About the possible future of humanitarian psychology

Abstract

Background. The article raises a fundamental question that remains relevant throughout the entire period of the existence of psychology as a separate science, which claims to be objective and accurate knowledge. It is a question about the status of humanitarian psychology and about the limits of applicability of traditional research methods and criteria of scientific knowledge for understanding the inner world of a person. 

Objective. The author seeks to outline the limits of applicability of deterministic explanation of phenomena, causal logic, criteria of the result repeatability, etc. and to justify the need for developing the other methods and criteria for penetrating the inner world of a human being. 

Results. The statement is discussed that strict adherence to the mentioned criteria makes it possible to study a person only as a “thing”, while everything specifically human escapes research. This explains the difficulties or even the refusal to study such important problems as human freedom, creativity and, in particular, the phenomenon of insight; morality and responsibility, the meaning of life, etc. that cannot be explained by means of causal logic. The author suggests the following assumption: by cutting off everything that does not meet the traditional criteria of scientific character, psychology does not so much preserve as impoverish itself. In his arguments the author relies on the works of the greatest thinkers and scientists V.S. Solovyov, V.V. Zenkovsky, L.M. Lopatin, A.S. Arsenyev, S.L. Rubinstein, P. Teilhard de Chardin. 

Conclusion. In cases where the subject of study opposes the method of study, the science needs a change of point of view on the phenomenon under study and a fundamentally different formulation of the research question. At the same time, previously accumulated knowledge is not devalued, but acquires a different meaning. 

The author sees favorable opportunities for the development of psychology in its rapprochement with philosophy, with comprehending the experience of religious practices and the figurative-metaphorical way of describing phenomena.

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