Oswald Külpe - Founder of the Würzburg School. Oswald Külpe (1862–1915) and the Würzburg school of psychology Oswald Külpe biography

Oswald Külpe.

Modern psychology of thinking 3

Compared to other representatives of knowledge, the philosopher has the great advantage that he is in close unity with a diverse range of interests. The aphorism really applies to him: nothing human is alien to me. Logic and theory of knowledge are in living interaction with any science. Through aesthetics, a vast area of ​​art becomes clear, and metaphysics builds a bridge between faith and knowledge. But if in our time we would like to indicate a scientific field that unites around itself every possible manifestation of human genius, then we would have to name psychology. It reveals in the life of the spirit the foundations of science, art, morality and religion, as well as upbringing and education. She alone manages to find a response in the soul of every person. A psychologist can tell everyone: tua res agitur.

Experimental psychology has existed for 50 years. It was founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner, who published his “Elements of Psychophysics” (1860). His goal was to study the relationship between body and soul. Already at the first attempts, he thought that this goal was achievable thanks to the law he established, called Weber's law. He showed that if we systematically and consistently influence mental phenomena through irritation of our senses, then mental phenomena undergo a natural change. He pointed out and applied precise methods for the purpose of determining subtle stimuli, the magnitude of the difference in subtle stimuli, and the equivalent (equivalent) sensation of the corresponding sense organs caused by these stimuli. The relationship between stimuli and sensations is subject to certain laws, and all of Fechner’s psychophysics has not lost its significance to this day. These laws were unusually fruitful, especially for experimental psychology. What happened here is what happens so often in the history of science: the means turned out to be more durable and productive than the goal for which they were originally used. Methods created at the beginning to achieve more common tasks, little by little turned out to be unconnected with them, hiding within themselves the germs of endless progress, as well as the possibility of versatile and varied application and deepening. The goal went into the distance, but a path was found to the nearest station, and this path acquired the meaning of a faithful and strong road for the open and free striving along it of many seekers of knowledge.

Fechner's followers were able to show that the possibility of experimental research is not limited to the direct result of irritation of the external sense organs. The scope of research also included: the activity of discrimination and recognition, judgment and choice, properties and characteristics of memory, feelings and affects. Methods and aids, starting points and problems grew. In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, to which young researchers soon flocked from all over the civilized world to join the new direction of science and then plant it in their homeland. Currently in North America There are about 30 psychological institutes, the same number as in all of Europe, while Germany, the birthplace of the new science, is very behind in their establishment. In Chicago, Ithaca, and Cambridge, there are already entire houses of 25-30 rooms, furnished with equipment that corresponds to our time, with a large number of employees. Soon a similar institute will be opened in Russia4. There, donations for scientific purposes play a particularly honorable role. On the contrary, Germany, due to a lack of funds, is ahead of other countries in implementing its own ideas. Here, however, we are not talking about one lifeless theory; in this case, such backwardness could be justified. On the contrary, experimental psychology directs its main attention primarily towards practical interests. Even the ancients said that knowledge of oneself is important for human behavior, and knowledge of someone else’s mental life is a necessary condition for influencing others, and especially for mutual understanding of people. How great the practical significance of modern psychology is can be best seen from the influence that it is beginning to have on education and upbringing. Experimental pedagogy, which has now penetrated into school, in relation to its method, is an application of experimental psychology. For this reason alone, it would be extremely desirable if influential forces would take part more than hitherto in this young and so important experimental science and that private individuals would contribute to the creation and equipping of institutes. One can look at the other side of the rapid and successful development of modern psychology. One of the most important rules for the development of human activity - Wundt called it the principle of heteronomy of goals - can be considered a requirement in which the initial goals and initial points of view do not coincide with later ones. New and unforeseen results that arise during the first application of any act entail, upon further repetition, new motives and scientific intentions. The history of any science, insofar as it depends on the use of human hands, is subject to this rule. Thus, the development of experimental psychology shows us that the goal set by Fechner - to find the fundamental law for the relationship between body and soul - when applying his methods and when processing the same scientific facts by later researchers, gave rise to independent psychological interests directed in a completely different way. After Wundt, in his book “Basic Directions of Physiological Psychology” (1874), significantly expanded the goals of the new science and tried to bring it into system, the opening of his psychological institute to organize research in this area was significant for a new scientific era. However, it was only Stumpf's psychological studies of sound and Ebbinghaus's writings on memory that decisively gave experimental work a purely psychological character. In this last period of our science, greater mental life, memory, feelings and will, intellectual functions and mental activity became available for experiment. The most important elements for Fechner - stimuli and the sensations they cause - are pushed aside into the circle of their own interests and problems. Evolution of this kind is most easily illustrated by the research of Müller and Schumann, which began in the late 1980s. Fechner had already conducted approximately 25 thousand experiments on this issue. The only goal that he had in mind was the confirmation of Weber's law, which was necessary for him as a justification for the relationship that he was looking for between body and soul. On the contrary, in the work of Müller and Schumann this issue is completely eliminated. Here we are not talking about Weber’s law, they touch on it only on a few pages, but about the very mechanism of comparison, about the manifestation of motor and sensory processes, about the motives that prompt us to consider one weight heavier than another. The proposed irritations themselves and the factors underlying them became the center of their reasoning.

Thanks to the penetration of experiment into the field of knowledge, the field of mental movements and human behavior, its intervention turned out to be useful where we were talking about the manifestation of the human spirit, namely in the abstract sciences. Linguistics and aesthetics, ethics and pedagogy, even logic and the theory of knowledge began to converge with modern psychology.

The very application of the latter sheds some light both on judicial practice and on the secrets of creativity, on the deep and complex problem of free will and on the intimate aspects of religious experiences and moods, on the practice of upbringing and education and on the prerequisites of all knowledge.

This phase of the development of experimental psychology also coincides with a special direction of our science, which studies the processes of thinking; it developed in Germany and especially at the Würzburg Psychological Institute. In previous psychology, not enough attention was paid to thinking. Initially, the experimental direction had a lot to do with putting in order the vast area of ​​sensations, ideas and feelings, and the turn had not yet reached the subtle and imperceptible phenomena of thinking. First of all, concrete material, delivered by irritation of external senses through pressure and injections, caught the eye, then tastes and smells, tones and colors - they are easiest to perceive and, directly after perception, create ideas, receive a state of pleasure and displeasure. Scientists ignored some elements that were not associated with such specific properties. The experience of natural scientific research led them, first of all, to stimuli of external senses and to sensations, imitative acts, phenomena of contrast and changes in reality by fantasy. Anything that was not of this nature simply did not seem suitable for research. The first experimental psychologists only conducted research on the meaning of words when the words included visual representations or their signs; in the same numerous cases when the words denoted something abstract or general, the researchers found “nothing.” Psychologists did not consider it correct to recognize thinking without signs of clarity as suitable for research next to the content of objective thinking; they denied that a word can be understood independently of ideas or that a sentence can be comprehended and judged, although its content appears barely noticeable to consciousness. The prejudice related to this has its own history. Aristotle already declared that thoughts cannot exist without some image, after him this opinion was firmly held in scholasticism. The complete separation of sensations from thinking, the objects of sensations from the objects of thoughts, repeatedly carried out by Plato, did not meet with followers later in the history of psychology. Modern times were ready not to accept even words as words if they lacked clarity, thanks to which they initially supposedly received their meaning and significance. In the pedagogy of Pestalozzi and Herbart, clarity was assessed as the alpha and omega of all mental development, Kant called ideas without clarity empty, Schopenhauer wanted to base all mathematics on a concrete beginning and banish proofs from geometry. We find the same understanding in relation to poetry. The influence of words is achievable only through the medium of an image: the more they strived, according to Horace’s slogan, to equate poetry with painting, to depict it, so to speak, with the brush of clarity, the easier its mission seemed to be fulfilled. So low in the aesthetic course stood poetic thinking. Many poets and aestheticians were critical of this type of thinking and assumed the existence of poetry only through sensory images.

For us psychologists, the systematic use of introspection ultimately led to another theory. Previously, in psychological research, they did not try to obtain information about all relevant experiences after each experiment; they were satisfied with the random testimony of the subject regarding phenomena that were especially striking or deviating from the norm, and unless after a whole series of cumulative studies they asked the main thing on the basis of the memories preserved by the subject. In this way, only the most characteristic mental phenomena were illuminated. The close familiarity of observers with the traditional range of concepts about sensations, feelings and ideas did not allow them to notice and name what was neither a sensation, nor a feeling, nor an idea. As soon as experienced subjects, on the basis of self-observation of experiences during the study, began to report immediately after the experience complete and impartial data on the course of mental processes, the need to expand previous concepts and definitions immediately became apparent. The existence of such phenomena, states, and directions of acts was discovered that did not fit the scheme of old psychology. The subjects began to speak the language of life, and ideas in the inner world were assigned only a subordinate role. They knew and thought, judged and understood, grasped the meaning and interpreted the general connection, without using significant support from sensory ideas that randomly emerged. Let's give a few examples. The subjects are asked: do you understand the sentence: “Only gold notices gem, it immediately recognizes the superiority of its radiance and obligingly surrounds the stone with its brilliance.”

The following is entered into the protocol: “At first I paid attention to the highlighted word gold. I understood the sentence immediately, the only minor difficulty was the word sees. Then my thought took me to human relationships in general, with a hint of the order of values. In conclusion, I also had something of a glimpse of the endless possibilities of using this image.” – This describes the process of understanding, which occurs without ideas, but only through fragmentary internal language. Moreover, it is not clear how the idea of ​​an order of values ​​or the idea of ​​the endless possibility of using an image could arise due to the sensory content of consciousness? One more example. “Do you understand the sentence: thinking is so extraordinarily difficult that many people prefer to simply draw conclusions.” The protocol reads: “I knew immediately at the end of the sentence what the point was. However, my thoughts were still completely unclear. To clarify the situation for myself, I began to slowly repeat the entire sentence, and when I repeated it, the thought became clear, I can now convey it as follows. To draw a conclusion here means to express something without thinking, to have a ready-made conclusion, as opposed to independent conclusions of thinking. Apart from those words of the sentence that I heard and then reproduced, there were no other ideas in my mind.” And here it turns out that it is not the ordinary process of thinking, but thinking without visual representations. It should be noted that both subjects indicated that the process of understanding seemed similar to them also when comprehending more difficult provisions. Thus, here we have not an artificial product of laboratories revealing these conclusions, but the most living reality. We could give many examples from everyday experience that are characterized by this kind of thinking. Try reading or listening to the following phrases: “A person must be prudent, sympathetic, kind, since these are the only properties that distinguish him from other living creatures known to us.” “My memory and my pride are fighting each other. Memory says: you did it. But pride answers: you couldn’t do it. Eventually the memory gives up.” Or: “Law and right are inherited in the same way as eternal diseases.” Or Hegel’s words: “the laurels of pure will are dry leaves that never turn green.” Who experiences ideas here and for whom such ideas serve as the only basis, essential condition to understand these phrases? And who would dare to say that words alone create meaning? No, these cases prove the existence of a content of consciousness that does not depend on visibility, that is, the presence of thoughts in our minds in the narrow sense of the word.

But if thoughts differ from the idea of ​​colors and tones, forests and gardens, people and animals, then, therefore, one can note a similar diversity in the manifestation, flow and forms of thoughts corresponding to these ideas. We know what pattern reigns in ideas. We are talking about associations: reproduction, the emergence of ideas, the influence of some ideas on others and their connection with each other. Let's say we study poetry or memorize words. Here, knowledge of the content, familiarity with their meaning does not satisfy us; we must study word by word in order to later be able to restore them by sensory means. We create strong associations between parts of a verse, following one after another or taken from the same verse, that is, between rows of words, for this we need a lot of time and a large number of repetitions. If thoughts do not differ from ideas, then the former should be remembered with the same difficulty as the latter. However, as soon as we remember the way we learn by heart, we see that in the latter case something completely different happens. Careful reading of the poems is enough to be able to recall the content of thoughts again. Only in this way, using purely mental techniques, do we achieve those fruitful results that are revealed when reproducing the content of our thoughts during preaching, when giving lectures, when playing on stage, when creating works of fiction, working on a scientific essay, or during long conversations. To our chagrin, we often learn from experience how independent we are of the flow of words. Sometimes we would really like to accurately reproduce some suitable expression, to find a particularly vivid form of a sentence or a beautiful image, and although the meaning of what needs to be said is completely clear to us, we are not able to connect the flashing ideas into one whole.

We find especially important evidence of this from Bühler in his studies regarding paired thoughts: associations between thoughts are formed incomparably faster and stronger than between words. Who can memorize a series of 20-30 words by hearing it only once, so that, when naming one member of the series, they can correctly and quickly answer other paired words? If someone were able to do this, then we would consider the owner of such a phenomenal memory an extraordinary person. However, such results are easily achievable when learning paired thoughts, as experimental studies have shown. We give a similar series for illustration.

I. Self-awareness and productivity - the spiritual insignificance of naturalism.

II. The increase in population in modern times is the struggle of tribes in the future.

III. Modern car- chariot of the Phaeton of the human spirit.

IV. The noble power of thought is a portrait of Kant.

V. The essence of language is the artist and the painting.

VI. The colonies of Germany are a poet in the distribution of the world5.

VII. Napoleon and Queen Louise - a brilliant barbarian.

VIII. The only one and society - freedom is self-restraint.

IX. Knowledge is power - mastery over nature.

X. The limits visible through a telescope are the infinity of the universe.

The challenge in these studies is to establish a mental connection between two members of this series. It is especially surprising how easily this is achieved and how long we retain the thought. The next day such a series can be reproduced without error. Even more characteristic is the fact that sometimes the words sound somehow alien or that the meaning of some members of the series is known, but the corresponding expression cannot be immediately found.

While here we can speak with a certain right of association, since in the study the corresponding terms are proposed together, in other studies this condition falls away. Often, when reading a well-known book or during a lecture, our thoughts are involuntarily transferred to one or another part of the work, already read or that lies ahead. One thought awakens another, whereas they were not previously given together in sequence. Based on this phenomenon, the experiments discussed below were constructed. The study consists of offering 15 phrases or fragments of thoughts, and after a rest, during which they conduct a short conversation, they give a second series of sentences or parts of them with incomplete meaning. The subject is asked to complete the latter, part by part, with the corresponding parts of the previous row.

A) I. It is better to stay on the top of the mountain with wild animals -

II. Who refuses gratitude -

III. The lyre of Orpheus did more than the club of Hercules -

IV. The more majestic and moral the character -

V. Do not come between relatives and friends -

B) IV. The simpler and clearer is his position, his attitude to the world.

II. He will write this down in his debt book, and for a little while you will remain in debt to him.

I. How to share the joys of heaven with stupid people.

V. Otherwise you will be disadvantaged.

III. She made the inhuman human.

Here we have given only five mutually consistent terms of the series. The research fully confirmed what we expected. In these series the corresponding parts are separated from one another by a few sentences, and yet it has been possible to mentally review the entire material. And this undoubtedly contradicts the law of association, the law that operates in the field of ideas. Thus, these experiments prove that not only are individual thoughts unusually easily retained and preserved, but also that thoughts are combined with one another, violating all the laws of memory.

Further, Bühler gave his research an even more free form. If no special task was set for thinking in a certain direction, then one could freely ignore one or another member of the series. For this purpose, each position of the series must form something independent and complete, and thus only a mental relationship is actually established between the second and first groups of sentences. Between them are inserted mysterious provisions, devoid of such relations. The subjects had to reach the thoughts of the first row completely independently, if at all possible.

A) I. To whom contemporaries are hostile, he was not far ahead of them or behind his age.

II. Ground grain does not produce a harvest.

III. Returning from the town hall, the members of the magistrate consider themselves very smart.

B) I (X). A true friend of truth, if one does not agree with him, joyfully cries out: thank God, I have escaped great danger.

II. Eggs in a pan make brownies, not chickens.

III. After that, everyone knows how to behave.

X. A smart thief keeps his nest clean.

I. Creativity sets the line between the artist and his contemporaries.

In these experiments, the subjects had no idea what purpose the experiments served, and when searching for thoughts corresponding to, similar to, or identical to the data in the first row, they strained the activity of thinking with great persistence and effort. Here, as before, some words were reproduced completely arbitrarily, but their meaning was grasped and indicated quite clearly. Recall of previous provisions occurs with the same involuntariness with which we used to remember something when reading or talking; At this time, we often ask ourselves: what connection does the content of this remark have with the previous sentence, or whether we have encountered anything similar before.

It should be noted that one of the first results of our psychology of thinking was negative: the terms of feelings, ideas and their connections, established by the data of experimental psychology until our time, did not make it possible to understand and more accurately define intellectual processes. New concepts about states of consciousness, achieved through observations of facts, turned out to be insufficient: they contributed to their description rather than their explanation. Already the study of the elementary activity of thinking immediately showed that something that does not have a visual character can be realized, and that self-observation, in contrast to the observation of natural phenomena, allows us to perceive and firmly establish such phenomena and definitely expressed states of consciousness that are not given in the form color, sound or image and are not tinged with a sensual tone. The meaning of abstract and general expressions is revealed in consciousness even when, apart from words, nothing visual is given in consciousness and is experienced and remembered on its own, regardless of words. These facts are discovered by a new understanding of consciousness. Thus, the scheme of strictly defined elements of mental life, immobile until our time, was significantly expanded in a very important respect.

Thus, experimental psychology was introduced into the field of new research, which opened up broad prospects. The number of phenomena that are not sensually contemplated includes not only what we are aware of, think, or what we think about, with their properties and relationships, but also the very essence of acts of judgment and the diverse manifestation of our activity, the functions of our active relationship to a given content of consciousness, namely grouping and definition, recognition or denial. Representatives of the doctrine of sensations and ideas also group the mosaic structure of mental life, observing an automatic pattern in the appearance and course of elements of consciousness, but the assimilation of thinking chemical processes is now losing ground. Visually given content could only have meaning as an artificial abstraction, as a completely arbitrarily isolated and isolated phenomenon. For an integral consciousness, ideas constituted part of the phenomena associated with various kinds of influences of consciousness itself and dependent on mental processes that actually endowed them with meaning and value for the subject’s experience. To the extent that perception cannot be considered a consequence of sensations, just as little can one understand thinking as the flow of ideas in their associative connection. Association psychology, as founded by Hume, has lost its omnipotence.

The independence of thoughts from the signs in which we manifest them, just like the independent, free, and not influenced by the law of association of ideas, relationships between thoughts prove to us the independence of thoughts as a special class of content of consciousness. This simultaneously expands the circle of self-observation in this regard. Our mental life includes not only what is visual, sensual and its properties and features, but also what is conceivable, conscious, where we cannot perceive either color or form, or sensual pleasure or displeasure. We know, as every day's experience teaches us, that we have a great tendency to seek, find and perceive objects, we willingly deal with them and easily influence them. Psychology knew little about this side of the activity of the soul. F. A. Lange founded a scientific psychology without a soul, in which sensations and ideas with their sensory tones were the only content of consciousness. He pointed to physiology as the science that was supposed to keep watch so that no mystical forces, such as, for example, any “I”, would creep into this psychological world. According to Lange, therefore, one should say “I think” instead of “I think,” and thus the entire process of thinking of this kind consists of nothing more than the appearance and course of ideas regulated by the laws of associations. Even now there are psychologists who do not move from this point of view. They can be reproached for the implausibility of such a psychology; it is too abstract, does not go and does not find a way to real experience. They present representatives of abstract knowledge, invariably striving to create the science of psychology, stone instead of bread, and they do not know how to give advice and help to psychology, which tends to merge with biology. Truly, we are present at a peculiar game: those who ex professo strive to study and understand mental life are satisfied with the purely external side of the question and reassure themselves with the words in the Gaulish language: “the creative spirit cannot penetrate into the inner essence of nature.”

It was through thoughts that the path to the inner world was opened to us, and here there can be no talk of a mystical force that supposedly led us there; on the contrary, we reached it thanks to our disregard for prejudices. Bacon already knew that the path to truth is closed by prejudices, and in the matter under consideration they come precisely from that very exact knowledge, the success of which in recent decades has been so greatly contributed by sensory observation of what is given to us in sensory experience. However, thoughts are not only pure signs for sensations, they are completely independent formations that have independent values, thoughts can be spoken of with the same certainty as sensory impressions, they can even be considered more positive, permanent and independent than sensory images, conditioned by the activities of memory and fantasy. But, of course, they cannot be considered as directly as objects of observation, as visual objects. Empirically, it was possible to prove that our “I” cannot be separated from us. It is impossible to think - to think, completely surrendering to thoughts and immersing yourself in them - and at the same time observing these thoughts - such a division of the psyche cannot be completed. First one thing, then another - this is the slogan of the young psychology of thinking, and it carries out this task with extraordinary success. After the subject had completed any thinking task, the process experienced was subjected to new observation in order to establish it as deeply and firmly as possible in all its phases. By comparing different subjects and different results from the same subjects, it was possible to check whether the experiment was free of contradictions. The amazing unity of opinions in our works on the psychology of thinking, which confirmed each other, was an excellent illustration of the results of our research. Now we again understand why the methods of observation used so far have failed to detect the very process of thought and, in general, the manifestation of our mental activity. It is necessary that the observer demonstrate the exclusive activity of his “I” during observation, and, moreover, in such a way that his “I” would be completely lost in the activity of observation, so that at this time it would be completely impossible for the manifestation of other activity of consciousness. Our mental performance is limited, our personality is one. But when the experience is over, observation can be established again at any time in order to again become an object of perception in itself. In this way, many acts of the soul were experienced that until now had passed past the psychology of thinking: paying attention and recognizing, recognizing and rejecting, comparing and distinguishing, and much more. All these processes were not necessarily visual, although sensations, ideas and feelings could accompany them. It should be noted that the old psychology is helpless, confident that these acts can be determined using the signs accompanying them. For example, they considered attention as a feeling of tension in a certain group of muscles, because the so-called tense attention is accompanied by such a sensation. In the same way, the will was rejected in the representations of movements, since the representations of movements usually precede external manifestation will. These constructions, the artificiality of which was soon revealed, lost all meaning as soon as the existence of special mental acts was perceived and thus sensations and ideas were deprived of their omnipotence in consciousness.

After these facts became known, one important new thing was discovered. The view on the most complex fact of mental life has changed. Until now it was possible to say: we are attentive because our eyes are directed in a certain direction and the muscles in a certain position are very tense. Now it is clear to us that an understanding of this kind completely misinterprets the essence of the question and that with much greater justice one could say: we direct our eyes to a certain point and at the same time tense our muscles because we want to look at it; activity comes to the fore, the act of perception and the mechanism of ideas come to the background. The monarchical structure of our consciousness is clearly revealed. “I” sits on the throne and performs acts of government. It vigilantly monitors, perceives, states what is within its jurisdiction, develops all this, calling on the advice of its experienced ministers and relying on the principles and norms of statehood, on inherited knowledge and views, also taking into account the random needs of our time, determines its position in various cases, carefully considers the appropriate way out in the desired form of manifestation or appropriate measures of influence. Both impressions delivered by the external senses and ideas have every reason to condemn the dominance of this monarchical “I”, considering him reactionary, cruel and despot. But they reward themselves when a person sleeps, disrupting the order of thoughts in his dreams, and thus, the results of anarchy in consciousness are revealed in dreams. However, in each “I” there is a high self-consciousness, which it draws from itself and manifests in its activities, and if it submits to anarchy, it is always against its will. Our “I” is constantly under the influence of one point of view or another or a certain task and is prompted by them to act. It can also be said that the work of the self serves a purpose given by oneself or others. The thinking of a theorist is just as inappropriate as the thinking of a practitioner. Psychologists have to constantly take this into account. The subject receives a task, a certain instruction, an instruction and, being under influences of this kind, must study himself under the influence of stimuli. The subject, for example, must compare two lights or perform a movement at a sign with a blow or sound, quickly respond with the first word that comes to mind, whatever it may be, following the spoken word of the researcher, then try to understand this phrase, draw a conclusion, and the like. If the subject willingly undertakes the experiment and assimilates everything necessary, then such tasks have an extremely strong impact on him. positive influence. This influence has a special name in psychology, namely, it is called a determining tendency. The “I” contains within itself, in a certain way, an unlimited number of possibilities to react. If one of them receives special significance in comparison with the others, then there is obviously a determining tendency, a certain choice.

The independent significance of tasks and the role of the determining tendency determined by them were completely hidden from association psychology. Tasks similar to those indicated cannot be offered for reproduction in the usual manner. One has to prepare for the tasks; the subject must be especially attuned for this purpose, since each task in its own way directs the mental work of the individual. Questions are posed not to sensations, feelings or ideas, but to a certain subject, whose spiritual essence does not always have a definite content; on the contrary, for the purposes of experience, he must show specific elasticity in assimilation and execution of instructions. Since this kind of guiding and determining point of view plays a role in any process of thinking and, further, since abstractions and combinations, judgment and conclusion, comparison and discrimination, finding and establishing relationships also have the character of a determining tendency, the psychology of the determining tendency has become an essential part modern psychology of thinking, But even the latter has now significantly moved away from the plane of questions on which it originally arose. No psychological experiments are conceivable without certain tasks and, therefore, they must have at least the same importance as other conditions when setting up experiments, such as apparatus and the stimuli used with their help. Constant variation of questions is therefore a necessary experimental method, just as is a change in the external circumstances of the experiment.

The significance of tasks and their role in the state and course of mental processes that we put forward cannot be explained through association psychology. Ach was able to show very well that even associations can be overcome to a significant extent by the opposition of tasks. In addition to the fact that the force with which the determining tendency manifests itself exceeds the generally established tendency of reproduction, it is not connected in its manifestation with the laws of associative relations.

Our study was influenced by tasks in the simplest cases. The subject, for example, is asked to find a whole from a part or name a genus based on its species. Only thanks to these experiments was the rule achieved in which tasks acquired much greater importance for the productivity of research than individual proposed stimuli. The task is a fixed point in the flow of phenomena. The words change from experience to experience, the task remains the same, at least during one series, during the continuation of the same experiment. It serves to give a certain direction to the behavior of the subject. One can react to the word “chemistry” in a wide variety of directions. Chemistry can be thought of as a science, or its practical application can be put forward; one can remember the elements and their relationships in a chemical system, etc. Only when a definition of chemistry is given does it become clear what should actually be perceived: chemistry as a part, or subordination concepts of chemistry - the whole. Together with the definitions of concepts, special methods for solving problems are formed. It is possible, for example, to achieve a whole because they remember the signs accompanying it, where some part of it is constantly found or find any part of it, and from here they strive to reach a generalizing whole. In any case, it is necessary to carry out a whole series of studies; one method may be more expedient than another, leading easier, faster or more accurately to the goal. After stopping at one of the techniques, they organize it and acquire skill in its use. How little the mechanics of ideas as such helps in this case can often be quite clearly observed when the subject experiences some difficulties. For example, the word “board” is shown. The subject has an optical representation of it, however, considerable time may pass before he can name a suitable whole, even with significant mental effort, even if a whole mass of all kinds of ideas is crowded together. He finally says: closet after a little over 4 seconds. The flow and fulfillment of the begun act is hampered by various ideas that are inappropriate for the given task. If it finally comes the right word, the subject feels as if freed from something. It is quite natural that mistakes often occur, naming a slightly different part, or genus, instead of the whole, but the number of mistakes is relatively small, and this proves how strong the influence of the determining tendency is on the nature of the flow of ideas.

The objective expression of the meaning of tasks is time, the calculation of which actually allows us to resolve the questions posed. By this we touch upon the problem of the speed of thinking. In the past, it was believed that thinking occurs unusually quickly. Let us recall excerpts from Lessing's Faust. Faust demands the fastest spirit of hell for his services. Seven of them appear and vied with each other praising their speed. The fifth declares that he is as fast as a person’s thoughts, and Faust, for whom only the speed of light rays was sufficiently small, is ready to admit that the speed of thinking is also quite small, however, he makes a reservation: thoughts are not always fast, but then they are slow when truth and virtue require it! They are only fast when they want them to be. Now, however, we know that the speed of thinking is generally not very high and can be calculated in thousandths of a second, and sometimes even in fifths. Berlin ingenuity has already overcome this problem. The wits pose the question: what is faster than thoughts? And they answer: the cabman's nag is in Berlin, because before you have time to think that it will fall, it is already lying there. However, the question remains unclear: is the speed of a horse’s fall or the speed of thought great here compared to animals? If we accept the latter, then it will correspond to the measurements of experimental psychology. So, for example, to find a subordinate concept for a subordinate, i.e. its gender, it took 1 1/5 seconds 1 time, while the inverse task required 1/2 seconds, the whole was found in 1 2/5 seconds, and part at approximately the same time, the longest task lasted was to find from a given part another that corresponded to it, namely, 1 7/10 seconds. The absolute speed was naturally different among different subjects. Even with such simple tasks, it turns out that some achieve their goals faster than others. But the latter, within the limits of our research, is most likely explained by the fact that some subjects are cautious and fearful, others are more or less frivolous and little sensitive to erroneous answers, and the speed or duration of thinking processes may have nothing to do with it. Someone who does not know how to think for a long time, thinks mainly about the goal, would like to finish every task as quickly as possible, of course, can make mistakes more easily than someone who strives primarily for correct answers. This situation is clearly revealed by comparing the number of errors in both cases. The fastest answers given by individual subjects, as can be seen from the numerical data, correspond to a relatively larger number of errors.

It would be possible to mention a variety of interesting data obtained from experimental studies. But I prefer to dwell on some of the conclusions that can be drawn from them. I personally was led to the study of thinking by certain problems. I drew attention to the fact that such objects of the external world as bodies, and such abstractions as the ideas of Plato or the monads of Leibniz, can be thought directly, without the need to form ideas about them. I concluded from this that thinking must not only be special kind activity of our soul, but also that it is in completely different relations to its objects than, for example, sensations and ideas. Obviously, the objects of representations reach our consciousness modified, and not in the form in which they are in themselves, regardless of the representing activity.

The representation of the sound of an organ differs from the sound itself; it is a qualitative transformation of the stimulus. The stimulus consists of vibrations of air and body, and the idea of ​​sound has nothing to do with it. Thinking, apparently, is capable of perceiving the first, as well as the second, equally well, without subjecting the object itself to change. The sound of an organ remains the sound of an organ even if I only think about it; the vibration of air, if you direct your thinking towards it, is understandable in exactly the same way as how this physical phenomenon is described in physics. True, the starting point of natural scientific research is not the most realistically objective fact of sound, but the sound we hear. Thus, thinking could be considered an organ with the help of which the definition and establishment of the real is the only possible. But any experimental knowledge deals precisely with the real beginning, and not with our perception and idea of ​​it. Thus, thinking is put forward as a psychological prerequisite for work in the exact sciences. When a lawyer, based on investigative material, determines the fact of a crime, or a language researcher, based on certain changes in sounds, deduces the laws of this process, a historian, based on the known data of his sources, concludes the state, position and events of the past, an astronomer calculates the distances and paths of world bodies - in all these In cases where there is thinking, the results of thinking are applied to real knowledge. Therefore, it would seem that thinking has a much greater significance than the previous psychology wanted to attribute to it, and the results of our experiments fully confirm our assumption.

10. Modern sociobiology In the second half of this century, the so-called sociobiology became widespread. It declared itself by almost completely ignoring the social factors of the functioning and development of society. First of all, the role is ignored

2. Modern category of thinking It is no coincidence that the problem of the social roots of thinking and its connection with activity arose in our generation. It is also no coincidence that the unconscious, which served as the basis of our thinking and our activity, was gradually brought to the level