IDEAS, ASSOCIATION OF. — It is the fact that the images of consciousness, like ideas and cognitive contents in general, present themselves in connection with one another, so that the evocation of one of them tends to call to mind some of the others or the entire complex to which it belongs. The explanation of the principles and nature of this connection is in itself of interest to the theory of knowledge and to the philosophical orientation of the schools of psychology: the presupposition common to all associationist schools is the «principle of synthesis», namely, that the element precedes the compound and the part comes before the whole... and that the compound and the whole are its «result». The task, therefore, is to seek, through reflection and experimental investigation, what the cohesive forces of the elements and parts are and how they function in the various manifestations of conscious life, both in the cognitive and in the practical sphere. Associationism is also called «psychic atomism», precisely because it explains the structures and complexes of consciousness on the basis of the elements or parts that contribute to them: it may be grounded and found both in pure empiricism or phenomenalism and in absolute rationalism, insofar as both these philosophical orientations place truth in a simple and immediate apprehension (in sensibility or in intelligence), and not in the functional solidarity of structures and in the convergence of the sensory sphere with the intellectual one. Thus associationism lies at the foundation (it was the pretext) of a large part of modern philosophy: it is affirmed by Kant with the theory of the «dust of sensations», is already presupposed in pre-Kantian rationalism, and is developed into a system in British empiricism. But in the theoretical function of the association of ideas, empiricism and rationalism diverge: for empiricism, since every learning consists in the formation of associations, the meaning of complexes must be sought in the original elements from which learning begins; for rationalism, on the other hand (including idealism), the meaning of complexes derives solely from the activity of reason, and the contents of association are pure material for knowledge or merely its point of departure, which it must transcend and negate.
The first theory of the association of ideas is traced back to Aristotle, who discusses it in connection with memory and recollection (cf. De mem., 2, 451 b 10 SGR.): the ease with which images drawn from experience return varies from one individual to another, since for some a single experience is enough to recall something, and they remember it better than others who have had the experience several times. In general, recollection occurs when the first movements of experiences (πράττεραν συνήσεις) come to be repeated in consciousness until they become «habitual»: according to Aristotle, therefore, the attraction of associated elements is exerted by past experiences upon present experience, and according as something presents itself as similar or contrary or contiguous to something else (ἀφ' ὁμοίον ἢ ἐναντίον ἢ τοῦ σάναγγος, διὰ τοῦτο γίνεται ἢ ἀνάμνησις; ibid., linn. 19-20). The Aristotelian text suggested the three fundamental laws of the association of ideas, namely similarity, contrariety, and contiguity in space and time, which s. Tommaso explained as external forms of an inner induction: a) «... sicut si cogitemus vel loquamur de lacte, de facili pervenimus in album propter lactis albedinem, et de albo in aërem propter claritatem diaphani quae causat albedinem, et ab aëre in humidum, quia aër est humidus; ab humido autem pervenitur ad reminiscendum temporis autumnalis, quod quaerebat, ratione contrarietatis: quia hoc tempus est frigidum et siccum». b) «Et dicit (Aristotele) quod istud quod est universale videtur esse principium et medium per quod potest perveniri ad omnia...»: not the universal in the abstract logical order, but in the intentional order of the movement of representational complexes, as in the white milk of the example cited (in De mem. et rem., lect. 6, ed. A. Pirotta, Torino 1928, nn. 378-79). The Aristotelian conception is therefore foreign both to the empiricist and to the rationalist position.
It is only with British empiricism that the association of ideas receives a systematic and predominant development: Locke’s treatment in An essay concerning human understanding (I. II, ch. 33: Of the association of ideas) is limited to collecting experimental data, especially from the pathology of perception and behavior. The classic author on the association of ideas is D. Hume, who places it at the beginning of his theory of knowledge (cf. A treatise on human nature, I. I, ch. 4: Of the connection or association of ideas; Enquiries concerning the human understanding, part 2ª, sect. 3; part 2ª, sect. 5). Association is called a «gentle force» (a gentile force), and to the associative principles of similarity-contrariety and contiguity, indicated by Aristotle, Hume adds the relation of cause and effect as the most important, because it is this that grounds the conviction of reality which external impressions are incapable of providing. It is at this point that Hume’s empiricism passes into a form of productive subjectivism or an a priorism of feeling, as it has also been called: unlike the other associative relations, that of cause and effect cannot rely on any external «impression of experience»: «Sight and touch give us an idea of the present motion of bodies, but cannot even remotely conceive that wonderful force or power which would keep a body forever in continuous motion, and which bodies never lose except by communicating it to others» (Enquiries, part 2ª, sect. 4, § 29; ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford 1936, p. 33). Man is convinced that, by eating bread, he will be nourished by it, but the nourishment that follows has no relation whatever to the sensible qualities presented by the bread: the connection between these qualities and the wonderful force or power which is causality and, concretely, with the secret powers by which bread nourishes, lies outside external experience, however it may be considered. Hume therefore, with regard to the association of causality (which for him is the category of the real insofar as it grounds the very identity of objects: it in fact assures their «permanence» through time), speaks of «habit» and «custom» (habit, custom), in the precise sense of «inner conviction» or even «belief» (belief). The nature of this «belief» is that of a «particular feeling» (a peculiar feeling): but concerning the nature of this feeling, its origin, and its precise functions with regard to the notion of reality, Hume confesses that he never arrived at clarity, limiting himself to saying that it is «something felt rather than conceived» (felt, rather than conceived) and approaches the impression from which it is derived in its form and influence (Treatise..., Appendix, ed. Selby-Bigge, Oxford 1928, p. 627). It is well known that Kant presented his critical reform of thought as a generalization of this Humean conception of causal belief (cf. E. Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, ed. E. Cassirer, Berlino 1913, §§ 2 e 5; pp. 18 s. g. e 26).
It is only with the positivism of the 19th century that the principle of the association of ideas is explained solely with reference to elementary sensations: these form the primary content of truth, while all other operations of consciousness are regarded as secondary and derivative. Modern experimental psychology is largely dominated by this principle, which M. Wertheimer presented in two stages or hypotheses:
1. The mosaic or “bundle” hypothesis: “Every complex results from a sum of elementary contents or pieces (e.g., sensations).” For example, if one has a₁, b₁, c₁ and replaces b₂ c₃ for b₁ and c₁, then one has a₁ b₂ c₃. One thus has an associative multiplicity of variously connected components (a “bundle”), and everything is therefore constructed upon “extrinsic connections” (Und-Verbindungen).
2. Association hypothesis: “If a certain content A has frequently been found united with B (‘in spatiotemporal contiguity’), then there is in A a tendency to call forth B” (M. Wertheimer, Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt, I, in Psychol. Forschungen, Berlin 1922, p. 49). A typical example was provided by mnemonic exercises with meaningless syllables (e.g.: Pud sol dap rus mik nom!, from K. Koffka, Principles of Gestalt psychology, London 1936, p. 557): association is reduced to a wholly external, adventitious factor, to contingencies (sachfremd, as Wertheimer puts it); and, once the connection between A and B has been established, the succession of B after A is understood to occur in a necessary and univocal manner.
An initial reaction to association psychology came from the so-called “Graz school,” and above all from von Ehrenfels, who asserted the priority of the formal factor over merely associative factors: in objects of experience there exists a “formal quality” (Gestaltqualität), for example, the rhythm of a melody, which cannot be explained as a mere summation of elementary sounds, but presents itself as something original. The criticism continued with the “Würzburg school,” directed by Külpe, which, by advocating a “psychology of thought” (Denkpsychologie) and the originality of the higher functions of understanding (Külpe, Ach, Willwell) and willing (Ach, Lindworski), restricted association to the sphere of sensory representations. The most decisive criticism of the association of ideas came from “Gestalt psychology” (Gestaltpsychologie), founded by M. Wertheimer and expanded through original research by W. Kohler, K. Koffka, and K. Lewin. The cornerstone of this school is the following principle: “There exist wholes (perceptual wholes), whose behavior is not determined by any of their individual elements; rather, the behavior of their parts is determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole” (M. Wertheimer, Über Gestalttheorie, Erlangen 1925, p. 45). To this phenomenological principle the “formists” added an explanatory principle known as that of “physical forms” (physische Gestalten), or isomorphism, insofar as it is admitted: a) that the behavior of the nervous energy of the perceptual and operative centers follows the laws of internal self-regulation, as is observed, for example, in the distribution of electrical energy in a closed circuit; b) the close dependence of perceptual and dynamic structures upon such supposed phenomena of self-regulation in the underlying “transverse functions” (Querfunktionen) of the nervous system. Thus it was possible to affirm the unity of the functionality of consciousness, insofar as “what is inward is outward” (Deun was innen, das ist aussen), a Goethean motto that the formists apply in the sense of a rigorous correspondence between sensory experience and the physiological processes that accompany it, and not, as some have misunderstood it, between organic processes and the environment (cf. W. Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationären Zustand, Erlangen 1920, pp. 173 ff.). An energetic revival of the principle of association, against “Gestalt psychology,” was attempted by G. E. Müller, who, distinguishing a double collective apprehension, simultaneous and successive, attributed the tendency of elements to gather into the “complexes” of collective apprehension to the “factors of coherence” (Kohlerrefaktoren), such as spatial contiguity, equality, similarity, efficacy (Eindringlichkeit = “penetration”), symmetrical progression, the influence of the surrounding context, etc. (G. E. Müller, Komplextheorie und Gestalttheorie, Göttingen 1923, pp. 9 ff.). But the wealth of results and the genius of the method made explicit through the factors of Gestalt overcame the final resistances of the old psychology; in America, the “principle of form” underwent an interesting development in behavior psychology (cf. E. C. Tolman, Purposive behaviour in animals and men, New York 1933). While neo-Scholastic spiritualist psychologists are willing to accept the results acquired through the research of the “Gestalt school,” they raise two fundamental reservations: a) against the unjustified devaluation of so-called sensory material in relation to subjective organizational factors; b) against the physical-materialistic interpretation of these factors (the principle of isomorphism). Finally, it is asserted that the central nucleus of human understanding lies not in the apprehension of the “form,” but of the “meaning” of objects; and therefore, above the purely perceptual sphere, there is the original life of thought, to which the latter is related and upon which it depends (Michotte, Gemelli, Moore).
The reality is that all the functions of consciousness are related to one another and each to its own object according to a principle of inner cohesion, directed toward the terminal result they must attain: the exercise of instinct in the animal and the life of intelligence in man. Hegel had already vigorously criticized association psychology point by point. “In the first place, it is not ideas that are associated. In the second place, those modes of relation are not laws; rather than laws, they are arbitrary and accidental processes: proceeding among images and representations according to association is properly the antithesis of thought.” Hegel observes that being is the proper determination of intelligence and that “intelligence integrates the given through the meaning of universality, and what is proper, what is inward, through that of being.” Therefore, the dynamism of association remains within the sphere of pure externality and consequently of meaninglessness until such connections are subsumed under a “universal connection,” and the bond (Band) changes from subjective into objective (G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklop. d. philos. Wissenschaften, ed. L. Boumann, Berlin 1845, § 455, p. 329 f.; Zusatz, pp. 331 ff.). But since idealism condemns immediate experience as mere “appearance,” this subsumption of the sensory and representational contents upon which the association of ideas operates proves groundless; in Aristotelianism, by contrast, the universal has its starting point in sensory and representational contents, to which it must continually “refer” in order to guarantee its reality value (τὰ μὲν εἴδη τὸ νοητικὸν ἐν φαντάσμαι νοεῖ: De an., III, 7, 431 b 2). Through the mastery that the concept gains over the image, the process of the association of ideas can be stimulated, directed, inhibited, and criticized when necessary, just as the conscious exercise of freedom can restrain or direct the inclinations and habits that life forms.