principles of their investigation, he simply deprives both the subjective and the subjective terms of their meaning. “Stimulus-reaction” is for him simply a convenient way to describe the phenomena. Others, such as Pillsbury [1917, pp. 4-14], make eclecticism their principle: the debates about a general method and viewpoint are of interest for the technically-minded psychologist. Sensation and perception he explains in the terms of the structuralists, actions of all kinds in those of the behaviorists. He himself is inclined towards functionalism. The different terms lead to discrepancies, but he prefers the use of the terms of many schools to those of a single specific school. In complete accordance with this he explains the subject matter of psychology with illustrations from everyday life, in vague words, instead of giving formal definitions. Having given the three definitions of psychology as the science of mind, consciousness, or behavior, he concludes that they may very well be neglected in the description of the mental life. It is only natural that terminology leaves our author indifferent as well

Koffka (1925) and others try to realize a fundamental synthesis of the old and the new terminology. They understand very well that the word is a theory of the fact it designates and, therefore, they view behind two systems of terms two systems of concepts. Behavior has two aspects—one that must be studied by natural scientific observation and one that must be experienced and to these correspond functional and descriptive concepts. The functional objective concepts and terms belong to the category of natural scientific ones, the phenomenal descriptive ones are absolutely foreign to it (to behavior). This fact is often obscured by the language which does not always have separate words for this or that kind of concept, as everyday language is not scientific language.

The merit of the Americans is that they have fought against subjective anecdotes in animal psychology. But we will not fear the use of descriptive concepts when describing animal behavior. The Americans have gone too far, they are too objective. What is again highly remarkable: Gestalt theory, which is internally deeply dualistic, reflecting and uniting two contradictory tendencies which, as will be shown below, currently determine the whole crisis and its fate, wishes in principle to preserve this dual language forever, for it proceeds from the dual nature of behavior. However, sciences do not study what is closely related in nature, but what is conceptually homogeneous and similar. How can there be one science about two absolutely different kinds of phenomena, which evidently require two different methods, two different explanatory principles, etc.? After all, the unity of a science is guaranteed by unity of the viewpoint on the subject. How then can we build a science with two viewpoints? Once again a contradiction in terms corresponds to a contradiction in principles.

Matters are slightly different with another group of mainly Russian psychologists, who use various terms but view this as the attribute of a period of transition. This “demi-saison,” as one psychologist calls it, requires clothes that combine the properties of a fur coat and a summer dress, warm and light at the same time. Thus, Blonsky holds that it is not important how we designate the phenomena under study but bow we understand them. We utilize the ordinary vocabulary for our speech but to these ordinary words we attach a content that corresponds to the science of the 20th century. It is not important to avoid the expression “The dog is angry.” What is important is that this phrase is not the explanation, but the problem (Blonsky, 1925). Strictly speaking, this implies a complete condemnation of the old terminology: for there this phrase was the explanation. But this phrase must be formulated in an appropriate way and not with the ordinary vocabulary. This is the main thing required to make it a scientific problem. And those whom Blonsky calls the pedants of terminology appreciate much better than he does that the