Popper’s Gewöhnungstheorie Assembled and Face with Other Theories of Learning
Popper’s Gewöhnungstheorie Assembled and Face with Other Theories of Learning

Summary/Abstract: With the publication of Popper’s Frühe Schriften (2006), renewed possibilities for inquiring into the nature and scope of what may be termed simply ‘Popperian Psychology’ have arisen. For although Popper would never have claimed to develop such psychology there is, however, from his earliest to his last works, a wealth of recommendations as to how to come to grips with problems of the psyche without falling victim of inductivist and subjectivist psychology. The fact that most theories of learning, both traditional and modern, have remained inductivist, and therefore logically invalid, places Popper’s hypotheticodeductive approach to learning and the acquisition of knowledge among the most important conjectures in that entire domain, akin to Edelman’s biological theory of consciousness. Central to Popper’s approach and his final rejection of all inductive procedures is his early attempt at a theory of habit-formation, Gewöhnungstheorie (in ‘Gewohnheit’ und ‘Gesetzerlebnis’ in der Erziehung, 1927) – a theory not fully developed at the time but nevertheless of decisive importance for his view on education and later works on epistemology, being ‘of lasting importance for my life’ (2006, p. 501).

• Details
• Contents