In psychological teachings of different eras. Historical formation of developmental psychology. Egopsychology E. Erikson

Test for the course “Developmental psychology”

on the topic “History of the development of developmental psychology as a science”

Introduction 3

The formation of developmental psychology as an independent field of psychological science. 4

Beginning of systematic study child development 9

From the history of the formation and development of Russian developmental psychology 11

Conclusion 20

Literature 21

The text of the test is given with abbreviations!

Introduction

The history of developmental and age psychology studies the patterns of formation and development of views on the human psyche based on the analysis of various approaches to understanding the genesis of the psyche.

Formation of developmental psychology as an independent branch scientific knowledge dates back to the second half of the 19th century. The objective prerequisites for its formation were:

The formation of developmental psychology as an independent field of psychological science.

In the psychological teachings of past eras (in antiquity, in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance), many of the most important issues of child development have already been raised. Research into human mental development began in ancient times. The first ones work related to the search for the foundations of the psyche, the foundations of the soul, led researchers to the idea of ​​​​development soul and the need to study both the factors that determine (determine) this development and its stages.

The beginning of a systematic study of child development

The first concepts of the mental development of children arose under the influence of Charles Darwin’s law of evolution and the so-called biogenetic law.

Biogenetic law formulated in the 19th century. biologists E. Haeckel and F. Müller, based on the principle of recapitulation (repetition). It says that history the development of the species is reflected in the individual development of the organ- nism belonging to this species. The individual development of an organism (ontogenesis) is a brief and rapid repetition of the development history of a number of ancestors of a given species (phylogeny).

From the history of the formation and development of Russian developmental psychology

The initial stages of the development of developmental and educational psychology in Russia also date back to the second half of the 19th century.

For the Russian culture of the pre-revolutionary period, the idea of ​​humanism, the idea of ​​interest in the inner world of a person, including a child, was organic (suffice it to recall “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” by L.N. Tolstoy, “Childhood of Bagrov’s Grandson” ST Aksakov and much more).Political and economic ical reforms of the 60s. XIX century, the rise of cultural and scientific life, a surge of interest in education and hopes associated with education, led to the realization of the need to build a scientific theories of education and training.

Conclusion

Research into human mental development began in ancient times. In the Middle Ages, from the 3rd century. to 14th century problems of the development of cognition, studies of basic cognitive processes as stages in the development of cognition in children, the dynamics of their formation and methods of their formation came to the fore.

The development of society in modern times has led to the need to develop an objective scientific basis for the views expressed by humanists about the human psyche.

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Renaissance (Renaissance - the term was introduced in the 16th century by D. Vasari) – transition period from medieval culture to the culture of modern times. Characterized by the emergence of machine production, the improvement of tools, the continuing division of manufacturing labor, the spread of printing, and geographical discoveries. Cheerful free-thinking is affirmed in the humanistic worldview of people. In the sciences, interest in the fate and capabilities of man prevails; in ethical concepts, his right to happiness is substantiated. Man begins to realize that he was not created for God, that in his actions he is free and great, that there are no barriers to his mind.

Scientists of this period considered their main task to be the restoration of ancient values. However, only that and in a way that was consonant with the new way of life and the intellectual atmosphere determined by it were “reborn”. In this regard, the ideal of the “universal man” was affirmed, which was believed not only by thinkers, but also by many rulers of Europe, who gathered outstanding minds of the era under their banners (for example, in Florence, at the Medici court, the sculptor and painter Michelangelo and the architect Alberti worked).

Here are two more stories that convey the atmosphere of that time. So Emperor Charles Y summoned Titian (1476 - 1576) to his place, surrounded him with honor and respect and said more than once:

I can create a Duke, but where will I get a second Titian?

The next story also tells about Charles Y, the Spanish king and Titian, the Italian painter. One day the artist was working in his presence, and his brush fell.

The king picked her up and said:

Even an emperor would be honored to serve Titian.

The new attitude was reflected in the desire to take a fresh look at the soul - the central link of any scientific system about personality. At universities, at the first lectures, students asked teachers: “Tell me about the soul,” which was a kind of litmus test, a characteristic of the teacher’s ideological, scientific and pedagogical potential.

The new era has brought to life new ideas about the nature of personality and its mental world. Outstanding representatives of the Renaissance showed themselves in their affirmation. F. Engels rightly noted that the era, which needed titans, “gave birth to titans in the power of thought, passion and character.”

An outstanding figure of the era is Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 1464). Nikolai Kuzansky left behind an extensive literary heritage, among his works there are such as: “On learned ignorance”, “The Simpleton”, “On the hunt for wisdom”, “On the squaring of the circle”. The Catalan Raymond Lull had a great, simply enormous influence on Nicholas. To make extracts from the works of Lulius, Nicholas made a special trip to Paris in 1248, where he had access to the original works of the philosopher. Nicholas's works contain many references to Plato, Socrates, Augustine, and talk about Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Democritus, Aristotle, Plotinus, Aprocles, Thomas Aquinas, and others. Nicholas of Cusa made a brilliant theological career. By order of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, the first map of Germany was made on copper.

Nicholas's views were revealed in full splendor only after the German researcher Scharpf published his main works in German translation and retelling in 1862. In subsequent decades, numerous reprints of the works of Nicholas of Cusa appeared in the original and translations. In 1960, the interethnic and inter-confessional “Cusanian Society” was founded in Germany.

“Any study that seeks to consider the philosophy of the Renaissance as a systematic unity must take as its starting point the teachings of Nicholas of Cusa,” wrote the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874 – 1945), the author of numerous studies on the history of philosophy.

Nicholas of Cusa, a hundred years before Copernicus, expressed thoughts about a geometric - mechanistic picture of the world, which predetermined his worldview. An outstanding preacher becomes one of the first in the Renaissance to defend a mechanistic understanding of nature and its phenomena.

The process of cognition means for Nicholas of Cusa the endless improvement of human knowledge. It distinguishes four stages: sensory knowledge, rational knowledge, synthetic knowledge of the intellect-mind, intuitive (mystical) knowledge. The scientist’s new word is the definition of the presence of reason as the highest level of cognition in sensation-feeling (as the activity of attention and discrimination). Nikolai Kuzansky recognized reason as a higher cognitive ability in relation to reason. Due to the fact that “all things consist of opposites in varying degrees,” the mind thinks of them in accordance with the law of contradiction. The mind is capable of thinking endlessly.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), one of the titans of the Renaissance, represented a new science that originated not within the walls of universities, where ancient texts were still commented on, but in the workshops of artists and inventors. Their experiences radically changed the culture and style of scientific thinking. In their scientific and creative practice they were “transformers of the world.” Highest value was given not to the divine mind, but, in Leonardo’s language, to the “divine science of painting.” At the same time, painting was understood not only as the art of depicting the world in artistic images. “Painting,” wrote the great sculptor, “extends to the philosophy of nature.”

Meaning scientific activity The scientist saw it as a practical benefit to humanity. “Those sciences are empty and full of errors,” said Leonardo da Vinci, “that are not generated by experience.” At the same time, he substantiated the deep idea of ​​the need to combine practical experience and its scientific understanding as the main way to discover truths. “He who is in love with practical science,” he wrote, “is like a helmsman stepping onto a ship without a rudder or compass; he is never sure where he is sailing... Science is the commander, and practice is the soldiers.” He considered mathematics the most reliable science necessary for understanding and generalizing experience.

As a scientist, Leonardo is amazed at the “wisdom” of the laws of nature, and as an artist, he admires its beauty, perfection and uniqueness of the human body and his soul. He depicts the proportions of the human body as a magnificent anatomist, and the uniqueness of the human soul as an unsurpassed psychologist and painter.

Pietro Pomponazzi (1462 – 1525) - Italian scientist, the largest representative of Aristotelianism of the Renaissance. In the treatise “On the Immortality of the Soul,” based on the theory of dual truth, he rejected the possibility of a rational explanation of the immortality of the soul. “The human soul, the highest and most perfect of material forms, begins and ceases to exist with the body; it cannot in any way act or exist without the body.” In his essay “On the Causes of Natural Phenomena, or on Magic,” the thinker proposed to explain all phenomena not by faith in the mysteries of nature, but by natural causes.

The works and psychological views of Pietro Pomponazzi gave rise to the Alexandrian movement in Europe. This trend was associated with the name of the Greek peripatetic of the late 2nd - early 3rd centuries, Alexander of Aphrodius, who in his comments on Aristotle interpreted his teaching in the sense of the annihilation, along with the body, of not only the animal - sentient, but also the rational soul.

Juan Luis Vives (1492 – 1540) - famous Spanish humanist and teacher. Speaking against scholasticism and seeing the basis of knowledge in direct observation and experiment, he largely anticipated the experimental method of Francis Bacon. Vives paved new paths in psychology and pedagogy, considering the main task not to determine the essence of the soul (“what is the soul?”), but to inductively study its manifestations. Thus, in the book “On the Soul and Life” (1538), famous during the Renaissance, the thinker argued that human nature is learned not from books, but through observation and experience, which allows one to correctly organize the process of education. It is not the abstract “essence” of the soul, but its real manifestations that should be the main subject of scientific analysis.

His psychological and pedagogical concept is based on the principle of sensationalism and the view of association as a factor in the gradual formation of personality. Vives emphasizes that knowledge is only meaningful when it is applied. Accordingly, they outline ways to improve memory, reproduction techniques, and mnemonics rules. The descriptive-empirical approach (instead of the traditional, scholastic-speculative) is also characteristic of his interpretation of emotional and mental processes. One cannot dwell on what the ancient thinkers asserted; one must have one’s own observations and empirical study of the facts of mental life - this is the position of Vives as a “pioneer of empirical psychology.”

Another thinker of medieval Spain, a follower of X.L. Vives, the doctor Juan Huarte (1530 - 1592) also, rejecting scholasticism, demanded the use of the inductive method in knowledge, which he outlined in the book “Research on the Abilities for the Sciences.” This was the first work in the history of psychology that set out to study individual differences between people in order to determine their suitability for specific professions. Therefore, X. Huarte can be considered the founder of the direction later called differential psychology. In his study, he posed four questions: “What qualities does that nature possess that makes a person capable of one science and not capable of another... what types of talent are there in the human race... what arts and sciences correspond to each talent, in particular ... by what signs can one recognize the appropriate talent.”

The Spanish doctor Gomez Pereira (1500 - 1560), anticipating the views of Rene Descartes for a whole century, in his book “Antoniana Margarita” proposed to consider the animal’s body as an “apsychic” body - a kind of machine controlled by external influences and not requiring participation for its work souls.

Bernardino Telesio (1509 – 1588) famous thinker of the Renaissance. He gained popularity by publishing the work “On the Nature of Things in accordance with Its Principles.” These “beginnings” formed the basis for the activities of the natural science society he created near Naples. Unbridled fantasy (“variations on a theme of Empedocles”), characteristic of all science of this period, manifested itself in the concept of the soul of B. Telesio. The whole world, according to his views, is filled with passive-passive matter - a “battlefield” of opposite principles, “heat” and “cold”. In these two principles, people’s perceptions are realized - incorporeal and animate “primary elements”. Therefore, mental phenomena are considered by scientists as functions of heat and cold. The human soul itself is recognized in two coexisting varieties - bodily-mortal and spiritual-immortal.

Based on materialist traditions, B. Telesio develops a theory of affects. Following the universal natural expediency of preserving the achieved state, positive affects manifest the strength striving to preserve the soul, and negative affects (fear, fear, sadness, etc.) show its weakness. Cognition, according to his views, is based on the imprinting and reproduction of external influences by the subtle matter of the soul. The mind is made up of comparison and connection of sensory impressions.

Giordano Bruno (1550 - 1600) in his teaching develops the materialistic - pantheistic views of Nicholas of Cusa and Nicolaus Copernicus. Among his works, the most significant for psychological knowledge were the treatises: “On the Infinite”, “On the Combination of Images and Ideas”, “The Expulsion of the Triumphant Animal”, “On the Monad, Number and Figure”. In them, J. Bruno talks about the Universe as a huge animal. God in his system finally “relocates” into creative nature, which itself is “God in things.” The scientist is convinced of the universal animation of nature. D. Bruno writes: “The world is animated along with its members.”

“Matter,” the scientist emphasizes, “is a beginning, necessary, eternal and divine... In the very body of nature, one should distinguish matter from the soul, and in the latter, distinguish... the mind from its species.” Emphasizing the active nature of the spiritual principle, G. Bruno nowhere speaks of its incorporeal existence, separate from the body. Man, in his opinion, is a microcosm, a reflection of the world. People have many means of understanding reality. Among them, sensory perception is an unreliable source of knowledge, since its horizon is very limited. Reason is opposed to the sensual principle.

The scientist’s thoughts about the reason for the separation of man from the animal world deserve close attention. “The nature of the soul,” argues J. Bruno at Oxford University, “is the same in all organized beings, and the difference in its manifestations is determined by the greater or lesser perfection of the tools that it has in each case. (...) Think, in fact, what would happen to a person if he had at least twice as much intelligence, if his hands (Bruno calls them “the organ of all organs” - author’s note) turned into a pair of legs.” Others distinctive features personality he calls “understanding” and memory.

In his teaching, J. Bruno affirms the idea of ​​universal development, to which all mental manifestations of man are subordinated. His thought about developing infinite monads, from which, through connection and separation, is formed natural world and the soul as its component was later developed by G. Leibniz.

Tommaso Campanella (1568 – 1639), an outstanding thinker of the era, in his psychological views, is a supporter of the sensualist teaching of B. Telesio. T. Campanella's theory is directed against ideas about “forms,” abilities and potential entities. All knowledge, the scientist claims, has its source from experience and feelings.

The thinker in his works describes a system of psychological concepts, including memory, understanding, inference, desire, attraction, etc. All definitions are derived from sensations, which “are a feeling of excitement, accompanied by an inference regarding an actually existing object, and not the idea of ​​​​pure potency.” Therefore, it is impossible to dwell on sensory knowledge; it needs to be supplemented by reason: “Sensation is not only excitement, but also consciousness of excitement and judgment about the object that causes excitement.” Reason, based on concept and imagination, unites sensory perceptions and experience. General concepts inherent in our thinking and are reliable principles of science.

Along with knowledge, scientists affirm the existence of faith. There are no contradictions between faith and knowledge: the world is the second Bible, a living code of nature, a reflection of God. Following Augustine, T. Campanella establishes the thesis as a starting point: the only thing known with certainty is that I exist. All knowledge comes down to knowing oneself.

The outstanding galaxy of thinkers of the Renaissance also include: the creator of a new theory about the nature of the human body and methods of treating diseases - Philip von Hohenheim - Paracelsus (1493 - 1541); the author of the brilliant work “On the Structure of the Human Body” - Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564); the founder of the doctrine of the pulmonary circulation - Miguel Servetus (1509/1511 - 1553) and many others. others.

Psychological theories of the Renaissance approved the dependence - determination of the human psyche on his body and environment, forming the so-called “psychology of life”. Thus, they prepared an intellectual breakthrough in the psychological teachings of the New Age, which are the general scientific basis of modern psychological science.

Important features of the psychological views of the Renaissance were the affirmation of the ideas of humanism and the desire to practically use the results of scientific research in the interests of man.

In the psychological teachings of past eras (in antiquity, in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance), many of the most important questions of the mental development of children were already raised.

In the works of ancient Greek scientists Heraclitus, Democritus.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle examined the conditions and factors in the development of children’s behavior and personality, the development of their thinking, creativity and abilities, and formulated the idea of ​​harmonious mental development of a person.

During the Middle Ages, from the 3rd to the 14th centuries...

Among the psychologists who were actively involved in the problems of child development in the first decades of the 20th century, the most famous are A. Binet, E. Maiman, D. Selly, E. Claparède, W. Stern, A. Gesell and some others.

The English scientist J. Selley considered the formation of the human psyche from the standpoint of an associative approach.

He identified mind, feelings and will as the main components of the psyche. The significance of his works for the practice of child upbringing consisted in determining the content of the child’s first associations and...

Don’t cut off your child’s emotions, but help them survive them!

Child psychologist Irina Mlodik calls for careful treatment of children's feelings (in particular, children's fear). The situation has developed that adults, as a rule, interrupt almost all the child’s feelings - especially fear, anger, anger, resentment, etc. Irina Mlodik says that this, of course, is an easier path for a parent - but it has a bad effect on the child’s psyche.

It is more important to allow the child to experience these feelings, to share them with him...

At first, the newborn is perceived by the older child as a new toy: it is interesting to touch, it can be enjoyed. But after a while you will notice that everything has changed. It became clear to your firstborn that the baby had settled on his territory forever. At the same time, he sleeps a lot or spends time in his mother’s arms.

The younger the older child, the more overt his manifestations of jealousy will be. Some children become aggressive towards the baby, but even more often...

The ability to vary the object of play with the help of imagination gives the child a sense of power over the object of play and develops a taste for free play. creative activity, creates new incentives for activity. While childhood is not yet over, games have this mental effect, have this function.

Hence the formula that Grosz put forward at one time: we do not play because we are children, but childhood was given to us so that we could play. The function of childhood, according to this formula, is to allow the development...

From the age of seven, modern children often suffer from complexes that were not familiar to their parents at that age. They worry that they are ugly, not slim enough, or too “pushed”... Ten-year-old Anton is learning to play the violin, devoting two hours to music every day.

Natalya, his mother, is delighted: “My son studies without any reminders!” But recently he demanded not to tell his friends about his hobby. “When I asked why,” says Natalya, “he replied that the violin...

Situation. Your eldest was already over four years old when your youngest just started crawling. There is no need to explain that you love both of them as much as a mother can love her children. And yet, it is clear that the youngest today needs much more attention due to his complete helplessness.

As a decent mother, you tried to do everything so that the elder does not feel deprived of attention, and he, it seems to you, loves his younger brother (sister). But suddenly something changed, the “adult” became...

The psychology of envy originates as the emotion of envy during the period of conception and develops during the first month of life, and then is formed into the “Envy” program, which begins an independent path from a person’s subconscious, building his algorithms and behavior patterns for the rest of his life.

A child’s envy program is fully formed by the age of 3.

For some this program starts earlier, for others later, but almost all people alive today have experienced...

After studying Chapter 3, the bachelor should:

know

Patterns of physiological and mental development and features of their manifestation in the educational process at different age periods;

be able to

• take into account the peculiarities of individual development of students in pedagogical interaction;
• design the educational process using modern technologies, corresponding to general and specific patterns and characteristics of age-related personality development;

own

Methods of providing psychological and pedagogical support and support.

Patterns of human mental development and age periodization

The emergence of developmental and developmental psychology. Factors and driving forces of development. The problem of age periodization.

The emergence of developmental and developmental psychology

In many teachings of past eras (in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance), the most important questions of the mental development of children have already been raised.

In the works of the ancient Greek scientists Heraclitus, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, issues and factors in the formation of the behavior and personality of children, the development of their thinking and abilities were discussed. It was in their works that the idea of ​​harmonious human development was first formulated.

During the Middle Ages, from the 3rd to the 14th centuries, more attention was paid to the formation of a socially adapted personality, the education of the required personality qualities, the study of cognitive processes and methods of influencing the child.

During the Renaissance (E. Rotterdamsky, J. A. Comenius), the issues of organizing education, teaching based on humanistic principles, taking into account the individual characteristics of children and their interests came to the fore.

In the studies of historians and philosophers of the Enlightenment era R. Descartes, B. Spinoza, J. Locke, J.-J. Rousseau discussed the problem of hereditary and environmental factors and their influence on the development of the child. It was during this period that two extreme positions emerged in the understanding of driving forces human development. These ideas, of course, in a significantly transformed form, can be found in the works of psychologists in subsequent years and even in the works of modern authors. This nativism – understanding of child development as determined by nature, heredity and internal forces, presented in the works of J.-J. Rousseau - and empiricism , where the decisive importance of training, experience, and external factors in the development of a child was proclaimed. The founder of this direction is J. Locke.

Over time, knowledge accumulated, but in most works the child was described as a kind of being devoid of activity and his own opinion, which, with proper and skillful guidance, can be largely shaped at the request of an adult.

Only in the second half of the 19th century. The prerequisites for the emergence of childhood psychology as a separate science are gradually beginning to take shape. The period of the emergence of developmental psychology (the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th centuries) is a most interesting, in many ways a turning point in the history of mankind: industry is actively developing, everything is changing public life, serious transformations are taking place in various sciences. By and large, it was during this period that new directions were laid in the development of many sciences, especially the human sciences.

The prerequisites for the emergence of developmental psychology were the following.

• 1. Development of society and production, which required new organization education. There is a gradual transition from individual education to universal mass education, without which development cannot develop. industrial production, which means there is an urgent need to develop new methods of working with groups of children.
• 2. Scientific ideas and discoveries that during this period changed the view of man as a whole, as well as the tasks of childhood as a life stage. One of the central scientific discoveries in this regard can be called the discovery of Charles Darwin, whose evolutionary biological theory introduced the idea of ​​development, the genesis of the psyche, the idea of ​​the psyche passing through a number of regular stages.
• 3. New objective methods of research and experimentation in psychology are emerging. The method of introspection (self-observation), used previously, could not be used to study the psyche of children. Therefore, the emergence of objective methods in psychology was such an important stage in its development.

Many researchers consider the starting point for the development of developmental psychology as a science to be the book of the German biologist W. Preyer, “The Soul of a Child,” published in 1882. In his work, he describes the results of observations of his own child from 1 to 3 years old, paying attention to the development of his senses, will, reason, and language. Despite the fact that observations of the development of children were carried out even before the appearance of V. Preyer’s book, his main merit was the introduction into psychology of the method of objective observation of a child; a similar method was previously used only in natural sciences. It is from this moment that childhood research becomes systematic.

Developmental psychology and developmental psychology are historically two closely interrelated sciences. Developmental psychology can be called the “successor” of genetic psychology. Genetic psychology, or developmental psychology, is primarily interested in the emergence and development of mental processes. This science analyzes the formation of mental processes, based on the results of various studies, including those conducted with the participation of children, but children themselves are not the subject of the study of developmental psychology.

Age-related psychology – this is the doctrine of the periods of child development, their changes and transitions from one age to another , as well as general patterns and trends of these transitions. That is, children and child development at various age stages are the subject of developmental psychology. In the same time they have one object of study – This is the mental development of a person.

In many ways, the distinction between developmental and developmental psychology suggests that the very subject of child psychology has changed over time.

Developmental psychology is closely related to many branches of psychology. Yes, with general psychology it is united by basic ideas about the psyche, methods used in research, as well as a system of basic concepts.

Developmental psychology has a lot in common with educational psychology; we can find a particularly close interweaving of these two sciences in Russian history, reflected in the works of P. P. Blonsky, P. F. Kapterev, A. P. Nechaev, later L. S. Vygotsky and other thinkers of the early 20th century. These are ideas for organizing a scientific approach to teaching and upbringing that takes into account the characteristics of child development. The close connection of these sciences is explained by the common object of research, while the subject of educational psychology is the training and education of the subject in the process of the purposeful influence of the teacher.

The mental development of a person occurs within various social communities - families, peer groups, organized groups, etc. As a subject of communication and interaction, the developing individual is of interest to social psychology.

Developmental psychology has common areas for consideration with such branches of psychology as clinical psychology and pathopsychology. In these sciences there is also a developing individual, but his development is considered from the point of view of emerging disorders.

The goal of developmental psychology is to study the development of a healthy person in the process of ontogenesis.

Developmental psychology has many points of intersection with various sciences: medicine, pedagogy, ethnography, cultural studies, etc.

• Martsinkovskaya T. D. History of child psychology. M., 1998. P. 3-59.

A seeker of new paths in science, the forerunner of the Renaissance was Roger Bacon (1214-1292). In disputes with the scholastics, he proclaimed the importance of experiments and observation in knowledge. However, experience, according to Bacon, makes it possible to know the body, but it is powerless to know the soul. To know the soul, you need something else, a special kind of inspiration, some kind of inner enlightenment that allows you to comprehend what sensory perception cannot reveal. Bacon gives a lot of material about the optic nerves and visual perception, which he explains from the general laws of propagation, refraction and reflection of light. The natural science direction, developed by Roger Bacon and some other scientists, was an important line in the development of materialistic ideas of medieval philosophy.

In the XIV century. A new era begins in Italy - the Renaissance, which later marked the great flowering of civilization throughout Europe. During the transition of medieval feudal society to a new phase of its development, which was characterized by the appearance of elements of relations that were new for that time - early capitalist ones, the influence of Antiquity again appeared. By the 14th century refers to the activities of the greatest humanists - A. Dante (1265 - 1321), F. Petrarch (1304 - 1374), D. Boccaccio (1313 - 1375). A great interest in man, his experiences and problems of existence distinguishes all their works. According to the cultural historian J. Burckhardt (1818 - 1897), in this era the “discovery of man” takes place. Coluccio Salutati (1331 - 1406) and Leonardo Bruni (1369 - 1444), followers of Petrarch, used the word humanitas (humanity) as a property of a person that determines his human dignity and attracts knowledge.

In their perfect creations, art is not yet freed from religious content: the worldly and the ecclesiastical merge into unity. It is essentially a poetic representation of ideas. Dante in the Divine Comedy, Boccaccio in his short stories, Petrarch in his sonnets and canzones attack alchemy, astrology, magic, mysticism and asceticism with crushing criticism. The most important invention of the 15th century - printing (1436, J. Gutenberg, Germany) - made it possible for humanism to fulfill its educational task. Humanists are engaged in the publication of classical ancient literature. Humanism has become the most important phenomenon in the spiritual life of Western European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany. An outstanding humanist was Erasmus, born in Rotterdam, and therefore known as Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469 - 1536). The author of the famous satire “In Praise of Stupidity” in his philosophical works outlined a system of rules for strengthening the spirit. Just the desire to free yourself from one or another vice is not enough. “...One should constantly and always remember that human life...is nothing more than a continuous struggle...with a great army of vices...” In the fight against them, the spirit must be armed. There are two types of weapons: prayer and knowledge, primarily of the Holy Scriptures and the wisdom of the ancients. The richer these tools are, the more armed a person is. “The beginning... of wisdom is in knowing oneself.” The weapons of a man - a Christian warrior, in Erasmus' terminology, are means aimed at mastering his own movements of the soul. These thoughts echo the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky about the mediated nature of human mental processes.

In the works of Renaissance figures, a humanistic concept of man emerges. Its foundations were laid by the great Dante. The embodiment of high ideas about man is the image of Ulysses (Odysseus) - a brave discoverer, a hero, a valiant, intelligent man. Through his lips, Dante proclaimed a new view of man.

"Oh brothers...
That short period of time while they are still awake
Earthly feelings - their remainder is meager
Give in to the comprehension of newness...
You were not created for an animal's share,
But they were born to valor and knowledge.”

Freedom and personal responsibility, nobility, the ability to achieve feats, to fulfill earthly destiny, which is activity, are the most important traits of a person. The concept of humanists contains a new understanding of the relationship between the divine and natural principles: they must be in unity. Man is a creative being. His dignity lies in the ability to rise above the animal state: the truly human in him comes from culture. The humanistic view of man breaks with asceticism and proclaims the human right to the fullness of physical and spiritual existence, the maximum development of the best human qualities.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) revealed the inconsistency of man. Man is a magnificent instrument of nature, an earthly god, but he is also cruel and often insignificant in his thoughts and actions.

A new aspect in the understanding of man is revealed in the works of the outstanding Italian statesman and the political philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli (1487 - 1527). According to Machiavelli, political action requires a person, first of all, to take into account objective circumstances, the will, energy and strength of the politician - valor (virtu). In order to achieve his goal, a politician should not take into account moral and religious assessments. Politics and morality are autonomous. Moral considerations are subordinated to political goals. Only state interest, that is, national interest, the interest of the fatherland, drives the actions of a statesman. The result of these considerations was the conclusion: the end justifies the means. In modern psychology there is the concept of “Machiavellianism”. It refers to a person’s tendency to manipulate other people. A methodology for identifying Machiavellianism as a personality characteristic has been developed.

A deep psychological analysis of man is contained in the work of the French philosopher M. Montaigne (1533 - 1592) “Experiences”. Much attention is paid to self-knowledge. Man, according to Montaigne, is not the center of the universe, but a part of it. “When I play with a cat, who knows if she is not playing with me rather than I am with her?” - he asks. Montaigne's skepticism, his thoughts about the virtues of the common man, criticism of the morals and hypocrisy of high society were continued in the science of modern times.

The most important feature of the Renaissance is the revival of the natural sciences, the development of science and the growth of knowledge. A natural philosophy emerges, free from direct subordination to religion (G. Bruno, B. Telesio, P. Pomponazzi). During this period, science was born not within the walls of universities, but in the workshops of artists, sculptures, engravers, architects, who were also engineers, mathematicians, and technicians. These workshops became real experimental laboratories. Here theoretical work and experience were combined. It was the activities of artists that laid the foundation for new problems in mechanics, optics, anatomy and other sciences. In the conditions of social requirements for artists of that time, they had to know all these branches of art, they must have knowledge of the construction of large structures. To achieve the task of realistic depiction, it was necessary to establish the rules of perspective and color in painting. There is a need for scientific explanation, and not only in observation, experience and talent, in bringing optics and mechanics, mathematics, and anatomy to the aid of the art. This need to find rules for the artist develops into the work of discovering the laws of nature.

XVI century - a time of great discoveries in the fields of mechanics, astronomy, and mathematics. N. Copernicus (1473 - 1543), I. Kepler (1571 - 1630), G. Bruno (1548 - 1600), G. Galileo (1564 - 1642) stand at the origins of classical science of the New Age. Their significance lies in the fact that they proved: it is necessary to analyze actual phenomena, processes and discover laws, guided by the assumption that nature obeys the simplest rules. It is necessary to expel animistic ideas from the concepts of movement and force. The systematic work of theoretical scientific thinking begins. Great geographical discoveries of the XV - XVI centuries. (discovery of America by H. Columbus, first trip around the world F. Magellan and others) expanded ideas about the world, asserted the primacy of experimental knowledge over book knowledge.

A new scientific methodology is gradually emerging. Medieval methodology was predominantly deductive-syllogistic in nature: it was adapted only to finding internal relationships between ready-made provisions and arguments and could not serve to find new truths that did not follow from old authorities (the Holy Scriptures, the works of the church fathers, the works of Aristotle, etc.) . The brilliant remarks of Leonardo da Vinci, the futile attempts to create a new methodology of Peter Ramus (1515 - 1572), who tragically died on St. Bartholomew's Night, later Kepler and Galileo trumpeted the world about a new methodology. Together with F. Bacon, some aspects of the new scientific method were clarified. The period spanning the 16th and 17th centuries. (from the time of the publication of “On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres” by Copernicus - 1543, and until the publication of “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” by Newton - 1687), meant a decisive turning point in the thinking of Western civilization, which undermined the authority of medieval science. It went down in history as the “scientific revolution.” At the same time, the outstanding historian of natural science P. Duhem at the beginning of the 20th century. “discovered” the medieval predecessors of Galilean physics. This suggests that birth modern science happened in the 13th century. The researcher is inclined to the idea of ​​continuity of transition from the scholastic thinking of the Middle Ages to the science of the 17th century.

Of all the areas of natural science, in connection with their significance for psychology, special mention should be made of the development in different countries medicine, human anatomy and physiology. T. Paracelsus (1493 - 1541) came up with a new theory about the nature of the human body, the causes and methods of treating diseases. In anatomy, Andrei Vesalius (1514 - 1564) published a fundamental work “On the structure of the human body” (1543). The book replaced Galen's anatomy, which had many errors, because he judged the structure of the human body on the basis of data that he gleaned from the anatomy of monkeys and dogs. The number of newly discovered body parts was constantly growing. Vesalius's Italian contemporaries - G. Fallopius, B. Eustachius, I. Fabricius of Acquapendente and others - made a number of discoveries that were forever included in anatomy under their names.

The works of the physician and thinker Miguel Servetus (1509/1511 - 1553) and his ideas about the pulmonary circulation (1553) were important. A new era in anatomy, physiology and embryology began with the work of M. Malpighi (1628 - 1694) and research in experimental physiology. V. Harvey in 1628 solved the problem of blood circulation.

Thus, knowledge through experience gradually developed, which replaced dogma and scholasticism.

The German scholastics R. Gocklenius and O. Kassmann first introduced the term “” (1590). Before this, Philip Melanchthon (1497 - 1560), a German humanist, a friend of Luther, brought up under the influence of Erasmus, gave it a place of honor in his “Commentary on the Soul.” He was revered as an authority in the field of teaching psychology and dominated some German universities until the middle of the 18th century. The Spanish humanist, friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Juan Luis Vives (1492 - 1542), in his book “On the Soul and Life” (1538), argued: the main question is not what the soul is, but what are its manifestations and their connections. This indicates an increased interest in psychological issues and allows us to understand the successes of psychological analysis in the 17th century. in F. Bacon and R. Descartes.

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