Thomas Bernhard Seiler

Thomas Bernhard Seiler (2008)

Thomas Bernhard Seiler (* 1925 in Dietikon near Zurich ) is a psychologist and professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at the Technical University of Darmstadt .

Scientific career

Seiler studied philosophy and theology at the University of Friborg and in Rome (graduating in 1953). Then he began to work as an educator and teacher . In 1956 he enrolled at the University of Friborg to study mathematics , physics , botany and French literature in order to obtain the Swiss secondary school teacher certificate. As a minor he took courses in psychology . During a study visit to the Sorbonne in Paris (1961) he met Jean Piaget and began to deal with his theory . In 1963 he accepted an invitation from Hans Aeblis to the Free University of Berlin and graduated there in 1964 with a degree in psychology . He was then able to complete his theoretical-empirical dissertation in epistemology on the concept of reversibility in Jean Piaget's theory , which he had already started . In 1966 he was at the Free University of Berlin Dr. phil. PhD.

After five years as a university assistant in Konstanz and Berlin , he was appointed professor of psychology at the Free University of Berlin in 1971 . In 1976 he moved to the Technical University of Darmstadt, where he researched and taught until his retirement in 1993.

Thomas Bernhard Seiler is married and has three children.

Act

During the period of service, Seiler's teaching and research focus was on cognitive development and educational psychology . After his retirement, Seiler reactivated his early epistemological interests and dealt, among other things, with theories of concepts and meaning . In recent years he made the concept of knowledge the main subject of his research. From a structural genetic perspective, he investigated the properties, origin and evolution of human knowledge. In doing so, he paid special attention to the consciousness properties of knowledge and problematized the relationship between knowledge , language and information .

Fonts

• The reversibility in the development of thought. Klett, 1968.
• (Ed.): Cognitive structure, theories, analyzes, findings. Kohlhammer, 1973.
• with Siegfried Hoppe, Christiane Schmid-Schönbein (Eds.): Development sequences. Theoretical, empirical and methodological studies, implications for practice. Huber, 1977.
• with Wolfgang Wannenmacher: Concept development and the development of word meaning. Springer, 1983, ISBN 3-540122-51-6 .
• with Wolfgang Wannenmacher (Ed.): Concept and word meaning development. Theoretical, empirical and methodological studies. Springer, 1985, ISBN 3-540154-42-6 .
• Understanding and understanding. A book about terms and meanings. Darmstadt writings on general science. General Science, Darmstadt 2001, ISBN 3-935924-00-3 .
• Knowledge between language, information, awareness. Problems with the concept of knowledge. Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2008, ISBN 3-865-82651-2 .
• Evolution of knowledge. Volume I: Evolution of the structures of knowledge. Volume II: Evolution of Concepts. LIT, Berlin, 2012, ISBN 3-643-11376-5 and ISBN 3-643-11377-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Thomas Bernhard Seiler in the catalog of the German National Library