Karl Ludwig Bühler (27 May 1879 – 24 October 1963) was a German psychologist and linguist. In psychology he is known for his work in gestalt psychology, and he was one of the founders of the Würzburg tradition of Psychology. In linguistics he is known for his Organon model of communication and his treatment of deixis as a linguistic phenomenon. He was the dissertation advisor of Karl Popper. His wife was the well-known psychologist Charlotte Bühler.

Biography

Bühler was born in Meckesheim. In 1899 he started medical school at the University of Freiburg, where he received his doctorate in 1903. He continued working as an assistant, and started taking a second degree in psychology graduating in 1904. In 1906 he worked as an assistant Professor at the University of Freiburg with von Kries, and as an assistant to Oswald Külpe at the Julius-Maximilians-University in Würzburg.

He completed his Habilitation thesis at Würzburg in 1907, with the title Tatsachen und Probleme zu einer Psychologie der Denkvorgänge ("Facts and problems of the psychology of thought processes"). This text became foundational for the Würzburg school of Psychology and sparked heated controversy with Wilhelm Wundt. In 1909 Bühler moved to the University of Bonn, becoming an assistant to Oswald Külpe.