Structuring the Mind: Domingo Barnés, Gestalt Perception and the Science of the Child, 1917–1933

Abstract

During the first third of the twentieth century, Spanish pedagogues such as Domingo Barnés (1879–1940) worked to incorporate theories from various European psychologists, theorists and educationalists into their scholarship. These influences balanced quantitative views of the developing child and—as examined here—qualitative imaginaries of the child's inner world. Barnés' Fuentes para el estudio de la paidología (1917), Paidología (1918, 1924, 1932), El desenvolvimiento del niño (1928, 1933) and related works bring together empirical and experimental cognitive work as well as biological, vitalist and holistic conceptions of the child. In these texts, Barnés disseminated several models in the search for a ‘unified’ science. Prominent among these was the new German psychological school of Gestalt theory, which sought to apply perceptual principles to the child's development. This article examines how changing paradigms in European science and philosophy marked Barnés' intellectual production. Specifically, it considers the rise of holistic thought such as Gestalt theory as set out by Kurt Koffka (1926), popularized by Ortega y Gasset, and discussed by primary school teachers such as Rafael Verdier, Teodoro Causí, Juan Jaén and José Peinado. Through Barnés' work and that of his colleagues, I demonstrate how perceptual theories worked alongside phenomenological thought during Spain's pre-Civil War period.