The subject of psychological science is the logic of development. The subject of the history of psychology and the logic of the development of science. The logic of the development of science

Question 12. The subject of psychology: the logic of development

Scientific activity is carried out in the system of three main coordinates: cognitive, social And personal. Therefore, it can be said that scientific activity as an integral system is three-aspect. Temporary changes affect all aspects of life.

With the passage of time and the development of science, the emergence of new knowledge, the understanding of the subject of psychology has changed.

In Cognitive - cognitive resources that change the way of thinking.

In the personal - the discovery of something new by scientists (Descartes - the reflex mechanism)

In the social - the dependence of the structure of thinking on social being and consciousness.

The progress of scientific knowledge lies in the search and discovery of real causes, accessible to verification by experience and logical analysis.

Scientific knowledge is the knowledge of the causes of phenomena, the factors that give rise to them, which applies to all sciences, including psychology.

Main stagesdevelopment of psychology like science.

I stage – psychology as a science about the soul(more than 2 thousand years ago).

II stage – psychology as a science about consciousness(since the 17th century in connection with development m natural Sciences).

Stage III – psychology as a science about behavior emerges in the 20th century.

The task of psychology is to set experiments and observe what can be directly seen, namely, the behavior, actions, reactions of a person (the motives that cause actions were not taken into account).

Stage IV - modernity - psychology as a science that studies the objective patterns, manifestations and mechanisms of the psyche.

Psychology studies inner world subjective (mental) phenomena, processes and states, realized or not realized by the person himself, as well as his behavior .

Development logic- the leading factor influencing the development of psychology (P)

associated with: - changing its (psychology) subject and methods of research of the psyche

The influence of adjacent psychology of sciences,

The development of the principles and categories of P

(Two other factors are the social situation in the development of science and the personality traits of a particular scientist)

Starting from the 7th-6th centuries. BC. Orientation to philosophy, and the level of development of philosophical knowledge

in the 3rd century BC.

Changing philosophical interests: in the center of knowledge - the general laws of nature or society

Main question - features of the human psyche, the content of his soul

Much connections at that time psychology also with mathematics, biology, medicine and pedagogy.

Mathematics played a big role in psychology:

One of the most important factors in its transformation into an objective science (the possibility of mathematical processing of the obtained material),

A significant parameter of mental development as such (for example, the development of logical thinking)

There are 3 most important methodological principles P

determinism of systematic development

Principle development

claims: psyche develops --> the best way to study it is study patterns of this genesis, its types and stages. One of the most common psycho. methods - genetic.

Definesmental types of development

phylogenetic ontogenetic

(development of the psyche in the process of becoming a human race) (in the process of a child's life)

theory recapitulation (about the rigid connection between Philo and Onto), i.e. brief repetition in ontogenesis of the main stages of phylogenetic development

Then it was proved that there is no hard link! development maybe accelerate, And slow down depending on the social situation, and some stages may even disappear.

Process p now. development is non-linear And depends on the social environment, environment and upbringing of the child .

sides mental development:

(having stages and patterns)

R. personalities R intelligence social R

Scientific activity is carried out in the system of three main coordinates: cognitive, social And personal. Therefore, we can say that scientific activity as an integral system has three aspects.

The cognitive apparatus is expressed in the internal cognitive resources of science. Since science is the production of new knowledge, they have changed and improved. These means form intellectual structures, which can be called a system of thinking. The change from one mode of thinking to 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 regularity.

So, in the XVII century. there was an idea of the body as a kind of machine that works like a pump that pumps fluid. Previously, it was believed that the actions of the body are controlled by the soul - an invisible incorporeal force. The appeal to the incorporeal forces that govern the body was scientifically futile.

The progress of scientific knowledge consisted in the search and discovery of real causes, accessible to verification by experience and logical analysis. Scientific knowledge is the 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, this made a revolution in thinking. The result was the discoveries on which modern science is based. Yes, the French thinker R. Descartes discovered the reflex mechanism.

Causal analysis of phenomena is called deterministic(from lat. "determino" - I determine). The determinism of Descartes and his followers was mechanistic. The reaction of the pupil to light, the withdrawal of the 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. The same 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 prevailed until the middle of the 19th century. During this period, new revolutionary shifts took place in the development of scientific thought. Doctrine Darwin fundamentally changed the explanation of the life of the organism. It proved the dependence of all functions (including mental) on heredity, variability and adaptation (adaptation) to the external environment. It was biological determinism that replaced the mechanistic one.

Major changes in the structure 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 XX century. new ideas and discoveries led to a style of thinking that can be conditionally 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).

The task that the history of psychology is called upon to solve is to reveal the relationship of psychology with other sciences. Physicist Max Planck wrote that science is an internally integrated whole; its division into separate branches is due not so much to the nature of things as to the limited capacity of human knowledge.

The history of science is a special field of knowledge. Its subject matter is essentially different from that 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 goes its own way, regardless of what views certain individuals hold on it. The same applies to the development of science. As an indispensable component of culture, it arises and changes regardless of what opinions about this development are expressed by various researchers in different eras and in different countries.

In relation to psychology, ideas about the soul, consciousness, and behavior have been born and replaced each other for centuries. To recreate a true picture of this change, to reveal what it depended on, is the task of the history of psychology.

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.

This activity is carried out in the system of three main coordinates: cognitive, social and personal. Therefore, we can say that scientific activity as an integral system has three aspects.

So, in the 17th century, there was an idea of the body as a kind of machine that works like a pump that pumps liquid. Previously, it was believed that the actions of the body are controlled by the soul - an invisible incorporeal force. The appeal to the incorporeal forces that govern the body was scientifically 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) were explained its mechanism, the essence of its work. After listening attentively, they declared: "And yet there is a horse in it." Since a horse is sitting in it, then everything is clear. The horse itself needs no explanation. The same was the case with those teachings which attributed the actions of man to 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, accessible to verification by experience and logical analysis. Scientific knowledge is the 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 made 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 IP Pavlov erected a bust of Descartes near his laboratory.

The 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 the 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. The same scheme explained the simplest feelings (depending on the state of the organism), the simplest associations (connections between various impressions) and other functions of the organism, classified as mental.

This way of thinking prevailed until the middle of the 19th century. During this period, new revolutionary shifts took place in the development of scientific thought. The teachings of the Gift of Wine fundamentally changed the explanation of the life of the organism. It proved the dependence of all functions (including mental) on heredity, variability and adaptation (adaptation) to the external environment. It was biological determinism that replaced the mechanistic one.

According to Darwin, natural selection mercilessly destroys everything that does not contribute to the survival of the organism. From this it followed that the psyche could not have arisen and developed if it had no real value in the struggle for existence. But its reality could be understood in different ways. One could interpret the psyche as exhaustively explicable by the same causes (determinants) that govern all other biological processes. But it can be assumed that it is not exhausted by these determinants. The progress of science has led to the second conclusion.

The study of the activity of the sense organs, the speed of mental processes, associations, feelings and muscular reactions, based on experiment and quantitative measurement, made it possible to discover a special mental causality. Then psychology arose as an independent science.

Major changes in the structure 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 led to new ideas and discoveries, which can be conditionally 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).

Therefore, there is a certain sequence in the change of styles of scientific thinking. Each style defines a picture of mental life typical of 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 alone. This is her first unique challenge.

The second task that the history of psychology is called upon to solve is to reveal the relationship of psychology with other sciences. The physicist Max Planck wrote that science is an internal whole; its division into separate branches is due not so much to the nature of things as to the limited capacity of human knowledge. 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 in any place, except at will.

A study of 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 psychology depended on the achievements of other sciences, but 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 regularity; it must not be confused with logic, which studies the rules and forms of any kind of mental work. We are talking about the logic of development, that is, about transformations that have their own laws. scientific structures(such, for example, as the named style of thinking).

Lecture 1. History of psychology: general characteristics, basic principles and methods.

Psychology as an independent science is quite young, but its emergence was preceded by centuries of philosophical reflection and millennia of practical knowledge of people. As the German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus noted, psychology has a short history, but a huge prehistory. The emergence of psychological knowledge correlates with the birth of the first attempts to understand a person's possibilities that allow him to distinguish himself from the surrounding reality, go beyond his experiences, learn, compare various knowledge and understand the specifics of his place in the world, nature.

Such reflections of a person led to the emergence of knowledge about the mental, the separation of the mental as a separate organization of a living being, to the appearance of the first psychological ideas. These representations, knowledge were subsequently formed into various theories and concepts, determined the ways of understanding a person, the context of thinking about a person. On their basis, or on their refutation, new ideas arose. Former ideas, acquiring new knowledge, one way or another, set the logic for the unfolding of psychological knowledge. Therefore understanding current situation psychological science is impossible without referring to the history of formation, development, change of psychological ideas.

The development of theoretical and methodological problems of psychology is impossible without referring to the historical premises that led to the formulation of this problem, to the history of understanding and resolving it at different historical stages, from different methodological foundations any. Knowledge about the psyche is also connected with the cultural and scientific context in which it developed, with the psychological characteristics of the people who developed it, with those forms of interaction with the world, practices. The historical layer of considering the main issues of psychology, its subject, the formation of psychopractices is necessary and valuable for solving problems that arise in modern human cognition. Inclusion in a historical context makes it possible to understand the essence of psychological concepts, to identify their starting positions, to appreciate the true novelty and to realize their historical meaning. The history of psychology in this case acts as self-consciousness and reflection, as an apparatus of self-control and self-knowledge (V.A. Yakunin).

In a period of crisis in understanding the subject of psychology, there is a special need to turn to the history of the emergence of various ideas about the mental. Thanks to the generalization, rethinking of the old foundations, new concepts, new knowledge and new ways of knowing a person were born. The generalization of the experience of ancient culture led to the emergence of the fundamental work "On the Soul" by Aristotle. Rethinking ideas about the world and man in it created the conditions for the formation of scientific knowledge and a new way of knowing, including man. Turning to history in connection with the development of new ways of psychological research is typical for L.S. Vygotsky, K. Levin, V. Dilthey and others.

For many prominent scientists, turning to history becomes one of the important tasks of understanding the subject of psychology, trends, and prospects for the development of psychological knowledge. They, conducting a "creative dialogue with the past" (M.G. Yaroshevsky), outline the main directions for solving the main issues of psychology in the present and future.

Hence the need arises for the history of psychology as a special area of research that studies the achievements of psychology throughout its entire path. historical development. The study of the mental reality of a person in a certain era is possible by reconstructing ideas about the mental.

These reconstructions are possible on the basis of various forms of psychological knowledge. As such, V.A. Koltsova singles out

worldly ideas of people based on "common sense" and generalization of their own experience,

knowledge embedded in mythology and religion, defining a certain model of a person,

knowledge accumulated within the framework of literature and art,

as well as philosophical and scientific knowledge associated with a certain way of understanding reality and including a purposeful process of collection and analysis (Koltsova V.A. ????).

Of course, it is simply impossible to capture and describe all this diversity of knowledge, and there are also difficulties of interpretation, translation from the language of the reality in which a person created, developed his knowledge into today's language of psychology. In this regard, the question arises of the criteria on which we will rely in the analysis of the formation and development of psychological knowledge, ideas about the mental.

These criteria necessarily follow from an understanding of the subject matter of the history of psychology. As a subject of psychology, it is customary to single out the dynamics of ideas about mental reality in different historical eras. At the same time, most historians of psychology make their own clarifications in understanding the subject. And these are also their ways, their principles, on which they build and understand psychic reality. Each historian of science acts, on the one hand, as a representative of general scientific views, on the other hand, as a person with his own psychological characteristics, worldview. These grounds provide for the selection and emphasis of various aspects in the historical change of ideas, various definitions of the subject of psychology.

Analyzing various grounds for understanding the subject of the history of psychology from the standpoint of science, V.A. Koltsova and Yu.N. Oleinik distinguish three approaches.

First approach focuses on the logic of the development of knowledge as self-sufficient and relatively independent of socio-cultural and personal factors. The emphasis is on the internal content of knowledge - its structure, intralogical mechanisms of knowledge development. Knowledge acts as an objective and developing according to its own laws. In this regard, V.A. Koltsova and Yu.N. Oleinik call this approach logico-scientific, or internal, approach. From this position, history is viewed as an objective process, subject to its own logic and independent of what views certain individuals hold on it. It arises and changes regardless of what opinions about this development are expressed by various researchers in different eras and in different countries (M.G. Yaroshevsky).

This research strategy appears at the end of the 19th century. as a reflection of the development of scientific knowledge and understanding of the factors that determine it. Imre Lakatos noted that the "internal history" of science is primary, while the "external history" (other forms of activity that create a certain background) is secondary and does not have "essential significance" for its understanding. Subsequently, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and their followers substantiated the logical concepts of the growth of scientific knowledge as a historical process, conditioned in its development by internal scientific factors (differentiation and integration of psychological knowledge, scientific traditions and schools, development of new research methods, etc.), and therefore, explicable on the basis of intrascientific laws.

In domestic research, the selected approach in understanding the subject of psychology is supplemented by social and personal determinants. Understanding the various directions of unfolding knowledge occurs in relation to the historical situation and individual characteristics thinkers, scientists who proposed new ideas about mental phenomena.

As part of second approach the emphasis is on the external conditions in which new knowledge was discovered and born. The history of the development of psychological knowledge is considered in a social context, in its dependence and connection with the development of organizational and social conditions and prerequisites. As L.S. Vygotsky noted: “Regularity in change and development; ideas, the emergence and death of concepts, even a change in classifications, etc. - can be explained on the basis of the connection of a given science with the general socio-cultural subsoil of a given era, with the general conditions and laws of scientific knowledge, with those objective requirements that the scientific knowledge of the nature of the phenomena under study at the given stage of their study” (Vygotsky L. S. Sobr. op.: In 6 vols. T. 1. M, 1982. S. 302.). Therefore, this approach is referred to as external.

This method of analysis allows us to identify significant socio-historical and cultural conditions as prerequisites, "mechanisms", "driving forces" for the development of knowledge, the level of determinative capabilities, the degree and depth of social impact on the development of psychological knowledge (its direction, structure, content of the problems under study). Speaking about the social conditionality of the development of ideas, it is necessary to single out both the norms and standards of scientific knowledge, and communications that unfolded between scientists of various sciences in a certain era, through years and centuries. Such discussions made it possible to comprehend phenomena and facts, terms and concepts in a new way, to single out new subjects of knowledge, to raise questions that sometimes can be resolved only after decades. An assessment of the influence of mathematics, physics, astronomy, linguistics, physiology, biology, ethnography, logic, and other sciences on psychology will make it possible to understand the development of ideas, as well as the reduction of the mental, i.e. the reduction of psychological laws to the laws of other sciences and thereby the loss of their own subject.

The ability to describe the development of ideas only by external causes is rather controversial. It is impossible not to take into account the logic of the development of scientific knowledge and those methodological positions that in a certain period determined the ways in which a person cognizes psychological reality. Therefore, no matter how impossible the history of ideas isolated from external influences is as a subject of the history of psychology, the social history of psychology, apparently freed from logical aspects, will also turn out to be just as little productive.

Third Approach, represented mostly in domestic psychology, focused on selection personality and creative way of this or that scientist, his scientific ideas, views, concepts and approaches, which are considered as the main factor determining scientific progress. The subject is the activity of people engaged in the knowledge of the mental world, the discovery of facts and laws to the human mind. The history of science becomes the history of scientists. Along with the personal contribution of the scientist, the socio-cultural significance of his work is also evaluated by the criterion of creating a school by him, involving other researchers in solving the questions he posed. The safety of the school is determined by the research program. The development of a program presupposes the awareness by its creator of the problem situation created (not only for him, but for the entire scientific community) by the logic of the development of science and the availability of tools, using which one could find a solution.

However, such consideration of the history of psychology leads to a focus on the individuality of the scientist, his scientific and social orientations, the system of his priorities, attitudes and values. With this consideration, the general context of the unfolding of ideas (the historical situation, the stage of development of scientific knowledge, the socio-cultural situation, communications in the scientific and public sphere, etc.) may disappear.

As can be seen, all three approaches consider separate aspects of historical development, focusing on only one aspect. Each approach solves certain problems, it is important to consider individual factors and conditions for understanding the development of historical knowledge. However, this does not capture the entire complexity of the formation and development of ideas at certain stages of the historical context. In this regard, M.G. Yaroshevsky believes that it is necessary to consider the development of ideas, activity in the system of three coordinates of cognitive, social and personal (M.G. Yaroshevsky History of Psychology).

Proceeding from this position, the subject of the history of psychology is the process of psychological cognition, its content and structure (a set of views, ideas, approaches, directions and trends, categories and concepts), its institutional and personal-personal aspects, as well as patterns and stages of development (B .A.Koltsova).

Thus, the study of the dynamics of psychological knowledge involves the disclosure of the logical-scientific, socio-cultural, personal-personal and procedural aspects.

When studying this subject, there are certain difficulties associated with the specifics of the subject area.

The history of psychology explores not psychic reality itself, but ideas about it that are formed at different stages of history and in different cultural areas. In this regard, the question arises of dividing the objective (corresponding to the actual course of history development) and subjective (introduced by its interpretations) view of the processes under study. But it must be taken into account that the scientist's understanding of the situation in which he lived and worked was reflected in his understanding of psychic reality, in his construction of a human model. This determines the existence of different pictures of the development of psychological knowledge at different stages of history, within different scientific schools and among individual scientists. And subjective representations in all their diversity as reflecting different levels of their "waste" or "approaches" to the reality under study also constitute the direct subject of historical and psychological research.

One more specificity of the history of psychology can be singled out, connected with the need to take into account various data, facts, and knowledge of other disciplines in one's analysis. According to its object - mental, mental reality - the history of psychology refers to general psychology and is part of it. According to the method, as noted by V.A. Koltsova, it belongs to the historical sciences. The history of psychology is based on historical sources, so it is closely related to source studies. When analyzing the development of psychological knowledge, the history of psychology is based on science of science, which develops the main categories and criteria for the analysis of scientific knowledge. Understanding the dynamics of the development of knowledge is impossible without the involvement of philosophy, natural science, methodology, physiology, cultural studies, personality psychology, creative activity, historical psychology.

Based on the specifics of understanding the subject, the history of psychology faces the following tasks:

study the patterns of development of knowledge about mental

reveal the relationship of psychology with other sciences on which its achievements depend

find out the dependence of the origin and perception of knowledge on the socio-cultural context, on ideological influences on scientific creativity, i.e. from the demands of society

· to study the role of the individual, his individual path in the development of science itself.

These tasks cannot be solved without the development of currently significant issues:

development of theoretical and methodological foundations of the history of psychology, allowing to outline the main criteria for the analysis of accumulated knowledge:

search for new hypothetical models that provide a multidimensional interpretation of the historical development of psychology,

identification of general trends in the history of the formation of the foundations of psychological science, the problems of general periodization,

analysis of current trends in history based on their historical background, making forecasts,

· study of psychological heritage, critical mastering of the experience and achievements of foreign psychology.

Of course, this approach involves a comprehensive study involving data from different sciences, their theoretical arsenal and research capabilities to reveal and explain the dynamics of psychological cognition.

As you can see, history is created anew in certain historical conditions, by certain people, scientific schools, in different eras the development of knowledge itself was understood in different ways (spiral, line, cycle, etc.). In this regard, it is important to single out and understand the basic principles on which historical and psychological research is built.

1. The subject and tasks of the history of psychology

The subject of the history of psychology– the study of the formation of the idea of mental reality at different stages of the development of scientific knowledge. The history of psychology has its own subject of study, different from the subject of psychology. The history of science is a special field of knowledge. Its subject matter is essentially different from that of the science whose development it studies.

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 activity of people engaged in the knowledge of the mental world. This activity is carried out in the system of three main coordinates: cognitive, social and personal. Therefore, we can say that scientific activity as an integral system has three aspects (soul, consciousness, behavior). Psychology, as the science of the soul, explained it as the cause of everything, i.e. the soul was defined as an explanatory principle. Consciousness as a subject of the history of psychology had a dual function: it was both an object of study and an explanatory principle. With the advent of a new subject of study - behavior - the subjectivism of the psychology of consciousness was overcome, but this led to the disappearance of the very object of study - the psyche and consciousness. On present stage development of science there is a close relationship between consciousness and behavior, or activity.

The main objectives of the subject of the history of psychology:

1. Analysis of the emergence and further development of scientific knowledge about the psyche from the point of view of a scientific, rather than worldly or religious approach in studying the evolution of ideas about the human psyche.

2. Analysis and understanding of interdisciplinary connections between the history of psychology and other sciences, disclosure of those relationships on which the achievements of psychology depend.

3. Finding out the dependence of the origin and perception of knowledge on social, cultural and ideological influences on scientific creativity.

4. The study of the role of the individual, his individual path in the development of science itself.

2. Periodization of the history of psychology

Psychology has gone through several stages in its development.

The pre-scientific period ends around the 7th-6th centuries. BC, i.e. before the start of objective, scientific studies of the psyche, its content and functions. During this period, ideas about the soul were based on numerous myths and legends, on fairy tales and initial religious beliefs that connected the soul with certain living beings (totems).

The second, scientific period begins at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC. Psychology during this period developed within the framework of philosophy, and therefore it received the conditional name of the philosophical period. Also, its duration is somewhat conditionally set - until the appearance of the first psychological school(associationism) and the definition of the actual psychological terminology, which differs from that accepted in philosophy or natural science.

In connection with the conditionality of the periodization of the development of psychology, which is natural for almost any historical research, some discrepancies arise in establishing the time limits of individual stages. Sometimes the emergence of an independent psychological science is associated with the school of W. Wundt, i.e. with the development of experimental psychology. However, psychological science was defined as independent much earlier, with the realization of the independence of its subject, the uniqueness of its position in the system of sciences - as a science both humanitarian and natural at the same time, studying both internal and external (behavioral) manifestations of the psyche. Such an independent position of psychology was recorded and with the advent of it as a subject of study in universities already in late XVIII- early 19th century Thus, it is more correct to speak of the emergence of psychology as an independent science precisely from this period, referring to the middle of the 19th century. development of experimental psychology.

But in any case, it must be recognized that the time of the existence of psychology as an independent science is much less than the period of its development in the mainstream of philosophy. Naturally, this period is not homogeneous, and for more than 20 centuries, psychological science has undergone significant changes.

The subject of psychology, the content of psychological research, and the relationship of psychology with other sciences have changed.

For a long time, the subject of psychology was the soul (see Table 1), but in different time This concept has different meanings. In the era of antiquity, the soul was understood as the fundamental principle of the body, by analogy with the concept of "arche" - the fundamental principle of the world, the main brick that makes up everything that exists. At the same time, the main function of the soul was considered to give the body activity, since, according to the first psychologists, the body is an inert mass, which is set in motion by the soul. The soul not only gives energy for activity, but also directs it, i.e. It is the soul that guides human behavior. Gradually, cognition was added to the functions of the soul, and thus the study of the stages of cognition was added to the study of activity, which soon became one of the most important problems in psychological science.

In the Middle Ages, the soul was the subject of study primarily for theology (see Table 1), which significantly narrowed the possibilities of its scientific knowledge. Therefore, although formally the subject of psychological science did not change, in fact, the field of study at that time included the study of the types of body activity and features of cognition, primarily sensory cognition of the world. Regulatory function, volitional behavior, logical thinking were considered the prerogative of the divine will, inspired by God, and not the material soul. No wonder these aspects of mental life were not part of the subject of scientific study in the concepts of deism and Thomism (Avicenna, F. Aquinas, F. Bacon and other scientists).

In modern times, psychology, like other sciences, got rid of the diktat of theology. Science strove again, as in the period of antiquity, to become objective, rational, and not sacred, i.e. based on evidence, on reason, not on faith. The problem of the subject of psychology again arose with all its relevance. At this time, it was still impossible to completely abandon the theological approach to understanding the soul. Therefore, psychology changes its subject, becoming the science of consciousness, i.e. about the content of consciousness and ways of its formation. This made it possible to separate the subject of psychology from the subject of theology in the study of the soul and its functions.

However, this transition led to the fact that already by the XVIII century. cognitive processes became the actual subject of psychology, while behavior, as well as emotional processes, personality and its development were not included in this subject. Such a limitation of the field of study at first had positive value, as it gave psychology, as already mentioned, the opportunity to get rid of sacredness, to become objective, and later experimental science. This also allowed it to stand out as an independent science, separating its subject, its field of study from the subject of philosophy. On the other hand, such an approach began to hinder the development of psychology, therefore, by the middle of the 19th century. it has been revised.

Thanks to the development of biology, including the theory of evolution of Ch. Darwin, the work of G. Spencer and other researchers, psychology not only moved away from philosophy, identifying itself with natural disciplines, but also expanded its subject, deriving it, as I.M. Sechenov, "from the field of consciousness to the field of behavior." Thus, apart from cognitive processes behavior and emotional processes were included in the subject of psychology. It is important that the desire to become an objective science has not yet led to the emergence of new methods for studying the psyche, since until the 80s of the XIX century. leading is introspection.

The most important stage in the development of psychology is associated with the emergence of the experimental laboratory of W. Wundt, who made psychology not only an independent, but also an objective, experimental science. However, the associationist approach, on the basis of which W. Wundt built his model of psychology, could no longer explain the new facts of mental life, could not be extended to the study of the structure of personality, emotional experiences, and creative activity of a person. The use of those experiments and tests that existed in psychology at the beginning of the 20th century was also limited.

This forced scientists to look for a new subject and new methods for studying the psyche. The first schools that arose at that time (structuralism, functionalism, the Würzburg school) did not last long. However, they showed that among psychologists there is no longer a unanimous opinion about what and how psychology should study. Thus began a period of searching for a psychology adequate to the new situation and the requirements of the time, which was called the period of methodological crisis (see Table 1).

The inability to come to a single point of view led to the fact that already in the 10-30s of the XX century. psychology was divided into several areas, each of which had its own subject and its own method of studying what was understood by this psychological direction as the psyche. So, in psychology appear: depth psychology, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, Marxist psychology, as well as schools such as French sociological or understanding psychology.

In the second half of the XX century. new schools and directions are emerging - humanistic psychology, genetic (or epistemological) psychology, and cognitive psychology which was formed in the 1960s. This is the last one to appear in the 20th century. psychological school. Thus, we can say that from the middle of the XX century. psychology has entered the contemporary stage of its development, which is no longer characterized by fragmentation into new schools, but by a tendency to unite.

3. Patterns of the historical and psychological process

The general and basic regularity in the development of psychological scientific knowledge is the struggle of ideas, primarily between the materialistic and idealistic understanding of the psyche.

The materialistic approach aims at a causal explanation of the psyche. In line with this approach, already in antiquity, ideas arose and developed in all subsequent times about the conditionality of mental phenomena by the material processes of the brain. The development of materialistic ideas is closely connected with advances in natural science. the highest form they achieve in a psychology based on the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism.

In various forms of idealism, the psyche and consciousness were separated from the processes of the material world, separated from it, turned into a special - spiritual - substance, which, both in its origin, and in its properties, and in methods of cognition, were opposed to the material world and practice. In idealism, the psyche appears as a special spiritual activity, estranged from all material connections, studied abstractly, "... since idealism, of course, does not know real, sensual activity as such."

The division of psychology into materialistic and idealistic runs through the entire history of the development of psychology up to the present. At the same time, each of the directions contributes to the knowledge of the mental. Thus, idealistic concepts focus on the problem of the qualitative originality of the psyche, in contrast to material processes, and promote the idea of the active, active nature of the spirit. Attention to these aspects of psychic reality is a progressive fact. Therefore, the study of idealistic psychological concepts, although they do not open up real ways of knowing the revealed patterns, is an integral part of the course in the history of psychology. An important regularity in the development of psychological science is its focus on developing a unified theory. This trend was especially acute during the period of an open crisis in psychology at the beginning of the 20th century. when “psychology realized that for it it was a matter of life and death to find a common explanatory principle…”. The new directions that arose at that time (psychoanalysis, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, etc.) claimed just such a theory. Analyzing their fate, Vygotsky identified a logical general line in their development: from private discoveries in a particular area to the emergence general principles and extending them to the whole of psychology and, finally, turning into a philosophical system and even into a worldview, showing that none of these principles satisfies the status of the only theory in psychology. However, the objective need for it remains an important driving force historical process.

Attempts are being made to apply T. Kuhn's concept of the development of science to the history of psychology, to use other achievements in the field of philosophy of science.

The history of psychology must also take into account the special situation in science in the period under study. The fact of the relationship of psychology with other sciences characterizes its development at all stages of history. The influence of mathematics, physics, astronomy, linguistics, physiology, biology, ethnography, logic, and other sciences on psychology is varied. First, within the framework of these sciences, knowledge about mental phenomena was accumulated (for example, the study of the problem of the connection between language and thinking in the works of linguists A. Potebnya, V. Humboldt, and others, the study of reaction time by astronomers, etc.). Secondly, the methods of these sciences were used in psychology, in particular, the experiment was borrowed by W. Wundt from the physiology of the sense organs, psychophysics and psychometry. Third, there was the use of scientific methodology. So, the development of mechanics in the XVII and XVIII centuries. led to the emergence of a mechanistic model of the behavior of animals (and partly of man) by R. Descartes, the mechanistic concept of associations by D. Gartley, "mental physics" by J. Mill. The interaction of psychology with other sciences continues to this day.

4. Principles of historical-psychological analysis

The most important of these is the principle of historicism.. He demands “not to forget the main historical connection, to look at each issue from the point of view of how a well-known phenomenon in history arose, what main stages in its development this phenomenon went through, and from the point of view of this development, look at what this thing has become now”

In historical research, this principle becomes fundamental. It requires the historian to consider one or another segment of the past in the fullness of its specific content, in the system of relevant sociocultural conditions, as a deterministic general situation in science and considered in comparison with previous knowledge. This allows you to show the originality and uniqueness of the phenomenon under study. At the same time, it is necessary “to take not individual facts, but the entire set of facts related to the issue under consideration, without a single exception, because otherwise suspicion and a completely legitimate suspicion will inevitably arise that the facts were chosen or selected arbitrarily, that instead of an objective connection and interdependence of historical phenomena as a whole, a subjective concoction is presented. There should be no white spots in history, forgetfulness of certain historical events or persons.

In accordance with the principle of historicism, an assessment of the past is also made. At the same time, the inevitable limitation of any stage in the development of knowledge in comparison with its later stages must be revealed. This is how prominent representatives of science assessed their predecessors (see, for example, I.P. Pavlov’s assessments of Hippocrates’ teachings on temperaments, R. Descartes’ concepts of the reflex, etc.). Violation of the principle of historicism in the understanding of the past are presentism and antiquarianism. Presentism limits historical research only what is significant for the present stage of the development of science and, instead of studying the historical process of the development of science in its entirety, focuses on highlighting only such fragments of its content that are most consistent with modern views. Presentism leads to the modernization of the historical process and contradicts the principle of historicism.

contradicts him and antiquarianism - such an approach that considers past history, regardless of the tasks of the present, as something frozen, petrified. Such a "pure history" turns into a simple registration of events in their temporal sequence and does not fit into the practice of modern scientific research.

A deviation from the principle of historicism is the one-sidedness and schematism of the depiction of events. past history. At the same time, the requirement of integrity and concreteness imposed on historical thought not only does not exclude, but necessarily presupposes the identification of a general pattern in the phenomenon under study. This requirement is met by relying on principle of unity of logical and historical, according to which the historian must not only describe this or that stage of historically developing knowledge, but also present it theoretically and, therefore, reveal something permanent in it. For example, behind the historically limited empirical material of specific knowledge about the psyche in antiquity, the most important problems of psychology hidden in it (almost all) are revealed. On the other hand, adherence to the principle of the unity of the logical and the historical warns against the absolutization of historically limited truths and allows one to evaluate their actual significance.

In the formation of a scientific picture of mental life, a key role belongs to principle of determinism. The principle of determinism requires the historian to be able to discover a way of causally explaining the mental as conditioned by the factors that give rise to it (everything has causes and effects). Principles of historical and psychological research. Together with specific methods, they form the basis of a scientific analysis of the historical path of development of “psychology.

Also distinguished:

principle of consistency ;

principle of constructive positive analysis- it is necessary to look for the advanced, the achievements of the historical era;

the principle of periodization and continuity in the development of psychological knowledge- implies the presence of qualitatively different periods in the dynamics of a single process of scientific knowledge;

the principle of unity of the past, present and future ;

the principle of unity of collective and individual creativity in the development of psychological knowledge- the contribution of an individual scientist or a team of scientists cannot be ignored.

5. Methods of the history of psychology

The methods used in historical-psychological research, of course, differ from the methods of general psychology. In the history of psychology it is impossible to use practically any of the main methods of psychological science - neither observation, nor testing, nor experiment. The scope of these methods is limited only by a narrow circle of modern (for the historian of psychology) scientists and the present state of the problems relevant to that time, while the age of psychological science is measured in centuries.

Therefore, scientists involved in the history of psychology develop their own research methods or borrow them from related disciplines - science of science, history, sociology. These methods are adequate to the task of not only recreating the history of the development of a separate psychological direction, but also including it in the general context of psychological science, the historical situation and culture. Thus, in the history of psychology, historical genetic method, according to which the study of the ideas of the past is impossible without taking into account the general logic of the development of science in a certain historical period, and historical-functional method, thanks to which the continuity of the expressed ideas is analyzed. Great importance have biographical method, allowing you to identify possible reasons and the conditions for the formation of the scientific views of the scientist, as well as the method of systematizing psychological statements.

In recent decades, there has been an increasing use categorical analysis methods, introduced famous historian Science M. Blok. In our country, this approach was developed within the framework of the historical psychology of science by M.G. Yaroshevsky. It involves taking into account the socio-historical conditions that determined the emergence and development of this scientific school, as well as the study of ideogenesis, cognitive style, opponent circle, social perception and other determinants that led to the emergence of ideas significant for psychology.

The sources for the history of psychology are primarily the works of scientists, archival materials, memories of their lives and activities, as well as an analysis of historical and sociological materials, and even fiction helping to recreate the spirit of a certain time.

1st group: Methods of planning historical and psychological research - organizational methods:

1. Structural-analytical method

2. Comparative method

3. Genetic method

2nd group: Methods for collecting and interpreting factual material:

2. Product analysis

3rd group:

1. Methods of historical reconstruction

2. Problemological analysis

4th group:

1. Library analysis method

2. Thematic analysis

Separately:

1. Method of source analysis

2. Biographical method

3. Interview method

6. Materialistic doctrine of the soul in ancient psychology

The emergence of psychology in Ancient Greece at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC. was associated with the need for the formation of an objective science of man, which considered the soul not on the basis of fairy tales, myths, legends, but using those objective knowledge (mathematical, medical, philosophical) that arose in that period. The first ideas about the soul, which arose on the basis of myths and early religious beliefs, identified some of the functions of the soul, primarily energy, inducing the body to activity. These ideas formed the basis of the research of the first psychologists. Already the first works have shown that the soul not only induces to action, but also regulates the activity of the individual, and is also the main tool in the knowledge of the world. These judgments about the properties of the soul became the leading ones in subsequent years. Thus, the most important for psychology in the ancient period was the study of how the soul gives activity to the body, how it regulates human behavior and how it cognizes the world. An analysis of the patterns of development of nature led the thinkers of that time to the idea that the soul is material, i.e. made up of the same particles as the world.

Everything in the world has its fundamental principle - an element that is the first and main component of all objects, arche. Studies of the surrounding world led scientists of the 7th-5th centuries. BC. to the idea that arche is the element without which the world and everything in it cannot exist, therefore, like everything in nature, this vital element must be material. So, Thales (VI century BC), whose concept was influenced by the views of the Egyptians, believed that the fundamental principle, the soul, is water, since water (for example, the Nile, on which crops depended) is the basis of life. Anaximenes (5th century BC) considered air to be an eternally moving and eternally living principle. It should be noted that the views of ancient Greek scientists were influenced by a variety of philosophical and psychological concepts, including the ancient Indian Vedas, in particular the doctrine that the most important property(prana) of life is breath (dyad - atman-brahman). The reflection of these ideas can be seen in the theory of Anaximenes and other Greek scientists, who connected arche with breath, air, wind. The idea that pneuma (air, movement) is one of the components of the soul can be traced at a later time, for example, in the concept of Epicurus.

The prevalence of the opinion about the materiality of the soul is confirmed by the fact that at the very beginning of the development of psychology, scientists considered activity to be the main quality of the soul, i.e. argued that the soul is primarily the energy basis of the body, which sets the inert, passive body in motion. Thus, the soul is the source of life, which is based on activity .

Somewhat later, the idea appeared that a specific material object (water, earth or air), even very important for the world and life, cannot be the fundamental principle. Already Anaximander (6th century BC) wrote about the "boundless", i.e. about such a physical beginning from which everything arises and into which everything turns. In the theories of Leucippus and Democritus (V-IV centuries BC), the idea of atoms arose, the smallest particles invisible to the world, of which everything around consists. The atomistic theory developed by these scientists was very widespread and was integral part psychological teachings of many scientists not only of Ancient Greece, but also of Rome. Considering the soul as a source of activity for the body, Democritus and the scientists who followed him argued that it consists of the smallest and roundest atoms, which are the most active and mobile.

No less important for the development of psychology was the idea expressed by Heraclitus that everything in the world operates according to certain laws, according to the Logos, which is the main governing force. Logos also explains the relationship between individual events, including between different episodes in people's lives. Thus, everything in the world is causally determined, all events do not just happen, by chance, but according to a certain law, although we do not always have this connection, we can establish the cause of the event. This approach, called, as mentioned in the previous chapter, determinism, showed the possibility of understanding and explaining what is happening in the world and man, opened up new perspectives for science. Thus, the idea of the Logos has become a very important factor on the way to overcoming sacredness and turning psychology into a science.

Around the 3rd century BC. psychologists began to be more interested not so much general patterns and the function of the soul, how much the content of the human soul. At the forefront began to come not common to the entire mental laws, but the study of what distinguishes man from other living beings. The idea of a predominantly energy function of the soul ceased to satisfy psychology, since the soul is a source of energy not only for humans, but also for other living beings. At this time, scientists came to the conclusion that the human soul serves as a source not only of activity, but also of reason and morality. This new understanding of the soul was laid down in the theory of Socrates, and then developed in the concepts of Plato and Aristotle.

For the first time in these concepts of the psyche, the idea appeared that the most important factor that influences the human psyche is culture. If activity was associated by psychologists with certain material factors, then reason and morality were understood as products of cultural development, as a result of the spiritual work of not one person, but the people as a whole. This was especially evident in the theory of Aristotle. Naturally, the factor of culture could not affect the psyche of animals and applied only to the human soul, providing its qualitative difference. Thus, the change in the priorities of psychological research, the emergence of new concepts of the soul, became an important turning point in the development of psychology.

It was impossible to explain from the point of view of science (biology, physics, medicine) of that time how the structure of the atoms of the human soul leads to its qualitative, and not just quantitative, difference from the soul of an animal, it was impossible. Therefore, psychological concepts during this period moved from a materialistic orientation to an idealistic one. The difference between materialism and idealism in psychology is mainly connected with different understanding of the content of the soul, psyche; in the latest materialism highlights, first of all, activity, the material nature of which was obvious to scientists time, and idealism – also reason and morality, the nature of which could not be explained by material laws. Therefore, the student of Socrates Plato came to the idea of the immateriality and eternity of the soul.

7. The idealistic doctrine of Socrates and Plato

Socrates: Know Thyself. The son of a sculptor and a midwife, having received a general education for the Athenians of that time, he became a philosopher who discussed the problems of the theory of knowledge, ethics, politics, pedagogy with any person who agreed to answer his questions anywhere - on the street, in the market square, at any time. Socrates, unlike the sophists, did not take money for philosophizing, and among his listeners were people of the most diverse financial status, education, political convictions, ideological and moral warehouse. The meaning of the activity of Socrates (it was called "dialectic" - finding the truth through conversation) was to help the interlocutor find the true answer with the help of a certain way selected questions (the so-called Socratic method) and thereby lead him from indefinite ideas to a logically clear knowledge of the subjects under discussion. A wide range of "everyday concepts" about justice, injustice, goodness, beauty, courage, etc. were discussed.

Socrates considered it his duty to take an active part in the public life of Athens. At the same time, he did not always agree with the opinion of the majority in the national assembly and in the jury, which required considerable courage, especially during the reign of the "thirty tyrants." Socrates considered his disagreements with the majority to be the result of the fact that he always strived for the observance of laws and justice, which the majority of people do not always care about. He was accused of "not honoring the gods and corrupting the youth" and sentenced to death by 361 votes out of 500 judges. Socrates courageously accepted the verdict, drinking poison and rejecting his disciples' plans to escape as salvation.

Socrates did not write down his reasoning, believing that only a lively conversation leads to the desired result - the education of the individual. Therefore, it is difficult to fully reconstruct his views, which we know about from the three main sources of the comedies of Aristophanes, the memoirs of Xenophon and the writings of Plato. All these authors emphasize that it was Socrates who first considered the soul primarily as a source of human morality, and not as a source of body activity (as was customary in the theories of Heraclitus and Democritus). Socrates said that the soul is the mental quality of the individual, characteristic of him as a rational being, acting according to moral ideals. Such an approach to the soul could not proceed from the idea of its materiality, and therefore, simultaneously with the emergence of a view on the connection of the soul with morality, a new view of it arises, which was later developed by Plato, a student of Socrates.

Speaking of morality, Socrates associated it with human behavior. Morality is a good realized in the actions of people. However, in order to evaluate this or that act as moral, one must first know what good is. Therefore, Socrates associated morality with reason, believing that virtue consists in the knowledge of good and in action in accordance with this knowledge. For example, a brave person is one who knows how to behave in danger, and acts according to his knowledge. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to educate people, show them the difference between good and bad, and then evaluate their behavior. Knowing the difference between good and evil, a person begins to know himself. Thus, Socrates comes to the most important position of his views, connected with the transfer of the center of research interests from the surrounding reality to man.

Socrates' motto was: "Know thyself." Under the knowledge of oneself, Socrates did not mean an appeal “inside” - to one’s own experiences and states of consciousness (the very concept of consciousness had not yet been singled out by that time), but an analysis of actions and attitudes towards them, moral assessments and norms human behavior in various life situations. This led to a new understanding of the essence of the soul.

If the sophists took as their starting point the relation of man not to nature, but to other people, then for Socrates the most important is the attitude of man to himself as the bearer of intellectual and moral qualities. Subsequently, it was even said that Socrates was a pioneer of psychotherapy, trying with the help of the word to expose what is hidden behind the external manifestations of the work of the mind.

In any case, his method contained ideas that, many centuries later, played a key role in the psychological studies of thinking. First, the work of thought was made dependent on the task that created an obstacle to its usual course. It was this task that became the system of questions that Socrates brought down on the interlocutor, thereby awakening his mental activity. Secondly, this activity initially had the character of a dialogue. Both signs: a) the direction of thought created by the task, and b) dialogism, suggesting that cognition is initially social, since it is rooted in the communication of subjects, became the main guidelines for the experimental psychology of thinking in the 20th century.

We know about this philosopher, who has become for all ages the ideal of disinterestedness, honesty, independence of thought, from the words of his students. He himself never wrote anything and considered himself not a teacher of wisdom, but a person who awakens in others the desire for truth.

After Socrates, whose focus was mainly mental activity(its products and values) of the individual subject, the concept of the soul was filled with new subject content. It was made up of very special entities that physical nature does not know.

The ideas put forward by Socrates were developed in the theory of his outstanding student Plato.

Plato: soul and realm of ideas. Plato (428-348 BC) was born into a noble Athenian family. His versatile abilities began to manifest themselves very early and served as the basis for many legends, the most common of which ascribes divine origin to him (makes him the son of Apollo). Plato's real name is Aristocles, but even in his youth he receives a new name - Plato, which means broad-shouldered (in his early years he was fond of gymnastics). Plato had a poetic gift, his philosophical works written in a highly literary language, they have a lot of artistic descriptions, metaphors. However, the passion for philosophy, the ideas of Socrates, whose student he becomes in Athens, distracted Plato from his original intention to devote his life to poetry. Plato carried loyalty to philosophy and his great mentor through his whole life. After the tragic death of Socrates, Plato leaves Athens, having taken an oath never to return to this city.

His travels lasted about ten years and ended tragically - he was sold into slavery by the Sicilian tyrant Dionysius, who first called on Plato to help him build an ideal state. Plato's friends, having learned about this, collected the amount necessary for the ransom, but Plato had already been released by this time. Then the collected money was handed over to Plato, and he bought a plot of land on the northwestern outskirts of Athens and founded his school there, which he called the Academy. Already in his advanced years, Plato makes a second attempt to participate in public affairs, trying to create an ideal state already together with the son of Dionysius, Dionysius the Younger, however, this attempt also ended in failure. Disappointment in the environment overshadowed last years Plato's life, although until the end of his days he was surrounded by many students and followers, among whom was Aristotle.

Plato relied not only on the ideas of Socrates, but also on some provisions of the Pythagoreans (according to the views Pythagorean school(about the founder of which there is no reliable information) the universe has not a material, but an arithmetic-geometric structure - harmony reigns in everything that has a numerical expression), in particular, the deification of number. Above the gates of the Academy of Plato was written: "He who does not know geometry, let him not enter here." In an effort to create a universal concept that unites man and the cosmos, Plato believed that the surrounding objects are the result of the connection of the soul, ideas, with inanimate matter.

Plato believed that there is an ideal world in which there are souls, or ideas, of things, those perfect samples that become prototypes of real objects. The perfection of these patterns is beyond the reach of objects, but makes one strive to be like them. Thus, the soul is not only an idea, but also the goal of a real thing. In principle, Plato's idea is a general concept that is not found in real life, but the mapping of which are all things included in this concept. So, there is no generalized person, but each of the people is, as it were, a variation of the concept of “man”.

Since the concept is immutable, the idea , or the soul, according to Plato, is constant, unchanging and immortal. She is the guardian of human morality. Being a rationalist, Plato believed that behavior should be prompted and guided by reason, not feelings, and opposed Democritus and his theory of determinism, asserting the possibility of human freedom, the freedom of his rational behavior. The soul, according to Plato, consists of three parts: lustful, passionate and rational. A lustful and passionate soul must obey the rational, which alone can make behavior moral. In his dialogues, Plato likens the soul to a chariot drawn by two horses. The black horse - a lustful soul - does not listen to orders and needs a constant bridle, as he seeks to turn the chariot over, throw it into the abyss. The white horse is a passionate soul, although it tries to go its own way, it does not always obey the driver and needs constant supervision. And, finally, Plato identifies the rational part of the soul with the charioteer, who is looking for the right path and directs the chariot along it, driving the horse. In describing the soul, Plato adheres to clear black-and-white criteria, proving that there are bad and good parts of the soul: the rational part for him is unequivocally good, while the lustful and passionate part is bad, lower.

Since the soul is permanent and a person cannot change it, the content of the knowledge that is stored in the soul is also unchanged, and the discoveries made by a person are, in fact, not discoveries of something new, but only an awareness of what was already stored in soul. Thus, Plato understood the process of thinking as a recollection of what the soul knew in its cosmic life, but forgot when moving into the body. And thinking itself, which he considered the main cognitive process, is essentially reproductive thinking, and not creative (although Plato operates with the concept of "intuition", leading to creative thinking).

The very process of cognition in Plato, as already mentioned, appeared in the form of recollection; thus, memory was the repository of all knowledge, both conscious and unconscious in this moment.

Plato develops the ideas of Socrates, proving that thinking is a dialogue of the soul with itself (saying modern language, inner speech). However, the unfolded and conscious process of logical thinking cannot convey the fullness of knowledge, since it relies on the study of surrounding objects, that is, copies of real knowledge about objects. Nevertheless, a person has the opportunity to penetrate into the essence of things, and it is associated with intuitive thinking, with penetration into the depths of the soul, which stores true knowledge. They are revealed to the person at once, entirely. (This instantaneous process is similar to the "insight" that will later be described by Gestalt psychology).

Plato's research laid down new trends not only in philosophy, but also in psychology. . He was the first to single out the stages in the process of cognition, discovering the role of inner speech and the activity of thinking. He also for the first time presented the soul not as an integral organization, but as a certain structure, which is under the pressure of opposing tendencies, conflicting motives, which are not always possible to reconcile with the help of reason. (This idea of Plato's internal conflict of the soul will become especially relevant in psychoanalysis, while his approach to the problem of knowledge will be reflected in the rationalist position.)

8. Aristotle's doctrine of the soul

Aristotle: the soul is a way of organizing the body. Aristotle (384-322 BC) opened a new era in the understanding of the soul as a subject of psychological knowledge. For Aristotle, its source was not physical bodies and incorporeal ideas, but an organism where the corporeal and the spiritual form an inseparable integrity. The soul, according to Aristotle, is not an independent entity, but a form, a way of organizing a living body. This did away with both the naive animistic dualism and the sophisticated dualism of Plato.

Aristotle was the son of a physician under the Macedonian king and was himself preparing for the medical profession. Appearing as a seventeen-year-old youth in Athens to the sixty-year-old Plato, he studied for several years at his Academy, with which he later broke. The famous painting by Raphael "The School of Athens" depicts Plato pointing his hand at the sky. Aristotle - to the ground. These images capture the difference in orientation between the two great thinkers. According to Aristotle, the ideological wealth of the world is hidden in sensually perceived earthly things and is revealed in direct communication with them.

On the outskirts of Athens, Aristotle created his own school, called the Lyceum (later, privileged educational institutions began to be called the word "lyceum"). It was an indoor gallery where Aristotle, usually walking, taught classes. “Those who think correctly,” Aristotle told his students, “those think that the soul cannot exist without a body and is not a body.”

Who was meant by those who "think right"? Obviously, not natural philosophers, for whom the soul is the thinnest body. But not Plato, who considered the soul a pilgrim, wandering through bodies and other worlds. The decisive result of Aristotle's reflections: "The soul cannot be separated from the body" - contradicted Plato's views on the past and future of the soul. It turns out that Aristotle considered "correct" own understanding, according to which it is not the soul that experiences, thinks, learns, but the whole organism. “To say that the soul is angry,” he wrote, “is tantamount to saying that the soul is engaged in weaving or building a house.”

Aristotle was both a philosopher and a naturalist-researcher of nature. At one time he taught the sciences to the young Alexander of Macedon, who subsequently ordered samples of plants and animals from the conquered countries to be sent to his old teacher.

An enormous amount of comparative anatomical, zoological, embryological and other facts were accumulated, which became the experimental basis for observations and analysis of the behavior of living beings. The generalization of these facts, primarily biological ones, became the basis of the psychological teachings of Aristotle and the transformation of the main explanatory principles of psychology: organization, patterns, causality.

The very term "organism" requires considering it from the point of view of organization, that is, the ordering of the whole in order to achieve some goal or to solve some problem. The device of this whole and its work (function) are inseparable. “If the eye were a living being, sight would be its soul,” said Aristotle.

The soul was conceived by Aristotle as a way of organizing a living body, the actions of which are expedient. He considered the soul inherent in all living organisms (including plants) and subject to objective, experimental study. It cannot exist without a body, and at the same time it is not a body. The soul cannot be separated from the body. .

The starting point for life is nutrition as the assimilation of the outside. Aristotle extended this general explanatory principle to other levels of the activity of the soul, primarily to sensory impressions, to the ability to feel, which he interprets as a special likening of the sense organ to an external object. However, here, unlike nutrition, it is not the material substance that is assimilated, but the form of the object.

The soul has various abilities as stages of its development: vegetative, sensual and mental (inherent only in man). In relation to the explanation of the soul, Aristotle, contrary to his postulate of the inseparability of the soul and the body capable of life, believed that the mind in its highest, essential expression is something different from the body. The hierarchy of levels of cognitive activity was completed by the "supreme mind", which did not mix with anything bodily and external.

The beginning of knowledge is the sensible faculty. It imprints the form of things in the same way as "wax takes the impression of a seal without iron and gold." In such a process of likening a living body to external objects, Aristotle attached great importance to a special central organ, called the “common sensorium”. This center cognizes qualities common to all sensations - movement, size, figure, etc. Thanks to him, it becomes possible for the subject to distinguish between the modalities of sensations (color, taste, smell).

Aristotle considered the central organ of the soul not the brain, but the heart, connected with the senses and movements through blood circulation. The body captures external impressions in the form of images of "fantasy" (this meant representations of memory and imagination). They are connected according to the laws of association of three types - contiguity (if two impressions followed each other, then later one of them causes the other), similarity and contrast. (These laws discovered by Aristotle became the basis of the direction that later received the name of associative psychology.)

Aristotle held, in modern parlance, systems approach, since he considered the living body and its abilities as an expediently operating system. His important contribution is also the affirmation of the idea of development, for he taught that ability top level arises on the basis of the previous, more elementary one. Aristotle correlated the development of an individual organism with the development of the entire animal world. In an individual person, during his transformation from an infant into a mature being, those steps are repeated that the organic world has passed in its history. In this generalization, in an embryonic form, the idea was laid, which was later called the biological law.

Aristotle distinguished between theoretical and practical reason. The principle of this distinction was the difference between the functions of thinking. Knowledge as such does not in itself make a person moral. His virtues do not depend on knowledge and not on nature, which only potentially endows the individual with inclinations from which his qualities can further develop. They are formed in real actions that give a person a certain coinage. This is also connected with how he relates to his feelings (affects).

Aristotle spoke for the first time about the nature of education and the need to correlate pedagogical methods with the level of mental development of the child. He proposed periodization, the basis of which was the structure of the soul he singled out. He divided childhood into three periods: up to 7 years, from 7 to 14 and from 14 to 21 years. For each of these periods, a specific system of education should be developed. For example, talking about preschool age. Aristotle emphasized that during this period the most important place is occupied by the formation of the plant soul; therefore, for young children, the daily routine is of such importance, proper nutrition, hygiene. Schoolchildren need to develop other properties, in particular, movements (with the help of gymnastic exercises), sensations, memory, aspirations. Moral education should be based on the exercise of moral deeds.

If Plato considered feeling evil, then Aristotle, on the contrary, wrote about the importance of educating children's feelings, emphasizing the need for moderation and a reasonable correlation of feelings with others. He attached great importance to affects that arise independently of the will of a person and the fight against which by the power of reason alone is impossible. That's why he emphasized the role of art. Especially dramatic art, which, by evoking appropriate emotions in viewers and listeners, contributes to catharsis, i.e. purification from affect, while teaching both children and adults the culture of feelings.

Speaking about morality, Plato emphasized that only absolutely correct and perfect behavior is moral, and any deviation from the rule, even with the most the best targets are already a misdemeanor.

Unlike him Aristotle stressed the importance of the very desire for moral behavior. Thus, he encouraged the child's attempts, albeit unsuccessful, to "be good", thereby creating additional motivation.

So, Aristotle transformed the key explanatory principles of psychology: system (organization), development, determinism. The soul for Aristotle is not a special entity, but a way of organizing a living body, which is a system, the soul passes through different stages in development and is able not only to imprint what is acting on the body at the moment, but also to conform to the future goal.

Aristotle discovered and studied many specific mental phenomena. But there are no “pure facts” in science. Any fact is seen differently depending on the theoretical angle of view, on those categories and explanatory schemes with which the researcher is armed. Enriching the explanatory principles, Aristotle presented a completely different, compared with his predecessors, picture of the structure, functions and development of the soul.

His work "On the Soul" is rightfully considered the first psychological monograph. This book not only summarized everything that was done by the predecessors of Aristotle, but also built psychological knowledge in new system, opened up new perspectives for science, posing questions that many generations of psychologists have sought to find an answer to.

9. The teachings of ancient doctors

Hippocrates: the doctrine of temperaments. The Hippocratic school (c. 460–377 BC), known to us from the so-called Hippocratic Compilation, saw life as a changing process. Among its explanatory principles, we meet air as a force that maintains the inseparable connection of the organism with the world, brings intelligence from the outside, and performs mental functions in the brain. A single material principle as the basis of organic life was rejected. If a person were one, then he would never get sick, and if he was sick, then the healing agent should be one. But there is no such thing.

Hippocrates replaced the doctrine of a single element underlying the diversity of things with the doctrine of four liquids (blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile). Hence, depending on which liquid prevails, there is a version of four temperaments, later named: sanguine (when blood predominates), phlegmatic (mucus), choleric (yellow bile) and melancholic (black bile).

For the future scientific psychology, this explanatory principle, for all its naivete, was of great importance (it is not for nothing that the terminology of Hippocrates has been preserved to this day). First, the hypothesis has been put forward that the myriad differences between people can be grouped under a few common features of behavior; thus, the beginnings of scientific typology were laid, which underlie modern teachings about individual differences between people. Secondly, Hippocrates looked for the source and cause of differences within the organism; spiritual qualities made dependent on the body. About the role nervous system in that era they did not yet know, therefore, the typology was, in the current language, humoral (from the Latin “humor” - liquid).

Alcmaeon: the brain is the organ of the soul. The humoral orientation of the thinking of ancient Greek physicians did not mean at all that they ignored the structure of organs specially designed to perform mental functions. For a long time, both in the East and in Greece, two theories “heart-centric” and “brain-centric” competed with each other.

The idea that the brain is the organ of the soul belongs to the ancient Greek physician Alcmaeon from Cretona (VI century BC), who came to this conclusion as a result of observations and surgical operations. In particular, he found that from the cerebral hemispheres "two narrow paths go to the eye sockets." Believing that sensation arises due to the special structure of the peripheral sensory apparatuses, Alcmaeon at the same time argued that there is a direct connection between the sense organs and the brain.

Thus, the doctrine of the psyche as a product of the brain arose due to the fact that a direct dependence of sensations on the structure of the brain was discovered, and this, in turn, became possible due to the accumulation of empirical facts. Sensations, according to Alcmaeon, are the starting point of all cognitive work. “The brain delivers (to us) the sensations of hearing, sight and smell, from the latter arise memory and representation (opinion), and from memory and representation, which have reached unshakable strength, knowledge is born, which is such by virtue of this (strength).”

Thus, other mental processes arising from sensations were also associated with the brain, although knowledge about these processes (in contrast to knowledge about sensations) could not be based on anatomical and physiological experience.

Following Alcmaeon, Hippocrates also interpreted the brain as an organ of the psyche, believing that it is a large gland.

It should be noted that in the 20th century, scientists turned to studies of both nervous processes and body fluids, its hormones (the Greek word for what excites). Now both doctors and psychologists are talking about a single neurohumoral regulation of behavior.

Alexandrian Science. In the Hellenistic period, new centers of culture arose, where various currents of Eastern thought interacted with Western. Among these centers, those created in Egypt in the 3rd century BC stood out. (during the royal Ptolemaic dynasty, founded by one of the commanders of Alexander the Great) library and Museum in Alexandria. The museum was essentially Research institute where research was conducted in various fields of knowledge, including anatomy and physiology.

Yes, doctors Herophilus and Erasistratus, whose works have not been preserved, significantly improved the technique of studying the body, in particular, the brain. Among the most important discoveries made by them is the establishment of differences between sensory and motor nerves; more than two thousand years later, this discovery formed the basis of the doctrine of reflexes, which is most important for physiology and psychology.

Galen. Another great researcher of mental life in its connection with the bodily was the ancient Roman physician Galen (2nd century AD). He wrote over 400 treatises on philosophy and medicine, of which about 100 have survived (mostly on medicine). Galen synthesized the achievements of ancient psychophysiology into a detailed system that served as the basis for ideas about the human body over the following centuries. In the work “On Parts of the Human Body”, he, relying on many observations and experiments and summarizing the knowledge of physicians of the East and West, including those of Alexandria, described the dependence of the vital activity of the whole organism on the nervous system.

In those days, the anatomy of human bodies was forbidden, all experiments were performed on animals. But Golets, operating on gladiators (slaves, whom the Romans essentially did not consider human), was able to expand medical ideas about a person, primarily about his brain, where, as he believed, the “highest grade” of pneuma as a bearer of reason is produced and stored.

Widely known for many centuries was the doctrine developed by Galen (following Hippocrates) about temperaments as proportions in which several basic "juices" are mixed. He called a temperament with a predominance of "warm" courageous and energetic, a predominance of "cold" - slow, etc.

Galen paid great attention to affects. Even Aristotle wrote that, for example, anger can be explained either interpersonal relationships(the desire to avenge the offense), or "blood boiling" in the body. Galen argued that changes in the body (“increased warmth of the heart”) are primary in affects; the desire to take revenge a second time. Many centuries later, there will again be discussions between psychologists around the question of the atom, which is primary - a subjective experience or bodily shock.

10. Features of the development of psychology in the Middle Ages

The era of the Middle Ages, which lasted almost ten centuries, does not have a sufficiently clear periodization in history. The beginning of this era is considered the fall of the Roman Empire, i.e. V century. At the same time, all scientists note that elements of medieval ideology, as well as medieval science, appeared much earlier, already in the 3rd century BC. The choice of the 5th century is also determined by the fact that during this period the new world Christian religion finally established itself in Europe.

The end of the medieval period is associated, as a rule, with the 15th century, with the time of the revival of art, secular science, and the discovery of America. At the same time, the first signs of a new ideology appeared already by the end of the 14th century, and it is possible to talk about the final departure of the medieval worldview only by the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century, after the Reformation.

One of the most important characteristics of medieval science, in particular psychology, was its close connection with religion. Precisely speaking, non-theological, non-ecclesiastical science did not exist in Europe at that time. Her important feature during this period there was the appearance of sacredness, from which psychology got rid of during the transition from mythology to scientific knowledge in the 7th-6th centuries. BC. Dependence on religion again raised the question of the relationship and mutual influence of knowledge and faith, which became the most important for scientists throughout this period.

Close contact and dependence on theology give grounds to use as time limits in the analysis of the development of psychology the stages of development of religious thought, in which stage of apologetics historically pre-medieval (II-IV centuries), the stage of patristics (IV-VIII centuries) and the stage of scholasticism (XI-XIV centuries).

The beginning of a new stage in the development of psychology was associated with an actual change in its subject matter, since official science about the soul became theology. Therefore, psychology had to either completely yield to theology the study of the psyche, or find itself some niche for research. It was in connection with the search for an opportunity to study a single subject in its various aspects that the main changes took place in the relationship between theology and psychology.

When Christianity appeared, it had to prove its uniqueness and push out other religions that were not compatible with it. Related to this is the intolerance Greek mythology, as well as psychological and philosophical concepts that were closely associated with pagan religion and myths. Therefore, most of the well-known psychological schools (the Lyceum, the Academy, the Garden of Epicurus, etc.) were closed by the 6th century, and the scientists who kept the knowledge of ancient science moved to Asia Minor, opening new schools there in the Greek colonies. Islam, widespread in the East, was not as intolerant of heterodoxy as Christianity in the 3rd-6th centuries, and therefore psychological schools developed freely there. Later, by the 9th-10th centuries, when the persecution of ancient science, especially the theories of Plato and Aristotle, ended, many concepts returned to Europe, some already in reverse translation from Arabic.

At the stage of apologetics Another reason for the antagonism between psychology and theology was the incompatibility of knowledge and faith, which did not tolerate any dissent, any doubt in its dogmas. The Church at that time severely condemned not only those who doubted its truths, but even those who tried to prove them, believing that the desire for proof comes from a lack of faith. No wonder it was at this time that the statement of the famous theologian Tertullian appeared: “I believe, because this is absurd.”

However, after the strengthening of the dominance of the Christian church, by the 5th-6th centuries, it became necessary to make additions, clarifications or transform some of the provisions of Christianity. It was also necessary to canonize the postulates arising from the new realities in order to prevent the spread of heresy, which is causing a split in the church. So arose new stage - patristics, i.e. the teaching of the Church Fathers, in which theology begins to turn to the knowledge accumulated in antiquity.

From this time until almost the XII-XIII centuries. the relationship between church and science is changing again, with the church becoming one of the main custodians and distributors of knowledge.

To understand the role of the church in this period, it is necessary to remember the historical situation in Europe at that time. Constant wars made it impossible to create states in the proper sense of the word; there was also no strong secular power at all. By the end of the VI century. the remnants of Roman civilization, in which all wealthy members of society could read and write, disappeared, secular educational institutions existed, and scientists addressed all members of the community. The last thinker of this era was Boethius (6th century), whose work was greatly influenced by the teachings of Plato.

The next three centuries (up to about the 10th century) are often and rightly called by historians the years of darkness, implying that the lack of stability, state power, constant raids, epidemics made the life of people, both kings and knights, and ordinary villagers and warriors, difficult, full adversity and danger. In fact, the only center of stability, culture, hope for a better future at that time was the church, which also united disparate and warring tribes into a single whole. During this period, the confrontation between church and secular power, which was characteristic of the Middle Ages, was born.

Monasteries became a stronghold of science, they kept books and taught literacy. In general, the only literate people, as a rule, were monks, and secular people, feudal lords, even the highest nobility, often did not know how to write and count. The monasteries kept not only ecclesiastical, but also secular books, including lists from the books of ancient psychologists. These works were studied and developed in the works of church scholars, who usually worked at monasteries. It was also important that in this harsh time, the monasteries provided protection, protected from hunger and many diseases, from military robberies. Despite the opposition of the emperors, the power of the popes remained strong enough to resist any attempts to undermine the authority of the church. With the strengthening of states, the development of cities and crafts, the darkness began to dissipate, people had hope for a decent life in the present, and not just the other world. However, for the relationship between science and religion, this turn was not so favorable, since the clergy ceased to be the only stronghold of culture.

At this time, the first secular universities began to appear, first in Bologna and then in Paris. Secular schools were also opened, i.e. not only monks were already literate, but also the aristocracy, merchants and artisans. Strengthening cities with their self-government, for which it is necessary high skill and the fulfillment of shop rules required a new culture, a new self-awareness of a person. There was also a strong secular power, which subjugated the church.

It was at this time that it was born scholasticism, which at that moment was a fairly progressive phenomenon, since it involved not only the passive assimilation of the old, but also the active explanation and modification of ready-made knowledge, developed the ability to think logically, provide a system of evidence and build one's speech. The fact that this knowledge is ready-made, i.e. scholasticism is associated with the use of reproductive, rather than creative thinking, then it was a little alarming, since even reproductive thinking is aimed at obtaining and proving knowledge. However, over time, scholasticism began to slow down the development of new knowledge, acquired a dogmatic character and turned into a set of syllogisms that did not allow refuting old, incorrect or incorrect provisions in the new situation. Similarly, the church, which was in the VI-X centuries. in many respects the custodian of knowledge, became a brake on the development of science. In an effort to retain its priority positions, the church impeded the development of new concepts that contradicted its numerous dogmas, and over time, these contradictions became more and more, and rejection increased. It was in the late Middle Ages that the Inquisition became increasingly important, which tried to defend the old positions of the church in power and science.

Somewhat later, in the 12th-13th centuries, a direction arose in psychology, called deism, which argued that there are two souls - the spiritual (it is studied by theology) and the corporeal, which is studied by psychology. Thus, a subject for scientific study appeared.

By the XIV-XV centuries. the position of secular psychology, independent of theology, was strengthened, more and more scientists appeared who turned to psychological problems - R. Bacon, X. Vives, H. Huarte, W. Ockham. However, in secular psychology, it was not questions of ethics that came to the fore, volitional behavior and freedom of the individual (which for a long time remained problems of theology), and research cognitive development, speech and abilities. Thus, gradually, psychology became the science of consciousness and those processes of cognition of the environment, which are the predominant content of consciousness.

11. Thomas Aquinas and his doctrine of the soul

The expansion of the rights of science led to the fact that by the XIII century. the theory of two truths, somewhat paraphrased in Thomism, a theory developed by the famous theologian Thomas Aquinas, - was already designed to protect faith from scientific evidence. Trying to reconcile science and faith, Thomas Aquinas wrote that they really have two different truths, but in the event that the truth of science contradicts the truth of faith, science must yield to it.

The works of Plato and Aristotle began to have an increasing influence on the psychology of the Middle Ages, the concepts of which gradually acquired an increasingly orthodox character. Many prominent scientists of that time (Ibn Rushd, F. Aquinas) were followers of Aristotle, proving that it was their interpretation of this theory that was the only correct one.

During the Middle Ages, scholasticism reigned in the mental life of Europe (from the Greek "scholasticos" - school, scientist). This special type of philosophizing (“school philosophy”), which dominated from the 11th to the 16th centuries, was reduced to a rational, using logical methods, substantiation of Christian dogma.

There were various currents in scholasticism; the general attitude was towards commenting on texts. Positive study of the subject and discussion of real problems were replaced by verbal tricks. The legacy of Aristotle, which appeared on the intellectual horizon of Europe, was initially banned by the Catholic Church, but then it began to “master”, adapt according to its needs. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) most subtly coped with this task, whose teaching was later canonized in a papal encyclical (1879) as a truly Catholic philosophy (and psychology) and received the name of Thomism (somewhat modernized today under the name of neo-Thomism).

Thomism was formed as a counterbalance to the spontaneous materialistic interpretations of Aristotle, in the depths of which the concept of dual truth was born. At its origins stood Ibn Roshd, who relied on Aristotle. His followers in European universities(Averroists) believed that the incompatibility with the official dogma of ideas about the eternity (and not creation) of the world, about the annihilation (and not immortality) of the individual soul, allows us to assert that each of the truths has its own area. True for one area may be false for another, and vice versa.

Thomas, on the other hand, defended one truth - religious, "descending from above." He believed that reason should serve her just as earnestly as religious feeling. He and his supporters succeeded in cracking down on the Averroists at the University of Paris. But in England, at Oxford University, the concept of dual truth triumphed, becoming the ideological prerequisite for the success of philosophy and the natural sciences.

Describing spiritual life, Thomas Aquinas laid out its various forms in the form of a kind of ladder - from the lowest to the highest. In this hierarchy, each phenomenon has its place, the boundaries between everything that exists are established, and it is unambiguously determined what should be where. Souls (vegetative, animal, human) are located in a stepped row, inside each of them are abilities and their products (sensation, representation, concept).

The concept of introspection, which originated with Plotinus, became the most important source of religious self-deepening with Augustine, and again acted as a pillar of the modernized theological psychology with Thomas Aquinas. The latter presented the work of the soul in the form of the following scheme: first, it performs an act of cognition - it is the image of the object (sensation or concept); then realizes that she has performed this act; finally, having done both operations, the soul “returns” to itself, knowing no longer an image or an act, but itself as a unique entity. Before us is a closed consciousness, from which there is no way out either to the body or to the outside world.

Thomism, thus, turned the great ancient Greek philosopher into a pillar of theology, into "Aristotle with a tonsure" (tonsura - a shaved place on top - a sign of belonging to the Catholic clergy).

12. The Development of Psychology in the Arab World

From the 8th to the 12th century a large number of psychological research was carried out in the East, where the main psychological and philosophical schools moved from Greece and Rome. The following fact was of great importance: Arab scientists insisted that the study of the psyche should be based not only on philosophical concepts about the soul, but also on the data of the natural sciences, primarily medicine.

At that time, in the caliphate, which spread from Central Asia to Spain, not only religious and philosophical views other than Islam were allowed, and natural science research was not prohibited, including the study of the work of the sense organs and the brain.

So, the famous scientist of that time Ibn al-Khaytham (965-1039) made a number important discoveries in the field of psychophysiology of perception. His natural-scientific approach to the organs of perception (primarily to the visual system) was determined by the first attempt in the history of psychological thought to interpret their functions based on the laws of optics. It was important that these laws are available to experience and mathematical analysis. For the basis visual perception Ibn al-Khaytham accepted the construction in the eye according to the laws of optics of the image of an external object. He argued that this process is determined by external, physical causes, since in the future, direct optical effects are joined, albeit unconsciously, by additional mental acts, due to which there is a perception of the shape of surrounding objects, their size, volume, etc.

Not limited to general considerations about the dependence of phenomena on physical (optical) factors and laws, Ibn al-Khaytham experimentally studied such important phenomena as binocular vision, color mixing and the effects observed in this case, the contrast phenomenon, etc. He convincingly argued that for a full-fledged Perception of objects requires eye movement - the movement of visual axes. Thanks to this, the organism automatically performs operations that represent a kind of judgment about the location of perceived things, their distance from a person, their relationship to each other. In the event that the impact of objects was short-term, the eye manages to correctly perceive only objects already familiar to a person that left traces in the nervous system. If traces of past impressions have not yet accumulated, then the laws of optics are not enough to explain how impressions about the surrounding world arise. These laws should be combined with the laws by which the nervous system works.

Of great importance for psychology were the works of another outstanding Arab thinker - Ibn Sina (Latinized name - Avicenna, 980-1037), who was one of the most prominent doctors in the history of medicine.

His teaching was formed in the era of the socio-economic heyday of the Caliphate, a vast empire from India to the Pyrenees, which was formed as a result of the Arab conquests. The culture of this state absorbed the achievements of many peoples inhabiting it, as well as Hellenes, Indians, and Chinese.

Ibn Sina was an encyclopedist, his work was not limited to medicine and psychology, but he achieved the greatest achievements in these areas.

In his philosophical writings, Ibn Sina developed the so-called theory of two truths, which was of great importance for the development of not only psychology, but also other sciences in the medieval period. In psychology, this theory helped to deduce the subject of its study from general subject theology. Thus, psychology opened up a field of its own research, independent of religious postulates and scholastic syllogisms. The theory of two truths proved that there are two independent, like parallel lines, truths - faith and knowledge. Therefore, the truth of knowledge, without coming into contact and contradiction with religion, has the right to its own field of research and its own methods of studying man. Accordingly, it developed two doctrines about the soul - religious-philosophical and natural-science.

Studying the process of cognition, Ibn Sina emphasized that in every thing there is a universal that makes it related to other objects of this class, as well as different from others, a single thing that characterizes this particular thing. Such different properties exist in all surrounding objects, including man, and they are the subject of research by various sciences. Based on this, the scientist argued that medicine and psychology have a special subject. Philosophy explores the existent, the multiple in every thing, while medicine and psychology study the concrete, the singular.

The generalized knowledge accumulated by centuries of experience in studying the behavior of living beings and their manifestations that practical medicine deals with was set forth in Ibn Sina's treatise "The Canon of Medicine". This treatise has been popular for several centuries not only in the East, but also in countries Western Europe(since the 12th century, when it was translated into Latin language). In Europe, this treatise eclipsed the works of the great doctors of antiquity, Hippocrates and Galen. This alone suggests that Ibn Sina did not limit himself to the ideas about the functions of the body that the old science had accumulated, but enriched his teaching with new information and generalizations. It should be borne in mind that medicine was then understood not as a highly specialized field of healing. It covered explanations that later became related to such disciplines as chemistry, botany, astronomy, geography, etc. And of course, all these disciplines contained empirical knowledge, skillfully generalized by Ibn Sina into a “psychological picture of a person.”

Ibn Sina's position on the dependence of mental phenomena on physiological ones concerned the sensitivity of the body, its ability to respond to external stimuli, as well as its emotional states. The knowledge of the functions of the soul was aimed at the knowledge of the material, organic body, accessible to sensory observation, the influence of medicinal and surgical agents, etc.

In all cases, Ibn Sina appealed to his medical experience. He was one of the first researchers in the field age psychophysiology, studied the relationship between the physical development of the body and its psychological characteristics in different age periods. At the same time, he attached great importance to education: it is through education, he taught, that the psyche influences the body, so that it, being an active force, is able to change the physiological properties of this organism in a certain direction. A special place was given to feelings, affects that a child experiences in different age periods. Affects usually arise when communicating with parents, when they influence the child. Accordingly, by evoking certain affects in a child, adults form his nature, his body, the entire system of his psychophysiological functions.

Information has been preserved that in a number of cases he acted as an excellent psychotherapist, in particular, he cured a young man who was dying of exhaustion due to unwillingness to eat. The treatment used a technique that modern science called association experiment.

Ibn Sina is also credited with setting up an experiment that anticipated the study of a phenomenon called experimental neurosis. Two rams were given the same food. But one ate under normal conditions, while a wolf was on a leash near the second. Fear has affected eating behavior this sheep. Although he ate, he quickly lost weight and died. The foregoing gives reason to see in Ibn Sina the beginnings experimental psychophysiology of emotional states.

Another famous Arab thinker - Ibn Rushd (Latinized name - Averroes, 1126-1198) lived in Spain, and then in Morocco, where he served as a judge and court physician. His main works were an original commentary on the writings of Aristotle. This comment acquired the significance of an independent doctrine, which had a great influence on the Western European thought of the Middle Ages. Let us especially note the thought of Ibn Rushd that religion can be considered as a belief containing in an allegorical form a philosophical truth .

Ibn Rushd argued that, following Aristotle, it is necessary to study the inextricable links between the functions of the body and those sensations, feelings, thoughts that a person experiences as processes inherent in his soul. As a doctor, Ibn Rushd carefully studied the structure of the human body and its sense organs, showing the dependence of the perception of the surrounding world on the properties of the nervous system.

Ibn Rushd's main conclusion was that along with the disintegration of the body, the individual soul of man is also destroyed. At the same time, the Arab thinker put forward an unusual idea of what is universal for all people. the mind is preserved after the disintegration of the body and this testifies to the godlikeness of man.

Ibn Rushd emphasized that the possibilities of a person in comprehending the truth are unlimited, and it is only important to teach people to think correctly, to instill in them the desire to think. The general ability to think, to know the world and its laws, being innate, is inherent in every person. This division of mind and soul was one of the most important provisions of the theory of Ibn Rushd and became the object of criticism from theologians. He also emphasized that the ability to think is potential. Just as the sun affects the eye, causing it to experience light, so the universal mind, Ibn Rushd believed, influencing our potential abilities, causes thoughts in us. For their actualization, awareness, certain conditions are necessary, in particular, cognitive motivation, external impressions, and good teachers.

13. The Development of Psychology in the Renaissance

To some extent, the problems that confronted psychology in the Renaissance repeated the old ones that arose during the formation of scientific psychology at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC. As then, psychology sought to overcome the sacredness that returned in the Middle Ages. Therefore, we can say that the Renaissance period was, in fact, the time of the return (revival) of the most important principles of ancient science, the departure from dogmatism and the search for ways of the most optimal scientific study of mental (mental) states. At the same time, a new subject of psychological science was born as a science of consciousness, finally formulated already in modern times.

The 15th-17th centuries remained in history as the time of the rise of art, especially Italian painting and sculpture. The Reformation, which changed not only church life, but also the consciousness of people, was of great importance. The discovery of America, the expansion of geographical concepts also could not but affect the general worldview and led to the active development of scientific knowledge. Significant discoveries were made primarily in astronomy (N. Copernicus, G. Galileo, D. Bruno), mathematics, physics (L. da Vinci, I. Kepler), philosophy and social sciences (T. More, M. Montaigne, E Rotterdamsky, N. Machiavelli).

To a lesser extent, problems of the psyche were studied at that moment, since questions of spiritual life in many respects still remained outside the circle of scientific study. A new aspect of the psychological and philosophical works of that time was the study of the problem of abilities, which, along with the study of cognition, was leading at that time.

A new interpretation of emotions and the development of affects was given in his work by Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588). In an effort to explain the mental from natural laws, he organized the first society of naturalists, which set as its goal the study of nature in all its parts, explaining it from itself. Therefore, the doctrine of driving forces, which are a source of energy for various forms of development. He singled out heat and cold, light and darkness, the ability to expand and contract, etc. as the main ones. These forces, Telesio argued, are in mutual penetration, creating new formations associated with the concentration of certain forces. The struggle of opposing forces is the source of all development. Telesio also believed that the main purpose of nature is to preserve the achieved state. Thus, we can say that the idea first appeared in his concept homeostasis, although stated at the level of science of that time. The law of self-preservation, in his opinion, is subject to the development of the psyche, and the mind and emotions regulate this process. At the same time, the strength of the soul is manifested in positive emotions, and its weakness, which interferes with self-preservation, is manifested in negative emotions. The mind evaluates situations from this point of view. Comparing these views of Telesio with the provisions of subsequent psychological concepts proving the connection of emotions and reason with the desire for adaptation, one can see their affinity associated with the desire to explain the mental by its role in maintaining the vital activity of the organism. Telesio's concept at that time was a breakthrough towards new explanatory principles making psychology an objective science.

The famous Spanish scientist Juan Luis (Ludovik) Vives (1492–1540) also wrote about the need to develop a natural-scientific approach to the study of the psyche. Vives was educated in England, worked for a long time in England, Holland and Germany, maintaining friendly relations with many European scientists of that time - T. More, E. Rotterdam and others. In my work "On Soul and Life" X. Vives substantiated a new approach to psychology as an empirical science based on the analysis of data from sensory experience. For correct construction concepts, he proposed a new way of generalizing sensory data - induction. Although the operational-logical methods of the inductive method were later developed in detail by Francis Bacon, X. Vives owns the proof of the possibility and validity of the logical transition from the particular to the general. The basis of such a transition, according to Vives, are the laws of associations, the interpretation of which he took from Aristotle. The association of impressions determines, in his opinion, the nature of memory. On the same basis, the simplest concepts arise, providing material for all subsequent work of the intellect. Along with the sensory side of mental activity, emotional activity was also important. Vives was one of the first to come to the conclusion that the most effective way to suppress a negative experience is not to restrain it or suppress it with the mind, but to repress it with another, stronger experience. The psychological concept of X. Vives served as a rationale for the development of the pedagogical concept of J. Comenius.

No less important for psychology was the book of another famous Spanish psychologist - Juana Huarte (1530-1592) "Study of abilities in the sciences." It was the first psychological work that set as a special task the study individual differences in abilities for the purpose of professional selection. In Huarte's book, which can be called the first study on differential psychology four main questions were posed:

1. What qualities does that nature have that makes a person capable of one science and incapable of another?

2. What kinds of gifts are there in the human race?

3. What arts and sciences correspond to each talent in particular?

4. By what signs can one recognize the corresponding talent?

The analysis of abilities was compared with a mixture of four elements in the body (temperament) and with a difference in areas of activity (medicine, jurisprudence, military art, government, etc.), requiring appropriate talents. Imagination (fantasy), memory and intellect were recognized as the main abilities. Each of them was explained by a certain temperament of the brain, i.e. the proportion in which the main juices are mixed in it. Analyzing the various sciences and arts, H. Huarte evaluated them in terms of which of the three abilities they require. This directed Huarte's thought to a psychological analysis of the activities of a commander, doctor, lawyer, theologian, and so on. The dependence of talent on nature does not mean, in his opinion, the uselessness of education and work. However, there are also large individual and age differences. A significant role in the formation of abilities is played by physiological factors, in particular the nature of nutrition. Huarte believed that it was especially important to establish external signs by which one could distinguish the qualities of the brain that determine the nature of talent. And although his own observations about the correspondences between bodily signs and abilities are very naive (for example, he singled out stiffness of hair, peculiarities of laughter, etc. as such signs), the very idea of a correlation between internal and external was, as shown by the subsequent path differential psychology, quite rational. Huarte dreamed of organizing professional selection on a national scale: “In order for no one to make mistakes in choosing the profession that is most suitable for his natural talent, the sovereign should have allocated authorized people of great mind and knowledge who would have discovered more in each of his talents. at a tender age; they would then oblige him to study the field of knowledge that suits him.”

Summing up the development of psychology in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it must be emphasized that this period was not uniform in its achievements and the content of psychological research. The relationship between church and science changed repeatedly during this long period of time, with the greatest persecution of knowledge and the system of scientific evidence occurring during the weakening of the power of the church, which, as a rule, considered science not in itself, but as a source (or obstacle) for achieving certain goals.

During the Renaissance, psychological research returned to the problems that had been raised in antiquity. This is due to the emergence of the opportunity to fully read the works of scientists of that time (and not just the selected things of Plato or Aristotle), and with the revival of interest in studying the stages of cognition, human abilities, including the ability to build an objective picture of the world, to realize it as a whole. This interest became leading in the next period, called the New Time.

14. F. Bacon and the completion of the stage of development of psychology in the framework of the doctrine of the soul

Already at the end of the XVI - beginning of the XVII century. in psychological science, two main approaches to the theory of knowledge are formed, associated with the names of outstanding thinkers - F. Bacon and R. Descartes. The first of them became the founder of empiricism, which implies an orientation towards sensory knowledge, experience and experiment, while the second personified the rationalistic approach.

The English psychologist, philosopher and prominent political figure Francis Bacon (1561–1626) belonged to a noble English family (his father was custodian of the Great Seal of England for about 20 years). My political career Bacon started under Queen Elizabeth. For many years he was a member of Parliament, as a lawyer for the Queen, he had to act as a prosecutor against his patron, the Earl of Essex. On behalf of the queen, he wrote a pamphlet justifying the process. Subsequent biographers and researchers of Bacon's work most of all blamed him for this betrayal committed by him in relation to his only friend and patron, considering it a more serious offense than the subsequent ones for which he was convicted. It is not for nothing that the name of Francis Bacon is often cited in the history of science as an example of the discrepancy between talent and morality.

The heyday of his socio-political career is associated with the reign of James I, when Bacon became Lord Chancellor, Keeper of the Great Seal (1617), then Lord High Chancellor and Peer of England (1618). In 1621, Bacon was convicted of accepting gifts that were in the nature of bribery, deprived of all posts and convicted. After an early release, refusing to return to state activities, he went to France and devoted himself entirely to science.

In 1597, Bacon published the first version of his "Experiments or Instructions Moral and Political", which brought him literary fame. Subsequently, he repeatedly revised and republished this work, considering it the best fruit of his work. In his unfinished works, written during the period of his political and state activity, from 1603 to 1612, Bacon formulated the main ideas and provisions that received their final form in the "New Organon" (1620) - the second part of the project of his life, " Great Restoration of Sciences”, which remained unfinished. In these works, Bacon formulated the foundations of the direction, which was called empiricism. Unlike sensationalism, with which it is directly associated, empiricism argues that true knowledge is based not only on sensory experience, but also on experiment, i.e. the data of our sense organs must be supplemented and verified by the results of the experiment, by the readings of the instruments.

The scientist saw the task of science in the conquest of nature and the improvement of man. To achieve this, Bacon developed a program for the restructuring of the entire system of scientific knowledge, the main goal of which was to combat sacredness, dogmatism and scholasticism. Developing a classification of sciences, he proceeded from the position that religion and science form independent areas, their mixing threatens the danger of the emergence of heretical religion or fantastic philosophy. Knowledge cannot be obtained in finished form, Bacon argued, it must be discovered, extracted, obtained by experience. Therefore, in contrast to the dogmas and conclusions rooted in science, divorced from reality, Bacon saw the basis of knowledge in direct sensory knowledge and experience. It is important to note that Bacon does not absolutize it: “Feeling in itself is weak and delusional, and the instruments designed to strengthen and sharpen feelings are worth little. The most accurate interpretation of nature is achieved through observations in appropriate, expediently set experiments. Here feeling judges only about experience, while experience judges nature and the thing itself. Thus, Bacon's empiricism is not just sensory perception, but experience based on experiment, this is what gives grounds to consider the scientist the founder of empirical, experimental science.

A necessary prerequisite for both building new science, and for objective knowledge is, according to Bacon, cleansing the mind of idols, or ghosts (under them, Bacon understood the delusions of the human mind, shortcomings that distort or hinder correct knowledge). "The Doctrine of Idols" was one of the most important parts of his methodology. He distinguished four types of idols: idols of the clan, cave, market and theater. Bacon considers the first two types of idols to be innate, the second two types to be acquired. In his work, the scientist gave detailed description and characteristics of each type:

– idols of the family- shortcomings associated with the peculiarities of the structure and functioning of the human senses (for example, the inability to see ultraviolet rays);

– cave idols reflect the subjectivity of knowledge, since it is difficult for a person to recognize someone else's point of view;

– market idols associated with the use of words that are not always adequate to reality;

– theater idols- shortcomings that are the result of admiration for authorities, often false, and the desire to trust them more than one's own thinking.

The possibility of building a new, objective science was associated by Bacon with the need to develop an objective method for obtaining knowledge and verifying its truth. Such a method, in his opinion, should have been the one proposed by him. experimental-inductive method. For the sciences that receive data on the basis of sensory experience, experiment serves as a method of proof, while for the theoretical sciences, a new induction. New method of induction developed by Bacon, was fundamentally different from the traditional induction adopted in the "old" logic. Bacon's induction assumed a gradual and continuous ascent from "sensations and particulars" to the general on the basis of observation and comparison of the maximum possible number of facts, both positive and negative, which made it possible to avoid erroneous generalizations.

Mine new method – inductive logic- Bacon understood as an instrument of knowledge, organon(hence why he called his main work The New Organon). He compared its significance with the possibility of using a ruler and a compass to draw straight lines and perfect circles by people with different abilities. Bacon believed that by arming people with this method (like a compass and a ruler), he would give them the same opportunities and practically equalize their talents, which would make science accessible to everyone.

Important for the development of objective science was Bacon's idea of using mathematics, which he considered a "great application" to the sciences and regarded as an "auxiliary" discipline.

The principles formulated by Francis Bacon became general methodological principles construction of the science of modern times, including psychology. Significant changes in psychology were also associated with the fact that Bacon was the first to express the idea of the possibility of a truly scientific study of the human psyche. As an adherent of the theory of "duality of truth", he recognized two truths - divine and scientific, philosophical. Bacon's deism was also manifested in his views on the "duality of the soul." In Bacon's time, this position was progressive. According to his views, there is a divinely inspired soul (reasonable or rational) and a sensual soul (created). God-inspired soul Bacon left for the study of theology, theology, and the sensual soul has become the subject of research in philosophy and psychology. With this division, Bacon defended the scientific approach to the study of the human psyche. The sensual soul, according to Bacon, is common between animals and man. But if in animals it is the main one, and its organ is the body, then in man the sensual soul is the organ of the thinking soul. The subject of science Bacon considered the abilities of the soul, such as reason, imagination, memory, will, attraction, affects. Interestingly, he based his classification of sciences on the fundamental abilities of the human soul - memory, imagination, reason, considering history, poetry and philosophy to be the main sciences. In addition to the abilities of the soul, psychology, according to Bacon, should study voluntary movements, irritability and sensations. Thus, Bacon developed a plan for psychological research, which found its embodiment in the works of his followers (Hobbes, Locke).

15. The teachings of R. Descartes - the transition from the study of the soul to consciousness

The first draft of a psychological theory, using the achievements of geometry and new mechanics, belonged to the French mathematician, naturalist and philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650). He came from an old French family and received an excellent education. At the College De la Fleche, which was one of the best religious educational centers, he studied Greek and Latin, mathematics and philosophy. At this time, he also became acquainted with the teachings of Augustine, whose idea of introspection was subsequently revised by him: Augustine's religious reflection Descartes transformed into a purely secular reflection aimed at the knowledge of objective truths.

After graduating from the college, Descartes studies law, then enters military service. During his service in the army, he managed to visit many cities in Holland, Germany and other countries and establish personal contacts with outstanding European scientists of that time. At the same time, he came to the conclusion that the most favorable conditions for his scientific research were not in France, but in the Netherlands, where he moved in 1629. It is in this country that he creates his famous compositions.

In his studies, Descartes focused on the model of the organism as a mechanically working system. Thus, the living body, which in the entire previous history of knowledge was considered as animate, i.e. gifted and controlled by the soul, freed from its influence and interference. From now on, the difference between inorganic and organic bodies was explained according to the criterion of the latter being related to objects that act like simple technical devices. In an age when these devices were more and more definitely established in social production, scientific thought, far from production, explained the functions of the body in their image and likeness.

For centuries, before Descartes, all activity in the perception and processing of mental "material" was considered to be produced by the soul, a special agent that draws its energy beyond the real, earthly world. Descartes argued that a bodily device without a soul is capable of successfully coping with this task. Did the soul then become “unemployed”?

Descartes not only does not deprive it of its former royal role in the Universe, but raises it to the level of a substance (an essence that does not depend on anything else), equal in rights with the great substance of nature. The soul is destined to have the most direct and reliable knowledge that the subject can have of his own acts and states, not visible to anyone else; it is determined by a single sign - the direct awareness of one's own manifestations, which, unlike natural phenomena, are devoid of extension.

This is a significant turn in the understanding of the soul, which opened new chapter in the history of the construction of the subject of psychology. From now on, this subject becomes consciousness .

Consciousness, according to Descartes, is the beginning of all beginnings in philosophy and science. Everything, natural and supernatural, should be questioned. Hence the famous Descartes aphorism “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”). Since thinking is the only attribute of the soul, it always thinks, always knows about its mental content, visible from within; the unconscious mind does not exist.

Later this " inner vision”began to be called introspection (vision of intrapsychic objects-images, mental actions, volitional acts, etc.), and the Cartesian concept of consciousness - introspective. However, just like the ideas about the soul, which underwent the most complex evolution, the concept of consciousness, as we will see, also changed its appearance. However, it had to appear first.

Studying the content of consciousness, Descartes comes to the conclusion that there are three types of ideas: ideas generated by the person himself, ideas acquired and ideas innate. Ideas generated by man, are associated with his sensory experience, being a generalization of the data of our senses. These ideas provide knowledge about individual objects or phenomena, but cannot help in understanding the objective laws of the surrounding world. Can't help it and acquired ideas, since they are also knowledge only about certain aspects of the surrounding reality. The acquired ideas are not based on the experience of one person, but are a generalization of the experience of different people, but only innate ideas give a person knowledge about the essence of the surrounding world, about the basic laws of its development. These general concepts open only to the mind and do not need additional information received from the sense organs.

This approach to knowledge is called rationalism., but the way in which a person discovers the content of innate ideas, rational intuition. Descartes wrote: “By intuition I do not mean belief in the shaky evidence of the senses, but the concept of a clear and attentive mind, so simple and distinct that it leaves no doubt about what we think.”

Recognizing that the machine of the body and the consciousness occupied with its own thoughts (ideas) and “desires” are entities (substances) independent of each other, Descartes was faced with the need to explain how they coexist in an integral person. The solution he proposed was called psychophysical interaction. The body affects the soul, awakening in it “passive states” (passions) in the form of sensory perceptions, emotions, etc. The soul, possessing thinking and will, acts on the body, forcing this "machine" to work and change its course. Descartes was looking for an organ in the body through which these incompatible substances could still communicate. He suggested that such an organ be considered one of the endocrine glands - the pineal gland (pineal gland). Nobody took this empirical "discovery" seriously. However, the solution of the theoretical question of the interaction between the soul and the body in the Cartesian formulation absorbed the energy of many minds.

The liberation of the living body from the soul was a turning point in the scientific search for the real causes of everything that happens in living systems, including the mental effects that arise in them (sensations, perceptions, emotions). At the same time, Descartes not only freed the body from the soul, but also the soul (psyche) in its highest manifestations became free from the body. The body can only move, the soul can only think. The principle of the body is a reflex. The principle of the soul's work is reflection (from Lat, "turning back"). In the first case, the brain reflects external shocks; in the second - consciousness reflects its own thoughts, ideas.

Throughout the history of psychology there is a controversy between the soul and the body. Descartes, like many of his predecessors (from the ancient animists, Pythagoras, Plato), opposed them. But he also created a new form of dualism. Both the body and the soul acquired a content unknown to former researchers.

16. Development of psychological knowledge by R. Descartes

Along with rational intuition, Descartes proclaimed deduction(method of evidence from general to particular). At the same time, intuitive knowledge generated by the natural light of the mind, due to its simplicity, is more reliable than deduction itself. We can, for example, intuitively instantly comprehend by the mind that the triangle is limited to three lines, although the logical proof of this fact would take us a long period of time. It is important to remember that not from the many-valued, but from the simplest and most accessible things, the most secret truths should be derived. Thus, the main requirement for intuition is that knowledge must be clear and distinct and comprehended simultaneously, and not sequentially.

The order of knowledge, according to Descartes, is to gradually reduce obscure, vague positions to simpler ones and then, based on an intuitive understanding of the simplest ones, ascend along the same steps to the knowledge of the rest.

Descartes' belief in the limitless possibilities of human cognition is connected with the belief in the objectivity of the methods of intuition and deduction proposed by him, with the help of which a person is able to reliably cognize himself, the world around him, and abstract non-material concepts. When the intellect investigates a corporeal thing, it needs the help of the outer senses to form its image. This is the role of such mental processes as sensation, memory, imagination. At the same time, true knowledge of the external world is impossible unless intuition interferes with it; errors can arise because a person is too immersed in his body and is not able to get rid of the delusions that it dictates to him through perception.

Descartes, having introduced the concept of intuition, actually divided it into two parts, highlighting two types of intuition - experimental and ideal. This division is furthered by his idea that although the intellect alone is capable of knowing the truth, yet it has recourse to the senses, imagination and memory so as not to leave without use any of the means at our disposal.

The study of passions was the subject of Descartes' last work, The Passions of the Soul, the idea of which arose on the basis of his correspondence with Princess Elisabeth, who lived in exile in the Netherlands. In this work, Descartes came to the conclusion that there are two types of passions - active and passive.

Passive states or passions in his theory are considered as the result of interaction with objects of the surrounding world and are identified with sensory cognition. These are sensations, perceptions, ideas, feelings, ideas that do not come from the soul itself, but are brought in from the outside and are only realized by it in this form, i.e. these passions are imposed on the soul, it cannot change them. At the same time, being one of the sides of human interaction with the outside world, passions as a component of the cognitive assessment of the environment depend on the accuracy and truth of this assessment. Thus, as mentioned above, the foundations are laid cognitive approach to the problem of emotions.

Descartes identified active states with desires that come directly from our soul and depend only on it. Descartes sees the main purpose or function of the passions in “that they induce and set the soul of a person to desire what these passions prepare his body for; so, a feeling of fear causes a desire to run away, and a feeling of courage - to fight ... ”Passion“ accustom the soul to desire what is recognized by nature as useful and never change its desire ... ”At the same time, active passions can make a person perform actions dictated by reason and not related to satisfaction biologically expedient desires. Thus, these passions are the source of both volitional and instinctive behavior striving for self-preservation. They are also identified by a person with aspirations and affects, which depend not only on the soul, but also on the body and serve as a link between them. The only place where the soul connects with the body is the pineal gland (pituitary gland) in Descartes' concept. The influence of the soul on the course of the reflex lies in the fact that with its desire it makes the iron vibrate, directing the movement of animal spirits in such a way as to cause the desired action (behavior) that corresponds to this desire. Thus, the soul changes the direction of the reflex, making the behavior volitional and purposeful. The theory of passions serves as a bridge for Descartes connecting his doctrine of the soul and the doctrine of morality. Descartes considered ethics "the highest and most perfect science, which presupposes a complete knowledge of other sciences and is the last step to higher wisdom." Therefore, it can be considered natural to address ethical issues precisely in its latest work. Singling out six primary passions - surprise, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness, Descartes considered all other passions to be derivatives of them or their varieties.

He emphasized that the emergence and manifestation of passions do not depend on the direct volitional efforts and desires of a person. But the soul, however weak it may be, is able to influence the passions indirectly. So, in order to suppress fear in oneself and show courage, it is not enough for a person to have only one desire. But the will can restrain those movements of the body that are capable of causing passion (for example, prevent flight in fear). However, as Descartes wrote, "the power of the soul without knowledge of the truth is not enough." Therefore, in the intervals between attacks of fear, the will and mind take measures to understand the cause of fear and make its new attack less dangerous. Instead of conquering one passion with another, which would be only an imaginary freedom, but in reality would mean constant slavery, the soul must fight the passions with its own weapon, i.e. firm rules based on a correct understanding of good and evil. The will overcomes the passions by a clear and distinct knowledge, which shows what a deceptive meaning things acquire when passionately excited, revealing the real value of the surrounding objects. In his letters to Princess Elizabeth, happy life and to Queen Christina about love and eternal good, Descartes constantly returned to the idea that the goal of human aspirations is peace of conscience, achieved only by the decision of the will to live virtuously, in harmony with oneself. Thus, wisdom consists in doing what is recognized as the best, virtue in firmness, and sin in impermanence.

The ethical views of Descartes are closely connected with his theory of knowledge. Virtue is also truth. If a person in his decisions and actions proceeds from the knowledge of the truth, true judgments and firmly follows them, he can be sure that he will not have to repent or regret the consequences. Such a person gains mastery over his passions and lives according to virtue. The central idea of Descartes' ethics - domination over human passions - and the means of combating passions recommended by him in many respects have something in common with the moral teaching of the Stoics. However, Descartes, unlike the Stoics, did not consider passions as such evil and warned only against their extremes and misapplication. An important difference in their positions was the fact that Descartes' knowledge itself became a moral activity, while truth and goodness became identical concepts. The same single soul first cognizes the truth, freely avoiding rash judgments, in order then to act in moral behavior in accordance with it.

17. The concept of a reflex in R. Descartes

An important merit of Descartes was reflex opening. Recognizing the existence of two independent substances - the soul and the body, he came to the conclusion that the body does not need the soul as a source of activity. In his theory, the body is conceived as a machine that functions according to the laws of mechanics. The source of movement is not in the soul, but in the body itself, in its design, organization, which is “launched”, like any automatic machine, by an external push. Thus, according to Descartes, the soul is endowed with its own activity, which directs the processes of thinking, cognition, and the main function of the body is movement, which is considered as a reflex. The term itself reflex in the works of Descartes is absent, but in his descriptions of the structure and functioning of the body, the main reflex arc components.

A significant influence on the creation by Descartes of his theory of the reflex was the discovery by Harvey of the process of blood circulation. The passage of a nerve impulse Descartes thought by analogy with the passage of blood through the vessels. He believed that the whole body is permeated with nerves that originate in the brain and go to all parts of the body. He represented the nerves as thin threads surrounded by a sheath, like a tube. These tubes, in addition to the threads, contain "animal spirits" - the most mobile and light particles of blood that are filtered from other particles in the brain (bodies "having no other property except that they are very small and move very quickly"). Through the pores in the brain, animal spirits can move into the nerves, and from them into the muscles, due to which the body is able to perform various movements. With an external influence on the nerve endings, the tension of the thread opens the valves, and animal spirits pass from one tube to another, heading for the corresponding muscle, inflate it, forcing it to shorten and contract. Thus, by tracing the path that animal spirits travel along the nerves from the receptors to the brain and then to the muscles, Descartes actually gave a description of the reflex arc. So with the teachings of Descartes in psychology established the new kind determinism - mechanical determinism.

By the movement of animal spirits, Descartes explained the whole variety of actions, human behavior. The movements of animal spirits inside the brain are perceived by the soul, in its opinion, as sensations, perceptions and ideas. The change in the trajectory of the movement of animal spirits (hence, the variability of behavior) Descartes explained by two reasons - habit, or exercise, and the influence of the soul.

Discussing the possibility of changing the course of the reflex, i.e. the possibility of learning and shaping the desired behavior, Descartes used the concept association introduced by Aristotle. However, if Aristotle's associations are primarily associated with the work of the sense organs, then Descartes extends associations to behavior, speaking of the connection between two actions or an action and an image of an object. So. a shot that leads to a natural movement - to run away, hide, can change its function during training, for example, for a soldier it becomes a signal to attack, and for a hunting dog - to search for game. This change in behavior is not due to the influence of the soul and occurs because the associations that arise as a result of exercise or habit deform the valves (pores) of the brain as a result of the tension of certain "threads". This disrupts the natural movement of animal spirits, they move in a new direction and hit a different muscle, causing a correspondingly different movement. The described ideas of Descartes received a more detailed embodiment in the associative theory of Gartley. These changes of behavior take place, as has been said, without the intervention of the soul, while the action of the passions on activity is connected with the activity of the soul.

18. Philosophical views of B. Spinoza

Attempts to refute the dualism of Descartes were undertaken by a cohort of great thinkers of the 17th century. Their search was aimed at affirming the unity of the universe, putting an end to the gap between the physical and spiritual, nature and consciousness. One of the first opponents of Descartes was the Dutch thinker Baruch (Venedict) Spinoza (1632-1677).

Spinoza was born in Amsterdam with a theological education. His parents trained him to become a rabbi, but already at school he developed a critical attitude towards the dogmatic interpretation of the Bible and the Talmud. After leaving school, Spinoza turned to the study of exact sciences, medicine and philosophy. The writings of Descartes had a great influence on him. Criticism of religious postulates, as well as non-compliance with many religious rites, led to a break with the Jewish community of Amsterdam: the council of rabbis applied an extreme measure to Spinoza - a curse and excommunication from the community. After that, Spinoza taught for a while at a Latin school, and then settled in a village near Leiden, earning his livelihood by making optical glasses. During these years, he wrote the "Principles of the Philosophy of Descartes" (1663), developed the main content of his main work "Ethics", which was published after his death, in 1677.

Spinoza taught that there is one, eternal substance - Nature- with an infinite set of attributes (inherent properties). Of these, only two are open to our limited mind - extension and thinking. Therefore, it is meaningless to represent a person as a meeting place of bodily and spiritual substances, as Descartes did. Man is an integral bodily and spiritual being. The belief that the body moves or rests according to the will of the soul has developed due to ignorance of what it is capable of in itself, "by virtue of the laws of nature alone, considered exclusively as bodily."

The integrity of a person not only binds his spiritual and bodily essence, but is also the basis for the knowledge of the surrounding world - Spinoza argued. Like Descartes, he was convinced that it is intuitive knowledge that is leading, because intuition makes it possible to penetrate into the essence of things, to know not individual properties of objects or situations, but general concepts. Intuition opens up limitless possibilities of self-knowledge. However, knowing himself, a person also knows the world around him, since the laws of the soul and body are the same. Proving the cognizability of the world, Spinoza emphasized that the order and connection of ideas are the same as the order and connection of things, since both the idea and the thing are different sides of the same substance - Nature.

None of the thinkers realized as sharply as Spinoza that Descartes' dualism is rooted not so much in the focus on the priority of the soul (this served as the basis for countless religious-philosophical doctrines for centuries), but in the view of the body as a machine-like device. Thus, mechanical determinism, which soon determined the major successes of psychology, turned into a principle that limits the possibilities of the body in the causal explanation of mental phenomena.

All subsequent concepts were absorbed by the revision of the Cartesian version of consciousness as a substance that causes itself (causa sui), about the identity of the psyche and consciousness. From the searches of Spinoza, it was clear that the version of the body (organism) should also be revised in order to give it a worthy role in human existence.

An attempt to build a psychological doctrine of man as an integral being was captured by Spinoza's main work, Ethics. In it, he set the task of explaining all the great variety of feelings (affects) as the motivating forces of human behavior, moreover, to explain in a "geometric way", i.e. with the same inexorable precision and rigor with which geometry draws its conclusions about lines and surfaces. It is necessary, he wrote, not to laugh and cry (this is how people react to their experiences), but to understand. For the geometer is completely impassive in his reasoning; the same should be applied to human passions, explaining how they arise and disappear.

Thus, Spinoza's rationalism does not lead to a denial of emotions, but to an attempt to explain them. At the same time, he connects emotions with will, saying that preoccupation with passions does not give a person the opportunity to understand the reasons for his behavior, and therefore he is not free. At the same time, the renunciation of emotions opens up the boundaries of a person's possibilities, showing what depends on his will, and what he is not free in depends on the circumstances. It is this understanding that is true freedom, since a person cannot be freed from the action of the laws of nature. Contrasting freedom with coercion, Spinoza gave his definition of freedom as a recognized necessity, opening a new page in psychological studies of the limits of human volitional activity.

Spinoza singled out three main powers, which govern people and from which all the variety of feelings can be derived: attraction(it is "nothing but the very essence of man"), joy And sadness. He argued that from these fundamental affects all emotional states are derived, and joy increases the body's ability to act, while sadness reduces it.

This conclusion opposed the Cartesian idea of the division of feelings into those rooted in the life of the organism and purely intellectual. As an example, Descartes, in his last work - a letter to the Swedish Queen Christina - explained the essence of love as a feeling that has two forms: bodily passion without love and intellectual love without passion. Only the former lends itself to a causal explanation, since it depends on the organism and biological mechanics. The second can only be understood and described.

Thus, Descartes believed that science is powerless in the face of the highest and most significant manifestations of the mental life of the individual. This Cartesian dichotomy (dividing in two) led in the 20th century to the concept of "two psychologies" - explanatory, appealing to causes associated with the functions of the body, and descriptive, considering that we explain the body, while we understand the soul. Therefore, in the dispute between Spinoza and Descartes one should not see only a historical episode that has long lost its relevance.

19. D. Hartley as the creator of the first system of associative psychology.

Association (lat. Associatio - connection, relationship) - in psychology and philosophy, a natural connection between individual events, facts, objects or phenomena reflected in consciousness and fixed in memory.

associationism, or associative psychology, appeared as an independent direction in the XVIII century. This school marked the beginning of the separation of psychology into an independent science, independent of philosophy, which has its own subject. In line with associationism, the orientation of psychology changed from philosophical to natural science methodology, and the search for an objective method of research and the formation of experimental psychology began.

The term "associationism" was introduced by Locke, and the concept itself was used by Aristotle, who developed the first laws of associations. Then, already in the New Age, this concept returned to psychology, however, the associations of Descartes and Leibniz were interpreted, unlike Aristotle, not so much as mechanisms for processing information, but as phenomena that interfere with the true understanding of things.

Some issues of associative psychology were developed in the works of Bonnet, Berkeley and Hume, but the emergence of associationism as a psychological school is associated with the name of D. Hartley, who built his psychological theory on the mechanism of associative processing.

Berkeley and Hume, while developing the laws of associations and linking them with the characteristics of the human psyche, nevertheless considered these laws as a special case of their concept. D. Hartley (1705–1757) is rightfully considered the founder of associative psychology, which existed as the only proper psychological direction until the beginning of the 20th century. Having first received theological, and then medical education, Gartley sought to create a theory that would not only explain the soul of a person, but would also allow him to control his behavior. As such a universal mechanism of mental life, he chose associations.

Gartley based his theory on Locke's idea of the experimental nature of knowledge, as well as the principles of Newton's mechanics. In general, an understanding of the human body, the principles of its work, including the work of the nervous system, by analogy with the laws of mechanics, discovered at that time, was a characteristic sign of the psychology of the 18th century. Hartley did not escape this mistake, who sought to explain human behavior on the basis of physical principles.

Gartley's doctrine of association, set forth by him in his book Reflections on Man, His Structure, His Duty and Hopes (1749), is based on the doctrine of vibration, since he believed that the vibration of the external ether causes a corresponding vibration of the senses, muscles and brain. After analyzing the structure of the human psyche, Gartley identified two circles in it - large and small. The large circle runs from the sense organs through the brain to the muscles, i.e. is actually a reflex arc that determines human behavior. Thus, Gartley, in fact, created his own, second after Descartes in psychology, reflex theory, which explained human activity using the laws of mechanics. According to Gartley, external influences, causing the vibration of the sense organs, trigger a reflex. The vibration of the sense organs causes the corresponding parts of the brain to vibrate, and this vibration, in turn, causes the work of certain muscles, stimulating their contraction and movement of the body.

If the large circle regulates behavior, then the small circle of vibration, located in the white matter of the brain, is the basis of mental life, the processes of cognition and learning. Hartley believed that the vibration of brain regions in a large circle causes a response vibration in the white matter of the brain. Disappearing in a large circle, this vibration leaves traces in a small circle. These traces, in his opinion, serve as the basis of human memory. They can be more or less strong, depending on the strength and significance of the phenomenon that left this mark. Of great importance was Gartley's idea that the degree of their awareness by a person depends on the strength of these traces, and weak traces, he emphasized, are not recognized at all. Thus, he expanded the scope of mental life, including in it not only consciousness, but also unconscious processes, and created the first materialistic theory of the unconscious. Almost a hundred years later, Hartley's ideas about the power of traces and its connection with the possibility of their awareness were developed by the famous psychologist Herbart in his famous theory about the dynamics of ideas.

Exploring the psyche, Gartley came to the conclusion that it consists of several basic elements - sensations which are vibrations of the sense organs, representations(vibration traces in white matter in the absence of a real object) and feelings reflecting the strength of the vibration. Speaking about the development of mental processes, he proceeded from the idea that they are based on various associations. At the same time, the associations are secondary and reflect the real connection between the two centers of vibrations in the small circle. In this way, Gartley explained the formation of the most complex mental processes, including thinking and will. He believed that the basis of thinking is the association of images of objects with the word (reducing thinking to the process of forming concepts), and the basis of will is the association of words and movement.

Based on the idea of the lifetime formation of the psyche, Gartley believed that the possibilities of education, of influencing the process of a child's mental development, are truly endless. His future is determined by the material for associations that others supply him, therefore it depends only on adults how the child will grow up, how he will think and act. Gartley is one of the first psychologists to talk about the need for educators to use knowledge of the laws of mental life in their teaching methods. At the same time, he argued that a reflex reinforced by a positive feeling is more stable, and a negative feeling that occurs with a certain reflex helps to forget it. Therefore, it is possible to form socially accepted forms of behavior, the formation of an ideal moral person, it is only necessary to reinforce the necessary reflexes in time or destroy the harmful ones. Thus, the theory of the ideal man first arose in the 18th century. and was connected primarily with the mechanistic understanding of his mental life.

Hartley's views had a huge impact on the development of psychology, suffice it to say that the theory of associationism existed for almost two centuries and, although it was repeatedly criticized, its main postulates, laid down by Gartley, became the basis for the further development of psychology. No less important were his guesses about the reflex nature of behavior, and his views on the possibilities of education and the need to control this process are very consonant with the approaches of reflexologists and behaviorists, developed already in the 20th century.

In fact, since the emergence of associationism, i.e. Hartley's theory, one can already speak of the existence of an independent psychology, which is proved both by the appearance of works devoted to purely psychological problems, and by an analysis of its place in the system of sciences (for example, in the works of Kant) and the beginning of a psychology course in educational institutions. So if experimental psychology rightfully associated with the name of W. Wundt, the emergence of psychology as an independent field of scientific research can be counted from the works of D. Hartley.

With the development of science, the emergence of new data in physics, biology, physiology, many of Hartley's provisions, especially those related to mechanics, began to rapidly become obsolete. This led to their revision, a new interpretation of the laws of associations. In this form, the theory of associationism appeared in the classical works of D. Mill, T. Brown and other scientists of the first third of the 19th century.

The subject of psychological science is the logic of development. The subject of the history of psychology and the logic of the development of science. The logic of the development of science

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