Dialectics of Psychology LEV NAUMENKO ALEXANDER SURMAVA Theoretic

Dialectics of Psychology LEV NAUMENKO ALEXANDER SURMAVA

Theoretic psychology per se can exist only as dialectic one. That means, deliberately based on opposite, mutually exclusive definitions of its object. Those definitions are “objective” and “subjective”. Conditions of identity of those definitions which hold true their polar opposition outline the subject of research of theoretic psychology. The main and dominant category for theoretic psychology is not “objectiveness” or “subjectiveness” but subjectness.

Oppositions regarded per se, isolated, inevitably turn into each other: the left glove being turned inside out becomes the right glove. Such “dialectic” brings a theory to a dead end of relativism: one and the same glove becomes “right” or “left” according to our arbitrary point of view from “outside” or from “inside”. Taken from “outside” the subject matter of psychology is a “body” – i. e. an aggregate of physical, chemical and neurophysiological acts and behavioral “reactions” – something “observable”. Taken from “inside” it is “subjective reality”, i. e. something only subjectively experienced, phenomenal or introspective. Two pictures of one and the same don’t combine into one. The opposition of “objective” and “subjective” methods is a curse of psychology since Aristotle till our days. This curse is unresolved psychophysical problem.

The very term “dialectic psychology” is not a characteristic of an approach, it is not “a visual angle” or a combination of research methods or procedures. It characterizes the very object of psychology. The specific problem of psychology is that its object is a subject. The first definition excludes the second one. One can hardly find the analogy in nonbiological natural science. The “scientific” psychology tries to find causal explanation of psychic phenomena consequently coming to understanding of psyche as epiphenomenon of physical acts. Causal explanation refers the phenomenon to something external, reduces psychic to physic and physiologic. The legitimacy of such psychology is based on causality. This approach is in flagrant contradiction with facts because the attributive qualities of psyche are seeking, choice, aspiration, pursuing one's object i. e. selfdetermination. Without hesitation we reject any automatism as a psychic phenomenon.

The opposite approach starts from “subjective reality” and thus dooms psychology to mere description, deprives it of theoretic status. All attempts to think causally brings psychology back to “physical” hidden under mask of “unconscious” i. e. to reductionism.

The genuine dialectic identity of oppositions supposes finding out and investigation of such reality in which one of the opposite sides posits the other, escaping degeneration into it. For theoretic psychology this reality is vital activity, i. e. spontaneous (selfdetermining) object oriented (predmetnaja or gegenständlich) activity including the positing of object of alive creature on one pole and positing the subject quality of this creature on the opposite pole. The state of organic need (hunger, thirst) gains an objective modus. Object loses its neutrality and gains vital meaning, a status of subject. Subject is objectifying, while object is subjectifying. In this process “subjective” and “objective” are mere phase state of object oriented life activity. Ignoring this dialectic researcher finds himself in the situation when one of his/her eyes is looking outside, while the other one inside, one is fixing “observable”, while the other his/her own state. Psychophysical parallelism doesn’t put forward a parallelism of processes but a perpendicularity of approaches. The task is to find and to investigate such an objective reality which indispensably posits adequate “subjective reality” i. e. psyche which serves a living process. The category of object oriented life activity gives the possibility to unite “objective” and “subjective”, human and animal psychology.

For “objective” psychology the observable exists only as a code or as an aggregate of signs, or as a language. Meanings of those signs exist outside the realm of observable. A researcher finds those “meanings” or “senses” in his/her “inner” introspective experience. Otherwise he/she finds himself/herself as a physiologist. In the same time those psychologists who start from “senses” or “meanings” have to apply to “external” experience to perceive signs. The absurdity of the situation in traditional psychology consists of putting signs in one reality (“objective”), while the meanings into another one (in “subjective”).

Dialectic psychology overcomes this threshold putting both sings and meanings into one and the same reality. The neutral element of the environment transforms into a sign in the moment when it acquires the objective (e. g. biological) meaning. In the same time the condition of a subject acquires an objective (gegenständlich) meaning: one is represented in another. So called “subjective reality” is the state of a subject presented in an object, and vice versa: objective reality is presented in the state of the subject. This mutual “shining” of two opposite sides in each other is the essence of dialectic of activity.

Dialectic psychology is based on an idea of a subject understood as a special type of an object - as an active, alive, object oriented creature. The objective causality in such subject doesn’t eliminate itself, but acquires modified, inverted form – the form of active self determined act. Thus character of vital activity determines the specific character of psyche.