History of psychology. Development of psychological knowledge within the framework of the doctrine of the soul (from antiquity to the 17th century) Psychology in the 17th century

The 17th century was an era of fundamental changes in the social life of Western Europe, a century of scientific revolution and the triumph of a new worldview.

Its forerunner was Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who taught that nature is a system of moving bodies that do not have any properties other than geometric and mechanical ones. Everything that happens in the world should be explained only by these material properties, only by the laws of mechanics. The conviction that had prevailed for centuries that the movements of our natural bodies were controlled by disembodied souls was overthrown. This new view of the universe produced a complete revolution in explaining the reasons for the behavior of living beings.

Rene Descartes: reflexes and “passions of the soul”. The first draft of a psychological theory that used the achievements of geometry and new mechanics belonged to the French mathematician, natural scientist and philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650). He came from an old French family and received an excellent education. At the College of De la Flèche, which was one of the best religious educational centers, he studied Greek and Latin, mathematics and philosophy. At this time, he became acquainted with the teachings of Augustine, whose idea of ​​introspection was subsequently reworked by him: Descartes transformed Augustine’s religious reflection into purely secular reflection, aimed at knowing objective truths.

After graduating from college, Descartes studied law, then entered military service. During his military service, he managed to visit many cities in Holland, Germany and other countries and establish personal connections with outstanding European scientists of that time. At the same time, he came to the idea 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 works.

In his research, 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 by the criterion of classifying the latter as objects operating like simple technical devices. In a century when these devices were increasingly established in social production, scientific thought, far from production, explained the functions of the body in their image and likeness.

The first great achievement in this regard was the discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey (1578-1657): the heart appeared as a kind of pump pumping liquid. The participation of the soul was not required in this.

Another achievement belonged to Descartes. He introduced the concept of reflex (the term itself appeared later), becoming fundamental to physiology and psychology. If Harvey eliminated the soul from the circle of regulators of internal organs, then Descartes dared to do away with it at the level of external, environmentally oriented work of the entire organism. Three centuries later, I.P. Pavlov, following this strategy, ordered a bust of Descartes to be placed at the door of his laboratory.

Here we are again faced with the fundamental question for understanding the progress of scientific knowledge about the relationship between theory and experience (empirics). Reliable knowledge about the structure of the nervous system and its functions was insignificant in those days. De map, this system was seen in the form of “tubes” through which light air-like particles rush (he called them “animal spirits”). According to the Cartesian scheme, an external impulse sets these “spirits” in motion and carries them into the brain, from where they are automatically reflected to the muscles. When a hot object burns a hand, it prompts a person to withdraw it: a reaction occurs similar to the reflection of a light beam from a surface. The term "reflex" meant reflection.

Muscle response is an integral component of behavior. Therefore, the Cartesian scheme, despite its speculative nature, became a great discovery in psychology. She explained the reflexive nature of behavior without referring to the soul as the force driving the body.

Descartes hoped that over time, not only simple movements (such as the defensive reaction of the hand to fire or the pupil to light), but also the most complex ones could be explained by the physiological mechanics he discovered. “When a dog sees a partridge, he naturally rushes towards it, and when he hears a gunshot, the sound of it naturally prompts him to run away. But, nevertheless, pointing dogs are usually taught that the sight of a partridge makes them stop, and the sound of a shot runs up to the partridge." Descartes foresaw such a restructuring of behavior in his scheme for the design of a bodily mechanism, which, unlike ordinary automata, acted as a learning system.

It acts according to its own laws and “mechanical” reasons; their knowledge allows people to rule over themselves. “Since with some effort it is possible to change the movements of the brain in animals devoid of reason, it is obvious that this can be done even better in people and that people, even with a weak soul, could acquire extremely unlimited power over their passions,” wrote Descartes. It is not the effort of the spirit, but the restructuring of the body on the basis of the strictly causal laws of its mechanics that will provide a person with power over his own nature, just as these laws can make him the ruler of external nature.

One of Descartes’s important works for psychology was called “The Passions of the Soul.” This name should be clarified, since both the word “passion” and the word “soul” are endowed with a special meaning by Descartes. By “passions” they meant not strong and lasting feelings, but “passive states of the soul” - everything that she experiences when the brain is shaken by “animal spirits” (a prototype of nerve impulses), which are brought there through nerve “tubes”. In other words, not only muscle reactions (reflexes), but also various mental states are produced by the body, and not the soul. Descartes sketched out a project for a “body machine,” the functions of which include “perception, imprinting ideas, retaining ideas in memory, internal aspirations...” “I wish,” he wrote, “that you would reason that these functions occur in this machine due to the location of its organs: they are performed no more and no less than the movements of a clock or other machine."

For centuries, before Descartes, all activity related to the perception and processing of mental “material” was considered to be carried out by the soul, a special agent that draws its energy beyond the boundaries of the material, earthly world. Descartes argued that the bodily structure, even without a soul, is capable of successfully coping with this task. Didn’t the soul become “unemployable” in this case?

Descartes not only does not deprive it of its former royal role in the Universe, but elevates it to the level of 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 a subject can have about its own acts and states, not visible to anyone else; it is determined by a single feature - 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 a 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 principles in philosophy and science. One should doubt everything - natural and supernatural. However, no skepticism can withstand the judgment: “I think.” And from this it inexorably follows that there is also a bearer of this judgment - a thinking subject. Hence the famous Cartesian aphorism “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I exist”). Since thinking is the only attribute of the soul, it always thinks, always knows about its mental content, visible from the inside; The unconscious psyche does not exist.

Later, this “inner vision” began to be called introspection (the vision of intrapsychic objects-images, mental actions, volitional acts, etc.), and the Cartesian concept of consciousness - introspective. However, like the ideas about the soul, which have undergone a very 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, acquired ideas and innate ideas. Ideas generated by a person are associated with his sensory experience, being a generalization of data from our senses. These ideas provide knowledge about individual objects or phenomena, but cannot help in understanding the objective laws of the surrounding world. Acquired ideas cannot help with this, since they are also knowledge only about certain aspects of the surrounding reality. 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 world around him, about the basic laws of its development. These general concepts are revealed only to the mind and do not require additional information received from the senses.

This approach to knowledge is called rationalism, and the method by which a person discovers the content of innate ideas is called rational intuition. Descartes wrote: “By intuition I do not mean faith in the wavering testimony of the senses, but the concept of a clear and attentive mind, so simple and distinct that it leaves no doubt that we are thinking.”

Having recognized that the machine of the body and the consciousness occupied with its own thoughts (ideas) and “desires” are independent entities (substances) from each other, Descartes was faced with the need to explain how they coexist in a whole person. The solution he proposed was called psychophysical interaction. The body influences the soul, awakening in it “passive states” (passions) in the form of sensory perceptions, emotions, etc. The soul, possessing thinking and will, influences the body, forcing this “machine” to work and change its course. Descartes looked for an organ in the body through which these incompatible substances could still communicate. He proposed to consider one of the endocrine glands, the pineal gland, as such an organ. No one took this empirical “discovery” seriously. However, the solution to the theoretical question of the interaction of soul and body in the Cartesian formulation absorbed the energy of many minds.

Understanding the subject of psychology depends, as stated, on explanatory principles - such as causality (determinism), systematicity, regularity. Since ancient times, they have all undergone fundamental changes. The decisive role in this was played by the introduction into psychological thinking of the image of a machine - a structure created by human hands. All previous attempts to master explanatory principles were associated with the observation and study of non-man-made nature, including the human body. Now the mediator between nature and the subject cognizing it was an artificial structure independent of this subject, external in relation to it and natural bodies. It is obvious that, firstly, it is a system device, secondly, it works inevitably (naturally) according to the rigid scheme inherent in it, thirdly, the effect of its work is the final link of a chain, the components of which replace each other with iron consistency .

The creation of artificial objects, the activities of which are causally explainable from their own organization, introduced a special form of determinism into theoretical thinking - a mechanical (automatic-type) scheme of causality, or mechanodeterminism. 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, with Descartes, not only the body was freed 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 reflex. The principle of the soul is reflection (from Latin, “turning back”). In the first case, the brain reflects external shocks; in the second, consciousness reflects its own thoughts and ideas.

The controversy between soul and body runs through the entire history of psychology. Descartes, like many of his predecessors (from the ancient animists, Pythagoras, Plato), contrasted them. But he also created a new form of dualism. Both body and soul acquired content unknown to previous researchers.

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

Spinoza was born in Amsterdam and received a theological education. His parents prepared him to become a rabbi, but already at school he developed a critical attitude towards the dogmatic interpretation of the Bible and Talmud. After graduating from school, Spinoza turned to the study of exact sciences, medicine and philosophy. He was greatly influenced by the writings of Descartes. Criticism of religious tenets, as well as non-compliance with many religious rituals, 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 this, Spinoza taught for some time 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 Descartes’ Philosophy” (1663) and developed the main content of his main work “Ethics,” which was published after his death in 1677.

Spinoza taught that there is a single, eternal substance - Nature - with an infinite number of attributes (inherent properties). Of these, only two are open to our limited mind - extension and thinking. Therefore, it makes no sense to imagine a person as a meeting point between physical and spiritual substances, as Descartes did. Man is a holistic physical-spiritual being. The belief that the body moves or rests according to the will of the soul arose due to ignorance of what it is capable of in itself, “by virtue of the laws of nature alone, considered exclusively as corporeal.”

The integrity of a person not only connects his spiritual and physical essence, but is also the basis for knowledge of the world around him, Spinoza argued. Like Descartes, he was convinced that it is intuitive knowledge that is leading, for intuition makes it possible to penetrate into the essence of things, to cognize not the individual properties of objects or situations, but general concepts. Intuition opens up limitless possibilities for self-knowledge. However, by getting to know oneself, a person also gets to know the world around him, since the laws of the soul and body are the same. Proving the knowability 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.

No thinker realized with such acuteness as Spinoza that Descartes' dualism was rooted not so much in a focus on the priority of the soul (this served as the basis for countless religious and philosophical doctrines for centuries), but in a view of the organism as a machine-like device. Thus, mechanical determinism, which soon determined the major successes of psychology, turned into a principle that limits the capabilities 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 is the cause of itself (causa sui), of the identity of the psyche and consciousness. From Spinoza’s searches 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 in 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, and explaining it “in a geometric way,” that is, with the same inexorable accuracy and rigor with which geometry makes 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. After all, the geometer is completely dispassionate in his reasoning; We should treat human passions in the same way, explaining how they arise and disappear.

Thus, Spinoza's rationalism does not lead to the denial of emotions, but to an attempt to explain them. At the same time, he connects emotions with will, saying that absorption in 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, giving up emotions opens up the limits of a person’s capabilities, showing what depends on his will, and what he is not free to do depends on the circumstances. It is this understanding that is true freedom, since a person cannot free himself 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 research into the limits of human volitional activity.

Spinoza identified three main forces that rule people and from which all the diversity of feelings can be derived: attraction (it is “nothing other than the very essence of man”), joy and sadness. He argued that any emotional state is derived from these fundamental affects, and joy increases the body’s ability to act, while sadness reduces it.

This conclusion opposed the Cartesian idea of ​​​​dividing feelings into those rooted in the life of the organism and purely intellectual ones. 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 first is amenable to 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 an individual. This Cartesian dichotomy (division into two) led in the 20th century to the concept of “two psychologies” - explanatory, appealing to reasons associated with the functions of the body, and descriptive, which believes 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.

L.S. Vygotsky turned to a detailed study of this dispute in the 20th century, arguing that the future belongs to Spinoza. “The teaching of Spinoza,” he wrote, “contains, forming its deepest and inner core, precisely what is not found in either of the two parts into which modern psychology of emotions has split: the unity of causal explanation and the problem of the vital meaning of human passions, the unity descriptive and explanatory psychology of feelings. Spinoza is therefore associated with the most pressing, most acute problem of the day in modern psychology of emotions. Spinoza's problems are awaiting their solution, without which the future of our psychology is impossible."

Gottfried-Wilhelm Leibniz: the problem of the unconscious. Father G.-V. Leibniz (1646-1716) was professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig. While still at school, Leibniz decided that his life would be devoted to science. Leibniz had encyclopedic knowledge. Along with mathematical research (he discovered differential and integral calculus), he participated in activities to improve the mining industry, was interested in the theory of money and the monetary system, as well as the history of the Brunswick dynasty. He organized the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. It was to him that Peter 1 turned with a request to head the Russian Academy of Sciences. Philosophical questions, primarily the theory of knowledge, also occupied a significant place in Leibniz’s scientific interests.

Like Spinoza, he advocated a holistic approach to man. However, he had a different opinion about the unity of the physical and mental.

The basis of this unity, according to Leibniz, is the spiritual principle. The world consists of countless monads (from the Greek “monos” - one). Each of them is “psychic” and endowed with the ability to perceive everything that happens in the Universe.

This assumption crossed out the Cartesian idea of ​​the equality of the psyche and consciousness. According to Leibniz, “the conviction that the soul contains only those perceptions of which it is conscious is the source of the greatest errors.” An imperceptible activity of “small perceptions,” or unconscious perceptions, continually occurs in the soul. In those cases when they are realized, this becomes possible thanks to a special mental act - apperception, which includes attention and memory.

Thus, Leibniz identifies several areas in the soul that differ in the degree of awareness of the knowledge that is located in them. These are the area of ​​distinct knowledge, the area of ​​vague knowledge and the area of ​​the unconscious. Rational intuition reveals the content of ideas that are in apperception, so this knowledge is clear and generalized. Proving the existence of unconscious images, Leibniz nevertheless did not reveal their role in human activity, since he believed that it was associated primarily with conscious ideas. At the same time, he drew attention to the subjectivity of human knowledge, linking it with cognitive activity. Leibniz argued that there are no primary or secondary qualities of objects, since even at the initial stage of cognition a person cannot passively perceive signals from the surrounding reality. He necessarily introduces his own ideas, his experience into the images of new objects, and therefore it is impossible to distinguish between those properties that are in the object itself from those that are introduced by the subject. However, this subjectivity does not contradict the knowability of the world, since all our ideas, although different from each other, nevertheless fundamentally coincide with each other, reflecting the main properties of the surrounding world.

To the question of how spiritual and physical phenomena relate to each other, Leibniz answered with a formula called psychophysical parallelism: the dependence of the psyche on bodily influences is an illusion. The soul and body perform their operations independently and automatically. At the same time, there is a harmony predetermined from above between them; they are like a pair of clocks that always show the same time, because they are run with the greatest accuracy.

The doctrine of psychophysical parallelism found many supporters during the formation years of psychology as an independent science. Leibniz's ideas changed and expanded the idea of ​​the psyche. His ideas about the unconscious psyche, “small perceptions” and apperception are firmly established in the content of the subject of psychology.

Thomas Hobbes: Association of Ideas. Another direction in the criticism of Descartes' dualism is associated with the philosophy of the English thinker Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). He completely rejected the soul as a special entity. There is nothing in the world, Hobbes argued, except material bodies that move according to the laws of mechanics discovered by Galileo. Accordingly, all mental phenomena obey these global laws. Material things, affecting the body, cause sensations. According to the law of inertia, ideas arise from sensations (in the form of their weakened trace), forming chains of thoughts that follow each other in the same order in which sensations followed.

This connection was later called an association. Association as a factor explaining why a given mental image leaves a particular trace in a person and not another has been known since the times of Plato and Aristotle. Looking at the lyre, one remembers the lover who played it, said Plato. This is an example of association by contiguity: both objects were once perceived simultaneously, and then the appearance of one entailed the image of the other. Aristotle added two other types of associations: similarity and contrast. But for Hobbes, a Galilean-trained determinist, only one law of mechanical coupling of mental elements by contiguity was in effect in the human structure.

Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz accepted associations as one of the main mental phenomena, but considered them a lower form of knowledge in comparison with the higher ones, which included thinking and will. Hobbes was the first to give association the force of a universal law of psychology. Both abstract rational knowledge and voluntary action are completely subordinate to it. Arbitrariness is an illusion that is generated by not knowing the reasons for an action (Spinoza held the same opinion). Thus, a top set into motion by a blow of a whip could consider its movements to be spontaneous.

In Hobbes, mechanical determinism received its most complete expression in relation to the explanation of the psyche. Hobbes’s merciless criticism of Descartes’ version of “innate ideas” with which the human soul is endowed before any experience and independently of it also became very important for future psychology.

Before Hobbes, the ideas of rationalism (from the Latin “ration” - reason) reigned in psychological teachings: reason as the highest form of activity of the soul was considered the source of knowledge and the mode of behavior inherent in people. Hobbes proclaimed reason to be a product of association, which has its source in direct sensory communication of the organism with the material world, i.e. experience. Rationalism was opposed by empiricism (from the Latin “empirio” - experience), the provisions of which became the basis of empirical psychology.

John Locke: two kinds of experience. Hobbes's compatriot John Locke (1632-1704) played a prominent role in the development of this direction.

D. Locke was born near the city of Bristol in the family of a provincial lawyer. On the recommendation of his father's friends, he was enrolled at Windsor School, after which he entered Oxford University. At Oxford he studied philosophy, natural sciences and medicine, at the same time he became acquainted with the works of Descartes. Acquaintance with Lord A. Ashley, which soon grew into a close friendship, changed Locke's life. As a doctor and educator for Ashley's son, he becomes a member of his family and shares with him all the vicissitudes of his fate. Lord Ashley, who was the head of the Whigs, the political opposition to King James II of England, twice held high positions in the government, making Locke his secretary. After Ashley's resignation, Locke was forced to flee with him to Holland, where he remained after Ashley's death. Only when William of Orange ascended the throne was he able to return to his homeland. At this time, Locke completed his main book, “Essays on the Human Mind,” and published many articles and treatises, including “On Government” and “On Education,” without abandoning his political activities.

Like Hobbes, he professed the experiential origin of all knowledge. Locke's postulate was that "there is nothing in consciousness that is not in sensation." Based on this, he argued that the child’s psyche is formed only in the process of his life. Speaking against Descartes, who based his theory of knowledge on the presence of innate ideas in humans, Locke proved the fallacy of this position. If ideas were innate, Locke wrote, they would be known to both the adult and the child, the normal person and the fool. However, in this case it would not be difficult to develop a child’s knowledge of mathematics, language, and moral standards. But all educators know that teaching a child to write and count is very difficult, and different children learn the material at different speeds. In the same way, no one will compare the minds of a normal person and an idiot and teach the latter philosophy or logic. There is, according to Locke, another proof of the absence of innate ideas: if ideas were innate, then all people in a given society would adhere to the same moral and political beliefs, but this is not observed anywhere. Moreover, Locke wrote, we know that different peoples have different languages, different laws, different concepts of God. The difference in religion was especially important from Locke's point of view, since Descartes considered the idea of ​​God to be one of the basic innate ideas.

Having thus proved that there are no innate ideas, Locke further argued that the child's psyche is a “blank slate” (tabula rasa) on which life writes its letters. Thus, both knowledge and ideals are not given to us in a ready-made form, but are the result of upbringing, which shapes a child into a conscious adult.

It is natural, therefore, that Locke attached great importance to education. He wrote that in moral education one must rely not so much on understanding as on the feelings of children, cultivating in them a positive attitude towards good deeds and an aversion to bad ones. In cognitive development, it is necessary to skillfully use the natural curiosity of children - it is that valuable mechanism that nature has endowed us with, and it is from it that the desire for knowledge grows. Locke noted that the teacher’s immediate task is to take into account the individual characteristics of children. This is also important in order to maintain a child’s good mood during the learning process, which contributes to faster learning.

In experience itself, Locke identified two sources: sensation and reflection. Along with the ideas that are “delivered” by the senses, ideas arise that are generated by reflection as “the internal perception of the activity of our mind.” Both those and others appear before the court of consciousness. "Consciousness is the perception of what is happening in a person's own mind." This definition became the cornerstone of introspective psychology.

It was believed that the object of consciousness is not external objects, but ideas (images, ideas, feelings, etc.), as they appear to the “inner gaze” of the subject observing them. From this postulate, most clearly and popularly explained by Locke, an understanding of the subject of psychology arose. From now on, phenomena of consciousness, generated by external experience, which comes from the senses, and internal, accumulated by the individual’s own mind, began to claim its place. The elements of this experience, the “threads” from which consciousness is woven, were considered to be ideas governed by the laws of association.

This understanding of consciousness determined the formation of subsequent psychological concepts. They were permeated with the spirit of dualism, behind which stood the realities of social life and social practice. On the one hand, this is scientific and technological progress, associated with great theoretical discoveries in the sciences of physical nature and the introduction of mechanical devices; on the other hand, the self-awareness of a person as a person who, although consistent with the providence of the Almighty, is capable of having support in his own mind, consciousness, and understanding.

These extra-psychological factors determined both the emergence of mechanodeterminism and the recourse to the internal experience of consciousness. It was these directions in their inseparability that determined the difference between the psychological thought of the New Age and all its previous turns. As before, the explanation of mental phenomena depended on knowledge of how the physical world works and what forces govern a living organism. We are talking specifically about an explanation that is adequate to the norms of scientific knowledge, because in the practice of communication, people are guided by everyday ideas about the motives of behavior, mental qualities, the influence of weather on the mood, the dependence of character on the location of the planets, etc.

XVII Rivers radically raised the bar for scientific criteria. He transformed the explanatory principles inherited from previous centuries. Initially, mechanistic ideas about reflex, sensation, association, affect, and motive entered the main fund of scientific knowledge. They arose from the deterministic interpretation of the organism as a “body machine”. The purely speculative design of this machine could not pass the test of experience. Meanwhile, experience and its rational explanation determined the successes of the new natural science.

For the great scientists of the 17th century, scientific knowledge of the psyche as knowledge of the causes of its phenomena had as an immutable prerequisite an appeal to the bodily structure. But the empirical knowledge about him was, as time has shown, so fantastic that previous evidence should have been ignored. This path was taken by adherents of empirical psychology, who understood experience as the subject’s processing of the content of his consciousness. They used concepts of sensations, associations, etc., as facts of inner experience. The genealogy of these concepts went back to the explanation of psychic reality discovered by free thought, discovered due to the fact that the prevailing belief for centuries that this reality was produced by a special entity - the soul - was rejected. From now on, the activity of the soul was derived from the laws and causes operating in the corporeal, earthly world. Knowledge of the laws of nature was born not from the internal experience of consciousness observing itself, but from socio-historical experience, generalized in the scientific theories of modern times.



In the 17th century, a new era began in the development of psychological knowledge.

It is characterized by attempts to comprehend the human spiritual world primarily from general philosophical, speculative positions, without the necessary experimental basis. René Descartes (1596-1650) comes to the conclusion about the complete difference that exists between the soul of a person and his body: “the body by its nature is always divisible, while the spirit is indivisible.” However, the soul is capable of producing movements in the body. This contradictory dualistic teaching gave rise to a problem called psychophysical: how are bodily (physiological) and mental (spiritual) processes in a person related to each other? Descartes laid the foundations for the deterministic (causal) concept of behavior with its central idea of ​​reflex as a natural motor response of the body to external physical stimulation. He was the founder of introspective psychology, interpreting consciousness as the subject's direct knowledge of what is happening in him when he thinks.

An attempt to reunite the body and soul of man, separated by the teachings of Descartes, was made by the Dutch philosopher Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677). There is no special spiritual principle; it is always one of the manifestations of extended substance (matter). Soul and body are determined by the same material causes. Spinoza believed that this approach makes it possible to consider mental phenomena with the same accuracy and objectivity as lines and surfaces are considered in geometry.

German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), Having rejected the equality of the psyche and consciousness established by R. Descartes, he introduced the concept of the unconscious psyche. In the human soul there is a continuous hidden work of psychic forces - countless “small perceptions” (perceptions). From them arise conscious desires and passions. G. Leibniz tried to explain the connection between the mental and the physical (physiological) in man not as interaction, but as a correspondence in the form of a “pre-established harmony” created thanks to divine wisdom.

4. 18th century: the birth of empirical psychology

The term "empirical psychology" was introduced by the German philosopher 18th century Christian Wolff (1679-1754) to indicate the direction in psychological science, the main principle of which is to observe specific mental phenomena, classify them and establish an experimentally verifiable, natural connection between them.

This principle became the cornerstone of the teachings of the founder of empirical psychology, the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). D. Locke considers the human soul as a passive, but capable of perception, medium, comparing it to a blank slate on which nothing is written. Under the influence of sensory impressions, the human soul, awakening, is filled with simple ideas and begins to think, that is, to form complex ideas. The soul is a “blank slate” on which writing is written by experience. He distinguished two forms of experience: external experience, in which sensations of the external world are presented, and internal experience, where ideas are presented, i.e. results of knowledge of the activities of one’s own mind. In this case, the formation of complex, or composite, ideas can go in two ways: either with the help of mental operations, such as comparison, abstraction and generalization, as a result of which concepts are formed, or quite accidentally, by combining ideas through associations, which leads to the formation, for example , prejudices or fears. These constructions of Locke were continued in introspective And associative psychology. Locke introduced into the language of psychology the concept of association - a connection between mental phenomena, in which the actualization of one of them entails the appearance of another.

Founder David Hartley (1705-1757) is considered to be an associative psychologist. Under. Hartley, the human mental world develops gradually as a result of the complication of “primary elements” (feelings) through their association. Based on the physics of I. Newton, he interpreted the processes of perception as the action of vibrations of the external ether on the sense organs and the brain, which also begin to vibrate. In a weakened form, vibrations in the nervous system can continue even when external ones have already stopped. Actually, mental processes are a reflection of brain “vibrations”. Thus, D. Hartley gave a parallelistic interpretation of the psychophysical problem. He built a model of consciousness in which its simplest elements: sensations (sensations), ideas (ideations) and the sensual tone of sensations (affectations) in experience are connected with each other by connections of a mechanical type - simultaneous and sequential associations, forming more and more complex levels. At the same time, the formation of general concepts also occurs on the basis of associations, when all random associations disappear, and the essential ones are grouped around the whole through the word. He considered pleasure and suffering to be the active forces of mental development.

The subsequent development of associationism is associated with names John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903).

5. XIX century: psychology becomes an independent science

Psychology became an independent science in the 60s of the 19th century. It was associated with the creation of special research institutions - psychological laboratories and institutes, departments in higher educational institutions, as well as with the introduction of experiments to study mental phenomena. The first version of experimental psychology as an independent scientific discipline was physiological psychology German scientist Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), creator of the world's first psychological laboratory. Based on the understanding of psychology as the science of direct experience, discovered through careful and rigorous controlled introspection, he tried to isolate the “simplest elements” of consciousness (sensations and elementary feelings) and experimentally establish the basic laws of mental life (for example, the law of “creative synthesis”). Physiology was considered as a methodological standard, which is why Wundt’s psychology was called “physiological.” But the study of higher mental processes (for example, speech, thinking, will), in his opinion, should be carried out using another, namely cultural-historical method, based primarily on the analysis of myths, rituals, religious ideas, language, which is reflected in his 10-volume work “Psychology of Peoples” (Volkerpsychologie. Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Sitte. 1900 - 1920). In solving the psychophysical problem he proceeded from the hypothesis of parallelism. At the level of consciousness there is a special causality based on apperception.

Follower Wundt Edward Titchener (1867-1927), American psychologist, was the founder and leader structural psychology. It is based on the idea of ​​elements of consciousness (sensations, images, feelings) and structural relationships. The structure, according to Titchener, is revealed by introspection - the subject's observation of the acts of his own consciousness. Conducted experimental studies of sensations, attention, and memory. He interpreted the subject of psychology as a system of elementary conscious states (sensations, ideas, feelings) from which the entire diversity of mental life is formed. The main method of psychology is analytical introspection, in which the observer participating in the experiment is required to describe the elements of consciousness not in terms of external objects, but in terms of sensations.

Sharia is a unified system of laws and regulations in Islam that regulate the life of a Muslim from cradle to death, including customs. Sharia is based on the Koran and Sunnah, on collections of Islamic law, the codes of which were developed by the schools of orthodox Sunni Islam (Hanifism, Malikism, Shafiism, Hanbalism). The development of Sharia laws was completed in the 11th and 12th centuries in the Near and Middle East. The Bashkirs' right to freedom of religion and observance of traditions and customs, acquired in the process of accepting Russian citizenship, contributed to the strengthening of Sharia courts in the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 18th century. In the subsequent period, in connection with the establishment of control of local administrative bodies, the competence of Sharia courts was limited. Their rights were narrowed to the resolution of family and marital inheritance cases and religious offenses. Since 1788, the OMDS (Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly) became the highest instance of the spiritual court, and, accordingly, the appellate body. In its law enforcement practice, it was guided by a unique synthesis of Sharia norms and all-Russian legislation. When carrying out legal proceedings, the Muslim clergy was prohibited from applying the provisions of Sharia, which contradicted the laws of the Russian state. They concerned mainly the system of corporal punishment for violating Muslim morality and morality, as well as the ban on early marriage.

The range of cases decided by the spiritual assembly and Sharia courts: about the abduction of daughters (kidnapping), bride price, failure to fulfill marital obligations, division of property, misconduct of mullahs and other clergy in general, about cruel treatment of a wife, about the departure of a wife, about adultery, beating of imams, exit marry a non-Christian, etc.

Central and local authorities were not consistent in their attitude towards compliance with the provisions of Sharia by the Muslim population. If in the first half of the 19th century, civil and military authorities repeatedly ordered Muslims to strictly implement the provisions of Sharia, then from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, government policy directed against the growing influence of Islam was declarative in nature.
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The planned measures - the transfer of family, marriage and property matters to the jurisdiction of civil courts, the restriction of the construction of mosques, the abolition of the OMDS due to fear of extreme Muslim protests were not implemented. Decrees of the Soviet government adopted after the October Revolution of 1917 abolished Sharia courts.

Development of psychology in the 17th-18th centuries

Lecture outline:

1. Psychology of modern times (XVII century).

2. Psychology in the Age of Enlightenment (XVIII century).

3. The origin and development of associative psychology (late 18th century – early 19th century).

The 17th century is usually called the “New Time”, since it was during this historical period that particularly intensive industrial growth(machine production) and urban planning, and influx of new technologies and colonial goods, resulting in an expansion in the need for labor and raw materials. We walked colonial wars, active maritime trade developed, associated with the fact that the cult of movement, travel and migration has established itself in the mass consciousness, and printing was invented(I. Guttenberg), gunpowder and compass.

Also during this period of history there was rise of intellectual activity, (surge of scientific discoveries), incl. a new understanding of state and legal problems was developed, and the ideas of democracy, the possibility of realizing common human rights and national independence began to spread among the masses.

In the New Time it happened “emancipation” of culture, first of all, the affirmation of a new system of values ​​and faith, focused on people. In contrast to the official Catholic Church, it is celebrated growth of the Protestant movement and freethinking spreads - that is, people begin to consciously relate to religion. At the same time, science, which occupied the lowest place in the medieval hierarchy of academic knowledge, begins to move to the forefront, becoming source of faith in the future.

In the 17th century there was a change subject of psychology : if it was previously soul, then in the New Time it became consciousness(the unique ability of the human soul not only to think and feel, but also to reflect all its acts and states with irrefutable certainty).

New Time ideas about the world and soul:

Name:	Dualism	Materialism	Idealism
Basic concepts:	Two independent substances are separated - soul(has thinking) and body(has extension). Soul and consciousness - identical concepts. The presence of unconscious processes is denied.	Nature is considered a single substance with basic properties: soul and body, possessing thinking and extension. Thinking is the main property of the soul, which is equivalent to consciousness. The presence of unconscious processes is denied.	The fundamental principle of the world - monad, possessing the property of perception and aspiration. Stand out in the soul perceptions(unconscious) and apperception (conscious). The content of the soul is broader than the content of consciousness.
Representatives:	René Descartes	Thomas Hobbes Benedict Spinoza	Wilhelm Leibniz

New Time ideas about knowledge:

ü Sensationalism (John Locke And Thomas Hobbes). This direction equalizes the mind and sensations. Cognition is considered unified the process of ascent from specific knowledge to general concepts, and the data from the senses are generalized by the mind. There are no innate ideas, and all concepts are related to learning, and the sensations are passive. Stand out primary And secondary qualities. Recognition occurs the impossibility of complete cognition of the world.

ü Rationalism. In cognition stand out two stages: the first gives knowledge about the world based on a logical generalization of these sensations(incomplete knowledge), and the second represents intuitive thinking(rational intuition) and true knowledge of the world. General concepts exist in the form of ideas (René Descartes) or in the form of their premises (Wilhelm Leibniz), and the generality of the laws of the world of ideas and things - knowledge base (Benedict Spinoza). The subjectivity of knowledge comes from the subjectivity of knowledge, but this does not contradict their truth (Wilhelm Leibniz).

New Time ideas about freedom and regulation of behavior:

ü Emotional regulation(Benedict Spinoza). Followers of this point of view believe that emotions regulate human activity and behavior. There are different types of emotions associated with influence of the surrounding world and a person is dependent on them. A reasonable understanding of this influence and awareness of the causes of emotions leads to freedom (recognized as extremely important).

ü Regulation based on reflex. Representatives of this direction believe that body regulation is carried out using a reflex according to the laws of mechanics. Reflex changes depending on habit and training, but the soul is only partially influences behavior through active passions.

History of psychology of the New Time in persons:

Francis Bacon(1561-1626). English philosopher and founder modern English empiricism, who began a new era in the history of psychology. He believed that it was extremely important refuse to study general issues concerning the nature of the soul, exclude the organic functions of its composition and go to experienced(empirical) description of soul processes. According to his concept, there are two types of soul:

ü Rational/divine soul(has memory, reason, imagination, desires and will).

ü Non-rational/feeling soul(has the ability to choose, sensations and desire for favorable circumstances, is able to make voluntary movements).

Bacon's theory of knowledge:

Function of the senses

(there are idol restrictions)

Rational processing of sensory data

Types of limitations-idols of empirical knowledge (if humanity can get rid of them, it will be able to reflect the world in its consciousness objectively, accurately and specifically) :

1. ʼʼIdols of the clanʼʼ(embedded in human nature itself).

2. ʼʼIdols of the Caveʼʼ(individual misconceptions of an individual).

3. ʼʼIdols of the Squareʼʼ(misconceptions that arise when people interact).

4. ʼʼTheater Idolsʼʼ(ideas of various tenets of philosophy that have taken root in people’s souls).

The significance of F. Bacon’s psychological ideas for the history of psychology:

1. Completed the stage of development of psychology, where the subject was the soul, and gave rise to the development of a new stage, where consciousness became the subject.

2. Offered specific ways to practically study the subject: experience and experiment.

3. Offered a unified science of man, part of which is psychology (philosophy considers man as such, civil philosophy studies him in interaction with other people, and anthropology is a science that combines knowledge about man) and laid principle of interdisciplinary approach to sciences.

4. Contributed division of human sciences into the doctrine of personality and the doctrine of the connection between soul and body, the division of their subjects and tasks, which entailed the division of the subject of psychology in accordance with specific tasks.

Rene / Cartesius Descartes.

The development of psychology in the 17th-18th centuries - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Development of psychology in the 17th-18th centuries" 2017, 2018.

Development of psychological thought in the 17th century and in the era of enlightenment (18th century)

With the approval of simple technical devices in social production, the principle of their operation increasingly attracted scientific thought to explain the functions of the body in their image and likeness. The first great achievement in this aspect was Harvey's discovery of the circulatory system, in which the heart was considered a kind of pump that pumps fluid, which does not require the participation of the soul.

A new outline of a psychological theory aimed at explaining the principles of Galileo and Newton's new mechanics belonged to the French naturalist Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650). He presented a theoretical model of the organism as a mechanically working automaton. With this understanding, the living body, which had previously been regarded as governed by the soul, was freed from its influence and interference; the functions of the “body machine,” which include “perception, imprinting ideas, retaining ideas in memory, internal aspirations... are performed in this machine like the movements of a clock.”

Later, Descartes introduced the concept of reflex, which became fundamental to psychology. If Harvey “removed” the soul from the category of regulators of internal organs, then Descartes “did away” with it at the level of the entire organism. The reflex scheme was as follows. An external impulse sets in motion light air-like particles, “animal spirits,” carried into the brain through “tubes” that make up the peripheral nervous system, from there the “animal spirits” are reflected to the muscles. Descartes' scheme, having explained the force driving the body, discovered the reflex nature of behavior.

One of Descartes' most important works for psychology is called "The Passions of the Soul." In it, the scientist not only “deprived” the soul of its royal role in the Universe, but also “elevated” it to the level of a substance equal to other substances of nature. There has been a revolution in the concept of the soul. The subject of psychology became consciousness. Believing that the machine of the body and the consciousness occupied with its own thoughts, ideas and desires are two entities (substances) independent of each other, Descartes was faced with the need to explain how they coexist in a person. The explanation he proposed was called psychophysical interaction. It was as follows: the body influences the soul, awakening passions in it in the form of sensory perceptions, emotions, etc. The soul, possessing thinking and will, influences the body, forcing it to work and change its course. The organ where these two incompatible substances communicate is one of the endocrine glands - the “pineal gland” (epiphysis).

The question of the interaction of soul and body has absorbed the intellectual energy of many minds for centuries. Having freed the body from the soul, Descartes “liberated” the soul (psyche) from the body; the body can only move, the soul can only think; the principle of operation of the body is a reflex (i.e. the brain reflects external influences); the principle of the soul’s work is reflection (from Latin - “turning back”, i.e. consciousness reflects its own thoughts, ideas, sensations).

Descartes created a new form of dualism in the form of the relationship between soul and body, and divided feelings into two categories: those rooted in the life of the organism and purely intellectual. In his last work - a letter to the Swedish Queen Christina - he explained the essence of love as a feeling that has two forms - bodily passion without love and intellectual love without passion. In his opinion, only the first is amenable to causal explanation, since it depends on the organism and biological mechanics; the second can only be understood and described. Descartes believed that science as knowledge of the causes of phenomena is powerless in the face of the highest and most significant manifestations of the mental life of an individual. The result of his similar reasoning was the concept of “two psychologies” - explanatory, appealing to reasons associated with the functions of the body, and descriptive, consisting in the fact that we explain only the body, while we understand the soul.

Attempts to refute the dualism of Descartes, to affirm the unity of the universe, to end the gap between the physical and the spiritual, nature and consciousness, were made by a number of great thinkers of the 17th century. One of them was the Dutch philosopher Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632-1677). He taught that there is one eternal substance - God, or Nature - with an infinite number of attributes (inherent properties). Of these, the philosopher believed, only two are open to our limited understanding - extension and thinking; From this it is clear that it is pointless to imagine a person as a meeting place of two substances: a person is an integral physical-spiritual being.

An attempt to build a psychological doctrine about man as an integral being is captured in his main work - “Ethics”. It sets the task of explaining the whole variety of feelings (affects) as motivating forces of human behavior with the accuracy and rigor of geometric proofs. It was argued that there are three motivating forces: attraction, joy and sadness. It has been proven that from these fundamental affects the whole variety of emotional states is derived; at the same time, joy increases the body’s ability to act, while sadness reduces it.

Spinoza adopted from the German philosopher and mathematician Leibniz (1646-1716), who discovered differential and integral calculus, the following idea of ​​the unity of the physical and mental. The basis of this unity is the spiritual principle. The world consists of countless spiritual entities - monads (from the gr. monos - one). Each of them is “psychic”, i.e. not material (like an atom), but endowed with the ability to perceive everything that happens in the Universe. The imperceptible activity of “small perceptions”—unconscious perceptions—continuously occurs in the soul. In those cases when they are realized, this becomes possible due to the fact that a special act - apperception - is added to simple perception. It includes attention and memory. So, Leibniz introduced the concept of the unconscious psyche.

To the question of how spiritual and physical phenomena relate to each other, Leibniz answered with a formula known as psychophysical parallelism. In his opinion, they cannot influence one another. The dependence of the psyche on bodily influences is an illusion. The soul and body perform their operations independently and automatically. However, divine wisdom is reflected in the fact that there is a pre-established harmony between them. they are like a pair of clocks that always show the same time, because they are run with the greatest precision.

At the end of this section of psychology, it is necessary to mention the name of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Before him, rationalism reigned in psychological teachings (from the Latin racio - reason). Hobbes proposed taking experience as the basis of knowledge. They contrasted rationalism with empiricism (from the Latin empirio - experience). This is how empirical psychology arose.

In the 18th century in Europe, when the process of strengthening capitalist relations continued, a new movement, the Enlightenment, expanded and strengthened. Its representatives considered ignorance to be the main cause of all human ills. It was assumed that in the fight against it, society would get rid of social disasters and vices and that goodness and justice would reign everywhere. These ideas acquired different tones in different countries due to the uniqueness of their socio-historical development. Thus, in England, I. Newton (1643-1727) created a new mechanics, perceived as a model and ideal of exact knowledge, as the triumph of reason.

In accordance with Newton's understanding of nature, the English physician Hartley (1705-1757) explained the human mental world. He presented it as a product of the body's work - a "vibrator machine." The following was assumed. The vibration of the external ether through the vibrations of the nerves causes vibrations of the brain matter, which turn into vibrations of the muscles. In parallel with this, mental “companions” of vibrations arise, combine and replace each other in the brain - from feeling to abstract thinking and voluntary actions. All this happens on the basis of the law of associations. Hartley counted. that the human mental world develops gradually as a result of the complication of primary sensory elements through associations of the contiguity of elements in time. For example, a child's behavior is regulated by two motivational forces - pleasure and suffering.

The task of education, in his opinion, comes down to strengthening in people such connections that would turn them away from immoral deeds and bring pleasure from moral ones. and the stronger these connections are, the greater the chances for a person to become a morally virtuous person, and for the whole society - more perfect.

Other outstanding thinkers of the Enlightenment were C. Helvetius (1715-1771), P. Holbach (1723-1789) and D. Diderot (1713-1784). Defending the idea of ​​the emergence of the spiritual world from the physical world, they presented the “man-machine” endowed with a psyche as a product of external influences and natural history. In the final period of the Enlightenment, the physician-philosopher P. Cabanis (1757-1808) put forward the position that thinking is a function of the brain.

At the same time, he proceeded from observations of the bloody experience of the revolution, the leaders of which instructed him to find out the awareness of the convict, whose head was cut off at the guillotine, of his suffering, evidence of which could be convulsions. Cabanis answered this question in the negative. Only a person with a brain is capable of thinking. The movements of a headless body are reflexive in nature and are not conscious. Consciousness is a function of the brain. P. Cabanis considered the expression of thoughts in words and gestures to be external products of brain activity. The external products of brain activity include the expression of thoughts in words and gestures. Behind the thought itself, in his opinion, is hidden an unknown nervous process, the inseparability of mental phenomena and the nervous substrate. By arguing for the need to move from the speculative to the empirical study of this inseparability, he prepared the way for the movement of scientific thought in the next century.

The Italian thinker D. Vico (1668-1744) in his treatise “Foundations of a new science of the general nature of things” (1725) put forward the idea that every society passes successively through three eras: gods, heroes and people. As for the mental properties of a person, they, according to D. Vico, arise in the course of the history of society. In particular, he associated the emergence of abstract thinking with the development of trade and political life. The name of D. Vico is associated with the idea of ​​supra-individual spiritual power, characteristic of the people as a whole and constituting the fundamental basis of culture and history.

In Russia, the spiritual atmosphere of the Enlightenment era determined the philosophical and psychological views of A.N. Radishchev (1749-1802). A.N. Radishchev was looking for the key to the psychology of people in the conditions of their social life ("Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow"), for which he was sentenced to death, replaced by exile to Siberia.

So, in the Age of Enlightenment, two directions arose in the development of problems of psychological knowledge: the interpretation of the psyche as a function of highly organized matter - the brain, which contributed to the experimental study of those phenomena that were considered the product of a disembodied soul; the doctrine according to which the individual psyche is determined by social conditions, mores, customs, and the spiritual world of people who are driven by their own energy of cultural creativity.

Bibliography

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Psychology has come a long way in development, the understanding of the object, subject and goals of psychology has changed. Let us note the main stages in the development of psychology as a science.

Stage I - psychology as the science of the soul. This definition of psychology was given more than two thousand years ago. They tried to explain all the incomprehensible phenomena in human life by the presence of a soul. Stage II - psychology as the science of consciousness. It appears in the 17th century in connection with the development of natural sciences. The ability to think, feel, desire was called consciousness. The main method of study was a person's observation of himself and the description of facts. Stage III - psychology as a science of behavior. Appears in the 20th century. The task of psychology is to set up experiments and observe what can be directly seen, namely, human behavior, actions, reactions (the motives causing the actions were not taken into account).

Psychology is a science that studies objective patterns, manifestations and mechanisms of the psyche.

To more clearly imagine the path of development of psychology as a science, let us briefly consider its main stages and directions.

1. The first ideas about the psyche were associated with animism(from Latin anima - spirit, soul) - the most ancient views, according to which everything that exists in the world has a soul. The soul was understood as an entity independent of the body that controls all living and inanimate objects.

2. Later, in the philosophical teachings of antiquity, psychological aspects were touched upon, which were resolved in terms of idealism or in terms of materialism. Thus, the materialist philosophers of antiquity Democritus, Lucretius, Epicurus understood the human soul as a type of matter, as a bodily formation consisting of spherical, small and most mobile atoms.

3. According to the ancient Greek idealist philosopher Plato(427-347 BC), who was a student and follower of Socrates, the soul is something divine, different from the body, and a person’s soul exists before it comes into contact with the body. She is the image and outflow of the world soul. The soul is an invisible, sublime, divine, eternal principle. The soul and body are in a complex relationship with each other. By its divine origin, the soul is called upon to control the body and direct human life. However, sometimes the body takes the soul into its bonds. The body is torn apart by various desires and passions, it cares about food, is subject to illness, fears, and temptations. Mental phenomena are divided by Plato into reason, courage (in the modern sense - will) and desires (motivation).

Reason is located in the head, courage in the chest, lust in the abdominal cavity. The harmonious unity of reason, noble aspirations and lust gives integrity to a person’s mental life. The soul inhabits the human body and guides it throughout his life, and after death leaves it and enters the divine “world of ideas.” Since the soul is the highest thing in a person, he must care about its health more than the health of the body. Depending on what kind of life a person led, after his death a different fate awaits his soul: it will either wander near the earth, burdened with bodily elements, or fly away from the earth into the ideal world, into the world of ideas, which exists outside of matter and outside of the individual. consciousness. “Isn’t it a shame for people to care about money, about fame and honors, but not to care about reason, about truth and about their soul and not think about making it better?” - Socrates and Plato ask.

4. Great philosopher Aristotle in the treatise “On the Soul” he singled out psychology as a unique field of knowledge and for the first time put forward the idea of ​​​​the inseparability of the soul and the living body. Aristotle rejected the view of the soul as a substance. At the same time, he did not consider it possible to consider the soul in isolation from matter (living bodies). The soul, according to Aristotle, is incorporeal; it is the form of a living body, the cause and goal of all its vital functions. Aristotle put forward the concept of the soul as a function of the body, and not as some phenomenon external to it. The soul, or “psyche,” is the engine that allows a living being to realize itself. If the eye were a living being, then its soul would be vision. Likewise, the soul of a person is the essence of a living body, it is the realization of its existence, Aristotle believed. The main function of the soul, according to Aristotle, is the realization of the biological existence of the organism. The center, the “psyche,” is located in the heart, where impressions from the senses are received. These impressions form a source of ideas, which, combined with each other as a result of rational thinking, subordinate behavior. The driving force of human behavior is aspiration (internal activity of the body), associated with a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Sense perceptions constitute the beginning of knowledge. Preserving and reproducing sensations provides memory. Thinking is characterized by the formation of general concepts, judgments and conclusions. A special form of intellectual activity is mind (reason), brought from outside in the form of divine reason. Thus, the soul manifests itself in various abilities for activity: nourishing, feeling, rational. Higher abilities arise from and on the basis of lower ones. The primary cognitive ability of a person is sensation; it takes the forms of sensory objects without their matter, just as “wax takes the impression of a seal without iron.” Sensations leave a trace in the form of ideas - images of those objects that previously acted on the senses. Aristotle showed that these images are connected in three directions: by similarity, by contiguity and contrast, thereby indicating the main types of connections - associations of mental phenomena. Aristotle believed that knowledge of man is possible only through knowledge of the Universe and the order existing in it. Thus, at the first stage, psychology acted as a science of the soul.

5. In the era middle ages The idea was established that the soul is a divine, supernatural principle, and therefore the study of mental life should be subordinated to the tasks of theology.

Only the outer side of the soul, which is turned towards the material world, can be subject to human judgment. The greatest mysteries of the soul are accessible only in religious (mystical) experience.

6. C XVII century a new era begins in the development of psychological knowledge. In connection with the development of natural sciences, the laws of human consciousness began to be studied using experimental methods. The ability to think and feel is called consciousness. Psychology began to develop as a science of consciousness. It is characterized by attempts to comprehend the human spiritual world primarily from general philosophical, speculative positions, without the necessary experimental basis. R. Descartes (1596-1650) comes to the conclusion about the difference between the human soul and his body: “The body by its nature is always divisible, while the spirit is indivisible.” However, the soul is capable of producing movements in the body. This contradictory dualistic teaching gave rise to a problem called psychophysical: how are bodily (physiological) and mental (spiritual) processes in a person related to each other? Descartes created a theory that explained behavior based on a mechanistic model. According to this model, information delivered by the sensory organs is sent along sensory nerves to openings in the brain, which these nerves dilate, allowing the "animal souls" in the brain to flow through tiny tubes - motor nerves - into the muscles, which inflate, which leads to withdrawal of the irritated limb or forces one to perform one or another action. Thus, there was no longer any need to resort to the soul to explain how simple behavioral acts arise. Descartes laid the foundations for the deterministic (causal) concept of behavior with its central idea of ​​reflex as a natural motor response of the body to external physical stimulation. This is Cartesian dualism - a body that acts mechanically, and a “rational soul” that controls it, localized in the brain. Thus, the concept of “Soul” began to turn into the concept of “Mind”, and later into the concept of “Consciousness”. The famous Cartesian phrase “I think, therefore I exist” became the basis of the postulate that stated that the first thing a person discovers in himself is his own consciousness. The existence of consciousness is the main and unconditional fact, and the main task of psychology is to analyze the state and content of consciousness. On the basis of this postulate, psychology began to develop - it made consciousness its subject.

7. An attempt to reunite the body and soul of man, separated by the teachings of Descartes, was made by the Dutch philosopher Spinoza(1632-1677). There is no special spiritual principle; it is always one of the manifestations of extended substance (matter).

Soul and body are determined by the same material causes. Spinoza believed that this approach makes it possible to consider mental phenomena with the same accuracy and objectivity as lines and surfaces are considered in geometry.

Thinking is an eternal property of substance (matter, nature), therefore, to a certain extent, thinking is inherent in both stone and animals, and to a large extent is inherent in man, manifesting itself in the form of intellect and will at the human level.

8. German philosopher G. Leibniz(1646-1716), rejecting the equality of psyche and consciousness established by Descartes, introduced the concept of the unconscious psyche. In the human soul there is a continuous hidden work of psychic forces - countless “small perceptions” (perceptions). From them arise conscious desires and passions.

9. Term " empirical psychology"introduced by the German philosopher of the 18th century X. Wolf to designate a direction in psychological science, the main principle of which is the observation of specific mental phenomena, their classification and the establishment of a logical connection between them verifiable by experience. The English philosopher J. Locke (1632-1704) considers the human soul as a passive, but capable of perception environment, comparing it with a blank slate on which nothing is written. Under the influence of sensory impressions, the human soul, awakening, is filled with simple ideas, begins to think, that is, to form complex ideas. In the language of psychology Locke introduced the concept of "association" - a connection between mental phenomena, in which the actualization of one of them entails the appearance of another. Thus, psychology began to study how, through the association of ideas, a person becomes aware of the world around him. The study of the relationship between the soul and the body is finally inferior to the study of the mental activity and consciousness.

Locke believed that there are two sources of all human knowledge: the first source is the objects of the external world, the second is the activity of a person’s own mind. The activity of the mind and thinking is cognized with the help of a special internal feeling - reflection. Reflection, according to Locke, is “the observation to which the mind subjects its activity”; it is the directing of a person’s attention to the activity of his own soul. Mental activity can proceed, as it were, at two levels: processes of the first level - perceptions, thoughts, desires (every person and child has them); processes of the second level - observation or “contemplation” of these perceptions, thoughts, desires (only mature people who reflect on themselves, know their mental experiences and states have this). This method of introspection is becoming an important means of studying the mental activity and consciousness of people.

10. Selection Psychology became an independent science in the 60s. XIX century. It was associated with the creation of special research institutions - psychological laboratories and institutes, departments in higher educational institutions, as well as with the introduction of experiments to study mental phenomena. The first version of experimental psychology as an independent scientific discipline was the physiological psychology of the German scientist W. Wundt (1832-1920). In 1879, he opened the world's first experimental psychological laboratory in Leipzig.

22. Significant contribution to the development of psychology of the 20th century. contributed our domestic scientists L.S. (1896-1934), A.N. (1903-1979), A.R. Luria (1902-1977) and P.Ya. (1902-1988). L.S. Vygotsky introduced the concept of higher mental functions (thinking in concepts, rational speech, logical memory, voluntary attention) as a specifically human, socially determined form of the psyche, and also laid the foundations for the cultural and historical concept of human mental development. The named functions initially exist as forms of external activity, and only later - as a completely internal (intrapsychic) ​​process. They come from forms of verbal communication between people and are mediated by language signs. The system of signs determines behavior to a greater extent than the surrounding nature, since a sign or symbol contains a program of behavior in a compressed form. Higher mental functions develop in the process of learning, i.e. joint activities of a child and an adult.

A.N. Leontyev conducted a series of experimental studies revealing the mechanism of formation of higher mental functions as a process of “growing” (interiorization) of higher forms of instrumental-sign actions into the subjective structures of the human psyche.

A.R. Luria paid special attention to the problems of cerebral localization of higher mental functions and their disorders. He was one of the founders of a new field of psychological science - neuropsychology.

P.Ya. Halperin considered mental processes (from perception to thinking inclusive) as the orienting activity of the subject in problem situations. The psyche itself, in historical terms, arises only in a situation of mobile life for orientation on the basis of an image and is carried out with the help of actions in terms of this image. P.Ya. Galperin is the author of the concept of the gradual formation of mental actions (images, concepts). The practical implementation of this concept can significantly increase the effectiveness of training.