Consciousness as a problem of psychology: post-nonclassical interpretation

Abstract

The content of the paradigm of consciousness in psychology changed along with a change in the ideals of rationality. In classical psychology consciousness was identical with the psyche, it was studied as an isolated reality through a methodology borrowed from natural science. In non-classical psychology the problem of consciousness was on the periphery of psychological research and methodological strategies that allowed to study the subjective nature of consciousness had latent development at this stage. The turn to the phenomenon of consciousness occurred at the post-non-classical stage of the development of psychology. It was formed under the influence of global socio-cultural transformations of the present, as well as the achievements of cognitive science and neuroscience. In the light of the post-non-classical ideal of rationality, a fluid, labile, procedural, supercomplex and multidimensional nature of consciousness was discovered and her research required the search for new research strategies. At the post-non-classical stage of psychology the problem of studying consciousness as a subjective reality became again topical. However this problem could not be solved solely within the framework of cognitive approaches and achievements of neuroscience. The post-non-classical interpretation of consciousness presupposed transdisciplinarity (allowing to unite the science and humanitarian approaches to the phenomenon of consciousness), processuality and multidimensionality, the anthropological principle (requiring the study of consciousness outside of separation from the person as a whole), contextuality (changes in consciousness in cultural, historical and sociocultural contexts) and subjectivity. In modern post-non-classical interpretation consciousness (like the psyche as a whole) appears as a complex self-organizing system, as well as subjective, dynamic and multidimensional reality. One of the important methodological resources of the post-non-classical ideal of rationality was the transdisciplinary study of the phenomenon of consciousness. An important role in the disclosure of the subjective nature of consciousness and the study of its cultural and historical variability is played by the humanitarian methodology implemented, in particular, in the cultural-analytical approach.