown at random into a lumber room is not orderly, while that of our drawing room furniture is. Similarly we speak of an orderly march of events (Head) when each part event occurs at its particular time, in its particular place, and in its particular way, because all the other part events occur at their particular times, in their particular places, and in their par- ticular ways. An orderly march of events is, e.g., the movement of the piano keys when a practised player plays a tune; a mere sequence of events without any order takes place when the keys are pressed down by a dog running over the keyboard.

“Order not an objective category.” Both examples may give rise to a particular objection or may lead to a special theory of order. Let us take up the objection first: “Why,” so an opponent, whom for the sake of convenience we shall call Mr. P, might ask, “do you call the motions of the piano keys in the second case less orderly than the first? I can,” so he continues, “find only one reason, and that is that you like the first better than the second. But this subjective feeling of preference is surely not a sufficient reason for intro- ducing a distinction allegedly fundamental, and for deriving from this distinction a new scientific category. And the same is true of your first example. You happen to like your drawing room, but I can well imagine a person, say a stranger from another planet, who would feel happier in your storeroom. Look at your two cases without any personal bias; then you will find that each object, whether in the drawing room or in the loft, is where it is because, according to mechanical laws, it could not be anywhere else; and just so is each key set into motion according to the stern laws of mechanics whether it be Paderewski’s fingers or a frightened dog which run over the keyboard. But if the ordinary old mechanical laws explain these events, why introduce a new concept, order, which confuses the issue by creating an artificial difference between processes which from the point of view of mechanics are essentially similar.?’*

REFUTATION OF THIS VIEW BY VITALISM. To this argument another person (we will call him Mr. V) might reply as follows: “My dear fellow, it is very generous of you to disregard your own feel- ings in the matter, for I know how sensitive you are to badly fur- nished rooms and how fastidious your taste is with regard to piano music. I shall therefore exclude from my answer the person who is merely supposed to look at or live in one of our two rooms and to listen to the two sequences of tones, just as you said one should. But even so there remains a difference between the two alternatives in each of the two examples, and this difference is decisive, since it refers to the way in which the arrangement and the sequence have been brought about. In my ideal lumber room, each piece has been deposited as it happened to come without regard to any other. And since, as you pointed out yourself, every object in this loft is where it is according to strict mechanical laws, this lumber room is an excellent example of what mechanical forces will do if left to them- selves. Compare this with our drawing room. Here, careful plan- ning has preceded the actual moving of the furniture, and each piece receives a place that makes it subservient to the impression of the whole. What does it matter whether a table has at first been pushed too far to the left? Somebody who knows the plan, or who has a direct feeling for the intended effect, will push it back into its proper place: just so a picture hung awry will be straightened out; vases with proper flowers will be well distributed, all of course with the help of mechanical forces, but nothing by these mechanical forces alone. I need not repeat my argument for the two tone sequences, the application is too obvious. But my conclusion is this: in inor- ganic nature you find nothing but the interplay of blind mechanical forces, but when you come to life you find order, and that means a new agency that directs the workings of inorganic nature, giving aim and direction and thereby order to its blind impulses.” And so Mr. V, in trying to answer Mr. P’s argument, has developed the theory which I referred to at the beginning of this discussion. Re- membering our previous discussion of nature and life, one will recognize this theory as a vitalistic one. As a matter of fact the strongest arguments for vitalism have been based on the distinction of orderly processes and blind sequences.

SOLUTION OF THE POSITIVIST-VITALIST DILEMMA. But let us return the argument between Messrs. P and V. We have already pledged our psychology to a rejection o£ vitalism. But can we disregard V’s answer to P s argument, his defence of the distinction between orderly and orderless arrangements and events? We can not. And that lands us in a quandary: we accept order but we reject a spe- cial factor that produces it. For the first we shall be despised by Mr. P and his followers; for the second we shall incur the wrath of Mr. V. Both reactions would be justified if our attitude were truly eclectic; we should then appear to accept two propositions that are incompatible with each other. Therefore the task of our system is clearly defined: we must attempt to reconcile our ac- ceptance and our rejection, we must develop a category of order which is free from vitalism. The concept of order in its modern form is derived from the observation of living beings. But that does not mean that its application is restricted to life. Should it be pos- sible to demonstrate order as a: characteristic of natural events and therefore within the domain of physics, then we could accept it in the science of life without introducing a special vital force re- sponsible for the creation of order. And that is exactly the solution which gestalt theory has offered and tried to elaborate. How that has been done we shall learn in the course of this book. But it is meet to point out the integrative function of the gestalt solution. Life and nature are brought together not by a denial of one of the most outstanding characteristics of the former but by the proof that this feature belongs to the latter also. And by this kind of integration gestalt theory contributes to that value of knowledge which we have called reverence for things animate and inanimate. Materialism accomplished the integration by robbing life of its order and thereby making us look down on life as just a curious combination of order less events; if life is as blind as inorganic nature we must have as little respect for the one as for the other. But if inanimate nature shares with life the aspect of order, then the respect which we feel directly and unreflectively for life will spread over to inanimate nature also.