p The category of the ideal rests on a solid empirical foundation of diverse psychic phenomena described in common language and in terms of psychology. Though the close relationship of the categories of the psychic and the ideal has never been called in question, we encounter serious difficulties whenever we make an attempt to establish concrete logical links between them. These difficulties stem from the vagueness of the term “psychic” which has different meanings in philosophical publications.

p The psychic is frequently equated with consciousness, the mental, the subjective image, or is even used as equivalent of the “ideal” clearly bespeaking the influence of old times when psychology was still a part of philosophy, the science of sciences. Though such word usage need not necessarily obscure philosophical thought, it is bound to render meaningless the conceptual correlation of the psychic and the ideal.

p The “psychic” often stands for "psychic reflection" (which also includes the psychic reflection of animals). Sometimes it poses as the central category of psychology embracing the whole range of phenomena that come within the province of this branch of science. In such cases the term is used in the broad and narrow senses, the former implying the psychic phenomena of both human beings and animals, and the latter, only those of human beings.

p We shall not go here into a more detailed description of various meanings imparted to the term “psychic” in 89 philosophical literature. In our view, this term is semantically best suited to represent the central category of psychology. It is hardly congruent in a philosophical context where it normally does nothing but duplicates such philosophical notions as consciousness, the subjective image, the sensory reflection, etc. Its use in a philosophical sense is, perhaps, justifiable in one instance only —when we speak about "psychic reflection”.

p Significantly, the notion of psychic reflection can by no means coincide in range with the notion of the psychic as the central category of psychology (even if we leave aside the specificity of philosophical and psychological notions). The category of the psychic covers not only subjective images and states, but also actions and diverse qualities of the individual (e.g. temperament, character, etc.) which cannot be always classed under the head of reflection without undue stretch of the language. By contrast, the notion of the psychic is mainly applicable to those acts of reflection which manifest themselves in subjective images and states (as distinct from acts of reflection in inanimate nature and in the simplest biological organisms, as well as in certain components of complex biological and social systems which cannot have any sensory perceptions or emotions).

p In view of the fact that psychology at present is an independent scientific discipline, the category of the psychic should be ranked with psychological and not philosophical notions. That does not mean, of course, that we deny close links (historical and logical) between philosophy and psychology, between psychological categories and a number of philosophical notions. However, we must never lose sight of the specificity of philosophical problems and, accordingly, the content of philosophical notions. Though such philosophical concepts as consciousness, thought, the ideal, and others obviously lend themselves to a fairly accurate interpretation through the agency of certain psychological notions, the question of the limits of such interpretation remains open to debate.

p Preliminary logical analysis of contiguous notions appears to be crucial if only for the fact that the same terms used in philosophy and psychology not infrequently denote very different contents: for instance, the concept of consciousness in the philosophical sense is not identical with the concept of consciousness in the psychological sense. The affinity of the contents of these 90 concepts should not overshadow their distinctions. The philosophical concept of consciousness is more abstract, being normally defined through a logical contrast with the concept of matter. It reflects integrally and in a most general form the diversity of the phenomena of the human psyche, whereas the psychological concept of consciousness is more differentiated, its content is more specific, being conditioned by empirical phenomenology, the description of introspective data and the generalisation of the results of psychological experiments.

p In philosophical research psychological notions and generalisations are often highly instrumental in the interpretation, specification and development of purely philosophical propositions and concepts. If anything, it attests to close links between philosophy on the one hand, and science and practice, on the other, as well as to the general and methodological influence of philosophy on social practice and the process of scientific cognition.

p Thus, the philosophical analysis of the structure of consciousness, the interrelation of the categories of consciousness and cognition, the sensuous and the rational, etc., is bound to be based on the empirical data provided by psychology, on the latest results of psychological, and sometimes psychopathological, investigations. Profound philosophical analysis of the specificity of sensory reflection is hardly possible in our time without due account of the results of psychological, as well as some psychophysical and psychophysiological investigations into the nature of sensations and perceptions.^^1^^ For instance, no serious inquiry into the dialectic of the sensuous and the rational in cognition can ignore data on the categorial place of any perception, as shown convincingly by Jerome Brune.^^2^^

p All this attests to the existence of substantive links between philosophical and psychological notions and justifies the interpretation of a number of philosophical categories through psychological notions that fall under the category of the psychic. Later in the text the category of the psychic will be used in the narrow sense unless stated otherwise.

p It would be absolutely correct to say that consciousness as a reflection of reality is a psychic phenomenon and that consciousness does not exist outside and apart from the mind. This interpretation of the philosophical category of consciousness is 91 not tantamount, of course, to the reduction of consciousness to the psychic. It only gives a more concrete expression to one of the conceptual “dimensions” of the category of consciousness, restricts the sphere of consciousness, establishes the necessary connection between the philosophical understanding of consciousness and the empirical fixation of the phenomena of consciousness both in psychology and in terms of the common language that reflects man’s accumulated historical experience in the cognition of his own psyche.

p Besides the phenomena of consciousness, the category of the psychic or mental embraces many other objects of psychological investigations, including unconscious psychic phenomena. These are usually described rather vaguely and range from definite states and structures of intellectual activity to psychic regulatory mechanisms of which the individual is obviously unaware. What is more, the very notion of the unconscious psychic appears to be highly controversial causing much disagreement about the interpretation of the term.^^3^^ These issues call for special investigation which goes beyond the scope of our work.

p The unconscious psychic phenomena, whatever their interpretations, are generally recognised to be of crucial significance which cannot be sidestepped in a philosophical analysis of consciousness. Yet it would not be correct to relate the notion of the unconscious psychic directly to the philosophical concept of consciousness, all the more so to the category of the ideal. The notion of the unconscious psychic must be related to the psychological notion of consciousness, and it is only in such relation that it can be used fdr interpretation of the philosophical understanding of consciousness. For this reason abstract attempts to define the ideal as the unconscious psychic appear to be of little value.

p Man’s psychic activity is an integral system of conscious and unconscious informational processes. The specificity of the notion of the unconscious psychic consists in that it is counterposed to the notion of the conscious psychic. By contrast, the philosophical concept of consciousness covers not only the conscious psychic, but also nonreflexive components and structures of subjective reality, i.e. what is regarded in psychology as a variety of the unconscious psychic. That means that at least some of the unconscious psychic phenomena are essential for understanding 92 the structural, conceptual and process aspects of subjective reality. However, it is only through a detailed analysis that we can identify the unconscious psychic phenomena related to subjective reality and to reveal the closeness of their ties. The abstract affirmation that all unconscious psychic phenomena fall under the category of the ideal appears to us erroneous in principle.

p We shall, in due course, explore these issues in greater detail, but for the moment we need to clarify just one point of theoretical significance—the difference between the notions "the psychic" and "the psyche". The former characterises any separate mental phenomenon, such as sensation, emotional state, thought, etc. which can be analytically singled out, as well as their various synthetic combinations; the latter only expresses a concrete integrality of mental phenomena. For instance, sensation is a mental (psychic) phenomenon, yet it is not the psyche itself, it is but one of its components. It would not be correct to say that every psychic phenomenon is the psyche, though any psychic phenomenon only exists as an element, a fragment of the psyche. On the other hand, for all its structural complexity the psyche may be viewed as a separate phenomenon and treated in an abstract way as a unitary whole (e.g. subjective reality), in which case it falls within the broader concept of the psychic.

p Every separate psychic phenomenon bears the stamp of the integrality from which it has been extracted. This integrality lends itself to different methods of quantisation and may be broken up into different sets of separate psychic phenomena which are posited as empirical objects of investigation and then restored, on a theoretical basis, to the initial unified whole.

p The notion of psyche in psychology taken as an integrity (always personal, individuated) is commensurate with the philosophical notion of subjective reality as a single mental complex including various components. When we speak of a psychic phenomenon, we always mean that it is a component of the psyche or the psyche as a whole. In like manner, an ideal phenomenon implies either subjective reality as a whole, or its separate components.

p From conceptual considerations it often becomes necessary to clearly state the concrete meaning of the category of the ideal in a given context indicating if it denotes subjective reality as 93 a whole or just one of its phenomena. For instance, when we say that consciousness is ideal, we usually imply subjective reality as a unitary whole, whereas in the expression "sensation is ideal" the focus is on a separate phenomenon. These two aspects of the content of the category of the ideal represent a dialectical unity.

p The analytical plan of the category of the ideal is very important in the investigation of the structure of subjective reality, its internal diversity, as well as in the delimitation of different approaches to the problem of the ideal for subsequent analysis of their scientific value. Thus some authors, firmly caught up in certain classical traditions, limit the ideal to the abstract- logical and conceptual-universal- This approach denies the attribute of ideal to sensations, sense images, emotional experiences and lands the researchers on the rocks of theoretical inconsistencies causing them to reject the concept of the ideal as subjective reality.

p The analysis of the category of the ideal from the standpoint of its content entails a specific task of interpreting the phenomena of subjective reality through psychic phenomena, i.e. calls for a specific correlation of the categories of the ideal and the psychic. In my view, every phenomenon of subjective reality should be interpreted as a psychic phenomenon—which does not mean, of course, that every psychic phenomenon (or, the more so, every unconscious psychic phenomenon) may be interpreted in terms of ideality. In like manner, all characteristics of subjective reality as an integral whole may be fruitfully interpreted in terms of psychological characteristics.

p Hence, the philosophical notion of consciousness and, consequently, the notion of the ideal cannot be regarded as being broader than the notion of the psychic. The thesis " consciousness is a psychic phenomenon" has a profound meaning from the standpoint of the general world outlook and methodology. Its main thrust is against the objective idealistic and dualistic interpretation of consciousness (and the ideal) as a separate entity residing outside the psyche of real individuals in the manner of a mystic spiritual substance.

The above-indicated thesis plays a very important methodological part in the analysis of the problem of consciousness and is crucial from the social historical viewpoint, restraining 94 attempts to divorce consciousness from the conscious activity of social individuals and identify it with the objective results of this activity, with social materiality as such- Consciousness (the ideal) is inalienable from the psychic and does not exist outside and apart from the psyche of real social individuals.