Философские науки/3. История философии

ph. d., associate professor, Sharova M. A.

Kaluga State University named after K. Tsiolkovsky, Russia

THE ANALYSIS OF CATEGORY «REPRESENTATION» IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEWS OF I. A. CHISTOVICH

I.A. Chistovich (1828 – 1893) – the representative of the theistic philosophy, a graduate, then Professor of St. Petersburg theological Academy, a prominent scientist, a prominent Church and public figure, awarded with many state prizes and awards. So, for the work «Course in experimental psychology» (1868), recognized on the basis of the opinion of the Ministry of national education as a psychology textbook in all the seminaries, he was awarded the St. Macarius prize (1869). A. P. Lopukhin thought this tutorial was the result of scientific and pedagogical work of a thinker in the St. Petersburg theological Academy (1851 - 1873) and the Imperial school of jurisprudence (1866-1882), where I.A. Chistovich continued reading course in psychology after resigned for health reasons A.A. Fisher [2].

Taking the traditions of German classical philosophy (H. Hegel, I. Fichte, F. Schelling), he identified the goal of psychological knowledge - the knowledge of the truths of the existing through experiments: the natural and the metaphysical, connected to the ultimate source of existence – God. In his views can be traced to the synthetism create an organic model of the «new psychology», which could evolve in accordance with the best achievements of empirical psychology and physiology, without abandoning the basic principles of theistic anthropology. A. Alekseevskiy recognized the synthesis of philosophical and psychological knowledge for the second half of the XIX century is obvious, as «modern educated society ... addicted to the natural Sciences waiting from them some solution of all the «eternal questions», now survived the heat of first passion and feeling some disappointment in his most recent idol, turns again to philosophy» [1, p. 811, 815].

I.A. Chistovich, using scientific writing style (obviously the influence of his brother - physician J. A. Chistovich) stops at the physiological processes in the body. So, body consciousness and mental activity he believed hemisphere of the brain («the lower surface of the brain ... contains the centres from which come all head brain nerves. Brain hemispheres are ... body consciousness and mental activity» [3, p. 17]). But synthesizing cardiogenetics tradition of Russian religious philosophy (P.D. Yurkevich, I.M. Skvortsov, V.N. Karpov) and the latest achievements of natural science, he recognized the presence of a hub (= heart), coordinating all shipments of the spiritual life («...it is difficult to separate sensation from feeling, because ... many cardiac movements more or less mixed kind» [3, p. 183]). The external impression, acting on the body, enters the soul and excites the nerve, which conveys impressions to the nerve center (the brain) where it awakens a sense corresponding to the original excitation.

Mental processes mapping the sensory world and recreating the image of objects and phenomena after they have ceased to operate are view. I.A. Chistovich described the view from the standpoint of physiology, as a mental image of the object, sensed by monitoring and keeping the «footprint» in the cerebral cortex of the brain, after excitation of the Central nervous system in the perception. They built a system of ideas based on: 1) perception, when the power of representation is much weaker than the sensory image of the subject; 2) thinking, where the generated ideas are highly abstract; 3) imagination, in which there is a substitution sensual feeling fantastic images (so, «in my childhood, we often heard from others mixed in our own experiences» [3, p. 47]). In the representative system, he identified the following types of representations: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile.

The sense of light and color I.A. Chistovich attributed to the visual organ, but is available to human perception of color was represented as a «color scale», abroad where light was detected only as a chemical compound. Therefore, where one does not see eastermost senses, begins the analytical consciousness (= spirit). «... at the entrance to the garden, smelling the aroma of... we immediately present mental flowers and looking through their eyes» [3, p. 30]. Therefore, the clarity of vision he believed the subjective sense of consciousness.

By I.A. Chistovich, the organ of hearing responds to: the height, power and quality of sound, applies where the eye is not available tangibility of the subject. However, in the process of mental formation of visual impressions to be assimilated by consciousness is much stronger than the impressions of the hearing. I.A. Chistovich considered as an external vision and hearing – as the inner side of the cognitive faculties of the soul.

Taste and smell are the basis of the psychophysiology of perception and more rooted in sensual – practical field than previous bodies. I. A. Chistovich drew attention to the fact that, although the smell and helps to restore the memory image of the object, but almost impossible to remember the smell, just as we restore mentally the image or sound. The sense of smell and taste called the chemical senses because their receptors respond to molecular signals («depend on the chemical changes of saliva» [3, p. 35]).

In the psychology of touch I.A. Chistovich ascended to the philosophy of Aristotle, for the first time provided it as a source of tactile information about the space and the mechanical property of objects. Touch it recognized the movements that occur: 1) randomly, with the application of willpower, or 2) involuntarily. Voluntary movements implied a certain act of will, extending to the arousal and direction of movements. Involuntary movements had the character: 1) reflexive occurring as a result of sensual arousal, and 2) automatic, without a certain arousal.

I.A. Chistovich wrote that «performances, educated soul would be the property of the soul and stored it in the continuation of all life ... in irresponsible <unconscious, M. A. Sharova> state» [3, Pp. 48 - 49]. And only to the extent necessary, an unconscious way may become the property of consciousness, coming from secret depths of the soul, as the loss of the need to return to the sphere of the unconscious. How ambiguous representations arise in consciousness, I.A. Chistovich concluded that the difference in their degree of proximity to consciousness. Reliable research method ideas he believed introspection, through which is revealed the play of consciousness is not one, and the associations of ideas, and the condition for their occurrence is the connection between them («the way harder ... kept in memory when impressions of the individual parts are linked ...» [3, p. 51]).

Thanks to the consciousness of the person experiences the various manifestations of the soul, raises the kinds of feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, mixed), similar in characteristic to the sensations. Most of them to consciousness went unnoticed, except for those that face barriers in mental activities. He wrote that the influence of physical processes at the heart of the state cannot be separated from their impact on the mental state of a person (e.g., hunger, irritation of the nerves or the physiological sense), so «a heart of the movement more or less mixed kind» [3, p. 183].

In the mainstream of Russian religious philosophy, he laid down the intangible essence and the beginning of the phenomena of the spiritual life, expressed through categories: singleness, simplicity, indivisibility. The positive quality of the soul, I.A. Chistovich recognized: introspection, self-awareness, self-determination, a capacity for feeling. In philosophical and psychological thinker man has established itself not only as a passive entity, receiving impressions from the outside world, but self-start, converts them according to the laws of their spiritual nature. The soul claimed the life force unconsciously and involuntarily creates a living organism that manages its physical processes, indicating that the formation of the whole organism (the body) is already preceded by the formation of separate parts, being present in the unit cell of the ideal, opportunity. Developing, the soul begins to realize the changes in the body and in the outside world, and with the emergence of consciousness, the soul manifested as the beginning of psychic phenomena. Therefore the soul, as the beginning is by nature immaterial and indivisible, in relation to the body is completely original, but the body in relation to the soul - original concerning.

Spirit he understood the special nature in man by the soul, the scope of the principles that distinguish man from animals: 1) the criteria the knowledge of the truth; 2) moral activities; 3) the totality of the aesthetic and religious feelings. «The human soul, which is conscious of itself in its activities as an acting agent, samoustraniajutsia and evaluates his life by the ideas of the true, good and beautiful, and is called the spirit» [3, p. 218]. I.A. Chistovich distinguish empirical (= sensual) and spiritual consciousness: the first – still inherent in man and animal (in the early stages of the evolution of man, like animal, have not separated themselves from nature, consequently, had no consciousness); the second – formed according to the spiritual growth of the individual and was opened in him of the consciousness of himself as a person and his motives («when ... thinking being the man turned into a spirit, then man, or his spirit began to distinguish itself from the body» [3, p. 219]). «Ever since man first become conscious of itself, and said about himself: that's me, and about the nature: it's not me, since his relationship with her is over. Of the things he became man, from organic member of the world – his Lord. The world instantly fell apart for him into two halves -- one I, the other something that is beyond me, the world internal and external, subjective and objective» [3, p. 222]). For the self-aware soul body was made by not only the external object but the means by which it is in active communication with the outside world and its own ideal notions reflected in matter. The human spirit as self-conscious start, distinguishes itself from the variety of spiritual life. I.A. Chistovich concluded that the life of the soul begins before the life of the spirit, and the self-conscious spirit affects the body consciously and deliberately. The connection of mental phenomena with their internal knowledge in the philosophy of I.A. Chistovich were the common and main form of mental life called consciousness.

His work «Course in experimental psychology» meant the attempt of logical – philosophical research of the foundations of psychological knowledge, the detection of the sources of the psyche, which consists of the unity of sensory experience and of the metaphysical realities of existence.

Literature:

1. Alexis A. Student psychological society at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy // Christian reading. 1903. №. 5. P. 811 - 815

2. Lopukhin A. P. in memory of the historian of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy A. I. Chistovich: Obituary (extract from the Ecclesiastical Gazette No. 45 of 1893). SPb. 1893. 11 s.

3. Chistovich I.A. Course of experimental psychology. SPb. 1868. 272 s.