Psychology in Russia: State of Art (Jan 2012)
System Anthropological Psychology: Methodological Foundations
Abstract
The article considers methodological foundations of the system anthropologicalpsychology (SAP) as a scientific branch developed by a well-represented groupof Siberian scientists. SAP is a theory based on axiomatics of cultural-historicalpsychology of L.S. Vygotsky and transspective analysis as a specially developedmeans to define the tendencies of science developing as a self-organizing system.Transspective analysis has revealed regularities in a constantly growing complexityof professional-psychological thinking along the course of emergence ofscientific cognition. It has proved that the field of modern psychology is shapedby theories constructed with ideation of different grades of complexity. The concept“dynamics of the paradigm of science” is introduced; it allows transitions tobe acknowledged from ordinary-binary logic characteristics of the classical scienceto a binary-ternary logic, adequate to non-classical science and then to aternary-multidimensional logic, which is now at the stage of emergence. The latteris employed in SAP construction. It involves the following basic methodologicalprinciples: the principle of directed (selective) interaction and the principle ofgenerative effect of selective interaction. The concept of “complimentary interaction”applied in natural as well as humanitarian sciences is reconsidered in thecontext of psychology. The conclusion is made that the principle of selectivity anddirectedness of interaction is relevant to the whole Universe embracing all kindsof systems including the living ones. Different levels of matter organization representingsemantic structures of various complexity use one and the same principleof meaning making through which the Universe ensures its sustainability asa self-developing phenomenon. This methodology provides an explanation fornature and stages of emergence of multidimensional life space of an individual,which comes as a foundation for generation of such features of consciousness asits system character and sensibility.
