AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO THE PERIODIZATION OF THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Abstract

The periodization of the history of psychology is based on the principle of historicism, connection between the logical and the historical in addressing the problem of the fundamental psychological contradiction. The fundamental psychological contradiction is found in the nonlinear interaction of intra- and interpsychic factors of self-regulation, which, in the historical and psychological context, is objectified in the form of the dualism of the physical and psychological substances of the subject’s self-regulation. In the historical and psychological perspective, dualism takes four main forms: integrative dualism (coincides with the mythological period of psychological conceptions), disintegrative dualism (coincides with the philosophical period), parallel dualism (coincides with the philosophical period), and cross dualism (coincides with the scientific period of psychological development). Transformations of these forms of dualism are caused by corresponding crises in conceptions of mental functioning and are manifested through the inversion of the dominant factor in psychological development – either intrapsychic or interpsychic. In particular, integrative dualism is characterized by a crisis of ontological unity in the process of resolving the problem of the genesis of the psyche. Disintegrative dualism is marked by a crisis in establishing mechanisms for interpreting the elementary content of the psyche. In the context of addressing the mind-body problem, parallel dualism encounters a methodological pluralism crisis and a fundamental inability to reconcile antagonistic components of self-regulation. Crossed dualism undergoes three distinct stages of generation, changing according to a series of theoretical and methodological crises. The scientific stage in the development of psychology focuses on resolution psychophysiological issues, comes with inversion of reductionism concerning the biological and social factors of personality development.