On March 22, 2001, at the age of 86, the outstanding Russian scientist Mikhail Grigorievich Yaroshevsky died.
M.G. Yaroshevsky was born on August 22, 1915 in Kherson. After graduating in 1937 from the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute named after. A.I. Herzen, M.G. Yaroshevsky entered graduate school, striving, like his teacher S.L. Rubinstein, to study methodological problems of psychology. However, he was soon arrested and spent about a year in prison. Other students and graduate students of the institute were involved in the case on charges of anti-Soviet activity along with M.G. Yaroshevsky, including L.N. Gumilyov, with whom friendly relations remained for a long time. After his release, M.G. Yaroshevsky was able to move to Moscow and continue his scientific activities.
In 1945, he defended his Ph.D. thesis “The Teaching of A.A. Potebnya on Language and Consciousness,” in which the psychological aspects of the linguistic theory of A.A. Potebnya were analyzed, the relationships between various forms of the word and the influence of his ideas on the psycholinguistic theories of the early 20th century were revealed. . In Moscow, M.G. Yaroshevsky continued to work together with S.L. Rubinstein, on whose recommendation he began working at the Institute of Philosophy of the ANSSSR. However, the unfolding campaign against cosmopolitanism led to the need to leave Moscow for Tajikistan, where M.G. Yaroshevsky worked until 1965. During the same period, he published one of his best and most beloved works, “The Problem of Determinism in Psychophysiology of the 19th Century” (Dushanbe , 1961), which formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation, defended in 1961.
Since 1965, M.G. Yaroshevsky worked at the Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he created and for many years headed the sector dealing with psychological problems of scientific creativity. In the last decade, the scientific activity of M.G. Yaroshevsky was closely connected with the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, where he dealt with the issues of the scientific schools that existed in it, as well as researching the history of the institute. During these same years, he was elected honorary academician of the Russian Academy of Education (1990) and a full member of the New York Academy of Sciences (1994).
M.G. Yaroshevsky discovered many important principles of science, the categorical structure of psychology and its methodology. In fact, it was he who laid the foundations of scientific studies in Russia, including approaches to the historical psychology of science. To develop this direction, M.G. Yaroshevsky used the methods of categorical analysis he developed. This approach involved taking into account the sociohistorical conditions that determined the emergence and development of psychological concepts, as well as the study of ideogenesis, cognitive style, opponent circle, categorical apperception, the superconscious and other determinants that determined the emergence of ideas that underlie the activities of the scientific school.
Analyzing the connection between the logic of the development of scientific knowledge and such parameters as social perception, cognitive style, personal qualities of scientists, M.G. Yaroshevsky was able to show the features of the combination of objective and subjective parameters in the development of the theoretical foundations of psychology, which is necessary for understanding not only its historical roots , but also the current state. The approach to the analysis of psychology created by M.G. Yaroshevsky makes it possible to understand the causes of the methodological problems that currently exist in psychology, and partially even predict possible prospects for its development in the future.
The study of the social situation of the development of psychology in Russia led M.G. Yaroshevsky to the creation of a new direction in scientific studies - the social psychology of science, which helped to identify previously unexplored aspects of scientific creativity and to define the concept of a scientific school. Based on the concept of “research program”, which he introduced, around which a group of scientists forming a scientific school unites, M.G. Yaroshevsky described the schools that existed in Russian psychology (the schools of Pavlov, Vygotsky) and analyzed their methodology.
In line with the social psychology of science, M.G. Yaroshevsky was the first to study and describe the features of Russian psychology, in which a direction was born, called “behavioral science.” He proved that the foundations of this trend were laid by such outstanding scientists as I.M. Sechenov, N.N. Lange, A.A. Ukhtomsky, I.P. Pavlov, A.N. Bernstein, and continued in the works of S. L. Rubinstein and A. N. Leontyev.
Of great importance for the history and methodology of psychological science were the works of M.G. Yaroshevsky, devoted to the study of the natural scientific roots of Russian psychology, in particular the works of I.M. Sechenov and I.P. Pavlov. His cognitive style was also characterized by a desire for accuracy, an objective and complete analysis of the essence of the issue. That is why the problem of determinism, and subsequently other methodological principles of psychology, became one of the central themes of his work.
However, M.G. Yaroshevsky’s commitment to natural science psychology did not exclude an interest in philosophy, including those psychological concepts that were developed in line with Russian humanistic philosophy. In recent years, the focus of his research interests was the concept of V.S. Solovyov, whose tragic figure he analyzed not only from a scientific, but also from a personal perspective. The fear of not having time to complete the concept of historical psychology of science that he created, and to clarify his views to those around him, including his students, stimulated his scientific activity. This has led to extraordinary productivity in recent decades, in the writing of several fundamental monographs: “L.S. Vygotsky: in search of a new psychology” (1993), “Historical psychology of science” (1995), “The science of behavior - the Russian way” (1996 ).
An analysis of the history of the creation of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education forced M.G. Yaroshevsky to take a fresh look at the figure of G.I. Chelpanov, who was the inspiration for the study of one of the few remaining non-Marxist scientific schools in Russia, which existed at the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN).
The study of the tragically cut short activities (and often the lives) of many Russian scientists gave M.G. Yaroshevsky the basis to introduce into scientific circulation a new concept “repressed science”, as well as raise the question of the need to restore a complete and adequate picture of the development of Russian psychology, distorted due to
many ideological cliches. Materials about the life and work of domestic scientists accumulated by M.G. Yaroshevsky showed that the activities of not only those who were arrested and shot were stopped, but also those who remained, but were unable to continue their work in the originally intended direction. He intended to summarize this material in a new book, “Psychology in Terms of Drama,” which, unfortunately, was never written.
(08/22/1915, Kherson - 03/22/2002, Moscow) - Russian psychologist, specialist in the theory and history of psychology, social psychology and psychology of science. Founder of a scientific school in the field of social psychology of science. Doctor of Psychological Sciences (1962), Professor (1963). Honorary Academician of the Russian Academy of Education (1993). Full member of the New York Academy of Sciences (1994). Full member of the Academy of Pedagogical and Social Sciences (1996). Member of the Central Council of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR. Member of the editorial boards of a number of journals: “Questions of Psychology”, “Psychological Journal”, etc. In 1997 (together with A.V. Petrovsky) he was awarded the Russian Government Prize for the scientific and practical development of the “Four-level system of psychological education in higher educational institutions” and the prize G. I. Chelpanov, 1st degree (together with V. V. Rubtsov) for the author’s contribution and editing of the anniversary collection of works: “Outstanding psychologists of Moscow.” In 1937, Yaroshevsky graduated from the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature of the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute and entered graduate school at the Department of Psychology, headed by S. L. Rubinstein. In 1938 he was repressed in connection with the case of L.N. Gumilyov. In 1939 he was released and, thanks to the assistance of S. L. Rubinstein, was reinstated in graduate school. (Rehabilitated only in May 1991). In 1941-1943. worked as a teacher in schools in Central Asia and a senior teacher at the Department of Language and Literature at the Leninabad Pedagogical Institute (Tajik SSR). Since 1943, Yaroshevsky has been a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, where in 1945, under the guidance of S. L. Rubinstein, he defended his thesis: “The Teaching of A. A. Potebnya about Language and Consciousness.” In 1945-1951. worked as a researcher in the psychology sector of the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Moscow). Since 1951 - senior lecturer at the department of pedagogy and psychology at the Leninabad Pedagogical Institute. Since 1955 - Head of the Department of Psychology at the Kulyab Pedagogical Institute. In 1960-1965 He headed the Department of Psychology at the Dushanbe Pedagogical Institute and the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the Tajik State University. In 1962, he defended his first monograph as a doctoral dissertation: “The Problem of Determinism in the Psychophysiology of the Nineteenth Century” (1961). In 1965-1968 worked as a senior researcher at the Leningrad branch of the Institute of Energy and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1968, he moved to Moscow and took the position of head of the sector of “Psychology of Scientific and Technical Creativity” (later transformed into the sector of “Social Psychology of Science”) of the Institute of Economics and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. From 1989 to 1997 - Chief Researcher at IIE&T RAS. Yaroshevsky's main works relate to the field of history and methodology of psychology and human sciences, psychology of scientific creativity, social and historical psychology of science, science studies. Studying the patterns of development of psychological knowledge from antiquity to the present day, he developed the concept of categorical analysis of scientific activity, according to which, in addition to empirical-theoretical knowledge, the categorical structure of science is distinguished as a system of extremely generalized concrete scientific concepts that organizes scientific knowledge and determines the logic of the development of science. Subsequently, starting from this approach, Yaroshevsky put forward the concept of scientific activity (considered in the inextricable unity of its subject-logical, social and personal aspects), the basis and unit of analysis of which is the research program. The idea of a research program as a consolidating beginning of the collective activity of scientists, implemented through the distribution of scientific functions (roles), served as the basis for the development of a program-role approach to the study of a scientific team, which gave rise to a new direction - the social psychology of science (“Psychology of Science” / co-author. , M., 1998). Integration of further work in this direction with the historical-scientific approach led to the development of a system of concepts that reveals the psychological specifics of scientific creativity (supraconscious, opponent circle, categorical apperception, cognitive style of the scientist, etc.), which forms the basis of another direction created by Yaroshevsky - historical psychology Sciences. Research in this direction has made it possible to identify the specifics of a special science of behavior that arose in Russia and developed in an original way, which determined its unique contribution to world science (“Behavioral Science: the Russian Way,” M., 1996). In addition to work in these directions, for the first time, after a half-century break, Yaroshevsky initiated and organized in the 1980-1990s. publications of S. Freud's works in Russia, accompanied them with introductory articles, comments and notes. In recent years, he has paid much attention to theoretical psychology, viewing it from a historical perspective. Together with A. V. Petrovsky, he published a series of monographs and textbooks, where he presented in detail the theoretical and categorical content of psychological science: the categories of image, action, motive, relationship, experience; principles of determination and consistency and development. He considered psychological cognition as an activity, analyzed psychophysical, psychophysiological and psychognostic problems. He considered the categorical system to be the core of theoretical psychology. (“History of Psychology” / co-authored, M., 1994; “History and Theory of Psychology” / co-authored with A. V. Petrovsky, M., 1996, in 2 vols.; “Fundamentals of Theoretical Psychology” / in collaboration with A.V. Petrovsky, M., 1998; “Psychology” (textbook for universities) / in collaboration with A.V. Petrovsky, 1998,1999, 2002, 2001; “Theoretical Psychology” / in collaboration. , M., 2000). Yaroshevsky is also the author and co-editor with A.V. Petrovsky of dictionaries - “A Brief Psychological Dictionary”, M., 1985, 1998; "Psychology. Dictionary", M., 1990. Author of the monographs: "History of Psychology" (1966, 1976, 1985); “Psychology in the 20th Century” (1971, 1974); “Development and current state of foreign psychology” (1974, co-author); “Sechenov and world psychological thought” (1981); “Repressed Science” (1990, 1994; in 2 vols); “Vygotsky: in search of a new psychology” (1993); "Historical Psychology of Science" (1995); “History of Psychology from Antiquity to the Mid-20th Century” (1996); “100 outstanding psychologists of the world” (1996, co-author; and a number of others. In 1998, for health reasons, he was forced to leave for the USA, where he ended his life.
A. V. Yurevich, V. V. Umrikhin
(1915-2001) - grew up. owls psychologist, famous g.o. with his works on the history of psychology and scientific methodology, the author of more than 50 books in the field of the history of psychology from antiquity to modern times. Main works: “History of Psychology” (1966); "Psychology in the 20th century" (1971); "I.M. Sechenov and world psychological thought" (1981); "L.S. Vygotsky: in search of a new psychology" (1993).
Psychological Dictionary. I. Kondakov
Yaroshevsky Mikhail Grigorievich(born 1915) - domestic psychologist. In 1945 under the guidance of S.L. Rubinstein, he completed his postgraduate studies and defended his candidate’s dissertation on the topic “Potebnya’s Teaching on Language and Consciousness.” From that time on he worked in the psychology sector of the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He taught at Moscow State University, giving a course on the history of psychology. Since 1951 to 1964 organized and headed several departments of psychology at pedagogical institutes of the Tajik SSR and a laboratory of experimental psychology at the Tajik State University. Since 1965 worked at the Institute of History of Natural Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, as head of the sector of problems of scientific creativity. Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Professor. Member of the editorial board of the journals "Questions in the History of Natural Science and Technology" and "Psychological Journal".
Leading specialist in the history, theory and methodology of psychology. He developed the concept of scientific creativity, represented by three aspects: subject-logical, scientific-social and personal-psychological. Author of the concept of categorical analysis in the study of the development of psychological cognition as an activity.
Problems of determinism in psychophysiology of the 19th century. 1961;
History of psychology. 1966;
Development and current state of foreign psychology (jointly with L.I. Antsyferova);
Sechenov and world psychological thought. 1981;
Psychology in the 20th century;
(Ed.) Brief psychological dictionary. (jointly with A.V. Petrovsky)
History of psychology in faces
Yaroshevsky Mikhail Grigorievich(1915-2001) - Russian psychologist, specialist in the theory and history of psychology, social psychology and psychology of science. Founder of a scientific school in the field of social psychology of science. Doctor of Psychological Sciences (1962), Professor (1963). Poch. Academician of the Russian Academy of Education (1993). D. member New York Academy of Sciences (1994). D. member Academy of Pedagogical and Social Sciences (1996). Member Central Council of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR. Member redol. a number of journals: Questions of Psychology, Psychological Journal, etc.
In 1997 (together with A.V. Petrovsky) he was awarded the Russian Government Prize for the scientific and practical development of the Four-Level System of Psychological Education in higher educational institutions and the G.I. Prize. Chelpa-nova, 1st degree (together with V.V. Rubtsov) for the author’s contribution and editing of the anniversary collection of works: Outstanding psychologists of Moscow.
In 1937 Ya. graduated from the Faculty of Russian Language and Literature of Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute and entered graduate school at the Department of Psychology, headed by S.L. Rubinstein.
In 1938 was repressed in connection with the case of L.N. Gumilyov.
In 1939 he was released and thanks to the assistance of S.L. Rubinstein was reinstated in graduate school. (Rehabilitated only in May 1991).
In 1941 - 1943 worked as a teacher in schools in Central Asia and Art. Lecturer at the Department of Language and Literature at the Leninabad Pedagogical Institute (Tajik SSR). Since 1943 Ya. - postgraduate student of the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, where in 1945 under the leadership of S.L. Rubinstein was defended by Ph.D. Dis: Teachings of A.A. Talk about language and consciousness.
In 1945 - 1951 worked as a researcher in the psychology sector of the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Moscow).
Since 1951 - art. Lecturer at the Department of Pedagogy and Psychology at the Leninabad Pedagogical Institute.
Since 1955 - manager Department of Psychology, Kulyab Pedagogical Institute. In 1960-1965 He headed the Department of Psychology at the Dushanbe Pedagogical Institute and the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the Tajik State University.
In 1962 defended as a doctor. dis. his first monograph: The problem of determinism in psychophysiology of the 19th century (1961).
In 1965-1968. worked as senior researcher Leningrad branch of the Institute of Electronic Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1968 he moved to Moscow and took the position of head. Sector of the Psychology of Scientific and Technical Creativity (later transformed into the Sector of Social Psychology of Science) of the Institute of Economics and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
From 1989 to 1997 - chief researcher IIEET RAS.
Ya.'s main works relate to the history and methodology of psychology and human sciences, the psychology of scientific creativity, the social and historical psychology of science, and science studies. Studying the patterns of development of psychological knowledge from antiquity to the present day, he developed the concept of categorical analysis of scientific activity, according to which, in addition to empirical-theoretical knowledge, the categorical structure of science is distinguished as a system of extremely generalized concrete scientific concepts that organizes scientific knowledge and determines the logic of the development of science. Subsequently, starting from this approach, Ya. put forward the concept of scientific activity (considered in the inextricable unity of its subject-logical, social and personal aspects), the basis and unit of analysis of which is the research program. The idea of a research program as a consolidating beginning of the collective activity of scientists, implemented through the distribution of scientific functions (roles), served as the basis for the development of a program-role approach to the study of a scientific team, which gave rise to a new direction - the social psychology of science (Psychology of Science / in co-authors, M ., 1998).
the integration of further work in this direction with the historical-scientific approach led to the development of a system of concepts that reveals the psychological specifics of scientific creativity (supraconscious, opponent circle, categorical apperception, cognitive style of the scientist, etc.), which forms the basis of another direction created by Ya. - historical psychology of science. Research in this direction has made it possible to identify the specifics of a special science of behavior that arose in Russia and developed in an original way, which determined its unique contribution to world science (Science of Behavior: Russian Way, Moscow, 1996). In addition to work in these directions, for the first time, after a half-century break, Ya. initiated and organized in the 1980-1990s. publication of Z. Freud's works in Russia, accompanied them with introductory articles, comments and notes. In recent years, he has paid much attention to theoretical psychology, viewing it from a historical perspective.
Together with A.V. Petrovsky published a series of monographs and textbooks, where he presented in detail the theoretical and categorical content of psychological science: the categories of image, action, motive, relationship, experience; principles of determination and consistency and development. He considered psychological cognition as an activity, analyzed psychophysical, psychophysiological and psychognostic problems. He considered the categorical system to be the core of theoretical psychology. (History of psychology / co-authored, M., 1994; History and theory of psychology / co-authored with A.V. Petrovsky, M., 1996, in 2 vols.; Fundamentals of theoretical psychology / co-authored with A. V. Petrovsky, M., 1998; Psychology (textbook for universities) / in collaboration with A.V. Petrovsky, 1998,1999, 2002,2001; Theoretical psychology / in collaboration, M., 2000). Ya is also an author and co-editor with A.V. Petrovsky dictionaries - Brief psychological dictionary, M., 1985, 1998; Psychology. Dictionary, M., 1990. Author of monographs: History of Psychology (1966, 1976, 1985); Psychology in the 20th century (1971, 1974); Development and current state of foreign psychology (1974, co-author);
Yaroshevsky M.G. - about the author
Graduated from Leningrad State University. While studying at Leningrad State University he was repressed, but after Yezhov’s arrest he was released. In 1945, under the guidance of S. L. Rubinstein, he completed graduate school and defended his candidate’s dissertation on the topic “Potebnya’s Teaching on Language and Consciousness.” From that time on he worked in the psychology sector of the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He taught at Moscow State University, giving a course on the history of psychology. During the campaign against “cosmopolitans” he left for Tajikistan. From 1951 to 1964, he organized and headed several departments of psychology at pedagogical institutes of the Tajik SSR and a laboratory of experimental psychology at the Tajik State University. Since 1965 he worked at the Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, as head of the sector of problems of scientific creativity. He was a member of the editorial boards of the journals “Questions in the History of Natural Science and Technology” and the “Psychological Journal”.
The students of M. G. Yaroshevsky are a number of well-known modern Russian psychologists, in particular, T. D. Martsinkovskaya and others. It was M. G. Yaroshevsky who was the author of the article “Cybernetics - the science of obscurantists,” which gave rise to the ideological campaign against cybernetics in the USSR. Subsequently, he regretted the authorship of this article and published a collection about repressions in Soviet science.
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M.G.Yaroshevsky
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
from antiquity to the middle of the twentieth century.
M., 1996 Mikhail Grigorievich Yaroshevsky
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
FROM ANTIQUE TO THE MIDDLE OF THE XX CENTURY. Textbook. allowance. – M., 1996. – 416 p.
Modern scientific knowledge about the psyche, about the mental life of a person, is developing in two directions: on the one hand, it tries to answer questions about the structure and value of this life today, at the end of the 20th century, on the other, it returns to many past answers to these questions. Both directions are inseparable: behind every problem of today's scientific psychology there are achievements of the past.
On the winding, sometimes confusing paths of the history of science, the supporting structures of the entire system of ideas about behavior and consciousness, conditioned by logic and experience, were erected. To help the reader trace how this system was created from century to century is the task of this book. It briefly presents the most significant, in the author’s opinion, results obtained by historians of psychology, those who are engaged in the study of events recorded in the annals of psychological knowledge.
Of course, each researcher’s approach is unique and is influenced by the signs of the times. In addition, the historian studies what has already happened. And yet - “nothing changes like the unchanging past”; it is seen differently depending on the methodological views of the researcher.
There is a certain logic in the change of scientific theories and facts, which is sometimes called the “drama of ideas” - the script of this drama. At the same time, the production of knowledge always takes place on a specific social basis and depends on the internal, unknown mechanisms of the scientist’s creativity. Therefore, in order to recreate a full picture of this production, any scientific information about the mental world must be considered in a system of three coordinates: logical, social and personal.
Familiarity with the history of science is important not only in cognitive terms, i.e. from the point of view of acquiring information about specific theories and facts, scientific schools and discussions, discoveries and misconceptions. It is also full of deep personal, spiritual meaning.
A person cannot live and act meaningfully if his existence is not mediated by some stable values, incomparably stronger than his individual self. Such values include those created by science: they are reliably preserved when the thin thread of individual consciousness is broken. By becoming familiar with the history of science, we feel involved in a great cause that has occupied noble minds and souls for centuries and which is unshakable as long as the human mind exists.
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY: ITS SUBJECT AND TASKS
Psychological science and its subject. The history of psychology is a special branch of knowledge that has its own subject. It should not be confused with the subject of psychology itself as a science.
Scientific psychology studies the facts, mechanisms and patterns of that form of life, which is usually called mental or mental.
Everyone knows that people differ in character, ability to remember and think, act courageously or cowardly, etc. Such everyday ideas about the differences between people develop in us from an early age and are enriched as we accumulate life experience.
Sometimes a good psychologist is called a writer or a judge, or even simply someone who understands the people around them better than others, their tastes, preferences, and motives for their actions. In this case, a psychologist is understood as an expert on human souls (regardless of whether he has read books on psychology or has been trained in a special analysis of the causes of behavior or mental turmoil), i.e. here we are dealing with everyday ideas about the psyche.
However, worldly wisdom should be distinguished from scientific knowledge. It was thanks to him that people mastered the atom, space and computers, penetrated the secrets of mathematics, and discovered the laws of physics and chemistry. And it is no coincidence that scientific psychology is on a par with these disciplines. It interacts with them, but its subject is immeasurably more complex, because there is nothing more complex than the human psyche in the Universe known to us.
Each new grain of scientific knowledge about the psyche was obtained through the efforts of many generations of researchers of the nature and mental organization of man, the dynamics of his inner life. Behind the theories and facts of science lies the intense collective work of people. The development of the principles of this work, the transitions from one of its forms to others, is studied by the history of psychology.
So, psychology has one subject, and the history of psychology has another. They must definitely be distinguished.
What is the subject of psychology? In the most general definition – the psyche of living beings in all the diversity of its manifestations. But we cannot be satisfied with this answer.
It is necessary to explain, firstly, what features distinguish the psyche from other phenomena of existence, and secondly, how scientific views on it differ from any others. It must be borne in mind that the very idea of \u200b\u200bthe psyche did not remain the same at all times. For many centuries, the phenomena embraced by this concept were designated by the word “soul”. Even today, this word is often heard when talking about a person’s mental qualities, and not only when, emphasizing his positive qualities, they talk about his sincerity. We will see that in the history of psychology, scientific progress was made when the term "soul" gave way to the term "consciousness." This turned out to be not a simple replacement of words, but a real revolution in the understanding of the subject of psychology. Along with this, the concept of the unconscious psyche appeared. For a long time it remained in the shadows, but at the end of the last century, acquiring power over minds, it overturned the usual views on the entire structure of personality and on the motives that drive its behavior. But the idea of the sphere studied by psychology as a science different from others was not limited to this. It has radically changed due to the inclusion in the circle of phenomena subject to its management of that form of life, which was given the name “behavior.” With this, a revolution took place again in the study of the subject of our science. This in itself speaks of the profound changes that views on the subject of psychology have undergone in attempts by scientific thought to master it, to reflect it in concepts adequate to the nature of the psyche, and to find methods for mastering this nature.
It is always necessary to distinguish between the object of knowledge and its subject. The first exists on its own, regardless of the awareness of human minds about it. Another thing is the subject of science. She builds it with the help of special means, her own methods, theories, categories.
Psychic phenomena are objectively unique. Therefore, the subject of the science that studies them is also unique. At the same time, their nature is distinguished by their initial inclusion in the life activity of the organism, in the work of the central nervous system, on the one hand, in the system of relations of their carrier, subject, with the social world, on the other. It is natural, therefore, that any attempt to master the subject area of psychology included, along with the study of what the subject experiences, its visible and invisible dependencies on natural (including the life of the body) and social factors (various forms of relationships between the individual and other people). When views on the body and society changed, then scientific data on the psyche was enriched with new content.
Therefore, in order to understand the subject of psychology, one cannot limit oneself to that vast range of phenomena that are familiar to everyone from their own experiences and observations of others, from their psychological experience.
A person who has never studied physics, nevertheless, in the practice of his life, knows and distinguishes the physical properties of things, their hardness, grief, etc. Likewise, without studying psychology, a person is able to understand the mental appearance of his neighbors. But, just as science reveals to him the structure and laws of the physical world, it illuminates with its concepts the secrets of the mental world, allowing him to penetrate into the laws that govern it. Step by step, they were mastered by inquisitive scientific thought, passing on grains of the truths it had extracted to new enthusiasts. This in itself tells us that the subject of science is historical. And this story did not end at all today.
That is why knowledge about the subject of psychology is not possible without elucidating its “biography”, without recreating the “drama of ideas” in which both the greatest minds of mankind and humble workers of science were involved.
Since we have touched upon the issue of the difference between worldly wisdom and scientific knowledge, we should at least briefly evaluate the specifics of the latter.
Theoretical and empirical knowledge. Scientific knowledge is usually divided into theoretical and empirical. The word "theory" is of Greek origin. It means systematically presented communication that allows one to explain and predict phenomena. Generalization correlates with the data of experience, or (again in Greek) empirics, i.e. observations and experiments requiring direct contact with the objects being studied.
Thanks to the theory, what is visible with the “mental eyes” is capable of giving a true picture of reality, while the empirical evidence of the senses is illusory.
This is illustrated by the ever instructive example of the Earth's rotation around the Sun. A.S. Pushkin in the poem “Movement,” describing the dispute between the sophist Zeno, who denied movement, and the Cynic Diogenes, took the side of the former.
There is no movement, said the bearded sage.
The other fell silent and began to walk in front of him.
He could not have objected more strongly:
Everyone praised the intricate answer.
But, gentlemen, this is a funny case
Another example comes to mind:
After all, every day the sun walks on us,
However, stubborn Galileo is right.
Zeno, in his famous aporia "stage" exposed the problem of contradiction between observational data (the self-evident fact of movement) and the arising theoretical difficulty. Before passing a stage (measure of length), it is necessary to pass half of it, but before that - half of the half, etc., i.e. It is impossible to touch an infinite number of points in space in a finite time.
Refuting this aporia silently, with a simple movement, Diogenes ignored Zeno's paradox. Pushkin, speaking on the side of Zeno, emphasized the great advantage of the theory with a reminder of the “stubborn Galileo,” thanks to which the true one was revealed behind the visible, deceptive picture of the world.
At the same time, this true picture, contrary to sensory experience, was created based on his testimony, since observations of the movements of the Sun across the sky were used.
Here comes another decisive feature of scientific knowledge – its indirectness. It is built through the intellectual operations, structures and methods inherent in science. This entirely relates to scientific ideas about the psyche.
At first glance, the subject does not have such reliable information about anything as about the facts of his mental life (after all, “another soul is darkness”). Moreover, some scientists also shared the same opinion, according to which psychology is distinguished from other disciplines by the subjective method, or introspection (“looking inside”), a special “inner vision” that allows a person to identify the elements from which the structure of consciousness is formed.
However, the progress of psychology has shown that when this science deals with the phenomena of consciousness, reliable knowledge about them is achieved through an objective method. It is he who makes it possible to indirectly, indirectly transform knowledge about the states experienced by an individual from subjective phenomena into scientific facts. In themselves, evidence of introspection, self-reports of the individual about his feelings, experiences, etc. “raw” material, which only through processing by the apparatus of science becomes its empiricism. This is how a scientific fact differs from an everyday fact.
The power of theoretical abstraction and generalizations of rationally meaningful empirics reveals a natural causal relationship between phenomena.
In relation to the sciences of the physical world, this is obvious to everyone. Relying on the studied laws of this world allows us to anticipate future phenomena, for example, miraculous solar eclipses and the effects of nuclear explosions produced by people.
Of course, psychology is far from physics in its theoretical achievements and practice of changing life. The phenomena it studies immeasurably surpass physical ones in their complexity and the difficulty of their knowledge. The physicist A. Einstein, getting acquainted with the experiments of the psychologist J. Piaget, noticed that the study of physical problems is a child's game compared to the riddles of a child's game.
Nevertheless, psychology now knows a lot about children's play, as a special form of human behavior, different from animal play (in turn, a curious phenomenon). Studying children's play, she discovered a number of factors and mechanisms relating to the patterns of intellectual and moral development of the individual, the motives of her role reactions, and the dynamics of social perception.
The simple, understandable word “game” is the tiny tip of a gigantic iceberg of mental life, associated with deep social processes, cultural history, and “radiations” of mysterious human nature.
Various theories of the game have emerged that explain its diverse manifestations through methods of scientific observation and experiment. Threads stretch from theory and empirics to practice, primarily pedagogical (but not only to it).
In the circle of interrelationship between theory, empiricism and practice, new subject knowledge is built. In its construction, the philosophical and methodological attitudes of researchers are usually invisibly represented. This applies to all sciences, but in relation to psychology, the connection with philosophy was especially close. Moreover, until the middle of the last century, psychology was invariably seen as one of the branches of philosophy. Therefore, the stamp of confrontation between philosophical schools lies on specific teachings about mental life. For a long time, its natural scientific, materialistic explanations were opposed by idealistic ones, who advocated the version of spirit as the origin of being. Idealism often combined scientific knowledge with religious beliefs. But religion is a sphere of culture different from science, which has its own way of thinking, its own norms and principles. They should not be mixed.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to consider psychological teachings created in line with idealistic philosophy as hostile to science. We will see how important a role in the progress of psychological knowledge was played by the idealistic systems of Plato, Leibniz, and other philosophers who professed a version about the nature of mental phenomena that was incompatible with the natural scientific picture of the world. Since various forms of culture are absorbed by these phenomena - not only religion, philosophy, science, but also art, and each of these forms experiences its own historical fate, then, turning to the history of psychology, it is necessary to determine the criteria by which to focus in this area research to reconstruct her own chronicle.
Subject of the history of psychology. The history of science is a special field of knowledge. Its subject is significantly different from the subject of the science whose development it studies.
It should be borne in mind that the history of science can be spoken of in two senses. History is a process that actually takes place in time and space. It runs its course regardless of what views certain individuals hold about it. The same applies to the development of science. As an indispensable component of culture, it arises and changes regardless of what opinions various researchers express about this development in different eras and in different countries.
In relation to psychology, ideas about the soul, consciousness, and behavior were born and replaced each other over the centuries. The history of psychology is called upon to recreate a true picture of this change, to reveal on what it depended.
Psychology as a science studies the facts, mechanisms and patterns of mental life. The history of psychology describes and explains how these facts and laws were revealed (sometimes in a painful search for truth) to the human mind.
So, if the subject of psychology is one reality, namely the reality of sensations and perceptions, memory and will, emotions and character, then the subject of the history of psychology is another reality, namely the activities of people engaged in knowledge of the mental world.
Scientific activity in three aspects. This activity is carried out in a system of three main coordinates: cognitive, social and personal. Therefore, we can say that scientific activity as an integral system is three-dimensional.
The logic of science development. The cognitive apparatus is expressed in the internal cognitive resources of science. Since science is the production of new knowledge, they changed and improved. These means form intellectual structures that can be called a system of thinking. The replacement of one system of thinking by another occurs naturally. Therefore, they talk about the organic growth of knowledge, that its history is subject to a certain logic. No other discipline, except the history of psychology, studies this logic, this pattern.
Thus, in the 17th century, an idea developed of the body as a kind of machine that works like a pump pumping liquid. Previously, it was believed that the actions of the body were controlled by the soul - an invisible incorporeal force. An appeal to incorporeal forces ruling the body was, in a scientific sense, futile.
This can be explained by the following comparison. When the locomotive was invented in the last century, a group of German peasants (as one philosopher recalls) explained its mechanism, the essence of its work. After listening carefully, they said: “And yet there is a horse in it.” Since there is a horse sitting in it, then everything is clear. The horse itself needs no explanation. The situation was exactly the same with those teachings that attributed human actions to the expense of the soul. If the soul controls thoughts and actions, then everything is clear. The soul itself needs no explanation.
The progress of scientific knowledge consisted in the search and discovery of real causes that could be verified by experience and logical analysis. Scientific knowledge is knowledge of the causes of phenomena, the factors (determinants) that give rise to them, which applies to all sciences, including psychology. If we return to the mentioned scientific revolution, when the body was freed from the influence of the soul and began to be explained in the image and likeness of a working machine, then this produced a revolution in thinking. The result was the discoveries on which modern science is based. Thus, the French thinker R. Descartes discovered the reflex mechanism. It is no coincidence that our great compatriot I.P. Pavlov placed a bust of Descartes near his laboratory.
Causal analysis of phenomena is usually called deterministic (from the Latin “determino” - I determine). The determinism of Descartes and his followers was mechanistic. The reaction of the pupil to light, the withdrawal of a hand from a hot object and other reactions of the body, which were previously made dependent on the soul, were now explained by the influence of an external impulse on the nervous system and its response. This scheme explained the simplest feelings (depending on the state of the body), the simplest associations (connections between various impressions) and other functions of the body classified as mental.
This way of thinking reigned until the middle of the 19th century. During this period, new revolutionary changes occurred in the development of scientific thought. The teaching of the Gift of Wine radically changed the explanation of the life of the organism. It proved the dependence of all functions (including mental ones) on heredity, variability and adaptation (adaptation) to the external environment. It was biological determinism that replaced mechanistic one.
According to Darwin, natural selection mercilessly destroys everything that does not contribute to the survival of the organism. It followed from this that the psyche could not have arisen and developed if it had not had real value in the struggle for existence. But its reality could be understood in different ways. It was possible to interpret the psyche as being exhaustively explained by the same causes (determinants) that govern all other biological processes. But we can assume that it is not limited to these determinants. The progress of science has led to the second conclusion.
The study of the activity of the senses, the speed of mental processes, associations, sensations and muscle reactions, based on experiment and quantitative measurement, made it possible to discover a special mental causation. Then psychology arose as an independent science.
Major changes in the way of thinking about mental phenomena occurred under the influence of sociology (K. Marx, E. Durkheim). The study of the dependence of these phenomena on social existence and social consciousness has significantly enriched psychology. In the middle of the 20th century, a style of thinking that can conventionally be called information-cybernetic (since it reflected the influence of the new scientific direction of cybernetics, with its concepts of information, self-regulation of system behavior, feedback, programming) led to new ideas and discoveries.
Therefore, there is a certain sequence in the change of styles of scientific thinking. Each style defines a typical picture of mental life for a given era. The patterns of this change (transformation of some concepts, categories, intellectual structures into others) are studied by the history of science, and only by it. This is her first unique task.
The second task that the history of psychology is designed to solve is to reveal the relationship between psychology and other sciences. Physicist Max Planck wrote that science is an internally unified whole; its division into separate branches is due not so much to the nature of things as to the limitations of human cognition. In fact, there is an unbroken chain from physics and chemistry through biology and anthropology to the social sciences, a chain that cannot be broken at any point, except at will.
Studying the history of psychology makes it possible to understand its role in the great family of sciences and the circumstances under the influence of which it changed. The fact is that not only did psychology depend on the achievements of other sciences, but also these latter - be it biology or sociology - changed depending on the information that was obtained through the study of various aspects of the mental world. Changes in knowledge about this world occur naturally. Of course, here we have a special pattern; it must not be confused with logic, which studies the rules and forms of any type of mental work. We are talking about the logic of development, that is, about transformations of scientific structures (such as, for example, the named style of thinking) that have their own laws.
Communication is the coordinate of science as an activity. The cognitive aspect is inseparable from the communicative aspect, from the communication of people of science as the most important manifestation of sociality.
Speaking about the social conditioning of the life of science, one should distinguish several of its aspects. The features of social development in a particular era are refracted through the prism of the activities of the scientific community, which has its own norms and standards. In it, the cognitive is inseparable from the communicative, cognition is inseparable from communication. When we are talking not only about a similar understanding of terms (without which the exchange of ideas is impossible), but about their transformation (for this is what is accomplished in scientific research as a form of creativity), communication performs a special function. It becomes creative.
Communication between scientists does not exhaust the simple exchange of information. Bernard Shaw wrote: “If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we exchange them, then we remain at our own - each has an apple. But if each of us has one idea and we pass them on to each other, then the situation changes. Each immediately becomes richer, namely, the owner of two ideas."
This clear picture of the benefits of intellectual communication does not take into account the main value of communication in science as a creative process in which the “third apple” appears - when a “flash of genius” occurs when ideas collide.
If communication acts as an indispensable factor of cognition, then the information that arises in scientific communication cannot be interpreted only as a product of the efforts of the individual mind. It is generated by the intersection of lines of thought coming from many sources.
The real movement of scientific knowledge appears in the form of dialogues, sometimes very intense, extending across time and space. After all, the researcher asks questions not only to the nature, but also to its other testers, looking for acceptable information in their answers, without which his own decision cannot arise. This encourages you to emphasize an important point. One should not, as is usually done, limit oneself to pointing out that the meaning of a term (or statement) in itself is “mute” and communicates something essential only in the holistic context of the entire theory. This conclusion is only partially correct, since it does not explicitly assume that the theory is something relatively closed.
Of course, the term “sensation,” for example, lacks historical authenticity outside the context of a specific theory, a change in the postulates of which also changes its meaning. In the theory of V. Wundt, say, sensation meant an element of consciousness, in the theory of I.M. Sechenov it was understood as a feeling-signal, in the functional school - as a sensory function, in modern cognitive psychology - as a moment of the perceptual cycle, etc. and so on.
Different visions and explanations of the same mental phenomenon were determined by the “network” of those concepts from which various theories were woven. Is it possible, however, to limit ourselves to the intra-theoretical connections of a concept in order to reveal its content? The fact is that theory works in no other way than by colliding with others, “sorting things out” with them. (Thus, functional psychology refuted the tenets of Wundt’s school, Sechenov debated introspectionism, etc.) Therefore, significant components of the theory inevitably bear the imprint of these interactions.
Has great educational and moral... P. 610. 89 Dessoir M. Essay Explanatory note
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