Alexander А. Melik-Pashaev

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.

Background. The article is devoted to the interaction of different yet inseparable “poles” — activity and contemplation — in the process of actualization of a person’s creative potential. It has been shown that both recent psychological studies of giftedness and pedagogical practice demonstrate a disbalance of the two poles in favor of activity, although activity obtains creative qualities precisely because it takes a source in the experience of contemplation.

Objectives. The study had its purpose to substantiate the significance of the contemplation phenomenon and outline possible ways of developing this ability.

Results. The author briefly deals with the history of the very problem of contempla- tion in the context of culture, in religious practices, and in psychology. The analysis revealed the difficulty of studying the contemplation by means of traditional scientific methods since a meaningful description of this phenomenon by an observer becomes understandable and convincing for another person only if they have a similar personal experience. Contemplation is associated with liberation from the limitations of the everyday “ego” and with the experience of unity with the world, due to which the birth of creative ideas becomes possible. Special attention is paid to the contemplative aesthetic attitude towards the world, which underlies artistic creativity and the development of human artistic talent. It is due to this kind of attitude that ideas are born demanding their embodiment in the activity, which acquires a creative character exactly for this reason.

Conclusions. Pedagogy, entirely focused on the translation of methods for mastering a particular activity, does not naturally lead to the development of a person’s creative talent and can even hinder this by swapping the goals and means of work in art, as in any other field of creative activity.

Background. A certain similarity in the attitude to the world inherent both in a child and an artist has long been noted, but the psychological essence of this similarity has not been sufficiently understood.

Objective. The study had its purpose to approximate understanding the phenomenon of similarity in the "childish" and "artistic" attitude to the world, which is significant for both the psychology of creativity and the pedagogy of art.

Methods. Analysis of literature on the problem and the author's experimental research data.

Results. It is shown that for children, as well as for artists, a significant basis for generalization is the emotional-evaluative attitude to objects, conditioned by the perception of their specific sensuous appearance. From this point of view, the features of a child's complex thinking act as favorable prerequisites for artistic development. The study highlighted the importance of children's animism as a prerequisite for the artist's ability to comprehend the internal unity of phenomena and his own complicity to them. In the context of the problems under discussion, the analysis considers understanding of the types of human attitude to the world in the works of I.P. Pavlov and priest Pavel Florensky.

Conclusions. The similarity between the psychological essence of a child and an artist is rooted in a sense of unity with the world and the kinship of all phenomena among themselves.