Springer Edgar Rubin and Psychology in Denmark: Figure and Ground (History and Philosophy of Psychology)

This book presents a scientific biography of Edgar Rubin, one of the outstanding pioneers of perceptual psychology in the early twentieth century. It also argues for the importance of description in psychology. Review "...Edgar Rubin and Psychology in Denmark: Figure and Ground is such a welcome addition to the literature. It presents material that only a writer intimately familiar with the language and customs of Denmark could present. Another reason is that it tells an important story...The author draws on a variety of sources to provide a rich portrayal of academic life in the early 20th century. The recreation of an oral examination in philosophy is spine tingling to read for those of us who have suffered through our own oral exams. Pind describes many of the difficulties facing scholars at the time, including their infighting. The competition among scholars for positions during this period in Denmark was fierce...Pind has given us a volume with a leisurely pace and a relatively narrow national focus. Readers expecting to immediately leap into the life of Edgar Rubin will have to sit back and relax. The author has a larger story to tell. He also takes many side tracks, a style that can be intriguing at the same time that it is frustrating. About Rubin himself, the story tells us that the figure–ground phenomenon, for which he was most famous, was about so much more than the figure of a vase. It became the model that infused much of Rubin’s research during a long and influential career."John D. HaganPsycCRITIQUESJanuary 27, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 4, Article 1 "Pind’s well-researched book provides an insight into the confined world of philosophy and psychology at the University of Copenhagen in the period from the late-19th to the mid-20th century. His accounts of Rubin’s Visually Experienced Figures will broaden the appreciation of a seminal work in the history of perception for English readers." Nicholas J Wade School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UKPerception, 2014, volume 43, pages 595 – 604 "The book is the product of very dedicated and persistent work with many kinds of materials (yearbooks, letters, many different kinds of text genres, interviews, etc.). This is history of science at its best, and Pind tries with success to avoid undocumented rumors and its like. The primary focus is on Rubin's scientific development and the necessary sources to describe this with. It is done in a very serious and informative way. The book will be a standard work for anyone interested in Edgar Rubin and the scientific investigation of perception."Simo Koppe, Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, DenmarkJournal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 51(2), 231-232 From the Back Cover Is it a glass centerpiece--or is it really two faces? The familiar optical illusion known as the Rubin Vase embodies the complexities of the brain's recognition of visual figures and backgrounds. Its creator's accomplishments, however, extend far beyond this well-known concept. Edgar Rubin and Psychology in Denmark tours a tumultuous century of history, politics, culture, and thought as reflected in the intellectual life of Denmark following the Golden Age of Kierkegaard and H. C. Andersen. Rubin's scholarly journey takes him from the debate over the scientific study of "the soul" to the maturation of perceptual psychology, providing both human context for our modern understanding of consciousness and a timeline for the recognition of psychology as science. Besides his revolutionary discoveries in visual perception, less-known aspects of his work are explored, such as his observations on taste and the perception of speech, as is his relationship--and reluctant contribution--to Gestalt theory. In these pages, Rubin is portrayed as a thinker simultaneously of his time and place and distinctly universal and modern. Included in this fascinating biography:  T