What is psyche definition in psychology. Psychology of the Christian era

Psyche and its development.

1. Brain and psyche.

2. The concept of “psyche”, its functions and meaning.

3. The difference between the human psyche and animals.

1. Reflex activity of the brain, physiological processes occurring in the cerebral cortex, in other words, higher nervous activity, are the material basis of the search. Therefore, the laws of higher nervous activity, discovered I. P. Pavlov, are extremely important for psychology.

The main form of interaction of the body with the environment is a reflex - the body's response to irritation. This action is carried out using the central nervous system.

It is customary to distinguish three parts in the reflex mechanism: feeling, central And motor.

Excitation along the sensory nerve is transmitted to the center (brain), where it switches to the motor nerve and travels along it to the working organ. A response to irritation occurs. These three parts of the reflex mechanism are collectively called reflex arc.

According to recent research by physiologists, it has been established that the structure of a complex reflex has not three, but four parts. This last part controls and corrects (clarifies, corrects) the flow of the third part - the motor one.

How does this happen? It turns out that as soon as the nerve signal along the motor - centrifugal - nerve reaches the working organ (muscle or gland), the latter, in turn, sends a return signal to the center - the brain. The received return signal informs the brain about the nature of the changes that have currently occurred in the body, i.e. it tells the brain to what extent - correctly or incorrectly - the working organ has carried out the command received from the center. As soon as the brain detects a deviation from a given program, if the response action is unsuccessful, it immediately sends a signal to appropriately adjust the action and directs the body’s activity along the previously planned path. This fourth link of the reflex act is called feedback.

Thanks to the presence of feedback, self-regulation and self-government of the body is ensured in the process of proper adaptation to the environment. Without this, we would never be able to learn to walk, write, use a knife and fork, dress, perform various types of professional movements, or master sports skills. Reflexes are of two types in origin: congenital and acquired, or, according to the classification of Ya. P. Pavlova, unconditional And conditional.

Unconditioned reflexes are a function mainly of our parts of the central nervous system, which are located under the cortex. Conditioned reflexes are a function of the higher part of the brain - the cerebral cortex.

The unconditioned reflex occurs automatically and does not require any preliminary training. It was acquired by a given animal during the entire previous historical development and is inherited. A conditioned reflex requires certain conditions for its occurrence.

Coordination of the functions of the cerebral cortex is carried out through the interaction of two main processes - excitation and inhibition. By the nature of their activities they are opposite to each other. There are external and internal inhibition.

External inhibition is the result of the action of some external strong extraneous stimulus (protective inhibition).

Internal inhibition is a manifestation of the internal laws of the cortex.

The processes of excitation and inhibition are closely related and interact with each other. This interaction is subject to two basic laws: irradiation and concentration and the law of induction.

Irradiation and concentration consist in the spread of excitation throughout the cortex (irradiation of excitation). The limitation and direction of the process of excitation in the cortex by the process of inhibition is called concentration of excitation. The law of induction implies that a nervous process causes an inverse process in neighboring areas, for example, excitation causes inhibition (negative induction). Inhibition causes excitation (positive induction).

The discrimination of signals entering the cortex from the outside world is associated with the operation of signaling systems. Signals from the surrounding world are the first signaling system; both humans and animals have them.

The second signaling system is a product of human social life and is inherent only to humans. The signal is a word or phrase.

2. Traditionally they define the concept psyche- as a property of living, highly organized matter, which consists in the ability to reflect with its states the surrounding objective world in its connections and relationships.

Etymologically, the word “psyche” (in Greek “soul”) has a dual meaning. One meaning carries the semantic load of the essence of a thing.

Psyche- this is the essence where the externality and diversity of nature gathers into its unity, this is the virtual compression of nature, this is a reflection of the objective world in its connections and relationships.

The psyche arose and was formed as the ability of living organisms to actively interact with the outside world on the basis of neurophysiological coding of vital influences and ways of interacting with them, as the ability of organisms to adapt to the environment.

In the process of evolution, the mental mechanisms of adaptation of organisms to the environment were inextricably improved and at the stage of man they turned into a powerful apparatus of his consciousness - a symbolic, conceptual modeling of reality. The human psyche is a reflective-regulatory activity that ensures its active interaction with the outside world on the basis of the appropriation of universal human experience.

The human psyche is a system of subjective images of reality, the inner world of a person, which has its own laws of formation and functioning.

The psyche provides selective contacts of the subject with reality, depending on the system of his needs and recognition in the environment of what satisfies these needs. The psyche is a signal reflection of reality: external signs of phenomena serve as a signal for a person of their meaning and meaning.

So, the psyche is a subjective, signal, socially conditioned reflection of reality in a system of ideal images, on the basis of which a person’s active interaction with the environment is carried out. The psyche performs the function of orientation and regulation of human activity and behavior.

The human psyche acquires a special form - a form of consciousness generated by the social way of its existence. However, consciousness does not exhaust the entire essence of the psyche. Along with it, a person has biologically formed mental structures (the sphere of his innate-unconscious activity) and a vast sphere of automatisms acquired during life (the sphere of the subconscious).

The main phenomena of the psyche are the mental processes of the formation of ideal (mental) images and the processes of mental regulation of activity.

A mental image is a holistic, integrative reflection of a relatively independent, discrete part of reality, an information model of reality used by a person to regulate his life activity.

Mental images are ideal, since the world is represented in the human mind by generally valid, ideal forms. The nature of the emergence of mental images depends on past experience, knowledge, needs, interests, mental state, etc.

Mental images can be primary (images of sensations, perceptions) and secondary (images of memory, thinking and imagination). Mental images carry information about the localization of real objects in external space; they represent a set of qualities inherent in the reflected object: shape, color, texture, etc.

Mental images arise not as a result of instantaneous photographic reflections, but as a result of their active construction. In the process of constructing an image, motor and biomechanical processes play a significant role. The movements create the frame of the image, and the image then provides the system of movements.

Mental images make it possible to schematize and conceptualize reality. Mental images are multidimensional: they function in the context of a given activity. In the mental image, its objective content is actualized, which corresponds to the meaning of the task facing the subject.

Mental images are plastic. Like real objects, they make it possible to perform certain actions with them, carry out imaginative thinking, “play out” behavior options, and model the development of reality. The mental image has a large information capacity: it itself can serve as a source of various information.

The psyche is a subjective reflection of the objective world. Perceiving the same situation, people of different levels of education and upbringing pay attention to its different aspects and treat it differently. What we perceive is determined not only by the object in front of us, but also by our mental activity and mental organization. The mental image may lack many elements of the reflected object. And, on the contrary, the image may even contain those elements that are absent in a specific reflected object, but should be present in a given situation.

In practical and theoretical activity, a person forms generalized images of the object of activity - information models, diagrams, which include the properties and relationships of objects that are of paramount importance for his activity.

Direct sensory images also play a significant role in the regulation of human behavior and mental states. By voluntarily calling up one or another of them, a person is able to escape from the current situation and be guided in an updated way. The power of the mental image that captures a person is as great as the direct influences of the environment. And this creates unlimited possibilities for a person’s internal, mental self-regulation.

So, a mental reflection, a mental image, is not a mirror image, not a photographic one, but a conceptualized, ideally transformed reflection of reality. The ideality of mental reflection must be understood as a sociocultural, spiritual conditioning of the human psyche, the conditioning of the sensory basis of mental reflection by universal human ideas and concepts.

The ideality of a mental image is nothing more than a reflection in it of the socio-historical experience of mankind. To consciously regulate your activity means to organize it not on the basis of immediate instinctive impulses, but on the basis of socially given requirements and conditions. Consciousness is a person’s ability to reflect the world and himself with knowledge, to subordinate his behavior to human concepts and laws.

The human psyche is formed and manifested in his activities. Activity is a human way of mastering reality by achieving consciously set goals based on universal human experience. Human activity serves both as the driving force of socio-historical progress and as a means of human mental development. The objective activity of a person, his socio-historical practice ensure the unity of the sensory and conceptual-theoretical spheres of his consciousness.

In the process of formation of the human psyche, his external actions with material objects are transformed into mental actions. Thanks to the ability to act in the mind, a person has learned to model various relationships between objects and to foresee the results of his actions. Consequently, the content of the psyche also includes ugly components - generalized relationships, meanings and meanings.

The scientific interpretation of the psyche comes down to the following principles:
1. The psyche arose at a certain stage of the development of matter - the stage of the appearance of animal organisms and is a reflective-regulatory mechanism of their adaptive behavior. As animals evolved, their psyche also developed. In its formation, it went through two stages: instincts - individual learning.
2. Human psyche, consciousness is the highest stage of mental development; its occurrence is due to human labor activity in conditions of collective communication.
3. The human psyche is formed in his active activity. Patterns of the psyche - patterns of transition of external interaction with objects into a mental image and a mental image into an action regulated by it.
4. The psyche is mediated by the activity of the brain, but in itself it is an ideal phenomenon - it is determined by sociocultural factors.
5. Mental phenomena have a certain structure and systemic organization.

The human soul is the most mysterious creation of nature, about which there are the most prejudices. The closest and most everyday things, upon closer examination, turn out to be the most unknown, keeping as many secrets as the entire universe does not contain. At least, the depth of consciousness attracts us more than other mysteries of the world.

Few things have been more controversial than consciousness. The fact that all religions, cults and esoteric theories resemble the search for a black man at night is understandable - here by black we mean the mechanisms of the origin of actions, and by night - the total processes of the psyche. Moreover, everyone talks about the truth, and it’s good if these statements do without bloodshed. Often, like the Crusaders, the search leads to wars that last for decades. So why is it that the most dear thing that we have, something that we should know everything about, because we use it every minute, raises more questions in us than a woman’s logic?

What is the human psyche

The ancient Greeks were the first to need a concept that simultaneously united and distinguished the natural biochemistry of the body and its metaphysical essence. They thought about how thoughts, actions and beliefs arise. This question still haunts scientists and theologians.

Science says that the psyche is a reflection of biological existence through the senses and the central nervous system. Thinking helps the subject perceive reality and navigate it. Without this, the life of a supreme being is not possible. External chaos is ordered, events are ranked and lined up in a chain. The present flows, turning into experience that shapes plans for the future.

Conscious and unconscious functions of the psyche

Conscious thoughts and motives that hiddenly influence life through the subconscious are highlighted. But the functions of the human psyche, regardless of the level of awareness, are radically different from those of animals. The main differences are consciousness and labor activity.

What we are aware of - thoughts, feelings, dreams - is a conscious part of the system, amenable to direct influence and adjustment. But, according to research initiated by Sigmund Freud, a greater influence on the psyche is exerted by motives hidden behind the “threshold” of consciousness, which break through the border of awareness in a dream or in moments of catharsis.

Sigmund Freud's theory

Freud's views revolutionized the concept of the soul. In his Puritan era, the theory of sexuality caused a storm of condemnation. Although the point is simply that one cannot discount one of the main forces driving the development of society.

Experimentally, he proved the existence of several layers of consciousness. The deepest, darkest and most uninfluenced layer is called the unconscious. It contains everything forgotten, unconscious, all complexes that, with the proper influence, can be “dragged” through the threshold of consciousness and made accessible to understanding. All of this can influence thoughtful decisions. And if these are neglected complexes, life can become completely joyless. For example, a mother's complex can make a person a homosexual, and a father's complex can make a person a criminal.

Carl Jung's theory

The scientific revolution lowered the authority of the church, which Freud largely contributed to. Therefore, a virgin, untouched territory was opened to new researchers of consciousness - the human soul. The next person who came to psychology after Freud and made an equally significant contribution to the development of this science was the son of a Swiss pastor, Carl Gustav Jung.

In his youth, Jung admired Freud, the revolutionary nature of his ideas and the boldness of his research methods. However, at some point, the paths of outstanding scientists diverged. Jung was disgusted by the fact that according to Freud, the psyche is nothing more than a differently interpreted theory of sexuality. He considered it too one-sided and leaving no room for the human spirit.

Jung always reiterated the invaluable contribution of his opponents, but criticized the deliberate “dogmatism” of their views, which was used to suppress the religious instinct. A significant part of his works is devoted to myths, legends and the views of medieval alchemists. This flexibility of views allowed the scientist to create analytical psychology, including dreams, insights and premonitions. His method sometimes resembles magic when he talks about the connection of all things and the transmission of thoughts at a distance.

Young's analytical method

In his research, Jung used an integrated approach, in which, in addition to the then accepted blotographic and other tests, he used the word association method. He noticed that some words caused an unusual reaction - pause, repetition or forgetting.

He managed to prove the existence of hidden ideas and feelings, called complexes, which influence the life of an individual. These spikes from traumatic experiences are active, hiding from consciousness. And since these constellations can cause discomfort to the individual, Jung developed a treatment in which the complexes are identified and reduced to nothing through reflection.

Basic ideas of Jung's theory

There are two personality types, characterized by a desire for extraversion (the psyche’s focus on the outside world) and introversion (a tendency toward introspection). And also the four components of consciousness - sensation, intuition, thinking and feeling.

Each person is endowed with a personal and collective unconscious. The first consists of the experience, history and experiences of a particular subject. The second includes ancestral memory, all the images and archetypes that have developed throughout evolution. People are able to perceive collective images in dreams or in the process of reading tales, myths and legends.

We all have an inherent desire for perfection - Jung called this process individuation. This desire to find harmony with the unconscious comes in the second half of life and manifests itself as a midlife crisis with the subsequent formation of a more holistic personality.

Dreams are born in the “comprehensive depths” in order to point out gaps in life, weak points and call us to overcome. This is how the personality gains stability (by eliminating the complexes indicated by dreams).

Psychology of peoples

The study of myths prompted Jung to think about the connection between folk art and the collective unconscious. He spent many years among African aborigines and South American Indians.

One of the described phenomena is the restructuring of consciousness depending on the environment. In Africa they called it “going black.” Well-mannered, educated Europeans, after prolonged contact with the indigenous population, adopted their behavior model. They began to sincerely believe in local customs, even to the point of participating in bloody witchcraft rituals. And the weaker a person’s psyche was, the faster and more irreversibly he changed into a loincloth.

It can be assumed that in modern America the opposite process is happening, when the black population forgets its roots, acquiring a European gloss. But, as can be seen from Hollywood films, this is a double-edged sword: the manner of speech, facial expressions and plastic movements of American Caucasians are thoroughly imbued with the influence of Africa.

Psychology of groups according to Wundt

W. Wundt (1832-1920) is known for his work “Psychology of Nations.” In it, the human psyche, its aspects and their influence on the formation of the nation’s self-awareness are examined from a historical and cultural position. The scientist put forward a theory that thinking directly depends on the cultural, climatic and technological conditions of society.

He objected to the identification of personal and national consciousness. Wundt insisted that the synthesis of thinking individuals could lead to the emergence of a new reality, a superconsciousness filled with transpersonal myths and morality.

Ward's mass psychology

The American L.F. Ward (1843-1913) called the flowering of culture the highest evolutionary symbiosis of all cosmological and anthropogenetic forces. It endows a culture with a sense of purpose and a sense of purpose.

Having satisfied the basic needs in the form of hunger, thirst and sexual passion, a person acquires new desires, full of lofty goals and complex intellectual capabilities. These aspirations move society towards improvement. This also includes the phenomenon of seeking happiness - freedom from suffering.

W. Sumner

According to the work of W. Sumner (1840-1910) “Folk Customs”, the life of the masses is influenced by a number of factors, which he called customs. They appear when people try to survive in difficult climatic conditions or under the threat of destruction by another group. This is how patterns of behavior are formed and improved, which are accepted by people and passed on to future generations.

Customs are also influenced by personal interests - hunger, thirst, sex, ambition. According to Sumner, the psyche is either “we are the group,” where relationships are based on support and mutual understanding, or “they are the group,” where hostility is established between communities.

So, having studied the culture of a people, their myths, morality and worldview, we can speak with great certainty about both the psyche of an individual and an entire people.

The Greeks are the pioneers of the soul

It is not surprising that it was the Greeks who were the first to talk about the existence of an inner world that lives according to its own laws. Living in unprecedented freedom, without boundaries and restrictions, they had a laboratory for the study of the spirit, which would no longer be possible to recreate. Homer's contemporaries had not yet received an inoculation of constant gnawing guilt. They did not know regret about the sinfulness of their nature, which poisoned the Christian period of history.

With childish naivety, they believed in the justice of revenge and were convinced that sympathy for someone else’s grief humiliates not only the one who experiences it, but also the object for whom it is intended. The Hellenes imprinted all the features of the psyche in the Olympians, who led the same free and immoral, by today’s standards, lifestyle. Each people, era or party has its own morals and mentality, and everyone claims exclusivity. As a result, it turns out that there is no morality - there is an evolutionary necessity.

Psychology of the Christian era

After the Greek and Roman revelry, a period came when the development of the psyche required the introduction of strict moral standards in order to avoid the degeneration of civilization. And since this happened unconsciously, it was not possible to avoid excesses. The first apostles adhered to extremely strict abstinence - their faith was supposed to reverse the usual course of things and convince the planet of their holiness.

And they achieved their goal. Imagine a saint: he is in rags, he is dying of hunger and covered in scabs. But his eyes glow with unshakable confidence in his words, and his voice rings like metal with an unshakable will - it is impossible to live like this if you are truly not initiated into the secrets of the universe. And the world bought it: for hundreds of years people imposed upon themselves the burden of undeserved sin. We know what this led to - wars, intolerance and the fires of the Inquisition.

But losses are inevitable. After all, in this game the goal was to curb the bestial temper and begin to live in relative peace. The commandments taught us to perceive the evil caused as damage to ourselves. Sympathy for your neighbor prevents you from destroying people, because it is experienced as a personal grief. “What if everything turns out to be the wrath of the Lord?” - this question has prevented many wars.

Psychology of modern times

We are lucky to live in extraordinary times. In some ways, those who call some cities the new Rome are right - the same eternal holiday reigns there, not overshadowed by the bonds of morality. The modern psyche is a free territory that, thanks to science, God has abandoned, and the new rules that form the basis of the soul are still very fragile and unreliable.

And we are looking for support again. Now in science. As if, if this notorious theory of the universal field is confirmed, wars will disappear and people will love each other. How does the modern search for new elements differ from the research of the alchemists with their philosopher's stone, which represented a model of the soul?

It’s scary to imagine what the child’s psyche is going through: violence pouring like a river from the screen, the Internet with pornography and social networks... The unprecedented pressure that we are experiencing sets the stage for the most unpredictable consequences. Once again the man found himself at a crossroads without clues or helpers. What this evolutionary round will lead to is known only to God, whom we have overthrown. Maybe we will break through, and the new world will be illuminated by the birth of a previously unprecedented structure of the psyche?

There are many secrets and stereotypes associated with this mysterious human structure. This article is an attempt to answer the most frequently asked questions: what is the psyche, how is it structured and how does it work?

Psyche concept

The physiological carrier of the psyche is the human nervous system.

Psyche is a property and function of the brain, which consists in the subjective reflection of objective reality in ideal images. On the basis of these ideal images, a person builds his life and his relationships with the external environment. Nerve cells and receptors connect the center of the brain with the outside world.

Structure of the psyche

Animals also have a psyche. However, the human psyche is the highest form of the psyche and is also called “consciousness” and includes the area of the subconscious and superconscious (“super-ego”).

Mental properties

Everyone has their own mental properties. They form the individuality of a person. Anyone can forget something, but forgetfulness is not a characteristic feature of everyone. Any of us can be irritated, but not all of us have this trait as a personality trait.

Mental properties are permanent manifestations of personality that are inherited and practically do not change during life. These include the properties of the nervous system:

strength of the nervous system - the resistance of nerve cells to prolonged irritation or excitement;
mobility of nervous processes - the speed of transition from excitation to inhibition;
balance of nervous processes - relative balance of processes of excitation and inhibition;
lability - flexibility of the nervous system under the influence of various stimuli;
resistance - resistance to the effects of unfavorable stimuli.

Mental properties determine the types of the nervous system, or types of higher nervous activity. They differ from each other in a different combination, a combination of mental properties.

Mental processes

Mental processes are relatively stable formations that develop and are formed under the influence of external living conditions. These include the following processes:

Cognitive

Feeling. The development of the psyche directly depends on contacts with the outside world. Sensations - the source of all our knowledge about the world around us - constitute the initial form of the psyche.
Perception. Creating an image of a thing or phenomenon depends on perception. Perception is also necessary for deeper knowledge of an object.
Attention.
Memory is the ability to reflect experience in recognition and reproduction.
Imagination.
Performance.
Speech.
Thinking. Thinking is the highest cognitive mental process, the essence of which is the knowledge of the world and the person in it.

Emotional and motivational

Emotions and feelings;
conditions (mood, anxiety, etc.);
motivation;
will.

A person’s attitude towards the phenomena and things of the world is expressed by spiritual experiences, or emotions.

Emotions are the reactions of a particular person to internal and external stimuli, which manifest themselves in the form of positive and negative feelings (pleasure or displeasure, joy, fear, etc.). Emotions arise as a result of subcortical excitations of the brain, which are formed on the basis of hereditary or acquired experience.

Over time, emotions lose their instinctive basis and develop into more stable and complex mental processes - feelings that are formed as a result of a person’s relationship to something and constant specific experiences.

Mental qualities, or personal characteristics

These are relatively stable formations that arise and are formed under the influence of the educational process and life activity. The qualities of the psyche are most clearly represented in character. These include:

character;
temperament;
intelligence.

Mental conditions

They represent a relatively stable dynamic background of activity and mental activity.

Functions of the psyche

Communicative - a mental reflection of reality, which provides, for example, the opportunity to communicate.

Mental reflection is addressed simultaneously to the present, past and future. That is, the reflection of the present is influenced by both past experience stored in memory and a person’s thoughts about the future. Moreover, the same external influence, thanks to this function of the psyche, can be reflected differently by different people and even by the same person at different times and under different conditions.

Cognitive - the ability to understand the external world around us and a person’s awareness of his place in it.

This function ensures correct adaptation and orientation of a person in the real world.

Regulatory - ensuring regulation of all forms of human behavior and all types (game, educational, work) of his activities.

The human psyche, on the one hand, reflects the influences of the external environment, adapts to it, and on the other hand, regulates this process, composing the internal content of activity and behavior. Behavior is an external form of manifestation of the psyche.

from Greek ??????? - spiritual) - a property of highly organized matter that arises at a certain point. stages of life development and which is a special form of reflection. Animals have an elementary form of P., subject to biological. laws The highest form of consciousness - consciousness - is inherent only to man and is a product of socio-historical. development and is subject to social laws. Directly for a person, subjectively, P. appears in the form of phenomena accessible to introspection - sensations, perceptions, ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. Objective expressions of P. are discovered by observing other people, their various actions, speech, facial expressions, etc. Through P., a person cognizes, reflects the world and navigates in it - regulates his activities. Idealistic psychology sees in P. a manifestation of a special spiritual substance, independent of matter and subordinating it to itself, and cannot solve the so-called. psychophysical problem, explain P.’s connection with the body. This problem remained insoluble for metaphysics. materialism, which ignored qualities. originality P. Dialectic. materialism considers P. as one of the forms of reflection that arises as a result of specific. interaction of highly organized living systems with their environment. P. is a subject of multifaceted scientific research. studying. Establishing connections between the various aspects of its analysis is a very difficult debatable problem. As the most general approach to solving this problem, we can propose a distinction between two closely related, but significantly different aspects - epistemological and concrete scientific. In epistemological aspect of P. is considered from the point of view. its relationship to the reality reflected in it. If we mean the highest (and at the same time the most studied in science) - human. P. form, then epistemological. aspect of its analysis is directly related to the main question of philosophy, and here the concept of P. is fundamentally. meaning is identified with the concepts of consciousness, thought, mind, idea, spirit, etc. From this view. P. acts as a secondary, derivative of matter. Epistemological analysis, by its very essence, requires consideration of space and matter as mutually opposed, since the subject of this analysis is precisely the relationship between being and consciousness. However, such a opposition is legitimate only within the basic limits. question of philosophy. “Beyond these limits, it would be a huge mistake to operate with the opposition of matter and spirit, physical and mental, as with absolute opposition” (Lenin V. I., Soch., vol. 14, p. 233). Thus, in epistemological aspect P. acts as an intangible, as an ideal, image. The ideal is based on the interaction of material objects, in which one of the influencing objects, as it were, leaves an imprint on the other, due to which it becomes possible to judge by the change in the structure of one object about the structure of another, and the modification of the structure itself can be considered as a copy, an image of the object, had an impact. The condition for the appearance of an image is not only the nature of the object that had the impact, but also its own. the nature of the object in which this effect is imprinted. In order for a print to be perceived as a copy, it must be “freed” from its carrier, otherwise what will be seen is not the print of one object in another, but the object itself—the bearer of the print. Such liberation is possible only in abstraction, accessible only to the person who decides to know. task (it is this separation that distinguishes abstraction from simple objective division). Thus, the ideal is a philosopher. a category opposite in its meaning to the material, characterizing mental products. human activity and filled with meaning only in epistemological. analysis. Outside the epistemological aspect, thinking is considered, as they say, from the side of its material basis, as a material process of interaction between a person and the environment, during which a person develops material structures that represent his P., which are the product and condition of this process. Specific The organ that embodies such structures in humans is the brain. This aspect of P.’s consideration is no longer epistemological, but specifically scientific. The position of the classics of Marxism-Leninism that to recognize thought as material, to identify thought with matter means making a concession to idealism, and that it is impossible to separate thinking from matter, which means thinking, is dialectical-materialistic. characteristics of the psyche, taken in both aspects of his research. The classics of Marxism-Leninism studied the concept of philosophy primarily in relation to the dialectical theory of knowledge. materialism, therefore they ch. arr. epistemological was considered. aspect P. Specific scientific. the approach was outlined by them only in principle, in terms of its general philosophy. interpretation, based on the scientific achievements achieved by that time. knowledge. Lenin noted that for a concrete solution to the question of the emergence of the ability to sense, not enough data has yet been collected: “... it remains to be explored and explored how matter, which supposedly does not feel at all, is connected with matter composed of the same atoms (or electrons) and at the same time possessing a clearly expressed ability of sensation. Materialism clearly poses an unresolved question and thereby pushes it towards resolution, pushes it towards further experimental research" (ibid., p. 34). The concrete scientific analysis of P. is the task of psychology, physiology, biophysics, biochemistry, and in recent years in to a certain extent, and cybernetics. What is common to all these sciences is the desire to understand P. as a specific means in which life processes are realized. By now, physiological analysis has turned out to be relatively more advanced. aspect of P.’s analysis has long been inhibited by the pressure of centuries-old traditions of idealism, as well as by the influence of mechanism, idealism completely reduced P. to the ideal and thereby actually denied its objectively real existence. Under these conditions, concrete scientific analysis was left only with the study of physiological activity. , the laws of which are supposedly the laws of image formation. But the direct correlation of the image as a reflection of reality with the physiological activity of the brain necessary for the emergence of such an image is illegal. Physiological analysis, of course, is a necessary component of concrete science. P.'s analysis, without it the mechanisms of the reflection process cannot be understood. But physiological. the analysis does not cover all beings themselves. sides P. Between epistemological. and physiological In P.'s analysis there is a missing link - actually psychological. analysis. Psychological P.'s analysis is aimed at identifying the structure and functions of P. as a product specific to a highly developed living system and the conditions for its interaction with the outside world. The features of such interaction appear in general terms primarily as features of the way of orienting a living system relative to its surroundings. In all prepsychic forms of interaction, the orientation of one body relative to another is carried out either directly. contact of bodies - components of an interaction system, either through force fields formed in interaction or characteristic of one of the bodies. The orientation of highly developed living systems relative to the environment appears as a qualitatively unique, special form of mediated relationship. This form is characterized by the use of information carriers, the construction of dynamic. models of reality (environment and internal states of a living system) based on the processing of this information. Such models, which mediate the relationship of a living system to its environment, are fundamental for it. a means of providing orientation in the environment. It is on this basis that a rapprochement specific to living things with the favorable and distance from the destructive, which is absent in inanimate nature, is carried out. This form of orientation is mental. form. The emergence of P. is expressed in the fact of separating the subject, on the one hand, and the object, on the other, and the system of interaction of these formations is characterized by a qualitatively new type of communication - signal connections (it should be borne in mind that in In this case, we are not talking about the actual signals as such, which, of course, may not be identical to mental models, but about a special type of connection). They require the subject to have sensitivity - a special form of irritability, the ability to sense. Specifically, this ability arises when not only those connections that are directly provided become significant for the individual. satisfaction of the need for metabolism, but also those through which it correlates with other, at first glance, neutral influences; It is on the basis of connections of the second type that the individual orients himself in the environment. Thus, the subject in psychological sense, this is an individual capable of signal interaction with his environment. To the same extent that the subject is not identical to the organism, the object is not identical to the environment. Objects are objects or phenomena expressed in those properties with which the individual – as a subject – enters into signal interaction. A person under complete anesthesia remains an organism, but ceases to be a subject: he continues to interact with the environment only as an organism, on the basis of appropriate connections; objects do not exist for him in this situation, the interaction of the subject with the object is “turned off.” Signal interaction with the environment is carried out not only by humans, but also by any animal; There are hints of such interaction even in plants, especially in the so-called. predator plants. Therefore, the concept of “subject” is broader than the concept of “person”. What distinguishes man from other representatives of the animal world is that he is not just a subject, but a cognizing subject. In the course of the evolution of living beings, on the basis of constant differentiation and integration of the organism, inextricably linked with the peculiarities of the development of ways of interaction between a subject and an object, a special type was formed. P. organ. In higher animals and humans, such an organ is the cerebral cortex (for more information about the evolution of P. on the basis of general biological evolution, see the articles Life, Anthropogenesis, Zoopsychology). The individual, acting as a subject, is a component of the subject-object system. At the same time, it remains an organism, that is, a system that physiologically interacts with the environment. But physiological. laws cannot be extended to the processes of interaction between a subject and an object, and, therefore, the structure of P. cannot be classified as physiological. phenomena. The mental in its relation to the physiological acts as a structural set of relatively simple physiological. reactions occurring in a regular sequence. Each department physiological the reaction is built according to the laws of physiology, but the complex of these reactions, in its structure, is built according to the laws of psychology. The mental is formed in the depths of the physiological. phenomena as a derivative of them. However, the primacy of the physiological over the mental is not absolute; As it develops, the interaction of a subject with an object has a significant reverse effect on the physiological: Human psychology is the highest form of development of psychology. It arose in connection with the emergence of a special form of control characteristic of social interaction. The decisive role in the development of human life belongs to the most specific way for a person to interact with others—work. Real conditions of human development. P. appeared various forms of social communication, mainly. the means of implementation of which is speech. Thus, the transition to human behavior is associated with the emergence of a special – social form of interaction. Psychic subject-object systems at the level of the animal world were components of only the biological. interaction, a cut through the mechanism of natural. selection and directed “from above” by the psyche. the development of animals, determining the features of their method of communication with the environment. An animal does not purposefully transform its environment; it only adapts to it. The changes introduced by an animal into the environment appear to it as being parallel to all other changes that arise in the environment, regardless of its activity. The result of action in relation to environmental factors does not become specific. meanings, which are found in humans: the animal does not isolate among the influences of the environment what is a product of its own. actions. The formation of social interaction fundamentally changes the path of development of the human race. This is primarily reflected in the transformation of the way the subject communicates with the surrounding reality: man, like animals, adapts to the environment, but something else is characteristic of him - the subordination of nature to himself, i.e. purposeful, conscious transformation of the environment. With psychological On the other hand, such a transformation is possible due to the fact that among the influences exerted on a person by the environment, he identifies those that are the result of his own. activity: the product of a person’s action acquires special meaning for him. This determines ch. A special feature of human behavior is the ability to deliberately anticipate events and plan one’s actions. The transition to human P. is associated with the restructuring of the P. organ - the brain and, above all, with the emergence of a second signaling system - signaling reality with words (I. P. Pavlov). The leading form of mental interaction is thinking (understood here in a concrete scientific aspect). It manifests itself in situations where solving a problem requires finding a new, previously unknown to the subject, way of changing environmental conditions to satisfy needs. Elementary forms of thinking are also characteristic of animals; However, their thinking proceeds only on the external plane and depends entirely on the immediate. conditions of this situation, the course of solving the problem is devoid of a plan, a program of action. Dynamic models at this level capture the interaction of subject and object in a fused form: actions are not separated from objects, both are given undifferentiated. Similar models also occur in humans during unconscious adaptation to the environment; These are the primary dynamic ones. models, with t. view. epistemologically acting as actual images. However, specific A special feature of a person is the ability to build secondary, iconic models of reality. They are based on specifically human. speech thinking, which stands out from practice as a theoretical one. activity. Thanks to the development of the second signaling system, thinking is transferred internally. an action plan, the progress of solving a problem is guided by a plan, a program of action is built. The object in this case can be not only real objects, but also the psychic itself. models. Primary models are differentiated and on their basis secondary, symbolic ones are formed, already dismembered, representing the interaction of the subject with the object, i.e., separating the relationship of the subject to the object from the relationship of the objects themselves. The very activity of the subject becomes one of the objects of knowledge. In epistemological aspect, these models act as concepts, judgments, conclusions, reflecting the patterns of movement of objects; their department sides, saints (often inaccessible to direct perception), beings. connections and dependencies. Being objectified (for example, in language), the products of thinking cease to be the result of activity only separately. individual, become objects of actions of other people, forming societies. cognition, social-historical experience. In individual development modern. human P. is formed in the process of mastering this experience, mastering historically established forms and methods of activity. Under the dominance of biological laws of achieving phylogenetic. The development of animals is fixed in the form of changes in their biological biology. organizations. Anthropogenesis is divided into a number of stages, in which biological. patterns increasingly gave way to social ones. The appearance of man in his own sense is associated with the establishment of the complete dominance of social laws. Modern a person already possesses all morphological and physiological saints, necessary for his boundless society.-historical. development, in which biological. the organization of man is not subject to beings. changes, and the results of development are no longer recorded biologically. apparatus, but specifically by social means. Center. process that characterizes mental Child development is the process of assimilating the development achievements of previous generations of people. Biologically inherited characteristics constitute only a necessary condition for this assimilation. This process takes place in the child’s interaction with objects and phenomena created by society, in objective and verbal communication with people around him, in joint activities with them. In this process, the actual human being is formed. abilities, forms of behavior, personality traits. Creatures shifts in the understanding of concrete scientific aspects of P. occurred in connection with the development of cybernetics. Construction of modern technical systems that increasingly model specific human functions, put forward the task of a broader and more comprehensive study of mental. processes. At the same time, on the one hand, the data obtained in P.’s research are used for the needs of cybernetics, on the other hand, the means and methods of cybernetics are used to study mental health. processes. Lit.: Marx K., Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844, Marx K. and Engels F., From early works, M., 1956; his, Introduction (From the economy, manuscripts of 1857–1858), Marx K. and Engels F., Works, 2nd ed., vol. 12; Engels F., Dialectics of Nature, ibid., vol. 20; Lenin V.I., Materialism and empirio-criticism, Works, 4th ed., vol. 14; his, Philosophical Notebooks, ibid., vol. 38; ?ubinshtein S.L., Fundamentals of General Psychology, M., 1946; him, Being and Consciousness, M., 1957; him, Principles and ways of development of psychology, M., 1959; Leontiev A.N., Problems of development of P., 2nd ed., M., 1965; Spirkin A.G., Origin of consciousness, M., 1960; Ponomarev Ya.?., Psychology of Creative Thinking, M., 1960. See also lit. at Art. Psychology. Ya. Ponomarev. Moscow.