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0N.V. Papucha, E.S. Medvid Human psychology: is there a way out of the crisis?
A U T H O R S
"It seems to me that systems and their fate - these two words for us should contain the alpha and omega of our immediate work."
L.S. Vygotsky "On psychological systems."
Annotation. The article examines some key methodological problems of modern psychology in the context of the cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky. It is shown that the development of psychological knowledge is inadequate to the currently proven scientific view of the world. It is assumed that the development of psychology is possible only if it is integrated into the system of modern scientific knowledge.
Key words: cultural-historical theory, methodology, higher psychological functions, human psychological life, semantic dynamic systems, synergetics.
Citation: Papucha N.V., Medvid E.S. Human psychology: is there a way out of the crisis? TeopemmHi docrndrneHm y пcихоnогii: моногpа<piцна cepin. Tom 20. 2024. C. 61-77.
Words by L.S. Vygotsky, given in the epigraph, were voiced back in 1930 (it's scary to think how long ago). They were truly heard only by A.R. Luria, who devoted the rest of his life in science to their implementation and was very successful - the unique science of neuropsychology he created discovered a lot and saved a lot of people... But L.S. Vygotsky was not talking about the brain at all, he was talking about the further movement of psychology, and only he realized what he could in the remaining three and a half years of his life. Meanwhile, psychology after two titans -L.S. Vygotsky and Freud, as a science, remained standing, and is still standing and falling .
We are talking about psychology as a science . Both Z. Freud saw and studied the psyche as a system, and L.S. Vygotsky did the same thing in recent years (only, as it were, from the other end), but the foresight and prediction of the Genius remained in vain.
In general, our article is not devoted to historical analysis (especially since we have already written about this [8]). Anyone who wants to understand what is happening in modern psychology simply must carefully read the work of L.S. Vygotsky "Historical meaning of psychological crisis" [2]. Written in 1926, it not only extremely accurately reflects the state of affairs at that time, but also... it is about us, about psychology now . Only now it's even worse... We will
not analyze the work of L.S. here. Vygotsky, although this is absolutely necessary, especially after the publication of an excellent book edited by E.A. Zavershneva and R. van der Veer [6]. We will proceed from the, alas, fantastic idea that everyone who calls and considers himself a psychologist knows this work (we are of little interest to others, and if they want, they can easily read it). We, it seems to us, stand on the position of L.S.'s theory. Vygotsky (it's hard to say that we fully understood him), and let's try to take a small step from the place where he put an end to it.
And yet, although we intend to study the object, and not the opinion about it, we do not belittle the importance of those who have tried for hundreds of years to explain the psyche. We deeply respect and appreciate their work and fully share the position of L.S. Vygotsky: "We do not want to be Ivans who do not remember kinship, we do not suffer from delusions of grandeur, thinking that history begins with us; we do not want to receive a clean and flat name from history... We must consider ourselves in connection and in relation to the past; even denying it, we rely on it" [2, p.428]. L.S. Vygotsky gave psychology a chance to transform from an incredible chaos of opinions and theories into a real science. Alas, we did not take advantage of this chance. Now, despite the increasing chaos and unprecedented conceit of "worldly psychologists," psychology again has a
chance: to those two resources that L.S. spoke about. Vygotsky and which he hoped would pull psychology out of the swamp of ignorance, another powerful resource is added. Resources L.S. Vygotsky ("the stones that became the cornerstone") - practice and philosophy. A new resource is the achievements of modern exact sciences, in particular the physics of nonequilibrium systems, and their completely unique connection with dialectics. We will try to consider this, but, unfortunately, we will have to start ab ovo, since L.S. is right a thousand times. Vygotsky -psychology is such that every time it is necessary to declare its key positions (developed sciences have long passed this period of infantility).
The main and key thing: we consider psychology as a science (L.S. Vygotsky: "either psychology is a science, or there is no psychology at all"). Science, as we know, is not the only way of knowledge; it is limited by the infinity of the process of scientific knowledge itself, and, moreover, limited by boundaries beyond which it is powerless. But science is the most effective way of knowing. Science studies objects (not subjective experiences reflected by someone in something). Thus, the main problem of scientific psychology is the refusal to "study" subjective experiences (this overcoming of the "postulate of immediacy (subjectivity) was the main thing for L.S.
Vygotsky, and now it has only worsened). Let's listen to L.S. Vygotsky (he calls the subjective "ghost"): " No science is possible only about the subjective, about appearance , about ghosts, about that which does not exist. What is not there is not there at all, and not half-absent, half-is. It is impossible to say - there are real and unreal things in the world - the unreal does not exist. The unreal must be explained as a discrepancy, in general a relation between two real things; subjective - as a consequence of two objective processes. Subjective is apparent, and therefore it does not exist " [emphasized by L.S. Vygotsky, 2, p.415]. It would seem that everything is clear, but now we are studying precisely the subjective, i.e. - ghost! The question arises: who should (and can?) study the subjective? This question also faced Vygotsky; we will further try to outline the path to the answer. And one more extremely important thought by L.S. Vygotsky, which testifies to his absolute rejection of the "theory of reflection" (although Soviet psychology tried to make him almost the founder of this "theory" in psychology). "No science of mirror ghosts (reflection) is possible... The riddle of psychology will be solved not by studying ghosts, but by studying two series of objective processes, from the interaction of which ghosts arise as apparent reflections of one in the other. The appearance itself does not exist." [2, p. 416]. The position is very clear.
Please note that L.S. Vygotsky speaks here of two objective phenomena. He does not explain this idea anywhere, but in our opinion it is very important. We'll come back to it a little later.
So, psychology is a science if it objectively studies the objective, has its own special scientific apparatus, makes theoretical generalizations based on empirical facts, and not their subjective experience, etc. But what kind of science is this? This can be answered by knowing the object of knowledge. First, however, about another "ghost", with whom L.S. fought just as fiercely as the first. Vygotsky. This is, as it were, the reverse (reflected) first ghost: this is behaviorism (aka Russian reflexology, aka the science of behavior).
Everything here is truly like "through the looking glass": there is nothing spiritual, magical, there is a clear experiment, or rather objective data - in general, everything is like in any self-respecting science. What don't you like? One small catch: the response to the stimulus is studied and it is registered, and not analyzed (by definition, it cannot be analyzed, because there, deeper, is the soul, and this does not enter into the object in any way). The experiment, which psychology is so proud of to this day, remained only at the level of a technical technique and, alas, did not bring anything fundamentally new to psychology. Even the
author himself, Wundt, admitted this. It turns out to be a vicious circle, which has now become even "rounder". But L.S. Vygotsky insists: psychology is a science, and an exclusively natural science. Here we will simply believe him (especially since he is very convincing in his works). Just one remark from L.S. Vygotsky: natural does not mean biological, the concept "natural" is taken in its closest, factual meaning: "... from mathematics and real-mathematical sciences one must strictly distinguish sciences that deal with things, real objects and processes, with what really exists , There is. These sciences can therefore be called real or natural (in the broad sense of the word) [2, p.417]. "I am convinced," concludes L.S. Vygotsky - that the extension of the term "natural" to everything that really exists is completely rational" [ibid.]. So, since the psyche really exists, it exists , it should be studied by natural science. But what should she study? L.S. Vygotsky answers in much later works: "Psychology is the science of human mental life" [5]. This means that a person's mental life is an object of knowledge of psychology (God, how many copies have been broken on this, what has not been proposed...)
L.S. Vygotsky distinguishes between the "object of knowledge" (epistemological category) and the "subject of research" - those specific phenomena and processes that are studied in each specific study and are (often, thanks to
various technical techniques) quite tangible, visible, etc. The relationship between these two categories is very complex, but, most importantly, the research is effective when the subject and methods are adequate to the initial theoretical and methodological beliefs of the researcher, which, accordingly, forms the object of knowledge (this is not observed in our psychology, in principle).
What is "human psychological life"? L.S. Vygotsky explains in part: "Life is not in the biological sense, but in the sense of biography—biography—after all, it is not breathing and blood circulation that constitute the subject of biography, hagiography, drama, novel; and the events of human life, that is, the problem of specific psychology comes to the fore [6, p.477]. To finally decide on the object, let's take a closer look at the word "specific". We are talking about something very important here. An analogy with the thoughts of V.I. is quite appropriate. Vernadsky. His idea is that life cannot be studied by the specific science of biology. Life is a category for philosophy, religion, etc. Biology as a specific science studies not life as such, but individual living organisms and their interactions. Similarly, in psychology, psyche is a category of philosophers and theologians. Concrete science cannot study the psyche as such. She studies the psychological side of living organisms that have this psyche. We think this is fundamental. And yet, the
psychological life of a person, with all the "family ties," is so different from the psychological life of other living creatures on Earth that it makes sense to talk about human psychology as a separate science. And that is exactly what we are starting from here. Concreteness is achieved by the fact that we intend to contrast psychological analysis with logical analysis . "Science," wrote V.I. Vernadsky, is by no means a logical construction, a truth-seeking apparatus. It is impossible to know scientific truth through logic, it is possible only through life" [1, p.54]. And finally, we do not intend to create a concept; this is impossible in science. "Scientific construction, as a rule, is not a logically coherent system of knowledge, consciously determined by reason in all its fundamentals. It is full of continuous changes, corrections and contradictions, extremely mobile, like life, complex in its content: it is a dynamic unstable equilibrium... The system of science, taken as a whole, is always imperfect from a logical-critical point of view" [1, p.53]. Only metaphysical and theological constructions can be logically coherent.
In this thought V.I. Vernadsky's main thing for us is the following: the result of any conscientious research in any science is a certain "ideal model" - a generalization that applies to all objects in a given field, but does not at all take into account a lot of individual nuances (what in psychology
is called "individual development options") . So, if our object is the psychological life of an adult, this does not mean that we intend to obtain an absolutely complete, nuanced picture of a particular subject.
It is important to note one more thing - we declared the presence of a powerful resource for psychology in the form of the achievements of modern physics and synergetics. Of course, psychology is a science and is united (must be united!) with common principles with other sciences. But this does not mean that these principles can be used directly, without preliminary psychological and methodological "melting". Caution and competence are very important here.
Modern physics is united with the theory of L.S. Vygotsky, understanding of dynamic systems. Since we stated that our initial ones are the main provisions of L.S. Vygotsky, let us dwell on this concept. Studying the ontogenesis of the human psyche using a method specially developed by him (excluding both stimulus-reactive conditions and any spiritualism), L.S. Vygotsky made the discovery of higher mental functions and comprehensively described their structure and dynamics. We won't talk about it here - because... this is the ABC of science. He immediately realized that he had discovered not just individual phenomena of the human psyche itself, but a
whole system of functions that covered and made the entire human psyche incredibly productive and flexible. This system gave rise to consciousness, but at the same time included the unconscious, and in general all elementary ("lower") mental processes and phenomena. It is extremely important to emphasize here that everything listed was discovered (and then generalized) in the process of experimental, in fact, empirical work of scientists (this is the point that unites L.S. Vygotsky and Z. Freud!). It is extremely important to note another fundamental similarity between the positions of L.S. Vygotsky and Z. Freud: having very different thinking and beliefs, they, meanwhile, were real dialecticians from Spinoza: real, i.e. They thought and, receiving data, interpreted them purely dialectically, never changing dialectics in their very thinking, although they were very erudite and knew many other systems. And it's not without reason that L.S. Vygotsky wrote in his diary at the end of his life: "Freud and I came from different ends: he tried to show how consciousness is born from the unconscious, we - on the contrary, how human consciousness arises in culture and how it can become unconscious. Now we have come to one point from different directions" [6]. Only these two scientists in psychology were very competent and rigorous in the field of methodology. Therefore, only they made real
discoveries (and did not give birth to interesting maxims), and only they finally gave their theories and discoveries a path into the future... The key thing for science was observed: you cannot move directly from philosophy to concrete science. "We need a methodology, i.e. a system of intermediate, concrete, applicable to the scale of a given science concepts" [2, p. 419]. Let us add that it is needed not only at the beginning of the journey, but throughout the entire journey - this is what will provide scientific facts, new visions of problems and new methods and ideas.
When analyzing, it is important not how and what the scientist wrote about (this may be a tribute to the style of his time, fashion, ideology, personal relationships, etc.), but how he really thinks and what in reality (what problem) this thinking rested on . The thought of Freud and L.S. Vygotsky ran into one problem - how does the conscious psyche arise (the human psyche ?). Here we only talk about Vygotsky...
Realizing the universal, "all-encompassing" nature of higher mental functions (HMF), he conducted a series of brilliant studies and analyzes and established that HMF are, in fact, extremely complex, very mobile and changing systems, L.S. Vygotsky called them interfunctional mental systems (MPS). Systems include almost all mental functions. The following is important to us:
1. MPS are dynamic and connected by diverse nonlinear (i.e., not amenable to analysis within the framework of mathematical logic) connections; MPS are heterogeneous and in their totality form what is commonly called consciousness. At the same time, heterogeneity also means that the MPS also contains natural (innate, natural) mental functions (the so-called "lower"). L.S. Vygotsky carefully examined the connection between the HPF and the NPF in systems and showed that it is complex and diverse, but not hierarchical (HMF are not built on top of the NPF and do not control them); they are conjugated . This discovery was the insight of a genius - in his time, neither physicists, nor synergetics, nor other teachings had yet closely studied nonequilibrium systems, and only in the middle of the twentieth century it was strictly mathematically shown that the "complex" and "simple" in dissipative systems do not form a hierarchy , but precisely the conjugacy
2. The main thing: introducing the concept of MPS into human psychology, L.S. Vygotsky actually introduced the category of time into science. Neither before nor after it was time considered as a real formation ("part of the subject of research") of the psyche. It was always supposed, meant, and nothing more. In MPS L.S. For Vygotsky, time turned out to be intertwined with the dynamics of mental life. Its presence and action changes the composition and
functioning of the MPS both in ontogenesis and in actualogenesis. In particular, it was shown that at different stages of ontogenesis the role of the central, system-forming function that forms various MPSs is played by different mental functions: in early childhood such a function is sensation, a little later - perception, thinking, etc. This determines the specificity of behavior in ontogenesis. And, however, the most interesting transformations of time occur precisely in actual (micro)genesis. We'll look at this later. Here we note that the introduction of the time parameter into psychological research as a real variable (and not some kind of conditional constant, as has always been done and is being done now) allowed Vygotsky to see and present psychological life to us in a completely different way, although he himself did not reflect on this, and indeed could not in those years... It is important for us to note for now that the time dimension allows us to speak, if not of identity, then of the equivalence of the psyche as a system of MPS with the now known dissipative self-organizing systems.
3. Another theoretical thesis of L.S. is confirmed. Vygotsky about autostimulation (in his terminology), or in our opinion, mental determination, about which he wrote a lot, especially in "Problems of age"[5]. L.S. Vygotsky insists very harshly on the idea of self-development, i.e. a process
that is not determined from the outside (both from society and from biology). What is driving this "uncontrollable" process? Now we can state that L.S. was right. Vygotsky, considering the MPS system as a "highly unbalanced" system (I. Prigogine). The idea of an attractor arises as the end point of development towards which the system strives. But the attractor by no means determines, but only promotes and conditions development (a little lower we will try to explain this in a language understandable to psychology)
4. For L.S. Vygotsky was absolutely obvious (as evidenced by numerous diary entries) that the discovery of the MPS system fundamentally changes the view of human mental life, and, consequently, the idea of the content and structure of scientific psychology. Firstly (as opposed to Gestalt theory), the psyche is not a structure (or many structures), but a functional dynamic system, i.e. - a very complex process ("to understand the mental as a process" is the key formula of L.S. Vygotsky, repeated many times) Does this mean, however, that there is nothing stable in mental life? Of course not. And the same dialectics teaches that if there is something fluid (process), then there must also be something stable. We believe that structure is a process stopped (frozen) in space and time, at the same time ordered and chaotic. This formation exists for some time
(often quite a long time), but at the same time it still moves, remaining part of the general movement of systems. Ultimately, it also turns into a process. What is described very well (as we hope is clear to specialists) explains quite a lot in the behavior and in the inner world of a person. Moreover, at one time we established the thesis that structuring is the most important function of a developing personality and we insist on this. Secondly, the systems theory of L.S. Vygotsky demands the construction of a science that will adequately reflect the mental life of a person in a system of not logical, but psychological analysis. It's very simple: in a person's life we never observe and. in the process of interpretation, we do not receive data about a pure , separate phenomenon: pure sensation, perception, thinking, etc. We surgically cut them off from the living and study them, and most importantly, their real life disappears. The division turns out to be purely logical, dead, and we don't get anything truly mentally alive (such a division might be suitable for a textbook for schoolchildren, but not for students). L.S. Vygotsky clearly, literally on every page, shows conclusively that the whole system works, "everything can be replaced" [6, p. 168]. This, again, was realized by A. R. Luria. The attempts of modern science to overcome this fictitious everyday atomism by introducing such things as "emotional thinking", "meaningful
perception", "cognitive-behavioral approach", etc. seem ridiculous and naive. I wonder if anyone has observed normal non-emotional thinking, non-meaningful perception, behavior without cognitive processes, or vice versa? Psychology ignored the discovery of L.S. Vygotsky is still trying to come up with something, sometimes completely incomprehensible... this is appropriate, and then only partially, in pathology.
5. L.S. Vygotsky often repeats that the relationships between individual functions in psychology have been known for a very long time. What is new is the idea of the unity of mental life as a meta-system consisting of individual MPS and, most importantly: there are relationships between functions in systems and they are not constant, but constantly changing: psychology did not know this, did not take it into account and, alas, does not take it into account even now. In this regard, L.S. Vygotsky also approaches the solution of two cardinal problems: the role and place of emotions in the meta-system of the MPS and the development of the MPS (and, therefore, human mental life). These also seem to be well-known things, but they somehow don't take root in science. Emotions (this "Cinderella of psychology") by their nature (even neuropsychologically) are an integral component of the MPS - they activate their occurrence, maintain dynamics
and, ultimately, complete the MPS. L.S. Vygotsky says, in particular, that even at the level of neuropsychology, emotions are associated with the most ancient, low-organized parts of the brain and, at the same time, with its youngest, highest parts [5]. Their role in the development of MPS is decisive. We will not present and comment on the theory of L.S., which is known to every student (at least it should be so). Vygotsky on the development of the higher psyche. We note only what is important in the context of this work. The active identification of the child's vital nature, the meeting of this identification with loved ones, the joy of this and the return of his nature again to the child in a transformed, sign-shaped form (i.e., in human form) -this is how it can be described in one phrase. It is important to note here that the child's psyche initially (before this first identification) certainly represented an ordered-chaotic system. And, of course, there were and are attractors towards which this system was moving. But... this is just a hypothesis, we will probably not find out about this soon, because... the child at this time is not aware of himself. However, our hypothesis seems productive. In any case, its acceptance means recognizing the absence of an initial, zero point of reference in time. Of course, the emergence of lower (natural) mental functions of the HMF in the system is a leap. But dialectics presupposes precisely this.
Concluding a brief description of the teachings of L.S. Vygotsky about the MPS, we note: already in this unfinished form, placed in the foundation of psychology, this theory would allow us to understand mental life in a completely new way, in particular, the life of consciousness. But... we don't want to learn, we want to invent.
Already a general view suggests that the theory is not complete, that a key link for the human psyche is missing... L.S. Vygotsky understood this, and although the theory opened up a direct path for him to the study of consciousness, he limited himself to pointing out its structural and semantic structure and created a method for studying this, calling it "semic." But he did not do this, realizing that consciousness is open to the world and is only an instrument... Whose instrument? is the key question. And the key phrase: "we have always attracted the personality in a hidden form in mediated processes. Systems - the way to personality . Personality, in any case, consists not of functions, but of systems... this is a unity of a new type and of a higher order" [emphasis added by us, 6, p. 185]. So, personality. The system has closed. L.S. Vygotsky literally in recent months created a system of scientific views on personality and managed to complete this theory. This is very important: it seems L.S. Vygotsky remained true to his thesis: "psychology as a science of consciousness is
fundamentally impossible; it is doubly impossible as a science of the unconscious psyche [2, p.349]. There is a person's mental life, writes L.S. Vygotsky, and this is a real fact, "the psyche exists only as mental life" [6, p. 438]. Very true, it seems to us that they characterize this stage of L.S.'s work. Vygotsky E. Zavershneva and R. Van der Veer: "L.S. Vygotsky understands that the study of consciousness per se is a limited task, since consciousness is open to the world and is unthinkable outside of various connections with the world and personality, and it is precisely this relationship that should be studied in the first place... The theory of consciousness remains at the sketch level. L.S. Vygotsky "steps over" it and begins to develop the theory of semantic-dynamic systems (SDS) [6, pp. 20-21]. As an integral "unit of study of the psyche in the unity of its personal and environmental aspects", L.S. Vygotsky introduces the concept of experience" [6, p.20]. Let us note at the beginning: both the concept of semantic dynamic systems and the concept of experience in its completely new sense for psychology were not invented by Vygotsky, but were born out of a real need to solve a new problem and on
the basis of analytically processed theoretical and empirical material. To understand this latest conceptual novelty of the view of L.S. Vygotsky on the mental life of a person, it is necessary to find out what L.S. understood. Vygotsky's meaning , and what content he put into the old term "experience".
Everything that follows is our attempt to answer the conceptual question of L.S. Vygotsky: "how does what is visually perceived become meaning?" [6, p. 156]. We turn here to the work of L.S. Vygotsky, because his understanding of the semantic field and meaning, although it was not completed, differs from all others in its "psychology" - this is not phenomenology, but a real science, especially one built on the results of practical (and not just research) activity 1. In general, we agree with the analysis of this issue by E.Yu. Zavershneva and will dwell on him (since, relative to the work of L.S. Vygotsky, he is the most professional). At the same time, our goals are different: E.Yu. Zavershneva makes analysis the center of her work . But for us, the main thing is not it in itself, but what it gives in the movement towards understanding the
1L.S. Vygotsky and Freud also have this in common - a huge amount of work with patients suffering from various problems (though for L.S. Vygotsky these were mainly children, while for Freud they were women).
subject. We agree with E.Yu. Zavershneva that these concepts were the final point of L.S.'s creativity. Vygotsky, but at the same time they gave direction for further movement. We also agree that these concepts are far from being fully developed, but still, they are clear enough to rely on (why this has not been done in a hundred years is another question).
It seems to us (we dare to "reconstruct" L.S. Vygotsky's train of thought) that for L.S. Vygotsky in the series of concepts "meaning", "semantic field", "semantic dynamic system" (SDS), it is the latter that is of key importance. With his help, it seems to us, he wanted to "complete" the internal plan of the human psyche (personality). And the "unit" here was the experience (in the new content that L.S. Vygotsky managed to convey to him). His belief: "systems are the path to personality" L.S. Vygotsky materialized. It is true that many questions remain about the meaning, the semantic field and the SDS themselves, but the main thing was to complete the circle of human psychology 2. We agree with E.Yu. Zavershneva that in the interpretation of the concept "meaning" by L.S. Vygotsky presents two aspects -meaning as logos (1) and meaning as relation (2) [6]. What
2We ask our respected colleagues to forgive us for this improvisation, but just like this, intuitively, but based on the context of the last years of L.S.'s
is more important now is the most general idea - under the meaning of L.S. Vygotsky understands "the totality of all phenomena of consciousness caused by a word (sign - N.P.) [3].
In fact, this is the "small compacted" thing that distinguishes a person from other living beings known to us. Only man is given the ability to "find meaning" (W. Frankl). And, however, it is clear - in order to explain this, one must understand how it arises, i.e. turn to ontogenesis and natural mental functions. It is interesting that they also constitute and operate as systems. L.S. Vygotsky: "What is a system. Psychology has come to false conclusions regarding elementary functions, because they work only in systems" [6, p. 222]. Moving from a critical to a positive presentation, let us recall the main thesis - we are trying to think dialectically and take into account that modern science, in particular physics (especially in the field of studying non-equilibrium self-organizing systems) surprisingly, strictly scientifically confirms the most daring abstract provisions of dialectical philosophy. Specifically, this means a rejection of the usual everyday, or, conversely, spiritualistic Cartesian concept of mental life as something
life known from documents and publications. L.S. Vygotsky, we understand the finale of his creative path
internally hidden, having a certain "core" and controlled by a certain mysterious (Divine) spiritual "I", and therefore not at all amenable to scientific knowledge . Precisely because this idea is deeply "ingrained" into the consciousness of scientists and has merged with psychology as a science, that is why the words of I.P. remain relevant. Pavlov, said almost a hundred years ago: "millions of pages are occupied with depicting the inner world of man, but we still do not have the results of this work, the laws of mental life" [1, p. 105]. Still! - we emphasize this.
L.S. Vygotsky always talked about dynamic systemic connections (relations), highlighting "primary connections" (between natural mental functions (NPF)), "secondary" (MPS+NPF) and "tertiary" (SDS). He practically filled the latter with the content that the term "personality", "I" has for us [4]. Of course, this is only a hypothesis, but it opens the way to a natural science ( not biological) study of human psychological life. Here, firstly, the nature and life of the SDS becomes central and, secondly, an instrument of knowledge appears - theoretical and empirical results and conclusions of modern sciences dealing with systems.
It is necessary to understand that the psychological life of a person is concrete and individual; developed from the universal unity of substance (Spinoza), i.e. - no Higher
powers (third) are assumed. B. Spinoza: "whoever has a body capable of many things has a soul, the largest part of which is eternal" [10]. E.V. Ilyenkov: "logic, which has become dialectical, is not only the science of thinking, but also the science of the development of all things, both material and spiritual" [7].
Without talking about it (or maybe without knowing it), modern developed sciences have simply become dialectics. Of course, no one expected this... But this is completely natural from the point of view of dialectics itself. Science is one of the forms of knowledge. It is limitless and, at the same time, limited. Limitless because an open essence begins to be and is considered as a phenomenon , which, it turns out, also carries within itself an essence, already deeper, and this is endless (this, it seems, is the true meaning of E.Yu. Zavershneva's thought that we need to start psychology from that place , where L. S. Vygotsky put a point. This point is the essence he discovered - how does it work? [6].
Science, on the other hand, is limited by its methodology, system of methods, methods of interpretation and generalization. There are other, also extremely necessary ways of knowledge. The same object (phenomenon) - man - is cognized not only by science (philosophy, religion, art want to cognize it). These forms of
cognition are built on completely different principles, they have their own methods, they receive and interpret data in their own way. All forms of knowledge "go" to the essence in different ways and, it seems, here the possibility of obtaining absolute , unified knowledge opens up, but this is only a possibility, because interacting and enriching each other - these branches still do not converge, but diverge and are in a state of acute contradiction (woe to that researcher who is trying to obtain some kind of universal knowledge about man "in his head". Here we must choose. We, we repeat, interested only in scientific knowledge of human mental life.
And one more thing. Psychologists are somehow accustomed to considering their science to be completely special and unprecedentedly complex. It is clear that against the backdrop of very insignificant achievements, this is a kind of defense of one's own self-worth. Meanwhile, psychology is only one of the sciences, and, since man is a living being, one of the natural sciences (L.S. Vygotsky insisted on this in principle, and we completely agree with him). We must begin by recognizing this fact, because... it means a lot. The main thing is that it means that all global methodological ideas about the world and man that have developed in our time should extend to psychology (the genius of L.S. Vygotsky and Z. Freud is that they, without
these qualitatively new views , introduced into their systems the study of human mental life, and the further progress of the natural sciences only confirms their correctness). What do we mean exactly?
Newton's picture of the world postulated the stability and immutability of this world. In which everything that moves moved uniformly and rectilinearly. And so - forever. Thus, space and time (i.e. the world in which we live) were presented as constant and were not taken into account by science at all. All this was repeated cyclically, and the cycles themselves were unchanged. There was no place for man (and only him), with his ability to structure behavior according to his own laws, in this frozen world. Only partially did he fit into this picture at the level of the simplest acts of behavior (which is why behaviorism has such power, which, alas, is still experiencing its renaissance). Those. this creature (man) seemed to be "superfluous". But since he wanted to know not only the world, but also himself, and did not intend to leave this world, he was rudely and without analysis involved in an absolutely non -scientific factor by the standards of that time (spirit, Lord, etc.) which explained this "uniqueness" of man. Scientific knowledge turned out to be powerless (spirit, the Lord is unknowable, and we share this opinion even now), and was satisfied with the pitiful attempts and
fantasies that exist in everyone, including researchers (and so everyone became his own psychologist, and millions of pages, oh which Pavlov mentioned are simply quasi-self-descriptions). You can't establish any laws here... In fact, the path for scientific psychology was closed by Newton's understandable global picture of the world.
At the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, all this stable, familiar and uniform turned out to be untrue. The world turned out to be completely different and man (as its component) too. Unfortunately, psychology has not yet realized this - well, we are afraid of natural sciences, well, we are afraid of cardinal changes - what can we do? All people are like that. But there is still truth. Truth, not a fantasy novel (we love them because they are fantastic tales). What is our world really like? Does this change the attitude and idea of a person's mental life, and what does L.S.'s theory have to do with it? Vygotsky? The world in which we live is fundamentally different (and so different that it's scary for a psychologist to even think about it, I know from myself). We will present here the authoritative opinion of V.I. Vernadsky, expressed back in 1931. "The stability of Newton's world system has long been a mystery... Before our eyes, in the last two or three years, i.e. In an instant , the thousand-year-old scientific universe is now radically changing. Changes are introduced not by
hypothetical constructions of fantasy or intuition, not by a great scientific and philosophical concept, like Descartes' world vortices, but by accurate empirical scientific observation of reality, scientific facts [emphasis added, 1, p. 255]. Further, V.I. Vernadsky states: "We stand on the border of the greatest changes in the knowledge of the world, leaving far behind us the era of the creation of a new science in the 17th century" [ibid., p.255]. Can this not affect the science of psychology!? But she almost didn't touch... V.I. Vernadsky rejects the idea of an alleged crisis in science. " An era not of crisis, but of the greatest scientific flowering " is coming . This scientific turning point is reflected in the understanding of time [emphasis added by Vernadsky]. In this V.I. Vernadsky sees "the great liberation of the human personality from the bonds of philosophy and religion of the 17th century" [ibid].
And finally: "we are not experiencing a crisis that worries weak souls, but the greatest turning point in the scientific thought of mankind, which occurs only once every millennium, we are experiencing scientific achievements, the likes of which have not been seen by long generations of our ancestors. Maybe something similar happened in the era of the birth of Hellenic scientific thought, six hundred years BC" [ibid.].
"We should be happy that we are destined to survive this" [ibid]. IN AND. Vernadsky believes that only now are we "beginning to realize the irresistible power of free scientific thought, the greatest creative power of Homo Sapiens, the human personality, the greatest manifestation of its cosmic power known to us, the kingdom of which lies ahead. With this turning point, it is moving towards us unexpectedly quickly" [ibid.] 3. And this turning point took place. What should psychology take from this as the science of human mental life? (this was the period of the greatest fruitfulness of L.S. Vygotsky's work - by the way). The main thing: a person's mental life does not take place in the equilibrium, stable-uniform space of Newton-Descartes, but in a constantly moving, unpredictable-non-equilibrium world. In a world where time (calculated from incredibly small ten to the minus thirty-fourth power) to megaunits and space are not constants that can be neglected, "putting them out of brackets"), they are the main parameters of the existence of things and, accordingly, the subject of scientific research. This, we agree, is a completely different life . V.I. Vernadsky writes about this: "This world is not stationary,
but fluid space - time," such units of measurement as the second and the centimeter "do not work" here. "The world is revealed to us" as an unstable, unformed state of excitement." "The world is exploding... but again coming into balance" [1, p.254]. If a person is, although "special," but part of the world, then he is the same! Our most fundamental, ingrained ideas about mental life turn out to be an absolute lie, just like the lies of Newton-Descartes. What (more specifically) is happening in the world and with the world (and therefore with man), and what should psychology start from? What does a psychologist need to know about the world in which a person's mental life takes place? Can this knowledge really help the development of psychology as a science? After all, scientists are now "under the influence of new revealed facts, going beyond the limits of all previously existing ones, beyond the limits of the most daring and fantastic ideas and constructions of philosophical thinking" [1, p. 256]. They revise almost weekly the fundamental concepts of time , space , energy , life , etc.
3This was written during the years of Bolshevik pressure, which absolutely did not accept V.I. Vernadsky in all its manifestations - from the philosophy of Marxism to the real actions of dictatorship
Referenses
1. Vernadsky V.I. Philosophical thoughts of a naturalist. M.: Nauka, 1988.
2. Vygotsky L.S. Historical meaning of psychological crisis. - Collection op. vol.1, pp.291-436. - M. Pedagogy, 1982
3. Vygotsky L.S. Thinking and speech. - Collection op. vol.1, pp.291-436. - M. Pedagogy, 1982
4. Vygotsky L.S. History of the development of higher mental functions Collection. op. vol.1, pp.291-436. - M. Pedagogy, 1982
5. Vygotsky L.S. Problems of age Collection. op. vol.4, - M. Pedagogy, 1984
6. Notebooks of L.S. Vygotsky. Favorites. Under the general editorship of E. Zavershneva and Rene van der Veer. M., 2017 - 608 p.
7. Ilyenkov E.V. Dialectical logic. - Politizdat, 1984.
8. Papucha M.V. Scientific fact in psychology. - Theoretical and methodological problems of current psychology. Collection of scientific materials. Nizhyn - Kiev, 2018, p.88-92.
9. Prigogine I. The end of certainty. - M., 1997
10. Spinoza B. A short treatise on God, man and his blessedness. L. Priboy, 1929.
11. Frankl V. Man in search of meaning, M.: Progress, 1990.
