Harkai Schiller, Pál 1908-1949

Paul Harkai Schiller was born November 4, 1908, in Budapest. He entered Petrus Pazmany University in 1926 and studied under the philosopher Akos Pauler and the psychologist Pal Ranschburg. He became Ranschburg's assistant in 1928 while Ranschburg was preparing a critique of objectivist and behaviorist psychology. His doctoral thesis, A Lélektani Kategóriák Rendszerének Kialakulása (1930), was an historical review of psychology. After two years of study in Germany under Wolfgang Köhler, he returned to Budapest and was appointed Lecturer in psychology at Pazmany University. He attained the rank of Professor in 1937 and headed the psychology department from 1937 until 1947. Schiller developed aptitude tests for the military, state railroads, and private industry to promote psychological studies in Hungary and established the Institute for Research on Public Opinion at Budapest's Radio Center. He was also interested in personality types and published articles on Hungarian smoking and drinking habits. Schiller's primary interest was not in applied science, however, but in theory and research. Much of his work was in the area of comparative psychology and included studies of detour behavior in rats and fish. It was during this period that he elaborated his "action theory" of behavior and published a monograph, The Task of Psychology, in 1940.

In 1939, Schiller married Claire (Klara) Imredy, a psychology student at Pazmany. This was his second marriage; he had a son, Peter, by his first wife. A daughter, Christina, was born in 1942. After World War II, he accepted a position at Bolyai University in Rumania. When the possibilities for free research dwindled under Communist rule, Schiller accepted an offer from Columbia University to work for six months as a research associate in Teachers College. He came to the United States in 1947. After his brief stay at Columbia, he was asked to join the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology in Orange Park, Florida. There, he embarked on a comprehensive research program involving a variety animals including rats, minnows, chimpanzees, and the octopus. He also prepared an English revision of his book, Handeln und Erleben, entitled "An Analysis of Action."

On May 1, 1949, Schiller fell to his death after slipping on an iced portion of a trail at Mount Washington. His career as a psychologist lasted only nineteen years, but he was able to publish some seventy titles and supervise twenty doctoral dissertations. Schiller was an avid sportsman, an amateur aviator, and fluent in English, German, Italian, and French as well as his native Hungarian.

From the guide to the Paul Harkai Schiller Papers, 1930-1949, (Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida)