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p The act which determines the right of a new field of knowledge to existence consists in discovering or singling out a definite range of phenomena which develop or function in accordance with their own inner laws. Marxism has asserted itself as a science about social phenomena because it revealed the specific laws which govern them. This similarly applies to every discipline which rises to the level of a science.

The main task of any theory, including psychological theory, is to disclose the principal specific laws which govern the phenomena in question. Every theory is built on a certain conception of determination of phenomena.  [46•*  The theoretical basis for our approach to the construction

47 of psychological theory is the principle of determinism in its dialectical-materialist conception. It may be briefly formulated in a single proposition: external causes act through internal conditions. This removes the antithesis between the external conditionality and the internal development or self-development (self-motion). It is precisely the relationship between the external and internal connections that form the basis of all phenomena, including mental phenomena.

p Attempts are often made to connect the concept of determinism with the mechanistic concept which dominated science in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was based on the conception of cause as an external impetus which directly determines the effect produced by it in another body or phenomenon. This mechanistic theory of determinism could only ostensibly, with a certain degree of approximation, be applied in classical mechanics to the mechanical motion of the point. It turned out that in this form it was not always applicable already in quantum mechanics. It is clearly unable to give an adequate explanation of organic life. Here the same action produces different effects in organisms with different properties and in the same organism under different conditions. The effect of an external action depends on the internal state of the organism on which this action is exerted. This circumstance applies to all organic phenomena and even more so to mental phenomena.

p Thus the fundamental weakness of mechanistic determinism is that it endeavoured—unsuccessfully—to establish a direct dependence of the end result of an external influence on the influence itself, disregarding the internal conditions of the phenomenon (or body) on which this influence was exerted. The expression of the mechanistic conception of determinism in psychology is the original scheme of strict Watsonian “stimulus-response” behaviourism. The weakness of the mechanistic conception of determinism is utilised by indeterminism which has long since consolidated 48 itself in idealist psychology and is now, as is well known, making inroads into physics—quantum mechanics.

p Surmounting the mechanistic conception of determinism dialectical-materialist determinism notes the importance of internal conditions and, by emphasising their connections with the external conditions, cuts the ground from under indeterminism, depriving it of its main arguments. I. P. Pavlov’s theory may serve as an example of determinism of the new type. To make this clear, it is necessary (perhaps more than is usually done) to emphasise in Pavlov’s conception one aspect which is not always clearly enough realised and properly elucidated.

p It is usually said that Pavlov’s theory proceeds from the external relations of the organism to its environment, with the conditions of its life, and that the very brain (its higher parts) serves to effect these external relations. But Pavlov was able to create a scientific theory, a true teaching on these external relations of the organism to its environment, to reveal the laws which govern them, only because he studied the internal laws of cerebral activity which mediate these external actions on the organism and its reactions. Pavlov’s theory reveals the external relations of the organism to the conditions of its life in their regularities precisely because it discloses the internal interrelations of the processes by which these external relations are mediated.

p Pavlov’s theory found a specific form of expressing this, general principle which meets the requirements of physiological study of higher nervous activity.

p The problem of psychology is to find for the same philosophical principles which underlie the theory of higher nervous activity a new form of their manifestation specific of psychology. The community of principles which would take part in the science of higher nervous activity and psychology is the only reliable basis on which psychology might “fit” the theory of higher nervous activity and lock with it without any detriment to the specificity of either of these sciences.

p The “reflex” conception of mental activity means that mental activity is externally conditioned response activity; it is externally conditioned response activity of the human brain. This means that mental phenomena are determined by the interaction between man, as subject, and the 49 objective world. This proposition contains in a concise and particular form the idea which was given detailed and generalised expression in the dialectical-materialist conception of the principle of determinism.

This general principle is realised as multifariously as is multifarious the nature of the phenomena which enter into interaction. In this community, as a philosophical principle, it applies not to one special field of phenomena, but to all phenomena. In each special field of phenomena it must therefore receive its special form of manifestation in conformity with each special form of interaction. In building psychology on the basis of dialectical materialism it is necessary to find the special form of manifestation which the dialectical-materialist principle of determinism must assume in conformity with mental phenomena. The solution of the problem of this specific form of its manifestation rests on the problem of the relationship between the physiologic and the mental, the theory of higher nervous activity and psychology.

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p In the course of development of the reflex activity of the brain new, mental, phenomena—sensations, perceptions, etc.—emerge and thereby naturally give rise to a new object of study and new problems of its investigation—problems of psychology.

p The reflex activity of the cortex is at the same time also nervous (physiologic) and mental activity (since it is the same activity viewed from different aspects). This reflex activity is studied therefore, first, as nervous activity determined by physiologic laws of neural dynamics (processes of excitation and inhibition, their irradiation, concentration and mutual induction) and, secondly, as mental activity (as perception and observation, memorisation, thinking, etc.). However, here, as in general, the determining subject matter of the science is its highest, i.e., more specific characteristic.

p Each science studies the phenomena of reality in relations specific of the given science. For physiology reality is the aggregate of stimuli acting on the brain, on the analysers; for psychology it is the objects of cognition and action, objects with which man interacts as a subject.

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p At first, before the appearance of the organism capable of reacting to stimuli, being, reality exists as processes and things. With the appearance of organisms the phenomena of the material world (things, processes) also form stimuli correlatively with the organisms on which they act. This interaction takes place on an “ontological” plane. As long as things appear only as stimuli there is as yet no gnosiological plane; there are as yet neither objects nor subject in the proper sense of the word. When stimuli act on organisms which have receptors (analysers, sense organs) sensations arise in the response activity of the latter.

p Stimuli reflected in sensation may act as signals which are not realised as objects. Experimental proof of this is found in experiments which attest that the subject may correctly react to a sensory signal without being aware of the signal to which it responds (E. Thorndike, L. I. Kotlyarevsky and others). Phenomena (things, processes) which are stimuli and act on the organism, its organs (analysers) as such are realised when they act as objects. Realisation of a thing or phenomenon as an object is connected with the transition from sensation, which serves only as a signal to action, to reaction, to sensation and perception as an image of the object (or phenomenon).

p Consciousness proper (as distinct from the mental in general) begins with the appearance of the image of the object in the special gnosiological sense of this term.

p Stimuli reflected in sensation, in consciousness, act as objects. The concept of object is a gnosiological category; the concept of stimulus is a physiological category. Since all of the scientific consideration of the world cannot be reduced to a physiological consideration of the world, but necessarily includes the gnosiological and psychological aspects, the concept of object cannot be reduced to the concept of stimulus.  [50•* 

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p The relation to the object is important from both the gnosiological and psychological standpoints. The difference between the gnosiological and psychological points ol view is that gnosiology makes the object of its study this very relation to the object, while psychology deals with the mental process in this relation to the object.

p The specific tasks of psychology begin in connection with the transition to the study of man’s mental activity performed by the brain. Psychology studying mental activity is one of the sciences about man. It is the science which reveals the laws governing man’s mental activity performed by the brain.

p Two fundamental propositions determine our approach to human psychology. They are, first, the conception of mental phenomena in general as a product of development of the material world and, secondly, the conception of human psychology in its specific features as a sociallyconditioned product of history.

p The problem of the place of psychology in the system of sciences is usually complicated by the attempts to solve it on the basis of opposing the natural sciences to the social sciences, excluding any connections between them. Moreover, in the term “social sciences" the finer differences between the social sciences proper and the sciences dealing with socially-conditioned phenomena, which include human psychology, are effaced. Psychology is one of the sciences about the nature of man, a socially-conditioned 52 product of history. This conditions the connection of psychology with the sciences about nature (primarily the theory of higher nervous activity) and with the social and historical sciences.

p Since mental activity is an activity performed by the brain it is subject to all laws of neurodynamics; without these laws mental phenomena cannot be fully explained. Psychological investigation cannot be opposed to the physiologic study of neurodynamics or be isolated from it; explanations of mental phenomena must take into consideration and utilise all the results of physiologic investigation of neurodynamics. At the same time the products of this neurodynamics, the resultant new mental phenomena, condition the new plane of psychologic investigation in which the processes studied by the physiologic theory of higher nervous activity appear in a new specific quality. Taken in this quality they are determined by the relations from which physiology is abstracted.

p For example, learning, i.e., memorisation organised in a definite manner, examined on the physiological plane, is organised presentation of stimuli which act on the brain. It is therefore subject to all laws of neurodynamics of the cortical processes. But when we explain the result of learning by the action of these laws we abstract ourselves from a number of relations which are characteristic of learning as a special form of mental activity. When the same process, which on the physiological plane is a response of the brain to the presentation of stimuli organised in a definite manner, is regarded as learning in a psychologic investigation, new dependences inevitably appear—a dependence on man’s activity, on the relations into which man enters in the course of this activity, on what he memorises (for example, material taught at school, other people, the teacher, the school collective, etc.). It is in these new dependences that the given process is studied by psychology. Each psychological investigation discloses one of the dependences of this type, whereas physiology abstracts itself from them. To organise man’s activity, it is particularly important to know precisely these dependences and laws which govern them. It is the task of psychology to reveal them.

p We have mentioned the fact that physiology abstracts itself from the relations which are essential to mental 53 phenomena as such. This means that physiologic phenomena are polysemantic with respect to mental phenomena taken in properties and relations specific of them. Different in their concrete expression mental phenomena are subject to the selfsame physiologic process. Moreover, there is no point correlation between mental and physiologic processes or phenomena; each concrete mental process in its physiologic expression is represented by a rather complex dynamic system or an aggregate of various physiologic processes. In virtue of this it is entirely impossible, without losing the specific differences between one mental process or phenomenon and others, to substitute for some mental phenomenon a “corresponding” physiologic phenomenon as its adequate equivalent capable of differentiating the given mental phenomenon from others, differing from it on the psychological plane. A whole scale of various psychologic values always corresponds to the selfsame value of variable physiologic laws figuring in formulas. That is why, while remaining inseparable from physiologic processes, mental phenomena differ from them just the same. Physiologic and psychologic laws cannot be directly brought to coincidence by the use of physiologic terms in psychologic laws. Physiologic terms are not adequate to the relations expressed in psychologic laws.

p Governed by physiologic laws of higher nervous activity (laws of dynamics of nervous processes) mental phenomena appear as the effect of the action of physiologic laws just as physiologic, or generally biologic, phenomena, which are subject, for example, to laws of chemistry, are the effect of the action of chemical laws. However, physiologic processes are a new specific form of manifestation of chemical laws, and it is precisely this new, specific form of their manifestation that appears in the laws of physiology. Mental phenomena are similarly a new, specific form of manifestation of the physiologic laws of neurodynamics, and this specificity is expressed in the laws of psychology. In other words, mental phenomena remain specific mental phenomena and at the same time are a form of manifestation of physiologic laws just as physiologic phenomena rem’ain physiologic, but, as a result of biochemical investigation, also appear as a form of manifestation of laws of chemistry. The lower laws are included in the higher spheres, but only as a subordinate factor which does not 54 determine their specificity. Such is in general the correlation between the “lower” and “higher” spheres of scientific investigation. The more general laws of the lower spheres apply to the higher spheres, but do not exhaust the laws of the latter. The leading laws of each sphere are its specific laws which determine the leading specific properties of the given sphere of phenomena.

p As a result of the disclosure of the biochemical nature of physiologic phenomena these phenomena do not disappear as specific phenomena, but the knowledge of them is deepened. Reflexes do not cease to be reflexes however deeply the biochemical laws governing the coupling of cortical connections may be revealed. The same thing must be said about any physiologic phenomena. For example, the progress made by biochemistry of digestion will deepen the knowledge of this process and the latter will appear as a specific effect of chemical reactions, but it will remain a specific form of their manifestation—a process of digestion—just the same, characterising in this specific form the life of living beings and not the reactions of chemical elements. The nature of phenomena is always determined by the specific laws which govern them.

p Similarly, as a result of neurodynamic analysis, mental phenomena appear as the effect of the action of neurodynamic laws governing the reflective activity of the brain. But this does not eliminate the specificity of mental phenomena. The knowledge of the laws established by psychological investigation does not lose its significance merely because mental phenomena appear as the effect produced by the action of the laws governing higher nervous activity. The interrelation between psychology and the theory of higher nervous activity fits in the general frame\vork of the interrelation between the “lower” and “higher” spheres of scientific knowledge.

p The relation between psychology and the theory of higher nervous activity is analogous not to that between biology and chemistry, but to that between biology and biochemistry. The theory of higher nervous activity also studies mental activity, but it does so in a special aspect. The laws governing higher nervous activity play an important role in explaining mental activity. However, they do not exhaust its laws and are not its specific laws, i.e., 55 laws determining its leading specific properties. Such are the laws of psychology.

p This concept of correlation of the physiologic and psychologic laws, the physiologic and psychologic characteristics of cerebral activity shows the untenability of a number of current formulations.

p The first obviously untenable formula is the one in which the mental and the physiologic are regarded as two coordinated aspects of one process. Its erroneousness consists in the fact that it disguises the hierarchy of the primary and the derivative, the basis and the forms of its manifestation which express the essence of the relations between the physiologic and psychologic characteristics and erroneously conceives them as equally correlated, coordinated, parallel. Its error consists in the fact that it shows the various “aspects” and does not show the correlation between these “aspects”.

p Untenable also is the proposition which was sometimes opposed to this formula. According to this proposition, the physiologic and psychologic characteristics are serial “components” of the characteristic given to mental phenomena by psychology, while physiology limits itself to their specific (physiologic) characteristic. By its theoretical content this proposition expresses the concept of old “physiologic psychology”, simultaneously mechanistic and idealist. The arrangement of the physiologic and psychologic characteristics in series, or the inclusion of the former in the latter leads to the fact that the physiologic characteristic of phenomena loses its effectiveness since in such serial arrangement of the physiologic and psychologic data mental phenomena do not appear in their specificity as a new, specific form of manifestation of physiologic laws which is expressed in the laws of psychology. The search for the specificity of psychologic laws from this point of departure is therefore expressed in a fundamentally wrong opposition of psychologic laws to physiologic laws. This uneven opposition of these laws and their separation from each other are but another expression of their initial external serial combination.

Very widespread, but fallacious, is also the formula according to which the physiologic laws of neurodynamics apply only to the material basis of mental phenomena, while the psychologic laws apply to mental phenomena 56 which form a “superstructure” on this material physiologic basis. This formula is particularly harmful and dangerous because, by characterising the physiologic laws governing higher nervous activity as the “basis” of psychology, it appears, by its external expression, close to the true concept of the correlation between the physiologic and psychologic laws. In reality, however, according to its inner meaning and actual trend, it expresses emphatic dualism. It establishes, as it were, in the vertical direction (from the physiologic “basis” to mental phenomena which form a “superstructure” on it) the same external serialness between them as the preceding formulas establish in the “horizontal” direction. According to the meaning of this formula, the laws governing higher nervous activity do not at all apply to mental phenomena, but only to their physiologic “basis”, to physiologic phenomena. According to this formula, mental phenomena do not at all appear as a form of manifestation of neurodynamic laws. The connection between them is severed. This is a restoration of the old scheme, at the same time mechanistic and idealist. The entire content of Pavlov’s theory of higher nervous activity, the entire course of development of science disproves the conception concealed in this formula.

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p The ways of psychological investigation, as also any scientific investigation in general, are always more or less consciously determined by the theoretical conception which underlies it. This theoretical conception determines the structure of the investigation. What must the structure and ways of psychological investigation be?

p The decisive factor here must be the dialectical- materialist conception of determinism. The direct expression of this conception is the proposition that external causes act through internal conditions.

p It is not difficult to show that precisely this proposition determines the “model” of investigation which was realised by Pavlov in his theory of higher nervous activity. It is usually—and very correctly—emphasised that Pavlov conceived the activity of the brain as effecting the external relations between the organism and the conditions of its life. But it is no less important to emphasise that Pavlov 57 was able to disclose the laws governing these external relations only because by studying them he discovered the internal laws of neurodynamics of the cortical processes, the laws of their own operation (laws of irradiation and concentration) and their interrelation (law of induction). Without knowledge of these internal laws it would have been possible to state only descriptively that such and such external action caused in the given case such and such reaction (directly correlating them according to the stimulus-response scheme). At best it would have been possible to indicate groups or types of actions, correlating with them also descriptively chosen groups or types of reactions. This, as is well known, is the course pursued by behaviourism. Unlike Pavlov, it follows the mechanistic stimulusresponse scheme. Description of external correlations between the stimulus and response answers the purpose of the pragmatic, generally posilivist methodology from which the behaviourists proceed. This course does not lead to disclosure of the actual laws. In the course of Pavlovian investigations the phenomena being studied (secretion of saliva in response to a stimulus, formation of a conditioned bond) are transformed into indicators of the regularities which underlie them. Refracted through the internal relations, through the internal regularities of cerebral activity, the external correlations between the organism and the conditions of its life appear in Pavlov’s theory in their actual regularities. Only this course leads to real scientific knowledge. Only by disclosing the internal laws governing the neurodynamics of the cortical processes did Pavlov create a scientific, theory—the theory of higher nervous activity.

p Nor must it be different in psychology. The science of psychology cannot be built in any other way, on the basis of any other “model”. The fundamental weakness of psychological theory is precisely that psychology has not yet consciously followed the course of such construction of its investigations.

p By way of example let us take the study of thinking. In literature, particularly that devoted to the thinking of schoolchildren, we find indications of cases of presence or absence of transfer of a solution from one problem to another, analogous problem. These are facts which the teacher encounters in his day-to-day work with pupils in 58 school, and they are very important facts for judging of their thinking. Presentation of the problem under modified conditions is usually given as the cause of transfer or nontransfer. The result of such investigations may be roughly, schematically and therefore, of course, in an oversimplified manner expressed as a dependence of transfer on modification of conditions. But transfer is, in fact, a metaphorical description of some external occurrence without disclosure of its inner psychological content. Psychologically transfer is generalisation, whereas modification of the conditions under which the pupil is given the problem is a description not of the pupil’s, but of the teacher’s action. To connect transfer with modification means directly to correlate the external action (the teacher’s activity of modifying the conditions of the problem) with the result of the pupils’ thinking and omit the latter, i.e., to construct the explanation according to the stimulusresponse scheme without disclosing the inner content of thinking, its inner regularities.

p What meaning can modification of conditions have with respect to the pupil’s thinking? Only one meaning: modification creates favourable conditions for analysis, for distinguishing the essential conditions from the nonessential conditions, i.e., the conditions of the problem in their proper, exact meaning from the attendant circumstances under which the problem appears in the particular case. Behind the modification-transfer dependence we encounter another dependence—an analysis-generalisation dependence.

p Let us take another example with a different run of thoughts. Thinking is treated as a totality of mental actions and the mental actions themselves as a series in the process of development of scientific knowledge of socially-elaborated methods of solving mental problems learned in the process of instruction, etc. (we designate this run of thoughts again as roughly, schematically and in as oversimplified a manner as the former). In this theory of thinking, learning, i.e., acquisition of knowledge and skills (methods of solving problems) in the process of instruction, is pushed into the foreground. It goes without saying that acquisition of knowledge and skills is a matter of capital importance and formation of thinking outside of it is impossible. But what does this learning occurring 59 in the process of instruction actually mean? It is a certain pedagogical fact. Remaining on the plane of studying but this fact, investigation naturally turns upon the description of the stages of learning and the conditions on which its success depends as its main task. The investigation is in danger of remaining essentially in the sphere of pedagogical problems. In order to pass on to the plane of psychological investigation proper, it is necessary to establish what learning means psychologically, i.e., to disclose the internal psychological content, the inner regularities of the pupil’s thinking as a result of which learning takes place. Psychologically acquisition of knowledge is thinking —analysis, synthesis, abstraction and generalisation— taking place under conditions of instruction.

p Elementary thinking operations take place on the plane of practical action (counting with the hands) and later on the mental plane (counting in the head); but this is a mere statement of fact. In a psychological investigation it must be psychologically analysed. Psychologically the transition from “external action" to “internal action" is a process of generalisation and abstraction whose movement must be traced.

p Thinking directly appears in the form of numerous and various operations. Each of them must be given special study and explanation, taking its specificity into account. In order that all these specific explanations of specific operations may finally lock up in one general theory of thinking, it is necessary that all specific operations should occur, without losing their specificity, as the acts of analysis and synthesis,- as well as the processes of generalisation and abstraction, under different conditions, on different material, and on different levels. They are, as it were, “common denominators" of multifarious thinking, which make it possible to give thinking a generalised interpretation. Analysis and synthesis and their derivatives— generalisation and abstraction—are necessary concepts of the general theory of thinking. In studying thinking it is necessary to trace their movement.

p To characterise any mental activity in psychology means, in the final analysis, to show it as a derivative of the activity of analysis, synthesis, etc. In their turn, analysis, synthesis and generalisation assume various forms and produce different results, depending on the system of concrete 60 thinking in which they appear. The law-governed correlations between analysis and synthesis and their derivatives—generalisation and abstraction—constitute the basic inner regularities of thinking.

p The task of psychological investigation is to reveal these main internal regularities which do not exhaust what is required to explain thinking, but which are absolutely necessary to explain it. Thinking, like any other human activity, must be conceived on the basis of external relations forming in man in the process of instruction, acquisition of the knowledge accumulated by mankind, the correlation with the tasks encountered by man in the course of social life, studies, etc. But without disclosing the internal regularities, the internal correlations through which these external relations are refracted, it is impossible to understand human thinking or these very relations in their regularity.

p There are no two ways of constructing a psychological theory: one resting on internal thinking correlations, and another, oriented on the external relations of thinking to the object. There is one—and only one—way of psychological investigation and construction of a true theory of thinking. It consists, through studying the external relations between thinking and the object, and the tasks encountered in these cases, in disclosing the inner laws of thinking and, by refracting the external relations through these inner laws of thinking, in understanding these very relations in their regularity.

p On the basis of the internal laws of generalisation alone it is impossible to determine what will be generalised and according to what principles. It depends on the special features of the objects and the external relations which will form between the subject and the object. But without the internal regularities it is impossible to understand how the generalisation will take place and what result it will produce. The external relations appear as regular only when the internal relations, their regularities are disclosed.

Such is in principle also the question concerning psychological theory; it is necessary to express the vital phenomena in psychological concepts, singling out the aspect which constitutes the special subject of psychological in vestigation; it is necessary to express the dependence between them by means of internal psychological 61 regularities and thus to proceed to a psychological understanding of the regularities of initial external relations of man to the objective world and other people, his relation to social experience, the system of knowledge acquired in the process of instruction, etc.

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p We have outlined the structure of psychological theory. The question is: what forms its content? It is necessary to sketch at least the main features of it.

p The central place in the system of psychology must be occupied by the mental as a process, as activity. (This Sechenov proposition remains valid.) By mental, as activity, we imply the mental process or totality of processes which satisfy some vital human requirement and are directed towards a definite goal more or less directly connected with the satisfaction of this requirement. It is therefore a question of the activity of man, subject, personality, and not merely of some organ (even the brain), of human activity performed by the brain. Such activity may be, for example, esthetic perception or thinking since they satisfy the esthetic or cognitive requirements of man and are directed toward this goal. A mental process, which is itself not human activity in this sense, always forms part of some other activity and depends on it. The study of the mental, as a process or activity, is the first task of psychology. It also includes the study of consciousness as a process of realisation of the world.

p A properly conceived study of the mental, as a process or activity, eliminates the abstract idealist functional conception of psychology. The “functions” of so-called functional psychology, whether memory or imagination, attention or volition, are mental processes transformed into mental actors. Whereas in idealist psychology the subject in general, the actor, instead of man himself, is his consciousness, in idealist functional psychology various aspects of mental activity become the special actors, the subjects of the corresponding activities. Consciousness is transformed into a stage on which these actors appear and externally interact with each other.

p The construction of scientific psychology requires elimination of these “actors” and disclosure of the regularities 62 of mental activity and its various aspects covered up by these fictitious actors.

p Let us take, for example, imagination. For functional psychology it is a special actor. Regularities or special operations of transforming reflective activity are ascribed to it as its properties. Any act of reflection of an object by a subject performed by analysis and synthesis, abstraction and generalisation is necessarily not a mechanistic reproduction of the object, but its more or less considerable ideal—sensuous, mental—transformation. In the image of the object some of its aspects are accentuated and brought to the foreground, while the perception of others is inhibited as a result of negative induction on the part of “strong” stimuli. They are “disguised” and are brought to nought. The image of the object is thus improved, modelled, transformed in the very process of perception, depending on the relation between the subject and reflected object, the vital importance of the latter to the subject and the relation of the object to him. “Imagination”, i.e., the process of transformation of the image of the object, is an aspect—and a very important aspect at that—of any process of sensuous reflection of reality. Then it is transformed from the involuntary process, as it appeared at first, into a so-called voluntary process, i.e., consciously regulated in accordance with a definite intention, and from the plane of perception passes to the plane of conception. The task of scientific investigation is to study the general and special regularities of this process of transformation (which forms an aspect of the single general process of man’s mental reflection of the world). Transformation of imagination from a process or, to be exact, from a specific aspect of the process of man’s mental reflection of the world into a special actor is, to say the least, a useless and idle procedure because the “properties” of this “actor” may still be determined only by disclosing the regularities of the corresponding activity or process. It is a harmful and mystifying affair since reference to imagination (as also to any other “function”) makes it appear that it is unnecessary to investigate the regularities of the process, that it is enough to refer to the corresponding “actor” and to “explain” anything without actually investigating or explaining anything by referring to the properties especially for this purpose ascribed to it.

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p The philosophical sense of functional psychology con sists in substituting as a subject for man the various aspects of his mind, his consciousness (which is its fundamental fallacy). Functional psychology is a particular, special expression of the general tendency of idealism to substitute, in the construction of psychology, for man his consciousness, thinking, spirit, etc.

p It is clear that to construct a scientific psychology it is necessary completely to do away with functional psychology conceived in this manner.

p It should be once more taken into consideration that the concept of function, like the concept of activity and process, expresses a definite conception of determination of the mental processes. The concept of function is connected with the conception of determination of the entire process only from within. In the so-called psychomorphological conception (as well as in the conception of vulgar materialism) the mental, as a function of the brain, began to be interpreted as a function of cellular tissue determined by its morphological structure; in idealist functional psychology the concept of function meant determination of the mental process by properties of the corresponding “actor”, i.e., again entirely from within, irrespective of the external world.

p Unlike the conception of function, as determined entirely from within, the conception of the mental as a process or activity makes it possible to consider mental phenomena as a result of man’s interaction with the world.

p Especially emphasising the role of the “internal” conditions of thinking in studying the mental process (sec chapter “On Thinking”) we thereby create prerequisites for a transition from functional to personalistic psychology.

p It is not thinking that thinks, but man, and it is man and not his thinking that is the subject of thinking.

p Every mental process is included in man’s interaction with the world and takes part in the regulation of his actions, his behaviour; every mental phenomenon is both a reflection of being and a link in the regulation of behaviour, of the actions of people.

p What appears as attention and volition in the functional interpretation is actually the regulatory aspect of man’s mental activity (for greater details see Chapter 4 “Being and Consciousness”).

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p That is why the sphere of psychological investigation includes the movements, deeds and actions of people, i.e., not only the “mental” activity, but also the practical activity by which people change nature and reorganise society. But the object of psychological study in them is only their specifically psychologic content, their motivation and regulation by means of which the actions are brought to conformity with the objective conditions under which they are performed and which are reflected in sensation, perception and consciousness.

p Any mental process, any mental activity is always a connection of the individual with the world. Mental activity always gives rise to that which reflectively represents objective reality, i.e., its image. The image itself, outside the mental process or activity, cannot serve as the object of psychologic investigation. Nor can it exist outside of any process. But under certain conditions it appears for the subject outside of any process since the process in which the image is formed is not realised by the subject. In these cases the task of psychological investigation is to reveal the process by changing the conditions of operation of the perceptual process and of considering the formation of the corresponding activity.

p Under difficult conditions, as well as during the initial stages of formation of corresponding activity (for example, visual perception of an object or a situation) visual analysis, synthesis, generalisation and, on this basis, interpretation, in a word, the entire mental composition of perception, come to the fore.

p Thus the object of psychological investigation is the image indissolubly connected with mental activity. At the same time mental processes, mental activity, may be understood in their specificity only when taken in connection with the image which arises in their course. For example, visual perception stands out in its specificity only in connection with the image which arises in its process.

p Receiving concrete expression in the image in which the objective world is reflectively represented, any mental process, on the other hand, presupposes a subject which is also always connected with the objective world. The theory of mental processes and mental activity arrives at insoluble contradictions if, despite their conception, as one of the forms of connection between the subject and the 65 objective world, it does not lock on to the theory of man’s mental properties, if the mental processes do not receive their expression not only in the image of the object, but also in the characteristic of the subject.

p The question of the connection between man’s mental activity and the mental properties is one of the fundamental questions of psychologic theory. The way to formation of man’s mental properties opens only through the connection between these properties and his activity. The ability of psychology to make a more or less appreciable and, at the same time, its own specific contribution to the great cause of educating people and forming their faculties depends, more than anything else, on the correct decision of precisely this question. And yet the theory of faculties, the mental properties of the personality, its psychological characteristics in general, is still the least elaborated part of psychology. Here, more than anywhere else in psychology, substantialisation of the mental is strong and is combined with pseudo-science by means of grossest psychomorphologism which directly correlates the faculties with the morphological structures of the brain apart from the dynamics of reflex activity.

p The reflex conception of the mental applies not only to the mental processes, but also to the mental properties. A mental property is an ability under certain conditions to respond by definite mental activity to definitely generalised influences. Application of the reflex conception to the mental properties necessarily leads to the locking of the theory of mental properties with the theory of mental processes.

p By personality properties the traditional point of view usually implied only the traits of character or abilities for complex types of occupational activity (that of a musician, mathematician, etc.). These properties were regarded as individual characteristics which set one individual apart from the others. But the consideration of outstanding individual characteristics cannot be severed from the study of the elementary, “generic” properties common to all people. Severed from this ground the outstanding abilities of individual people are inevitably mystified and the way to their investigation is closed. In contrast to such an approach all human properties must be considered in their interconnections, and the consideration must be based on the “generic” properties common to all people.

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p Such an initial common property is sensitivity in all the diversity of its forms and levels conceived not as a value inversely proportional to the thresholds, hut primarily as an ability to respond by sensations and perceptions to definite stimuli under definite objective conditions. It is based on an alloy of unconditioned and conditioned bonds. Any appreciably complex sensory activity, say, visual perception of spatial properties and relations of objects, functions as a whole, including the inborn unconditioned-reflex components, as well as the conditionedreflex components forming during the individual’s lifetime in the process of the given activity. The corresponding activity is necessarily formed together with its “functional organ" (Ukhtomsky)—the functional system adapted to performing the given function (in this case—visual perception of the spatial properties of objects).

p In the process of solving this problem consisting in formation of the image of the object, the corresponding mental activity and the “organ” to perform it—the functional system which selectively includes the morphologically (in the analysers) fixed functions and the connections forming on their basis in the process of corresponding activity—are formed. It is such a “functional organ" that forms the neurological basis of the mental property, and this is the property or ability in its physiological expression. The formation of sensory mental activities and the corresponding properties are two expressions of essentially the same process. Physiologically appearing as a system of neural connections the mental properties, as such, exist as naturally occurring mental activity.

One more thing must be added. The mental characteristics of a person (personality) cannot apparently consist in a mere sum of properties each of which is expressed by a psychologically specific response to an action exerted on him. This would mean a complete splitting of the personality and would lead to a fallacious mechanistic concept that each action exerted on man determines its effect “piecemeal”, independent of the dynamic situation in which this action is exerted and which is conditioned by other actions. Disclosure of the internal regularities of the dynamic correlations, through which the actions exerted on man are refracted in man, is one of the most important tasks of psychology.