Carolina QuotesWe no longer seek the “cause” of events in the nature of a single isolated object, but in the relationship between an object and its surroundings.
Kurt Zadek Lewin Connected to the Carolinas
Source
p. 11.
- work
- Principles of topological psychology, 1936
- year
- 1936
- locator
- p. 11
Cite this record
“We no longer seek the “cause” of events in the nature of a s…” Kurt Zadek Lewin. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-2B354FE710. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/2b354fe710
More from Kurt Zadek Lewin
One should view the present situation – the status quo – as being maintained by certain conditions or forces. A culture – for instance, the food habits of a certain group at a given time – is not a static affair but a live process like a river which moves but still keeps to a recognizable form...Food habits do not occur in empty space. They are part and parcel of the daily rhythm of being awake and asleep; of being alone and in a group; of earning a living and playing; of being a member of a town, a family, a social class, a religious group . . . in a district with good groceries and restaurants or in an area of poor and irregular food supply. Somehow all these factors affect food habits at any given time. They determine the food habits of a group every day anew just as the amount of water supply and the nature of the river bed determine the flow of the river, its constancy or change.
Only by the concrete whole which comprises the object and the situation are the vectors which determine the dynamics of the event defined.
We know, since the theory of relativity at least, that empirical sciences are to some degree free in defining dynamical concepts or even in assuming laws, and that only a system as a whole which includes concepts, coordinating definitions, and laws can be said to be either true or false, to be adequate or inadequate to empirical facts. This "freedom," however, is a somewhat doubtful gift. The manifold of possibilities implies uncertainty, and such uncertainty can become rather painful in a science as young as psychology, where nearly all concepts are open and unsettled. As psychology approaches the state of a logically sound science, definitions cease to be an arbitrary matter. They become far-reaching decisions which presuppose the mastering of the conceptual problems but which have to be guided entirely by the objective facts.