The understanding of the subject of psychology in science did not develop immediately. The process of its formation took place in four stages.
Stage 1 (5th century BC) - the subject of study was the soul. Ideas about the soul were both idealistic and materialistic. The idealist Plato, for example, considered the soul immaterial, invisible, incorruptible, and the materialists Heraclitus and Democritus considered it a particle of nature, an atom of fire, that is, material. Further, as a result of the struggle between these two directions, idealism became the basis of religion, and materialism was prohibited (until the 17th century). During this period, the soul began to be viewed as something independent of the body, as a special entity. The duality of the soul - dualism (lat. dialia - dual) in its most developed form was presented in the teachings of Rene Descartes (1596-1650).
The 2nd stage (XVII century) was marked by the rapid development of the natural sciences and consciousness became the subject of psychology. It was understood as the ability to feel, desire, think. The material world was not studied. The method of studying consciousness became introspection, that is, introspection, self-awareness, and the scientific direction began to be called introspective psychology. The representative of this trend was the English scientist John Locke (1632-1704). Within the framework of introspective psychology, the first experimental psychological laboratory was created in 1879 in Leipzig by Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920). This event marked the emergence of the experimental method in psychology, and 1879 became the year of the birth of scientific psychology. The onset of criticism of introspection (the inability to simultaneously perform an action and analyze it; ignoring the unconscious, etc.) prepared the transition to the next stage.
3rd stage (XIX century) - in connection with advances in medicine, experiments on animals, etc., behavior becomes the subject of psychology (American scientist John Watson (1878-1958), etc.). A powerful scientific direction in American psychology emerged, which was called behaviorism. Behavior was explained by the nature of the stimulus that causes the reaction (behavior): (S - R) stimulus - reaction. At this time, a number of attempts appear to explain behavior not by stimuli, but by other factors. This is how the basic psychological concepts emerge:
- Gestalt psychology - Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) (subject of study - features of perception);
- psychoanalysis and neo-Freudianism - Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Carl Gustav Jung (1875 -1961), Alfred Adler (1870-1937) (subject of study - the unconscious);
- cognitive psychology - Ulrich Naiser, Jerome Simon Bruner (subject of study - cognitive processes);
- genetic psychology - Jean Piaget (1896-1980) (subject - development of thinking).
The foundations of domestic scientific psychology were also laid at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The formation of “reflexology” is taking place - Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (1857-1927), Boris Gerasimovich Ananyev (1829-1905).
The 4th stage (XX century) is marked by the emergence in Russian psychology of a dialectical-materialist concept, which was based on the philosophical theory of reflection (the subject of study is the psyche) - Pavel Petrovich Blonsky (1884-1941), Konstantin Nikolaevich Kornilov (1879-1957). One of the most important directions that emerged in the 20-30s was the “cultural-historical theory” developed by Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934), then the psychological theory of activity associated with the name of Alexei Nikolaevich Leontiev (1903-1979 ) (subject - mental activity).
Humanistic psychology appears in the West - Carl Rogers (1902-1987), Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) (subject - personality traits). In the 60s of the XX century. A new direction is attracting attention - transpersonal psychology (Stanislav Grof), which studies the ultimate capabilities of the human psyche.
Currently, integration of different directions is taking place. Psychologists use concepts and methods of one direction or another, depending on the characteristics of the problems and tasks being solved. There is no single idea about the subject of psychology.

From the standpoint of scientific methodology, the history of psychology can be described as a sequence of stages in the formation of ideas about its subject, method and principles within the framework of scientific paradigms (Table 1).

1st stage. In ancient times it was believed that the soul was present in nature wherever there was movement and warmth. The first philosophical doctrine, based on the belief in the universal spirituality of the world, was called “animism” (from the Latin anima - soul, spirit). It was based on the belief that everything that exists in the world has elements of the soul. Subsequently, the animalistic idea of ​​the soul gave way to hylozoism (from the Greek hyle - substance, matter and zoe - life). The Ionian natural philosophers - Thales, Anaximenes and Heraclitus - interpret the soul as the form of the element that animates people and animals, forming the origin of the world (water, air, fire). No boundaries were drawn between living, non-living and mental. All this was considered as the generation of a single primary matter (primordial matter).

Table 1

Stages of development of psychology as a science

Later, two opposing points of view on the psyche emerged: the materialistic Democritus and the idealistic Plato. According to Democritus, the soul is a material substance that consists of fire atoms, spherical, light and very mobile. Democritus tried to explain all mental phenomena by physical and even mechanical reasons. With the death of the body, as the philosopher believed, the soul also dies. According to Plato, the soul has nothing in common with matter and, unlike the latter, is ideal. The soul is an invisible, sublime, divine, eternal principle. The body is a visible, transitory, perishable principle. The soul and body are in a complex relationship. By its divine origin, the soul is called upon to control the body. Plato is the founder of dualism in psychology, which interprets the material and spiritual, body and psyche as two independent and antagonistic principles.

The first attempt to systematize knowledge about the psyche was made by Aristotle, who is rightfully considered the founder of psychology. Aristotle's merit was that he was the first to postulate the functional relationship of the soul (psyche) and body (organism). The essence of the soul, according to Aristotle, is the realization of the biological existence of the organism. A significant contribution to the development of ideas about the natural scientific basis of psychology was made by ancient Greek, ancient Roman and ancient Eastern doctors.

During the Middle Ages, Arabic-language science achieved significant success, assimilating the culture of the Hellenes, the peoples of Central Asia, India and China.

The Renaissance brought a new worldview, in which a research approach to the phenomena of reality was cultivated. A society of natural scientists is being created, interest in the psychology of creativity is intensifying, and interest in the human personality is growing. Experimentation takes priority in science.

2nd stage. In the 17th century the methodological prerequisites for the scientific understanding of the psyche and consciousness were laid. The soul begins to be interpreted as consciousness, the activity of which is directly related to the work of the brain. Unlike the psychology of the soul, the psychology of consciousness considers introspection of one’s inner world to be the main source of knowledge. This specific cognition is called the method of introspection.

The formation of psychological views during this period is associated with the activities of a number of scientists. R. Descartes laid the foundations for the deterministic concept of behavior and the introspective concept of consciousness. D. Locke professed the experiential origin of the entire structure of human consciousness. In experience itself, D. Locke identified two sources: the activity of the external sense organs (external experience) and the internal activity of the mind, perceiving its own work (internal experience). This position of D. Locke became the starting point for the development of introspective psychology. G. Leibniz introduced the concept of the unconscious psyche, believing that in the consciousness of the subject there is a continuous work of mental forces hidden from him in the form of a special dynamics of unconscious perceptions.

In the 18th century an associative theory appeared, the emergence and development of which is associated with the names of T. Hobbes and D. Hartley.

3rd stage. An important role in identifying psychology as an independent branch of knowledge was played by the development of the method of conditioned reflexes in physiology and the practice of treating mental illnesses, as well as conducting experimental studies of the psyche.

At the beginning of the 20th century. the founder of behaviorism D. Watson proposed a program for building a new psychology. Behaviorism recognized behavior and behavioral reactions as the only object of psychological study. Consciousness as a phenomenon that cannot be observed was excluded from the sphere of behaviorist psychology.

4th stage. It is characterized by a variety of approaches to the essence of the psyche, the transformation of psychology into a multidisciplinary applied field of knowledge that serves the interests of practical human activity.

Scientific movements in psychology differ in their subject matter, problems studied, conceptual field, and explanatory schemes. The psychological reality of a person appears in them from a certain angle, certain aspects of his mental life come to the fore and are studied thoroughly and in detail, while others are either not studied at all or receive too narrow an interpretation.

Features of the development of psychology as a science are reflected in Fig. 4.

Rice. 4. Features of the development of psychology as a science

Like, it originates back thousands of years. The term "psychology" (from the Greek. psyche- soul, logos- doctrine, science) means “teaching about the soul.” Psychological knowledge has developed historically - some ideas were replaced by others.

Studying the history of psychology, of course, cannot be reduced to a simple listing of the problems, ideas and ideas of various psychological schools. In order to understand them, you need to understand their internal connection, the unified logic of the formation of psychology as a science.

Psychology as a doctrine about the human soul is always conditioned by anthropology, the doctrine of man in his integrity. Research, hypotheses, and conclusions of psychology, no matter how abstract and particular they may seem, imply a certain understanding of the essence of a person and are guided by one or another image of him. In turn, the doctrine of man fits into the general picture of the world, formed on the basis of a synthesis of knowledge and ideological attitudes of the historical era. Therefore, the history of the formation and development of psychological knowledge is seen as a completely logical process associated with a change in the understanding of the essence of man and with the formation on this basis of new approaches to explaining his psyche.

History of the formation and development of psychology

Mythological ideas about the soul

Humanity began with mythological picture of the world. Psychology owes its name and first definition to Greek mythology, according to which Eros, the immortal god of love, fell in love with a beautiful mortal woman, Psyche. The love of Eros and Psyche was so strong that Eros managed to convince Zeus to turn Psyche into a goddess, making her immortal. Thus, the lovers were united forever. For the Greeks, this myth was a classic image of true love as the highest realization of the human soul. Therefore, Psycho - a mortal who has acquired immortality - has become a symbol of a soul searching for its ideal. At the same time, in this beautiful legend about the difficult path of Eros and Psyche towards each other, a deep thought is discerned about the difficulty of a person mastering his spiritual nature, his mind and feelings.

The ancient Greeks initially understood the close connection of the soul with its physical basis. The same understanding of this connection can be seen in the Russian words: “soul”, “spirit” and “breathe”, “air”. Already in ancient times, the concept of the soul united into a single complex those inherent in external nature (air), the body (breath) and an entity independent of the body that controls life processes (the spirit of life).

In early ideas, the soul was endowed with the ability to leave the body while a person sleeps and live its own life in his dreams. It was believed that at the moment of death a person leaves the body forever, flying out through the mouth. The doctrine of transmigration of souls is one of the most ancient. It was represented not only in Ancient India, but also in Ancient Greece, especially in the philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato.

The mythological picture of the world, where bodies are inhabited by souls (their “doubles” or ghosts), and life depends on the arbitrariness of the gods, has reigned in the public consciousness for centuries.

Psychological knowledge in the ancient period

Psychology how rational knowledge of the human soul originated in antiquity in the depths on the basis of the geocentric picture of the world, placing man at the center of the universe.

Ancient philosophy adopted the concept of the soul from previous mythology. Almost all ancient philosophers tried to express with the help of the concept of soul the most important essential principle of living nature, considering it as the cause of life and knowledge.

For the first time, man, his inner spiritual world, becomes the center of philosophical reflection in Socrates (469-399 BC). Unlike his predecessors, who dealt primarily with problems of nature, Socrates focused on the inner world of man, his beliefs and values, and the ability to act as a rational being. Socrates assigned the main role in the human psyche to mental activity, which was studied in the process of dialogic communication. After his research, the understanding of the soul was filled with ideas such as “good”, “justice”, “beautiful”, etc., which physical nature does not know.

The world of these ideas became the core of the doctrine of the soul of the brilliant student of Socrates - Plato (427-347 BC).

Plato developed the doctrine of immortal soul, inhabiting the mortal body, leaving it after death and returning to the eternal supersensible world of ideas. The main thing for Plato is not the doctrine of immortality and transmigration of the soul, but in studying the content of its activities(in modern terminology in the study of mental activity). He showed that the internal activity of souls gives knowledge about reality of supersensible existence, the eternal world of ideas. How does a soul located in mortal flesh join the eternal world of ideas? All knowledge, according to Plato, is memory. With appropriate effort and preparation, the soul can remember what it happened to contemplate before its earthly birth. He taught that man is “not an earthly plant, but a heavenly plant.”

Plato was the first to identify such a form of mental activity as inner speech: the soul reflects, asks itself, answers, affirms and denies. He was the first to try to reveal the internal structure of the soul, isolating its threefold composition: the highest part - the rational principle, the middle - the volitional principle and the lower part of the soul - the sensual principle. The rational part of the soul is called upon to harmonize the lower and higher motives and impulses coming from different parts of the soul. Such problems as the conflict of motives were introduced into the field of study of the soul, and the role of reason in resolving it was considered.

Disciple - (384-322 BC), arguing with his teacher, returned the soul from the supersensible to the sensory world. He put forward the concept of the soul as functions of a living organism,, and not some independent entity. The soul, according to Aristotle, is a form, a way of organizing a living body: “The soul is the essence of being and the form not of a body like an ax, but of a natural body that in itself has the beginning of movement and rest.”

Aristotle identified different levels of activity abilities in the body. These levels of abilities constitute a hierarchy of levels of soul development.

Aristotle distinguishes three types of soul: vegetable, animal And reasonable. Two of them belong to physical psychology, since they cannot exist without matter, the third is metaphysical, i.e. the mind exists separately and independently of the physical body as the divine mind.

Aristotle was the first to introduce into psychology the idea of ​​development from the lower levels of the soul to its highest forms. Moreover, each person, in the process of transforming from a baby into an adult being, goes through the stages from plant to animal, and from there to the rational soul. According to Aristotle, the soul, or "psyche", is engine allowing the body to realize itself. The psyche center is located in the heart, where impressions transmitted from the senses are received.

When characterizing a person, Aristotle put first place knowledge, thinking and wisdom. This attitude towards man, inherent not only to Aristotle, but also to antiquity as a whole, was largely revised within the framework of medieval psychology.

Psychology in the Middle Ages

When studying the development of psychological knowledge in the Middle Ages, a number of circumstances must be taken into account.

Psychology did not exist as an independent field of research during the Middle Ages. Psychological knowledge was included in religious anthropology (the study of man).

Psychological knowledge of the Middle Ages was based on religious anthropology, which was especially deeply developed by Christianity, especially by such “church fathers” as John Chrysostom (347-407), Augustine Aurelius (354-430), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), etc.

Christian anthropology comes from theocentric picture world and the basic principle of Christian dogma - the principle of creationism, i.e. creation of the world by the Divine mind.

It is very difficult for modern scientifically oriented thinking to understand the teachings of the Holy Fathers, which are predominantly symbolic character.

Man in the teachings of the Holy Fathers appears as central being in the universe, the highest level in the hierarchical ladder of technology, those. created by God peace.

Man is the center of the Universe. This idea was also known to ancient philosophy, which viewed man as a “microcosm,” a small world that embraces the entire universe.

Christian anthropology did not abandon the idea of ​​the “microcosm,” but the Holy Fathers significantly changed its meaning and content.

The “Church Fathers” believed that human nature is connected with all the main spheres of existence. With his body, man is connected to the earth: “And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul,” says the Bible. Through feelings, a person is connected with the material world, with his soul - with the spiritual world, the rational part of which is capable of ascending to the Creator himself.

Man, the holy fathers teach, is dual in nature: one of his components is external, bodily, and the other is internal, spiritual. The soul of a person, feeding the body with which it was created together, is located everywhere in the body, and is not concentrated in one place. The Holy Fathers introduce a distinction between “internal” and “external” man: “God created inner man and blinded external; The flesh was molded, but the soul was created.”* In modern language, the outer man is a natural phenomenon, and the inner man is a supernatural phenomenon, something mysterious, unknowable, divine.

In contrast to the intuitive-symbolic, spiritual-experiential way of knowing a person in Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity followed the path rational comprehension of God, the world and man, having developed such a specific type of thinking as scholasticism(of course, along with scholasticism, irrationalistic mystical teachings also existed in Western Christianity, but they did not determine the spiritual climate of the era). The appeal to rationality ultimately led to the transition of Western civilization in modern times from a theocentric to an anthropocentric picture of the world.

Psychological thought of the Renaissance and Modern times

Humanistic movement that originated in Italy in the 15th century. and spread to Europe in the 16th century, it was called “Renaissance”. Reviving ancient humanistic culture, this era contributed to the liberation of all sciences and arts from dogmas and restrictions imposed on them by medieval religious ideas. As a result, the natural, biological and medical sciences began to develop quite actively and made a significant step forward. Movement began in the direction of forming psychological knowledge into an independent science.

Enormous influence on psychological thought of the 17th-18th centuries. provided by mechanics, who became the leader of the natural sciences. Mechanical picture of nature determined a new era in the development of European psychology.

The beginning of the mechanical approach to explaining mental phenomena and reducing them to physiology was laid by the French philosopher, mathematician and natural scientist R. Descartes (1596-1650), who was the first to develop a model of the body as an automaton or system that works like artificial mechanisms in accordance with the laws of mechanics. Thus, a living organism, which was previously considered as animate, i.e. gifted and controlled by the soul, he was freed from its determining influence and interference.

R. Descartes introduced the concept reflex, which later became fundamental for physiology and psychology. In accordance with the Cartesian reflex scheme, an external impulse was transmitted to the brain, from where a response occurred that set the muscles in motion. They were given an explanation of behavior as a purely reflexive phenomenon without reference to the soul as the force driving the body. Descartes hoped that over time, not only simple movements - such as the protective reaction of the pupil to light or the hand to fire - but also the most complex behavioral acts could be explained by the physiological mechanics he discovered.

Before Descartes, it was believed for centuries that all activity in the perception and processing of mental material is carried out by the soul. He also proved that the bodily structure is capable of successfully coping with this task even without it. What are the functions of the soul?

R. Descartes considered the soul as a substance, i.e. an entity that does not depend on anything else. The soul was defined by him according to a single sign - the direct awareness of its phenomena. Its purpose was the subject's knowledge of his own acts and states, invisible to anyone else. Thus, there was a turn in the concept of the “soul”, which became the basis for the next stage in the history of the construction of the subject of psychology. From now on this subject becomes consciousness.

Descartes, based on a mechanistic approach, posed a theoretical question about the interaction of “soul and body,” which later became the subject of discussion for many scientists.

Another attempt to build a psychological doctrine of man as an integral being was made by one of the first opponents of R. Descartes - the Dutch thinker B. Spinoza (1632-1677), who considered the whole variety of human feelings (affects) as motivating forces of human behavior. He substantiated the general scientific principle of determinism, which is important for understanding mental phenomena—universal causality and natural scientific explainability of any phenomena. It entered science in the form of the following statement: “The order and connection of ideas are the same as the order and connection of things.”

Nevertheless, Spinoza’s contemporary, the German philosopher and mathematician G.V. Leibniz (1646-1716) considered the relationship between spiritual and physical phenomena based on psychophysiological parallelism, i.e. their independent and parallel coexistence. He considered the dependence of mental phenomena on physical phenomena to be an illusion. The soul and body act independently, but there is a pre-established harmony between them based on the Divine mind. The doctrine of psychophysiological parallelism found many supporters in the formative years of psychology as a science, but currently belongs to history.

Another idea by G.V. Leibniz that each of the countless number of monads (from the Greek. monos- unified), of which the world consists, is “psychic” and endowed with the ability to perceive everything that happens in the Universe, has found unexpected empirical confirmation in some modern concepts of consciousness.

It should also be noted that G.V. Leibniz introduced the concept "unconscious" into the psychological thought of modern times, designating unconscious perceptions as “small perceptions.” Awareness of perceptions becomes possible due to the fact that a special mental act is added to simple perception (perception) - apperception, which includes memory and attention. Leibniz's ideas significantly changed and expanded the idea of ​​the psyche. His concepts of the unconscious psyche, small perceptions and apperception have become firmly established in scientific psychological knowledge.

Another direction in the development of modern European psychology is associated with the English thinker T. Hobbes (1588-1679), who completely rejected the soul as a special entity and believed that there is nothing in the world except material bodies moving according to the laws of mechanics. He brought mental phenomena under the influence of mechanical laws. T. Hobbes believed that sensations are a direct result of the influence of material objects on the body. According to the law of inertia, discovered by G. Galileo, ideas appear from sensations in the form of their weakened trace. They form a sequence of thoughts in the same order in which sensations change. This connection was later called associations. T. Hobbes proclaimed reason to be a product of association, which has its source in the direct influence of the material world on the senses.

Before Hobbes, rationalism reigned in psychological teachings (from lat. pationalis- reasonable). Beginning with him, experience was taken as the basis of knowledge. T. Hobbes contrasted rationalism with empiricism (from the Greek. empeiria- experience) from which it arose empirical psychology.

In the development of this direction, a prominent role belonged to T. Hobbes’ compatriot, J. Locke (1632-1704), who identified two sources in the experience itself: feeling And reflection, by which I meant the internal perception of the activity of our mind. Concept reflections firmly established in psychology. The name of Locke is also associated with such a method of psychological knowledge as introspection, i.e. internal introspection of ideas, images, perceptions, feelings as they appear to the “inner gaze” of the subject observing him.

Beginning with J. Locke, phenomena become the subject of psychology consciousness, which give rise to two experiences - external emanating from the senses, and interior, accumulated by the individual's own mind. Under the sign of this picture of consciousness, the psychological concepts of subsequent decades took shape.

The origins of psychology as a science

At the beginning of the 19th century. new approaches to the psyche began to be developed, based not on mechanics, but on physiology, which turned the organism into an object experimental study. Physiology translated the speculative views of the previous era into the language of experience and studied the dependence of mental functions on the structure of the sense organs and the brain.

The discovery of differences between the sensory (sensory) and motor (motor) nerve pathways leading to the spinal cord made it possible to explain the mechanism of nerve communication as "reflex arc" the excitation of one shoulder of which naturally and irreversibly activates the other shoulder, generating a muscle reaction. This discovery proved the dependence of the body’s functions regarding its behavior in the external environment on the bodily substrate, which was perceived as refutation of the doctrine of the soul as a special incorporeal entity.

Studying the effect of stimuli on the nerve endings of the sensory organs, the German physiologist G.E. Müller (1850-1934) formulated the position that nervous tissue does not possess any other energy than that known to physics. This provision was elevated to the rank of law, as a result of which mental processes moved into the same row as the nervous tissue that gives rise to them, visible under a microscope and dissected with a scalpel. However, the main thing remained unclear - how the miracle of generating psychic phenomena was accomplished.

German physiologist E.G. Weber (1795-1878) determined the relationship between the continuum of sensations and the continuum of physical stimuli that cause them. During the experiments, it was discovered that there is a very definite (different for different sense organs) relationship between the initial stimulus and the subsequent one, at which the subject begins to notice that the sensation has become different.

The foundations of psychophysics as a scientific discipline were laid by the German scientist G. Fechner (1801 - 1887). Psychophysics, without touching on the issue of the causes of mental phenomena and their material substrate, identified empirical dependencies based on the introduction of experiment and quantitative research methods.

The work of physiologists on the study of sensory organs and movements prepared a new psychology, different from traditional psychology, which is closely related to philosophy. The ground was created for the separation of psychology from both physiology and philosophy as a separate scientific discipline.

At the end of the 19th century. Almost simultaneously, several programs for building psychology as an independent discipline emerged.

The greatest success fell to the lot of W. Wundt (1832-1920), a German scientist who came to psychology from physiology and was the first to begin collecting and combining into a new discipline what had been created by various researchers. Calling this discipline physiological psychology, Wundt began studying problems borrowed from physiologists - the study of sensations, reaction times, associations, psychophysics.

Having organized the first psychological institute in Leipzig in 1875, V. Wundt decided to study the content and structure of consciousness on a scientific basis by isolating the simplest structures in internal experience, laying the foundation structuralist approach to consciousness. Consciousness was divided into psychic elements(sensations, images), which became the subject of study.

“Direct experience” was recognized as a unique subject of psychology, not studied by any other discipline. The main method is introspection, the essence of which was the subject’s observation of the processes in his consciousness.

The method of experimental introspection has significant drawbacks, which very quickly led to the abandonment of the program for the study of consciousness proposed by W. Wundt. The disadvantage of the introspection method for building scientific psychology is its subjectivity: each subject describes his experiences and sensations that do not coincide with the feelings of another subject. The main thing is that consciousness is not composed of some frozen elements, but is in the process of development and constant change.

By the end of the 19th century. The enthusiasm that Wundt's program once aroused has dried up, and the understanding of the subject of psychology inherent in it has forever lost credibility. Many of Wundt's students broke with him and took a different path. Currently, W. Wundt’s contribution is seen in the fact that he showed which path psychology should not take, since scientific knowledge develops not only by confirming hypotheses and facts, but also by refuting them.

Realizing the failure of the first attempts to build a scientific psychology, the German philosopher V. Dilypey (1833-1911) put forward the idea of ​​“two hesychologies”: experimental, related in its method to the natural sciences, and another psychology, which, instead of the experimental study of the psyche, deals with the interpretation of the manifestation of the human spirit. He separated the study of connections between mental phenomena and the physical life of the organism from their connections with the history of cultural values. He called the first psychology explanatory, second - understanding.

Western psychology in the 20th century

In Western psychology of the 20th century. It is customary to distinguish three main schools, or, using the terminology of the American psychologist L. Maslow (1908-1970), three forces: behaviorism, psychoanalysis And humanistic psychology. In recent decades, the fourth direction of Western psychology has been very intensively developed - transpersonal psychology.

Historically the first was behaviorism, which got its name from his proclaimed understanding of the subject of psychology - behavior (from the English. behavior - behavior).

The founder of behaviorism in Western psychology is considered to be the American animal psychologist J. Watson (1878-1958), since it was he who, in the article “Psychology as the Behaviorist Sees It,” published in 1913, called for the creation of a new psychology, stating the fact that After half a century of its existence as an experimental discipline, psychology failed to take its rightful place among the natural sciences. Watson saw the reason for this in a false understanding of the subject and methods of psychological research. The subject of psychology, according to J. Watson, should not be consciousness, but behavior.

The subjective method of internal self-observation should accordingly be replaced objective methods external observation of behavior.

Ten years after Watson's seminal article, behaviorism began to dominate almost all of American psychology. The fact is that the pragmatic focus of research on mental activity in the United States was determined by demands from the economy, and later - from the means of mass communications.

Behaviorism included the teachings of I.P. Pavlov (1849-1936) about the conditioned reflex and began to consider human behavior from the point of view of conditioned reflexes formed under the influence of the social environment.

J. Watson's original scheme, explaining behavioral acts as a reaction to presented stimuli, was further improved by E. Tolman (1886-1959) by introducing an intermediary link between a stimulus from the environment and the individual's reaction in the form of the individual's goals, his expectations, hypotheses, and cognitive map peace, etc. The introduction of an intermediate link somewhat complicated the scheme, but did not change its essence. The general approach of behaviorism to man as animal,distinguished by verbal behavior, remained unchanged.

In the work of the American behaviorist B. Skinner (1904-1990) “Beyond Freedom and Dignity,” the concepts of freedom, dignity, responsibility, and morality are considered from the perspective of behaviorism as derivatives of the “system of incentives,” “reinforcement programs” and are assessed as a “useless shadow in human life."

Psychoanalysis, developed by Z. Freud (1856-1939), had the strongest influence on Western culture. Psychoanalysis introduced into Western European and American culture the general concepts of “psychology of the unconscious”, ideas about the irrational aspects of human activity, conflict and fragmentation of the inner world of the individual, the “repressiveness” of culture and society, etc. etc. Unlike behaviorists, psychoanalysts began to study consciousness, build hypotheses about the inner world of the individual, and introduce new terms that pretend to be scientific, but cannot be empirically verified.

In psychological literature, including educational literature, the merit of 3. Freud is seen in his appeal to the deep structures of the psyche, to the unconscious. Pre-Freudian psychology took a normal, physically and mentally healthy person as an object of study and paid main attention to the phenomenon of consciousness. Freud, having begun to explore as a psychiatrist the inner mental world of neurotic individuals, developed a very simplified a model of the psyche consisting of three parts - conscious, unconscious and superconscious. In this model 3. Freud did not discover the unconscious, since the phenomenon of the unconscious has been known since antiquity, but swapped consciousness and the unconscious: the unconscious is a central component of the psyche, upon which consciousness is built. He interpreted the unconscious itself as a sphere of instincts and drives, the main of which is the sexual instinct.

The theoretical model of the psyche, developed in relation to the psyche of sick individuals with neurotic reactions, was given the status of a general theoretical model that explains the functioning of the psyche in general.

Despite the obvious difference and, it would seem, even the opposition of approaches, behaviorism and psychoanalysis are similar to each other - both of these directions built psychological ideas without resorting to spiritual realities. It is not for nothing that representatives of humanistic psychology came to the conclusion that both main schools - behaviorism and psychoanalysis - did not see the specifically human in man, ignored the real problems of human life - problems of goodness, love, justice, as well as the role of morality, philosophy, religion and were nothing else, as “slander of a person.” All these real problems are seen as deriving from basic instincts or social relations and communications.

“Western psychology of the 20th century,” as S. Grof writes, “created a very negative image of man - some kind of biological machine with instinctive impulses of an animal nature.”

Humanistic psychology represented by L. Maslow (1908-1970), K. Rogers (1902-1987). V. Frankl (b. 1905) and others set themselves the task of introducing real problems into the field of psychological research. Representatives of humanistic psychology considered a healthy creative personality to be the subject of psychological research. The humanistic orientation was expressed in the fact that love, creative growth, higher values, and meaning were considered as basic human needs.

The humanistic approach moves further away from scientific psychology than any other, assigning the main role to a person’s personal experience. According to humanists, the individual is capable of self-esteem and can independently find the path to the flourishing of his personality.

Along with the humanistic trend in psychology, dissatisfaction with attempts to build psychology on the ideological basis of natural scientific materialism is expressed by transpersonal psychology, which proclaims the need for a transition to a new paradigm of thinking.

The first representative of transpersonal orientation in psychology is considered to be the Swiss psychologist K.G. Jung (1875-1961), although Jung himself called his psychology not transpersonal, but analytical. Attribution of K.G. Jung to the forerunners of transpersonal psychology is carried out on the basis that he considered it possible for a person to overcome the narrow boundaries of his “I” and personal unconscious, and connect with the higher “I”, the higher mind, commensurate with all humanity and the cosmos.

Jung shared the views of Z. Freud until 1913, when he published a programmatic article in which he showed that Freud completely wrongfully reduced all human activity to the biologically inherited sexual instinct, while human instincts are not biological, but entirely symbolic in nature. K.G. Jung did not ignore the unconscious, but, paying great attention to its dynamics, gave a new interpretation, the essence of which is that the unconscious is not a psychobiological dump of rejected instinctive tendencies, repressed memories and subconscious prohibitions, but a creative, reasonable principle that connects a person with all of humanity, with nature and space. Along with the individual unconscious, there is also a collective unconscious, which, being superpersonal and transpersonal in nature, forms the universal basis of the mental life of every person. It was this idea of ​​Jung that was developed in transpersonal psychology.

American psychologist, founder of transpersonal psychology S. Grof states that a worldview based on natural scientific materialism, which has long been outdated and has become an anachronism for theoretical physics of the 20th century, still continues to be considered scientific in psychology, to the detriment of its future development. “Scientific” psychology cannot explain the spiritual practice of healing, clairvoyance, the presence of paranormal abilities in individuals and entire social groups, conscious control of internal states, etc.

An atheistic, mechanistic and materialistic approach to the world and existence, S. Grof believes, reflects a deep alienation from the core of existence, a lack of true understanding of oneself and psychological suppression of the transpersonal spheres of one’s own psyche. This means, according to the views of supporters of transpersonal psychology, that a person identifies himself with only one partial aspect of his nature - with the bodily “I” and hylotropic (i.e., associated with the material structure of the brain) consciousness.

Such a truncated attitude towards oneself and one’s own existence is ultimately fraught with a feeling of the futility of life, alienation from the cosmic process, as well as insatiable needs, competitiveness, vanity, which no achievement can satisfy. On a collective scale, such a human condition leads to alienation from nature, to an orientation towards “limitless growth” and a fixation on the objective and quantitative parameters of existence. As experience shows, this way of being in the world is extremely destructive both on a personal and collective level.

Transpersonal psychology views a person as a cosmic and spiritual being, inextricably linked with all of humanity and the Universe, with the ability to access the global information field.

In the last decade, many works on transpersonal psychology have been published, and in textbooks and teaching aids this direction is presented as the latest achievement in the development of psychological thought without any analysis of the consequences of the methods used in the study of the psyche. The methods of transpersonal psychology, which claims to understand the cosmic dimension of man, are not, however, related to the concepts of morality. These methods are aimed at the formation and transformation of special, altered human states through the dosed use of drugs, various types of hypnosis, hyperventilation, etc.

There is no doubt that the research and practice of transpersonal psychology have discovered the connection between man and the cosmos, the emergence of human consciousness beyond ordinary barriers, overcoming the limitations of space and time during transpersonal experiences, proved the very existence of the spiritual sphere, and much more.

But in general, this way of studying the human psyche seems very disastrous and dangerous. The methods of transpersonal psychology are designed to break down the natural defenses and penetrate into the spiritual space of the individual. Transpersonal experiences occur when a person is intoxicated by a drug, hypnosis, or increased breathing and do not lead to spiritual purification and spiritual growth.

Formation and development of domestic psychology

The pioneer of psychology as a science, the subject of which is not the soul or even consciousness, but mentally regulated behavior, can rightfully be considered I.M. Sechenov (1829-1905), and not the American J. Watson, since the former, back in 1863, in his treatise “Reflexes of the Brain,” came to the conclusion that self-regulation of behavior the body through signals is the subject of psychological research. Later I.M. Sechenov began to define psychology as the science of the origin of mental activity, which included perception, memory, and thinking. He believed that mental activity is structured according to the type of reflex and includes, following the perception of the environment and its processing in the brain, the response of the motor apparatus. In the works of Sechenov, for the first time in the history of psychology, the subject of this science began to cover not only the phenomena and processes of consciousness and the unconscious psyche, but also the entire cycle of interaction of the organism with the world, including its external bodily actions. Therefore, for psychology, according to I.M. Sechenov, the only reliable method is the objective, and not the subjective (introspective) method.

Sechenov's ideas influenced world science, but they were mainly developed in Russia in the teachings I.P. Pavlova(1849-1936) and V.M. Bekhterev(1857-1927), whose works approved the priority of the reflexological approach.

During the Soviet period of Russian history, in the first 15-20 years of Soviet power, an inexplicable, at first glance, phenomenon emerged - an unprecedented rise in a number of scientific fields - physics, mathematics, biology, linguistics, including psychology. For example, in 1929 alone, about 600 book titles on psychology were published in the country. New directions are emerging: in the field of educational psychology - pedology, in the field of psychology of work activity - psychotechnics, brilliant work has been carried out in defectology, forensic psychology, and zoopsychology.

In the 30s. Psychology was dealt a crushing blow by the resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and almost all basic psychological concepts and psychological research outside the framework of Marxist principles were prohibited. Historically, psychology itself has fostered a similar attitude toward psychic research. Psychologists - first in theoretical studies and within the walls of laboratories - seemed to relegate to the background, and then completely denied a person’s right to an immortal soul and spiritual life. Then the theorists were replaced by practitioners and began to treat people as soulless objects. This arrival was not accidental, but prepared by previous development, in which psychology also played a role.

By the end of the 50s - early 60s. A situation arose when psychology was assigned the role of a section in the physiology of higher nervous activity and a complex of psychological knowledge in Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Psychology was understood as a science that studies the psyche, the patterns of its appearance and development. The understanding of the psyche was based on Lenin's theory of reflection. The psyche was defined as the property of highly organized matter - the brain - to reflect reality in the form of mental images. Mental reflection was considered as an ideal form of material existence. The only possible ideological basis for psychology was dialectical materialism. The reality of the spiritual as an independent entity was not recognized.

Even under these conditions, Soviet psychologists such as S.L. Rubinstein (1889-1960), L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934), L.N. Leontyev (1903-1979), DN. Uznadze (1886-1950), A.R. Luria (1902-1977), made a significant contribution to world psychology.

In the post-Soviet era, new opportunities opened up for Russian psychology and new problems arose. The development of domestic psychology in modern conditions no longer corresponded to the rigid dogmas of dialectical-materialist philosophy, which, of course, provides freedom of creative search.

Currently, there are several orientations in Russian psychology.

Marxist-oriented psychology. Although this orientation has ceased to be dominant, unique and obligatory, for many years it has formed the paradigms of thinking that determine psychological research.

Western-oriented psychology represents assimilation, adaptation, imitation of Western trends in psychology, which were rejected by the previous regime. Usually, productive ideas do not arise along the paths of imitation. In addition, the main currents of Western psychology reflect the psyche of a Western European person, and not a Russian, Chinese, Indian, etc. Since there is no universal psyche, the theoretical schemes and models of Western psychology do not have universality.

Spiritually oriented psychology, aimed at restoring the “vertical of the human soul”, is represented by the names of psychologists B.S. Bratusya, B. Nichiporova, F.E. Vasilyuk, V.I. Slobodchikova, V.P. Zinchenko and V.D. Shadrikova. Spiritually oriented psychology is based on traditional spiritual values ​​and recognition of the reality of spiritual existence.

Psychology as a science originated in Ancient Greece and is still a relevant field. Based on the treatises and works of scientists, mechanisms, models and systems have been developed to study the behavior, perception, awareness and adaptability of a person in society. Let's learn a brief history of psychology, and also get acquainted with famous figures who made a huge contribution to the development of this humanitarian science.

A Brief History of Psychology

Where did it all start? How did psychology emerge as a science? In fact, this branch is closely connected with philosophy, history, and sociology. Today, psychology actively interacts with biology and neuropsychology, despite the fact that initially scientists in this field tried to find evidence of the existence of the soul in the human body. The name itself comes from two derivatives: logos (“teaching”) and psycho (“soul”). It was only after the 18th century that scientists made a subtle connection between the very definition of science and human character. And so a new concept of psychology appeared - researchers began to build psychoanalysis, study the behavior of each person, identify categories and pathologies that affect interests, adaptability, mood and life choices.

Many great psychologists, such as S. Rubinstein and R. Goklenius, noted that this science is important in human knowledge. From time immemorial, researchers have been studying the connection between reason and religion, faith and spirituality, consciousness and behavior.

What is it

Psychology as an independent science studies mental processes, human interaction with the outside world and behavior in it. The main object in the teaching is the psyche, which translated from ancient Greek means “spiritual”. In other words, the psyche is the realized actions of a person, which are based on primary knowledge about reality.

Brief theses defining psychology:

• This is a way of knowing yourself, your inner and, of course, the world around you.
• This is a “spiritual” science, because it forces us to constantly develop, asking eternal questions: who am I, why am I in this world. That is why there is a subtle connection between psychology and sciences such as philosophy and sociology.
• This is a science that studies the interaction of the external world with the psyche and its influence on others. Thanks to numerous studies, a new branch was created - psychiatry, where scientists began to identify pathologies and psychological disorders, as well as stop them, treat them, or completely destroy them.
• This is the beginning of the spiritual path, where great psychologists, together with philosophers, sought to study the connection between the spiritual and material world. Despite the fact that today the awareness of spiritual unity is just a myth that came from the depths of time, psychology reflects a certain meaning of being - ordered, cultivated, organized thousands of years later.

What does psychology study?

Let's answer the main question - what does the science of psychology study? First of all, all mental processes and their components. Researchers have found that these processes can be divided into three types: will, feelings, cognition. These include human thinking, memory, emotions, goals, and decision making. This is where the second phenomenon that science studies appears - mental states. What psychology studies:

• Processes. Attention, speech, sensitivity, affect and stress, feelings and motives, representation and curiosity.
• States. Fatigue and emotional outbursts, satisfaction and apathy, depression and happiness.
• Properties. Abilities, unique character traits, types of temperament.
• Education. Habits, skills, areas of knowledge, abilities, adaptability, personal traits.

Let's now begin to formulate an answer to the main question - how did psychology emerge as a science? Initially, researchers paid attention to simple mental phenomena, which they began to observe. It was noted that any mental process can last just a few seconds or more, sometimes reaching 30-60 minutes. This caused and subsequently all mental activity of people was classified as complex brain processes.

Today science studies each individual individually, identifying new mental phenomena, although previously everything was divided into several types. Feelings of depression, causes of irritation, absent-mindedness, mood swings, character and temperament formation, self-development and evolution are only a small part of what influenced the development of psychology as a science.

The main tasks of science

How did psychology emerge as a science? It all started when thinkers and philosophers began to pay attention to mental processes. This became the main objective of the teaching. Researchers analyzed the features of all processes directly related to the psyche. They believed that this direction reflects reality, that is, all events influence the psycho-emotional state of a person, which prompts him to take one action or another.

Analysis of all phenomena related to the psyche and their development is the second task of science. Then a third, important stage in psychology appeared - the study of all the physiological mechanisms that control mental phenomena.

If we talk about the tasks briefly, we can divide them into several points:

1. Psychology should teach us to understand all psychological processes.
2. After this, we learn to control them, and then completely manage them.
3. We direct all knowledge into the development of psychology, which is closely related to many humanities and natural sciences.

Thanks to the main tasks, fundamental psychology (that is, science for the sake of science) was divided into several branches, which include the study of children's characters, behavior in the work environment, temperament and traits of creative, technical and sports individuals.

Techniques used by science

All stages of the development of psychology as a science are associated with great minds, thinkers and philosophers, who developed an absolutely unique field that studies the behavior, character and skills of people. History confirms that the founders of the doctrine were Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle - authors and researchers of antiquity. It was they who suggested (of course, at different periods of time) that there are several types of temperament that are reflected in behavior and goals.

Psychology, before becoming a full-fledged science, has come a long way and affected almost every famous philosopher, doctor and biologist. One of these representatives is Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna. Later, at the end of the 16th century, Rene Descartes participated in the development of psychology. In his opinion, the soul is a substance within a substance. It was Descartes who first brought into use the word “dualism,” which means the presence of spiritual energy inside the physical body, which cooperate very closely with each other. Reason, as the philosopher established, is the manifestation of our soul. Despite the fact that many of the scientist’s theories were ridiculed and refuted several centuries later, he became the main founder of psychology as a science.

Immediately after the works of Rene Descartes, new treatises and teachings began to appear, written by Otto Kasman, Rudolf Gocklenius, Sergei Rubinshein, and William James. They went further and began to promulgate new theories. For example, W. James at the end of the 19th century proved the existence of a stream of consciousness through clinical research. The main task of the philosopher and psychologist was to discover not only the soul, but also its structure. James proposed that we are a dual being, inhabited by both subject and object. Let's look at the contributions of other equally significant scientists, such as Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt and Carl Gustav Jung, etc.

S. Rubinstein

Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein is one of the founders of a new school in psychology. He worked at the beginning of the 20th century at Moscow State University, was a teacher and at the same time conducted research. Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein's main contribution was made to educational psychology, logic and history. He studied in detail personality types, their temperament and emotions. It was Rubinstein who created the well-known principle of determinism, which meant that all human actions and actions are directly related to the external (surrounding) world. Thanks to his research, he was awarded numerous medals, orders and prizes.

Sergei Leonidovich described his theories in detail in books, which were subsequently put into circulation. These include “The Principle of Creative Amateur Performance” and “Problems of Psychology in the Works of Karl Marx.” In his second work, Rubinstein considered society as a single whole that follows a single path. To do this, the scientist had to conduct a deep analysis of the Soviet people and compare them with foreign psychology.

Sergei Leonidovich also became the founder of the study of personalities, but, unfortunately, he was unable to complete the work. However, his contribution significantly advanced the development of Russian psychology and strengthened its status as a science.

O. Kasman

Otto Kasmann played a significant role in psychology, despite the fact that for a long period he was the main pastor and theologian in the German city of Stade. It was this public religious figure who called all psychic phenomena scientific objects. There is practically no information about this founder, since quite a lot of events happened over four centuries. However, Otto Kasmann left us valuable works called Psychologia anthropologica and Angelographia.

The theologian and activist made adjustments to the term “anthropology” and explained that the biological nature of man is directly related to the abstract world. Despite the fact that Kasman made an invaluable contribution to psychology, the pastor himself carefully studied anthropology and tried to draw a parallel between this teaching and philosophy.

R. Gocklenius

Rudolf Gocklenius is an important link in psychology, despite the fact that he was a doctor of physical, mathematical and medical sciences. The scientist lived in the 16th and 17th centuries and during his long life he created many important works. Like Otto Kasmann, Goklenius began to use the word “psychology” in everyday life.

An interesting fact, but Goklenius was Kasman’s personal teacher. After receiving his doctorate, Rudolf began to study philosophy and psychology in detail. That is why today we are familiar with the name of Goclenius, because he was a representative of neo-scholasticism, which combined both religion and philosophical teachings. Well, since the scientist lived and worked in Europe, he spoke on behalf of the Catholic Church, which created a new direction of scholasticism - neo-scholasticism.

W. Wundt

The name of Wundt is known in psychology as well as Jung and Rubinstein. Wilhelm Maximilian lived in the 19th century and was an active practitioner of experimental psychology. This movement included non-standard and unique practices that made it possible to study all psychological phenomena.

Like Rubinstein, Wundt studied determinism, objectivity, and the fine line between human activity and consciousness. The main feature of the scientist is that he was an experienced physiologist who understood all the physical processes of living organisms. To some extent, it was much easier for Wilhelm Maximilian to devote his life to such a science as psychology. Over the course of his life, he trained dozens of figures, including Bekhterev and Serebrenikov.

Wundt sought to understand how our mind works, so he often conducted experiments that allowed him to figure out chemical reactions in the body. It was the work of this scientist that laid the foundation for the creation and promotion of such a science as neuropsychology. Wilhelm Maximilian loved to observe people's behavior in different situations, so he developed a unique technique - introspection. Since Wundt himself was also an inventor, many experiments were worked out by the scientist himself. However, introspection did not include the use of devices or instruments, but only observation, as a rule, of one’s own mental phenomena and processes.

K. Jung

Jung is perhaps one of the most popular and ambitious scientists who devoted his life to psychology and psychiatry. Moreover, the figure not only tried to understand psychological phenomena, he also opened a new direction - analytical psychology.

Jung carefully worked out the archetypes or structures (patterns of behavior) that come into being with a person. The scientist carefully studied each character and temperament, connected them with one link and supplemented them with new information by observing his patients. Jung also proved that several people, being in a single team, can unconsciously perform similar actions. And it was thanks to these works that the scientist began to analyze the individuality of each person, to study whether it exists at all.

It was this figure who suggested that all archetypes are innate, but their main feature is that they develop over hundreds of years and are passed on from generation to generation. Subsequently, all types directly influence our choices, actions, feelings and emotions.

Who is a psychologist today?

Today, a psychologist, unlike a philosopher, must obtain at least a bachelor's degree from a university in order to practice and research. He is a representative of his science and is called upon not only to provide psychological assistance, but also to contribute to the development of his activities. What does a professional psychologist do:

• Reveals archetypes and establishes the character and temperament of the individual.
• Analyzes the behavior of his patient, identifies the root cause and eradicates it if necessary. This allows you to change your lifestyle, get rid of negative thoughts and help you find motivation and purpose.
• Helps to get out of a depressed state, get rid of apathy, discover the meaning of life and start looking for it.
• Struggling with psychological trauma that occurred either in childhood or throughout life.
• Analyzes the patient's behavior in society and also finds the root cause. As a rule, in many cases, the family situation, relationships with peers, relatives and just strangers play an important role.

A psychologist should not be confused with a psychiatrist. The second is a scientist who has received a medical degree and has the right to engage in diagnosis and treatment. It identifies, analyzes and examines mental disorders from the most minor and subtle to the most aggressive. The psychiatrist's task is to determine whether a person is sick or not. If a deviation is detected, the doctor develops a unique technique that can help the patient, relieve his symptoms or completely cure him. Despite widespread controversy, it has been concluded that a psychiatrist is not a medical specialist, although he works directly with patients and various medications.

Psychology is relevant and important in the life of each of us. This science is a vivid example of human evolution, when, asking ourselves countless questions, we developed and each time stepped to a new stage. She studies the type of people, the phenomena when in different situations they unite into groups, disperse and lead a lonely lifestyle, show aggression, or, conversely, experience emotional overexcitation and happiness. Motivation, goals, depression and apathy, values ​​and experiences - this is only a small part that is studied by such a unique science as psychology.

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY - The first scientific ideas about psyche arose in the ancient world (India, China, Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Georgia) in the depths of philosophy, as opposed to the religious dogma of soul as a special entity, externally and randomly connected with the body. The development of these ideas was stimulated by the demands of social practice, treatment and education. Ancient doctors established that the organ of the psyche is brain, and developed a doctrine about temperaments. This natural science direction was closely connected with the view of the human soul as a material (fiery, airy, etc.) particle of the cosmos, moving according to its own eternal and inevitable laws. In idealistic concepts, the soul was opposed to the body and was recognized as immortal. The pinnacle of psychology in antiquity was the doctrine Aristotle(treatises “On the Soul”, “On the Origin of Animals”, etc.), in which the soul is interpreted as a form of organization of a material body capable of life (and not as a substance or incorporeal essence). He outlined the first system of psychological concepts developed on the basis of objective and genetic methods. In the Hellenistic period, from the principle of life as a whole, the soul becomes the principle of only certain of its manifestations: the mental is separated from the general biological. During the feudal era, the development of positive knowledge about the psyche slowed down sharply, but did not stop. Progressive doctors and thinkers of the Arabic-speaking world (Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Roshd and others) prepared with their ideas the subsequent flowering of natural science psychology in Western Europe, where, with the emergence of capitalism, the desire to study man empirically as a natural being, whose behavior is subordinated, strengthened. natural laws (Leonardo da Vinci, X. L. Vives, X. Huarte, etc.). In the era of bourgeois revolutions and the triumph of the new materialist worldview, a fundamentally new approach to mental activity is emerging, which is now explained and studied from the standpoint of the strictest determinism. Socio-economic transformations determined the progress of psychological thinking, which was enriched in the 17th century. a number of fundamental categories. R. Descartes reveals the reflexive nature of behavior (see Reflex), and the concept of the soul transforms into a non-theological concept of consciousness as the subject’s direct knowledge of his own mental acts. In the same era, a number of the most important psychological teachings emerged: associations as a natural connection of mental phenomena, determined by the connection of bodily phenomena (R. Descartes, T. Hobbes), about affects (B. Spinoza), about apperception And unconscious (G.V. Leibniz), about the origin of knowledge from individual sensory experience (J. Locke). The concrete scientific development of the principle of association by the English physician D. Hartley made this principle the main explanatory concept of psychology for a century and a half. Psychological ideas are developing in line with the materialistic worldview D. Diderot, M. V. Lomonosova, A. N. Radishcheva and other progressive thinkers. In the 19th century in the depths of physiology, experimental methods for studying mental functions appeared and the first attempts were made to introduce quantitative assessments into the analysis of these functions (E. G. Weber, G. T. Fechner, G. Helmholtz etc.). Darwinism showed the need to study mental functions as a real factor in the development of biological systems. In the 70s and 80s. XIX century psychology turns into an independent field of knowledge (different from philosophy and physiology). The main centers of this development are special experimental laboratories.
torii. The first of them was organized V. Wundtom(Leipzig, 1879). Following its example, similar institutions are emerging in Russia, England, the USA, France and other countries. He put forward a consistent program for the development of psychology based on the objective method. I. M. Sechenov, whose ideas fertilized experimental psychological work in Russia (V. M. Bekhterev, A. A. Tokarsky, N. N. Lange etc.), and later through the works of V. M. Bekhterev and I. P. Pavlova influenced the development of objective methods in world psychological science. Main topics experimental psychology appeared at the beginning sensations And reaction time(F. Donders), and then - associations (G. Ebbinghaus), attention (J. Kettel), emotional states (see Emotions) (W. James, T. A. Ribot), thinking And will [Wurzburg school, A. Binet]. Along with the search for general patterns of psychological processes, differential psychology, The task of the cut is to determine individual differences between people using measurement methods (F. Galton, A. Binet, A. F. Lazursky, V. Stern etc.). On. at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A crisis is brewing in psychology due to the breakdown of old concepts. The idea of ​​consciousness as a set of phenomena directly experienced by the subject collapses. The emphasis is shifted to a person’s orientation in the environment, to factors regulating behavior hidden from consciousness. The main trend in American psychology is behaviorism, According to him, psychology should not go beyond the limits of externally observable bodily reactions to external incentives. The dynamics of these reactions were thought of as a blind search, accidentally leading to a successful action, reinforced by repetition (trial and error method). The program settings of this direction were expressed by J.B. Watson(1913). Another influential school was Gestalt psychology, The experimental object of the cut was the holistic and structural nature of mental formations. At the beginning of the century there also arose psychoanalysis 3. Freud, According to him, the decisive role in the organization of the human psyche belongs to unconscious motives (primarily sexual). New directions have enriched the empirical and specific methodological base of psychology, contributed to the development of its categorical apparatus (categories action, image, motive). However, an inadequate philosophical interpretation of these achievements led to erroneous and one-sided conclusions. Attempts to understand from an idealistic position the dependence of the human psyche on the world of history and culture, on social life inevitably led to dualism, to the concept of “two psychologies” (W. Wundt, V. Dilthey, G. Rickert), according to which psychology cannot be a single science, since the natural science, experimental explanatory approach to the psyche is, in principle, incompatible with the cultural-historical one. Psychologists who highlighted the role of social factors in the regulation of human behavior (J.M. Baldwin, J. Dewey, J.G. Mead etc.), also failed to develop a productive approach to sociogenesis personality and its mental functions, since sociality itself was interpreted as “pure” communication outside of objective activity.
Marxism became the methodological basis of concrete psychological research after the October Socialist Revolution. With Marxism, new principles entered scientific psychology, radically changing its theoretical appearance. The idea of ​​restructuring psychology on a Marxist basis was actively defended by K. N. Kornilov, P. P. Blonsky, M. I. Basov etc. Marxist
The Chinese principle of historicism became decisive for L.’s research. S. Vygotsky and his students. The development of Soviet psychology proceeded in close collaboration with the development of psychophysiological research in the works I. P. Pavlova, V. M. Bekhterev, A. A. Ukhtomsky, L. A. Or-beli, S. V. Kravkov, N. A. Bernshnein etc. Overcoming idealistic and mechanistic (reactology, reflexology) influence, Soviet scientists asserted in psychology the Marxist doctrine of activities and its socio-historical determination, the ideas of Lenin’s theory reflections. Theoretical and experimental study of the main problems of psychology is embodied in the works A. R. Luria, A. N. Leontyeva, B. M. Teplova, A. A. Smirnova, S. L. Rubinstein, B. G. Ananyev, N. F. Dobrynina, A. V. Zaporozhets, L.A. Schwartz and others. Within the framework of Marxist methodology, Soviet psychologists successfully develop current problems of psychology in close connection with the theoretical and practical tasks of improving a developed socialist society.
Development of psychology in capitalist countries in the 30-40s. XX century characterized by the collapse of the main schools. In behavioral theories, the concept of "intermediate variables" i.e., about the factors mediating the motor response (dependent variable) to stimulus(independent variable) . The logic of the development of science and the requirements of practice directed psychology to the study of the “central processes” unfolding between the sensory “input” and the motor “output” of the body system. The consolidation of this trend in the 50-60s. Experience in programming on electronic machines contributed. Such branches of psychology as engineering, social and medical have developed. The work of the Swiss psychologist had a great influence on the interpretation of mental processes J. Piaget, who studied the transformation of the internal structure of mental activity during ontogeny. The view on the role of neurophysiological mechanisms is also changing. They are no longer ignored, but are seen as an integral component of the overall structure of behavior (Hebb, K. Pribram). In the depths of psychoanalysis there arises neo-Freudianism - current that connected unconscious mental mechanics (see. Unconscious) with the influence of socio-cultural factors (K. Horney, G. S. Sullivan, E. Fromm) and accordingly rebuilt psychotherapy. Along with new variants of behaviorism and Freudianism, the so-called existential, humanistic psychology, asserting that the study of scientific concepts and objective methods leads to the dehumanization of the individual and its disintegration, and impedes his desire for self-development. This direction comes to outright irrationalism.