Insight and Scientific Method

Abstract

According to the Gestal principle of insight the existence relations is established through perception and not through extra-mental manipulation. Perceptions assume the form of configurations, and some degree of insight into casual process is usually involved in a perceptual configuration. The essence of scientific method is an attempt to obtain insight. This may be done by direct study of human and interhuman behavior, by studying certain symbols abstracted from reality and supposed to stand in a constant relation to it, and through sympathetic penetration. The first is a method of passing phenomena directly before the eyes in order to discover recurrent patterns. These gradually crystallize into concepts. Imagination is utilized to complete configurations and to fit together pieces of configurations. Statistics has valid uses but is justified as scientific procedure only to the extent to which it is used to subserve insight. Sympathetic penetration- the process of interpreting the behavior of others in terms of purposes and emotional states imputed to them-furnishes indispensable clues to human behavior. The case study is a most usefull literary form in condensing and organizing sympathetic insight. The view of scientific method as a struggle to obtain insight forces the admission that all science is half ar. It depends upon perceptions reconstructed and fitted together in imagination, upon an artistic re-creation of events. This holds a fortiori for sociology.