Theory in the historical progress of psychological cognition

Abstract

The article analyzes the correlation between the theory and history of psychology on the basis of a concept, which is formed in the process of researching the work of the outstanding Ukrainian scientist V. A Romenets. According to the concept, psychological cognition is a historical-logical-psychological process that is carried out on an epistemological basis and runs from dualism to monism; stages of the process are ways to solve the main problem of psychology, which fixes the need to characterize the mental as subjective in view of the objective; patterns of the process illuminates the thinking of the author of the theory of mind in solving this problem. The state of theoretical psychology is critically assessed, the latter is understood as marked by the theory of mind progress of psychological cognition. The example of V. A. Romenets’ creative dialogue with his predecessors shows that the theory is evidence of the author’s extraordinary place in this process. The search for the place of man in cognition ends with the proclamation of man as a subject of cognition, a body of self-knowledge of the world, capable of comprehending an object within the limits of its thinking. In epistemology, it is substantialism, proceduralism; the principle of observation is opposed by the principle of involvement; man’s place in cognition is characterized either dualistically or monistically. The idea of the identity of thought and being means that the condition of cognition is the coincidence of the way of understanding an object with the way of its existence. The philosophy of science either denies or affirms the principle of involvement, the same thing happens in the psychology of science. Subjectocentrism in epistemology is echoed in psychology by the opposition of the subjective to the objective, overcoming this opposition generates monistic theories in both epistemology and psychology. In psychology, this is the main problem; it is accentuated by the circle of cognition that the psychologist enters into when, using his own psychic, he explores the nature of the psychic. The problem – a source of psychological knowledge, the circle – evidence of the direct presence of a psychologist in this process. Marxist psychologists solve the problem monistically, in terms of the category of practice. Solutions encounter difficulties, ideas deepen the content of the category of practice and open the possibility of new solutions to this problem. Psychologists of the post-Soviet era do not think as a category of practice and, in contrast to the activity-based, assert the subjective approach. From an epistemological point of view, this is subject-centrism, and from a historical and psychological point of view, it is a step in the opposite direction. According to V. A. Roments, the main way of practice is the act as a contradictory interaction of subjective and objective, which is engraved in the history of human self-knowledge. The dynamics of the components of the act highlights the historical and ontogenetic path of man, the essence and purpose of mental, historical levels of psychological knowledge. In the work of the scientist, psychology reaches a post-classical level of development. For classical psychology, the subjective and the objective are disproportionate entities, for non-classical – the sides of reality, for post-non-classical - the side of the human way of life. The main problem of psychology is solved in fundamentally different ways; the solutions illuminate the path of psychology from dualism to increasingly meaningful monism. Analysis of the work of V. A. Romenets shows that the progress of thinking of the psychologist expresses the historical progress of psychology, which occurs when the way of thinking coincides with the way of being mental. The idea of the identity of thinking and being is illustrated, which logically completes the search for the place of man in cognition in epistemology. The inherent explanation of the nature of the mental circle of cognition expands to the limits of the existence of the mental, and the monistic solution to the basic problem of psychology no longer stands in the way. V. A. Romenets creates a theory of the way of human existence at the historical and ontogenetic level, it is actual to characterize the way of human existence at the individual level on the basis of category of being in the subject-practical content, to implement the anthropological approach in psychology and overcome the gap between theoretical and practical branches of this science.