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p We have so far been considering the structure of subjective reality as an integrated dynamic system. Yet the category of the ideal is also used, as has been pointed out earlier, in respect of any separate phenomenon of subjective reality, i.e. analytically. A number of philosophical problems can be investigated without turning to the system of subjective reality as a whole, and in the context of such investigations the category in interest may be narrowed down. In such cases it also helps bring out, however from a different perspective, the multidimensional character of subjective reality or, if we may say so, its analytical structure parameters. These parameters are also inherent in subjective reality at large and we have implicitly referred to them earlier in the text. At this stage, however, they should be considered on a more regular and systematic basis.

p In my view, it is possible to single out five analytical parameters characterising subjective reality in terms of content, form, veracity, value and activeness or volition. Each of them may be called a structure parameter as it represents one of the necessary and specific dimensions of any phenomenon of subjective 79 reality. However, they must be viewed as a unitary whole, since an analytical description of individual psychic phenomena cannot be adequate unless proper account is taken of all of them.

p Let us now consider each of the indicated parameters separately.

p 1. The content parameter characterises every phenomenon of subjective reality as a reflection of something in consciousness, so its definite reflection is the content of the phenomenon in question. There can be no phenomena of subjective reality without content. It is immaterial if the content is an adequate reflection and if it represents objective or subjective reality.

p These statements need some clarification lest they sound trivial and commonplace. The thing is that the content parameter is a unity of the epistemological and ontological aspects and this unity has two dimensions: first, a given content is a reflection of certain reality (epistemological aspect), yet it represents not itself but this reality (ontological aspect). Second, this content exists as subjective reality (ontological aspect) and is reflected as such—namely, as a phenomenon of subjective reality with its definite content (epistemological aspect). I have already touched on this question earlier and now want to underscore the bidimensional character not only of the content parameter, but also of all other parameters.

p The two last determinations are crucial for the concept of the structure of subjective reality, as they focus philosophical thought on the dynamics of the emergence and existence of a given content (or, better put, the content of a given phenomenon of subjective reality), as well as on the methods of its reflection and description. Regrettably, these questions have so far received but little attention in Soviet literature.

p Hence, the study of the content parameter, i.e. the analysis of a definite content of a given phenomenon of subjective reality presupposes its reflection and description. As has already been noted, these two processes must not be identified, since the description of a certain content cannot be attempted without language, whereas its reflection is possible at a pre-language level.

p Any content can take shape and actualise only within the framework of the immediate present. For instance, I have seen a cobra in a Zoo for the first time and watched it several times when it came into my field of vision. The content of each of my 80 perceptions of one and the same object may be very different (first I saw the cobra motionless, then creeping away, etc.). Different perceptions of a given object are reworked into the corresponding invariant of its sense image. The content of this invariant includes the averaged, as it were, content of a number of perceptions and the results of active categorisation ( investigations show that every perception is categorised, moreover, our categorial sets, the available knowledge and convictions exert a crucial influence on the content of a primary perception, not to speak of the invariant of many perceptions of one and the same object).

p I have given this simple example to show that even in such cases the description of the content of phenomena of subjective reality is no simple matter. It becomes much more complex in the case of an unexpected original idea (even if it is original to me only), or of the content of an artistic image, or, for that matter, of the feeling of dissatisfaction with what I have just written. Nevertheless, every phenomenon of subjective reality singled out in one way or another has a definite content which is in principle open to description, though its adequate description not infrequently entails considerable difficulties.

p In a first approximation we can distinguish three stages in a description of this kind: first, primary symbolism in the internal speech and an attempt to express a new emerging content in the given immediate present with the help of images; second, the formation of a personal invariant of this content, i.e. a verbal expression of this content for one’s own needs permitting its subsequent identification in one’s mind as something familiar, well known and different from other contents. That means that the given content has already acquired a definite dispositional status.

p In most cases a new content takes a definite shape and gets fixed dispositionally at the stage of the personal invariant (though frequently a new content initially arises and exists in a nonreflexive form and may function for a while only dispositionally; so far we do not know anything about it and in this sense it is still nonexistent for us: it only comes into being for us at the level of initial actualisation). The formation of the personal invariant is largely confined to inner speech though it tends to overstep the latter’s bounds.

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p Significantly, the shaping of the personal invariant as such does not yet guarantee the intersubjectivity of a given content, i.e. its understandability to another person. Such intersubjectivity is only achieved at the third stage, the formation of the interpersonal invariant. Here autocommunication rises to the level of external communication and the content acquires a clear linguistic form of external expression (or a nonlinguistic, but generally recognised sign form) rising to a status of intersubjectivity. Hence, the content parameter representing one of the basic determinations of subjective reality poses specific cognitive tasks, orients the investigators towards the development of methods and techniques of the description of a concrete content, and emphasises the need for inquiry into the dialectic of the subjective and the intersubjective.  [81•* 

p 2. The form parameter characterises every phenomenon of subjective reality in terms of the internal organisation of its content, since no content can be formless. The diversity of contents of psychic phenomena is also the diversity of their forms, though the range of the former is much broader than that of the latter, as one and the same form may represent different contents. When we speak, for instance, about a perception, we always imply a definite form of the existence of most diverse, from the viewpoint of content, sense images. To be sure, this form cannot be equally adequate for the embodiment of any content ( e.g. such as is denoted by the term "quasar energy" or by the term “law”). Hence the problem of the diversity of the forms of the existence and “motion” of the phenomena of subjective reality. Just as Engels distinguished the "forms of motion of thought, i.e., the various forms of judgement and conclusion",^^23^^ one can distinguish the main forms representing the content of subjective reality and providing a framework for its motion and transformation.

p These forms are reflected to a greater or lesser extent in common language which accumulates man’s centuries-old 82 experience of self-cognition. However, their adequate description and classification, let alone theoretical systematisation, involve considerable difficulties. The scientific description of these forms mainly undertaken in psychological studies falls within the linguistic tradition of formal categorisation which is richly represented in fiction.

p Indeed, psychology distinguishes emotions, sensations, perceptions, representations, notions, wishes, intentions, imagination, fantasy, dream, various forms of aesthetic and ethical experiences; much less frequently it concerns itself in hope, faith, love and other complex forms. Yet even comparatively simple forms, such as emotion or perception are classified into a multitude of types and subtypes. Joy, sorrow, wrath, fear, surprise, displeasure and other emotions of a similar nature are also forms, each being capable of shaping and expressing different specific contents.

p Present-day psychology faces the task of developing a kind of taxonomy of the forms of existence and motion of psychic phenomena, a very topical task on the practical and theoretical planes, particularly from the standpoint of the deepening of epistemological studies which are not infrequently limited now to the sensuous and the rational and ignore the rest. Such a taxonomy or, to be more precise, phenomenology developed from a consistent materialist position should encompass the whole range of formal distinctions—from the so-called somatic subjective reflections (pain, nausea, thirst, etc.) to the highest forms of the organisation of the content of subjective reality (ethical, aesthetic, philosophical and political convictions, etc.)-

p ’Hence, the form parameter as one of the necessary determinations of subjective reality turns the researcher’s attention iu a. given form as such, i.e. mentally abstracted from its content and thus poses a special cognitive task—to analyse, describe and classify the forms of the existence and motion of psychic phenomena.  [82•* 

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p 3. The verity parameter characterises every phenomenon of subjective reality on the side of the adequacy of the reflection of the corresponding object. This reflection may be true or false, right or wrong; it may be adequate or inadequate to a greater or lesser extent, in one or another respect. Sometimes we may even have difficulty in determining the degree of adequacy or inadequacy of some reflection, in which case we speak of its indeterminacy. Yet even here we do not overstep the limits of veracity. Though an individual is often a poor judge of his own thoughts or immediate subjective experiences from the standpoint of their truth or accuracy, they are actually never devoid of this parameter being to some extent and in some respects true, right, adequate, or otherwise.

p Subjective reality contains a fundamental orientation on truth and rightness which functions dispositionally and, as a rule, nonreflexively. In other words, we are permanently "tuned in", as it were, to obtain the adequate knowledge of what stimulates our interest and cognitive activity. The effectiveness of this "truth orientation" is correlated with certain inner criteria of truth, correctness which represent in integral form our experience, the assimilated principles, rules, norms, credos, as well as a number of other values which do not easily lend themselves to an explicit description.

p The upshot of such a correlation is either subjective certainty, a feeling of authenticity, veracity, rightness or, on the contrary, subjective uncertainty, a feeling of falsity, etc., with a large variety of shades. These internal sanctioning mechanisms which are far from being perfect screen and pass as “correct” and “true” not only the real achievements of our experience, but also utterly false and patently absurd notions.

p The question of the veracity and adequacy of our experience is resolved, of course, outside the limits of a given subjective reality—verification is effected in the sphere of interpersonal communication, social activity, practice. Yet we feel it necessary to underscore the need for a thorough psychological and epistemological investigation of subjective sanctioning mechanisms in order to get a better understanding of the process of assimilation of new content in our cognitive activity. Even true ideas and theories known to have made an epoch in the history of culture first surfaced as a phenomenon of a given subjective reality and 84 were verified and elaborated there before they acquired the interpersonal, and then suprapersonal status.

p The verity parameter characteristic of the personal level of adequacy (inadequacy) of reflection and knowledge in general points to the dependence of the personal level on the interpersonal and suprapersonal levels of knowledge and, in the final analysis, on the dialectical interrelation of all the three levels— with the creative impulse on the personal level being primary. This parameter accentuates the predominantly epistemological aspect of the problem of the ideal.

p 4. The value parameter characterises every phenomenon of subjective reality in terms of the subject’s attitude to it: in other words, this parameter is indicative of the significance of the object reflected in consciousness to the given individual. The value dimension present in the phenomena of subjective reality to a greater or lesser extent is a specific quality which cannot be reduced to other dimensions, e.g. to that of veracity. As is well known, false ideas may be of exceptional importance to an individual, whereas true ones may be held by him in very low esteem or even viewed by him as having a negative value.

p In this respect the value parameter, like the verity one, includes two poles, the positive and the negative. We have already considered in detail the value dimension of subjective reality, therefore I shall only add here that this parameter mainly brings out the axiological aspect of the problem of the ideal.

p 5. The volition parameter characterises every phenomenon of subjective reality on the active-volitional side, i.e. from the standpoint of activeness. It expresses the dimension of subjective reality which may be described as projection into future and as goal-orientation. It represents the active-volitional and creative factors which always reveal themselves in one way or another in any interval of the immediate present and, consequently, in every phenomenon of subjective reality. They represent a specific quality which cannot be replaced by any of the above indicated parameters, though it presupposes their presence. In the language of psychology this quality is described from different angles in such terms as wish, urge, goal-orientation, volitional effort, mental action, internal choice, etc. The essence of this quality is activeness in the broad sense, including its highest manifestation—creative activity.

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p The volition parameter characterises activeness on the side of its spontaneity as emergence of new formations including essential changes in the direction of volition and methods of its actualisation, as the genesis of ever higher forms- The approach it implies makes it incumbent on the researchers to develop adequate means for the description and explanation of this crucial dimension of subjective reality which provides a clue to the problem of the self-realisation of an individual as a responsible subject of social activity. The volition parameter, therefore, focuses attention on the praxiological aspect of the problem of the ideal.

p As already noted, any actual phenomenon of subjective reality is nothing else than the immediate present, transitory as it may be. It necessarily brings out each one of the five parameters described above, though, in accordance with circumstances, some of them may be manifested more vividly than others. These parameters are interrelated with one another. Despite the fact that they capacitate analytical description which permits mental abstraction from integral subjective reality, the latter as a unitary whole is characterised by them to no lesser degree than any of its separate phenomena.

p Concluding this chapter, I am only too well aware of the tentative character of my outline. It represents but a modest attempt to disclose the structure of subjective reality and I do not claim it to be anything else than an invitation to a serious research into what appears an extremely topical and complex problem.

p NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

p  ^^1^^ Some aspects of this problem have been dealt with in: D.I. Dubrovsky, Psychic Phenomena and the Brain, Chapter 4, Moscow, 1971; D.I. Dubrovsky, E.V. Chernosvitov, "Concerning Analysis of the Structure of Subjective Reality (the Axiological-Semantic Aspect)", Voprosy filosofii, 1979, No. 3; A.G. Spirkin, Consciousness and SelfConsciousness, Moscow, 1972; E.V. Chernosvitov, "Concerning Philosophical Analysis of the Structure of Consciousness", Filosofskie nauki, 1978, No. 1; idem, "Concerning Philosophical Analysis of Destruction of Consciousness of the Individual", Filosofskie nauki, 1982, No. 2.

p  ^^2^^ The authors of a number of publications devoted to the criticism of 86 the above-indicated philosophical trends touch upon certain aspects of the problem under consideration. See, for instance: P.P. Gaidenko "Man and History in the Light of Karl Jaspers’ ’Philosophy of Communication’ ", in: Man and His Existence as a Problem of Contemporary Philosophy, Moscow, 1978; Z.M. Kakabadze, Man as a Philosophical Problem, Tbilisi, 1970; M.A. Kissel, The Philosophical Evolution of Jean-Paul Sartre, Leningrad, 1976; V.M. Leibin, Psychoanalysis and the Philosophy of Neofreudianism, Moscow, 1977; J.I. Matjus, "On the History of the Problem of the Intentionality in Philosophy", in: Papers of Tartu University. Research on Philosophy, XVI, Tartu, 1973; N.V. Motroshilova, "The Origin of E. Husserl’s Phenomenology and Its Historico-Philosophical Roots", Voprosy filosofii, 1976, No. 12; G.M. Tavrizyan, The Problem of Man in French Existentialism, Moscow, 1977; L.I. Filippov, "The Problem of the Subject of Historical Creativity in the Philosophy of J.-P. Sartre", in: Man and His Existence as a Problem of Contemporary Philosophy (all in Russian).

p I.S. Kon, The Discovery of the Ego, Moscow, 1978 (in Russian). For a very illuminating inquiry into the same problem in social psychology see also: The Self in Social Psychology. Ed. by D.M. Wegner and R.R. Vallacher, Oxford University Press. New York-Oxford, 1980,

p V.M. Smirnov, Stereotaxic Neurology, Leningrad, 1976, pp. 225-226, etc.

p V.A. Yeliseev, "Development of the Personality and the Psychology of Creativity", Psikhologichesky zhurnal, 1981, No. 5, p. 163. A.G. Spirkin, Consciousness and Self-Consciousness, p. 74. M.M. Bakhtin, Aesthetics of Literary Creativity, Moscow, 1979 (in Russian).

p Yu. M. Lotman, "About Two Communication Models in the System of Culture", in: Research on Sign Systems, Issue 6, Tartu 1973 (in Russian).

p V.S. Bibler, Thinking as Creativity, Moscow, 1975 (in Russian). A.N. Luk, Humour, Wit, Creativity, Moscow, 1977, particularly pp. 172-175 (in Russian).

p These metamorphoses are described in detail by I.S. Kon in his Discovery of the Ego, pp. 82-83.

p An interesting analysis of this relation has been presented by E.V. Chernosvitov in his article "Concerning Philosophical Analysis of Destruction of Consciousness of the Individual" (see Note 1). F.D. Gorbov, "Determination of Psychic States", Voprosy psikhologii, 1971, No. 5>; O.N. Kuznetsov, V.I. Lebedev, Psychology and Psychopathology of Solitude, Moscow, 1972; A.A. Leonov, V.I. Lebedev, Psychological Problems of Interplanetary Flights, Moscow, 1975 (all in Russian).

p V.L. Raikov, "Unconscious Psychic Manifestations in Deep Hypnosis", Voprosy filosofii, 1978, No. 4.

p ^^1^^ Stefan Zweig, "Der Karnpf mil dem Damon. Holderlin. Kleist. 87 Nietzsche", in: Die Baumeister der Welt, Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, 1925, p. 60. See, for instance: T.A. Dobrokhotova, N.N. Bragina, Functional Asymmetry and Psychopathology of Focal Injuries of the Brain, Chapter 5, Moscow, 1977.

p V.W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Harmondsworth, 1974.

p V.A. Beilis, "Social Drama and Theory of the Ritual Process in the Work of Victor Turner", in: Socio-Cultural Problems of Adaptation, Issue 2, Moscow, 1981 (in Russian).

p G.S. Knabe, Cornelius Tacitus, Moscow, 1981 (in Russian). For more detail see: L.B. Dubnitsky, "On Super-valuable Ideas", Meditsinsky referativny zhurnal, Section XIV, Psychiatry, 1975, No. 9. See, for instance: K. Leonhard, Akzentuierte Personlichkeiten, Verlag Volk und Gesellschaft, Berlin, 1976.

p J.-P. Sartre, L’etre et le neant, Librairie Gallimard, Paris, 1957, p. 298.

p F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1974 p. 223.

See, for instance: D.M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind, Routlege & Kegan, London, 1968; B. Blanshard, The Nature of Thought. In two volumes, Macmillan, New York, 1941; J. Margolis, Persons and Minds, D. Reidel, Dordrecht-Boston, 1978.