Chapter 2: Complexities, Confusion, Choices: Reencountering Uexküll

I first encountered Uexküll’s ideas through Heinz Werner, my advisor and mentor, in 1950 at Clark University. Eventually I found out that Werner, as a young psychologist, met Jacob von Uexküll at the University of Hamburg, in the 1920s. During that time in Hamburg, the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, the psychologist William Stern as well as Uexküll the ethologist all influenced Werner’s “Comparative Psychology of Mental Development.” Many ideas in that creative and comprehensive work have played and continue to play an important part in my life, both professionally and personally.

Epistemological interpretations of organism/environment relationships include internal, external, and interactionist perspectives. The interactionist position through perception compared to cognition is analyzed. This chapter focuses on the interactionist perspectives of Uexküll, Werner, and Piaget. The changes in interpretations by different interpreters reflect changes in both the scientific paradigm and in the technological means for researching aspects of perception and cognition in frogs, cats, and humans.