The remarkable French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once remarked: “We are all passengers of the same ship named

Land, which means there is simply nowhere to transfer from it. If humanity does not have the strength, means and intelligence to get along with nature, then on a dead, dust-covered, lifeless Earth, it would perhaps be worth installing a tombstone with such a mournful inscription: “Everyone wanted better only for themselves.” The 21st century is declared by UNESCO to be the century of education, and the education system is called a strategically important sphere of human activity in solving global problems of the survival and development of mankind. We live in a world whose name is the biosphere. Our home is just an insignificant corner of the vast space.

Our school is located in a rural area, in close proximity to nature, which is a natural laboratory and environment for environmental education. The emergence and development of modern environmental problems are associated with overconsumption of natural resources and environmental pollution. This is a consequence of a global personality crisis, which manifests itself in an increase in aggressiveness, cruelty, and a lack of responsibility to future generations for the state of the world’s natural environment. I am working on the problem “Formation of knowledge about the essence of interaction between man and nature.” The main goal of my upbringing: raising an environmentally literate, physically healthy, spiritually rich, moral person who loves and knows his native land. I work in three areas:

1. “The school is our home – let’s study the ecology there.”
2. “We cannot live without the environment, friends.”
3. “Take care of your health from a young age.”

In the process of this work I solve the following tasks:

• fostering an emotionally positive attitude towards nature, developing the ability to see and understand;
• developing an interest in native nature, a desire to learn more about the nature of one’s region;
• development of creativity, imagination, thinking, attention;
• fostering a caring attitude towards nature, a desire to work in nature, and a desire to create;
• creation of an ecological association that promotes the education of a free, physically healthy, spiritually rich, moral personality;
• fostering the habit of caring for nature and its inhabitants, and providing effective assistance if necessary;
• continue to teach how to see the interconnection of phenomena in nature and draw conclusions.

Also V.A. Sukhomlinsky wrote: “Man became human only when he saw the beauty of the evening dawn and clouds floating in the blue sky, heard the nightingale singing and experienced admiration for the beauty of space. Since then, thought and beauty go hand in hand, elevating and exalting man. But this ennoblement requires great educational efforts.”

The beauty of our native nature also reveals the beauty of human labor and gives rise to the desire to make our region even more beautiful.

A child living in a rural area should be especially interested in agricultural work, because it surrounds him from childhood, because this is the work of his parents.

For me, a rural educator, nature is an integral component of life and work.

Now, when some kind of indifference to the land has appeared, the question of greening education arises acutely. It sets new value and semantic guidelines for all upbringing, development and education, proposes a transition from a culture of consumption and conquest of nature to a culture of “events” with nature and harmonization of relations between man and nature. This topic is endless. I want to convey to the children’s consciousness not only pride in our rich nature, but also pain for the small river Shirka, the banks of which have been turned into a landfill.

It is in the natural world that the child begins his journey of learning. This world excites him, awakens interests, imagination, fantasy.

In my work, I proceed from the fact that environmental education is possible under certain conditions: this is the formation of elementary ecological ideas about nature, an understanding of the importance of protecting the environment, the cultivation of a humane and active attitude towards nature, expressed in a careful and caring attitude towards living beings, in a conscious compliance with certain standards of behavior. With the help of methods and techniques that help solve the problems of environmental education, effectively influencing the motivational and emotional sphere of the child. These are systematic observations, games, work activities, reading fiction, targeted walks with observations of the state of recreation areas after weekends, conversations about the impact of pollution on the life of plants and animals.

To familiarize themselves with the activities of adults in protecting the natural environment, children became acquainted with the goals and objectives of the “green” and “blue” patrols. We decided to create an ecological association “Spring” with the children of the class (a multi-age association of voluntary, independent researchers of the region). To date, “Rodnik” has united 22 children (grades 2-6).

The main task of the association is to convey to the minds and hearts of people that the state of the environment determines the health of nature and humans.

Humanity has come to a threshold beyond which we need new morality, new knowledge, a new mentality, a new value system. Who will create and nurture them? The future depends on how the next generations can internalize this anxiety for the future, understand and realize their own responsibility. Children must feel in their hearts that if we don’t preserve nature, there will be no Russia!

“Man and society in philosophy” - Definition of the meaning of the word “philosophy”. Philosophy is the realization of the fullness of human life. Luck is good luck. Condescension. Three circles of philosophy. What is philosophy. None of us have yet been born immortal. Habit is second nature. Results of philosophical activity. Let us wake up to expose our errors.

“Ideals and Values” - Fields of Science. A competent person. Island of spiritual values. The concept of conflict of values. Ideal. Greed. Values. Tell a lie. Answers. Rules of law. A kind person. Values ​​and ideals. Terms and concepts. The most important value. Pets. "Golden Rule.

“Program “Sociocultural Origins”” - Combining content, upbringing and education. Hear the word. Family. The word and image of the Fatherland. Seven wonders of Russia. The origins of the deed and the feat. In search of truth. Comprehensive integrative program “Sociocultural Origins”. Getting to know the origins of your native culture. Getting to know the origins of spirituality. Target. Program concept.

“What is happiness” - I signed a card for my mother’s birthday. Dictionary by V. Dahl. Survey among relatives. The goal of the project is to study the understanding and meaning of the word “happiness”. Explanation of the explanatory dictionary. Students' answers. Interpretations of the understanding of the word “happiness”. Origin of the word "happiness". What is happiness. Analysis of the understanding of the word “happiness”.

“What is a person’s happiness” - The rights of every individual according to Kelly. Surprise. What is happiness. The concept of moral consciousness. Exercise “Our Emotions”. Irrational demands. Exercise “Ladder of Happiness”. He is his own blacksmith. Happiness is burning. James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis. Is it possible to become even happier? Anger needs to be released. What is more important to you?

“Worldview” - Hatred is strong enmity, disgust towards someone or something. What is a worldview? For all peoples, the moral foundations of humanity are primordial and uniform. About justice. About goodness. Types of worldviews. Types of worldview. A call for peace. Tests “Moral guidelines for activity”. The role of worldview in human activity.

There are a total of 23 presentations in the topic

The dual unity of man is revealed from a completely different side and in a different aspect in the inherent moment of creativity in man.<…>

In fact, beyond all theories, human life reveals this moment of creativity with complete certainty. Along with purely rational-intentional activity, in which a person expediently, i.e. in connection with the goal he pursues, combines ready-made elements of the world around him, he has yet another activity, in which something is born from his soul and with the help of his efforts new, hitherto unprecedented. In the field of artistic, cognitive, moral, political, a person in this sense has the ability to create, is a creator. Even in the sphere of purely rational activity, only the selection and grouping of material and means is a combination of ready-made, pre-given elements; Only when the very purpose of activity is automatically and forcibly dictated to a person by the irreducibly given needs of his natural being, can such purely rational activity be clearly distinguished from creativity. When this goal is something completely new, unprecedented - a certain ideal born from the depths of the human soul - we are dealing with an element of creativity in the composition of even purely rational activity.

The most typical example of creativity is artistic creativity; and in this sense we can say that all creativity bears the imprint of “art”, i.e. artistic creativity. How to determine its essence?

There is always art expression. <…>The word “expression” is one of the most mysterious words in the human language, which we use, usually without thinking about its meaning. Its literal meaning means both “imprint” and the process of “imprinting” something in another, external object or material - something similar to the process of putting a seal on something so that its form is preserved, “imprinted” on it. By analogy with this, we talk about “expression,” when something invisible, hidden becomes visible and obvious, imprinted in something else. Something invisible, spiritual lurks in the human soul; he has a need to make it visible, distinct; he achieves this using words, sounds, combinations of colors, lines, images, and finally (in facial expressions and dances) the movements of his body. Because he strives for this and achieves this, he is an artist. Art being “expression” is embodiment; in him something spiritual is clothed in flesh, as if embedded in the material and appears in it as its “form.” This is the essence of creativity.

But what exactly does a person want to “express”? The simplest - and therefore very common - answer here would be: yourself. In a certain sense, this is completely true and self-explanatory: since the inner being of a person is spirit, then by expressing something spiritual, a person thereby involuntarily expresses himself. On the other hand, however, a person as an “I” - both in the sense of a contentless common carrier of consciousness and life (pure I), and in the sense of an unconditionally unique, unique beginning ( my "I") – essentially directly inexpressible, for there is an inalienable, inaccessible to exteriorization, to externalization, the deep point of being. Only indirectly, through the fact that he It has, a person can somehow give the perception that he There is. And the artist (like any creator), “creating”, i.e. when expressing, he thinks least of all about himself: he wants to express a certain treasure, a spiritual “something” in his soul. Even a pure lyricist expresses not just his spiritual experiences in their pure subjectivity, but something in a certain sense objective, universal, that is connected with it or is contained in them.<…>

This “something”, not being already a ready-made, formed being, obviously does not belong to the composition of objective reality. It is marked by features inherent in reality in its difference from objective reality - and, moreover, reality from the side from which, as we have seen, it is real potentiality– being in the form of maturation, self-creativity. In the process of artistic creativity, what is created, as is known, is taken from “inspiration”; it is not done intentionally, but is “born”; some superhuman voice suggests it to the artist, some force (and not his own intention) forces the artist to cherish it within himself, to shape and express it. But this something is ready There is in a certain form only at the moment when the artist has used the necessary effort to express it. This is what is called creativity. Creativity is an activity in which the artist’s own effort, his own “doing” is inseparably merged with the involuntary growth in him of a certain “gift from above” and can only be abstractly separated from it.

The Creator creates, of course, himself - a simple retelling of someone else’s work is not creativity. But this creative “himself” is not simply an individual person in his subjectivity and not an impersonally general bearer of consciousness; he is the individual human expression of the superhuman spirit operating within him. The degree of participation of the individual human and superhuman, or the degree of active-intentional and passive-involuntary moments in creativity, can be different. Sometimes a genius creates almost simply, as a weak-willed medium of a higher power operating within him; in other cases, the artist uses long, painful efforts, makes repeated attempts to express (or, what is the same, to truly, adequately perceive) what is given to him from above. But, one way or another, one’s own effort or doing and simple attention to the voice speaking in it are merged here into an indistinguishable unity. But this also means that creativity presupposes the dual unity of the human being - its independence, freedom, intentionality - and its rooting in something transcendent, in a spiritual reality that exceeds it and dependence on it.<…>

Man as such is a creator. The element of creativity is inherent in human life. Man in this sense can be defined as a being who consciously participates in God's creativity. Nowhere, perhaps, does the divine-human being appear more clearly than in this role of a derivative creator. Man is not only a servant of God, a submissive executor of God’s will, but a free participant in God’s creativity. Or, in other words: since the will of God is a creative will, inexpressible adequately in any general, automatically executable rules and regulations and consisting precisely in the spontaneous formation of being in its uniquely individual diverse composition, then genuine fulfillment of God's will is possible only in the form of free creativity; every blind, slavish, mechanical fulfillment of this will is precisely failure to comply her true being. Man like only“a servant of God” is a “lazy and crafty servant” - approximately in the same way as a worker who only slavishly and mechanically performs the work assigned to him, without being interested in it and without putting his free effort into it, is already a secret saboteur. For God called man to be not just a slave, but His freeman, i.e. creative employee.

Frank S. Reality and man: Metaphysics of human existence. M, 2007. – P260-271.

12.1. The problem of man in the history of philosophy

In primitive society, man learned to separate himself from nature and from other people. The personal qualities of each individual began to form, the understanding of the opposites “man - world”, and after the emergence of religion - “man - god”.

The first Greek philosophers perceived man as a part of nature, as a microcosm - a miniature copy of the vast cosmos. In man there is in miniature all the forces and manifestations of the macrocosm, that is, the Universe surrounding us. But understanding the human world turned out to be not so easy. The materialist doctrine of atoms could provide little for understanding social development and relations between people. The Sophists, Socrates and Plato first began to discuss specific human, social phenomena - human interests and values, the logic of the movement of thought. The greatest sophist Protagoras said: “Man is the measure of all things.” All events in nature and society can, in his opinion, be assessed from a specific perspective - compared with human values ​​and interests. Plato and Aristotle developed the first detailed doctrines about society and the state in European philosophy.

Ancient religion recognized only one fundamental difference between God and man - people are mortal, and gods are immortal. People can come into contact with supernatural forces - talk to the gods, help them, collude with them, deceive (like Prometheus, who, according to legend, stole fire from the gods). There is no insurmountable gap between God and man. If desired, the gods are even able to give a person immortality.

A different view of man was formed in Christianity. As you know, in the Middle Ages in Europe, Christianity became the dominant official ideology. It viewed man as a weak, sinful creature who must devote his entire life to saving his soul and serving God. God was considered omnipotent - there was no question of bargaining, arguing or concluding an alliance with him; it was useless to try to deceive him. God knows everything and can do everything, but man can only beg him and strive to fulfill divine instructions. Man cannot fully know God. Islam also viewed man as a slave of God. No matter what a person achieves, he always remains weak and insignificant compared to God.

During the Renaissance (XIV - XVI centuries) a new, early bourgeois ideology was formed in Europe, called humanism. The humanistic worldview in many ways reproduces the ancient understanding of man: he carries within himself enormous possibilities, he contains the beautiful, the sublime and the heroic, bringing man closer to God. The creators of humanistic ideology (Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio and others) considered the study of man, his inner world, feelings and emotions, real earthly problems of human existence to be the main task of science and art. The beauty and greatness of man are brilliantly glorified in the works of painters and sculptors of this era, such as the “titans of the Renaissance” Raphael Santi, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarotti. During the Renaissance, they began to study the structure of the human body, which opened the way to modern natural scientific knowledge about man. Deeper concepts of society, gradually freed from religious dogmas, appeared, utopian socialism was created (T. More, T. Campanella), the ideology of totalitarian, dictatorial regimes was developed (N. Machiavelli).

In modern times (XVII - XVIII centuries), the development of natural science, medicine and some social sciences made it possible to create a broader materialistic teaching about man, free from religion. According to F. Bacon and R. Descartes, the human mind is capable of understanding the essence of the universe. At this time, scientific medicine began to take shape, elements of psychological knowledge, ethics and aesthetics, political economy appeared, bourgeois concepts of personality, society and the state, and the theory of natural law arose. The specifics of the natural sciences of the 17th - 18th centuries led to a mechanistic view of the human body: they tried to explain it as a complex mechanical device in which atoms and molecules move according to the laws of physics. French materialist J.O. de La Mettrie wrote about people in his work “The Man-Machine”: “... proud and vain creatures, much more distinguished from animals by their arrogance than by the name of people, no matter how much they pretend to be superior to animals, in essence are animals and machines crawling in a vertical position. These machines are distinguished by a remarkable instinct, from which, through education, a mind is formed, which is always located in the brain tissue...” Gradually, science began to realize that it would not be possible to explain the entire world, and especially man and society, with the laws of mechanics.

Idealist philosophy (Berkeley, Hume, Kant) expressed doubt about the infinite cognitive capabilities of man. From Kant's point of view, our knowledge is by its nature finite and limited - we cannot know the thing in itself. At the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries, Hegel criticized Kant’s ideas. He considered human knowledge to be reliable and true. For Hegel, man is a necessary, highest stage of development of the Universe. However, man is first and foremost a spirit. It is generated by the immaterial force underlying the world - the world spirit.

Hegel's concept was opposed by the doctrine of man in the materialist philosophy of the 18th - 19th centuries (French materialists, L. Feuerbach, N. G. Chernyshevsky). They believed that the main thing in a person is not his spiritual essence, but that he is a “material being”, “a part of nature”, subject to its laws. The next step forward was made by Karl Marx, who substantiated the concept of the social form of matter. Society is a new stage in the development of the Universe, based on nature and its laws. But the essence of society is expressed in new, unique material social laws. They cannot be reduced to either natural or spiritual. Marx viewed man as the highest level of development of matter - a being capable of universal labor activity. Man can exist only by rebuilding, transforming in the process of labor simpler forms of matter and thereby constantly reproducing the conditions of life necessary for himself. In this transformative activity, the human personality is formed, its abilities are developed and use values ​​are created that satisfy human needs. From the point of view of Marxism, the highest stage of development of society will create opportunities for the harmonious, comprehensive development of the individual, the realization of the full creative potential (abilities) of each person. Marx was the first to provide a concrete economic basis for the humanistic ideas of the Renaissance: a new socio-economic formation should arise as a natural result of the natural historical process of development of material production and society as a whole.

At the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, several new concrete scientific concepts of the nature of man and society appeared, which soon received philosophical understanding. This is the theory of the emergence of man, Russian cosmism, the teachings of S. Freud and I.P. Pavlova about consciousness and mental activity.

Charles Darwin began to develop the theory of the origin and biological evolution of man. Based on it, F. Engels formulated the labor theory of anthroposociogenesis - the doctrine of the social laws of development of primitive society (which are higher, more complex in relation to biological laws).

Sigmund Freud built his concept of man on the study of mental activity, primarily the unconscious layers of the psyche and sexual instincts. The Austrian scientist's obvious overestimation of the influence of sexual desires on the development of civilization was corrected by his followers - the neo-Freudians. I.P. Pavlov approached the study of consciousness and psyche from a different direction - he created the doctrine of conditioned reflexes. The Russian physiologist did not analyze the content of thought and mental processes, like Freud, but the mechanisms of functioning of the material carrier of thought and all mental activity - the nervous system of animals and humans. Pavlov and Freud created two competing scientific schools that studied higher nervous activity and the psyche using different methods. Ultimately, these two approaches were able to complement each other and make their own specific contribution to the holistic doctrine of man.

A unique Russian scientific school that studied the connection between man and the surrounding nature and the Universe as a whole was called Russian cosmism.

Thinkers who had different scientific interests and ideological orientations belonged to Russian cosmism. The most famous of them are the utopian N. F. Fedorov (1828 - 1903), the priest and religious philosopher P. A. Florensky (1882 - 1943), N. A. Berdyaev, the creator of rocket dynamics and astronautics K. E. Tsiolkovsky (1857 - 1935), founder of geochemistry, biogeochemistry and biosphere theory V. I. Vernadsky (1863 - 1945). The main idea that united these scientists in one direction is the idea of ​​active evolution, that is, the need for a new, conscious stage in the development of the world.

Almost all philosophical concepts of the 19th and 20th centuries consider the problem of man, society, and human cognition to be the central problem of modern philosophy.

The nature of man and the meaning of his life have long been the basis for serious theoretical discussions. Man as a special phenomenon has long been the object of consideration of many humanities, in particular philosophy, economics, psychology, sociology, etc. However, every person, even within the framework of his everyday life, is faced with the need to answer to himself and others many questions related to the deep foundations of his own being. These are questions about self-worth, freedom and responsibility, death, one’s place in social life, etc. It is obvious that by joining the world’s philosophical, socio-political and cultural experience of understanding these problems, we discover something essential for our own lives .

12.2. Biological and social nature of man

Man is biologically at the top of the “ladder of living beings.” The criterion for climbing this “ladder” is not physical strength or speed of movement. The biological structure of man has a number of features that allow him to occupy a special place among other animals. This includes stereoscopic vision, a large volume of the skull, developed facial muscles, and developed laryngeal muscles (which served as one of the prerequisites for the formation of speech). It is also important that in humans, from the very beginning of its existence as a species, the areas of the brain responsible for the preservation of instincts are poorly developed, and the areas responsible for the development of higher mental functions are much more pronounced. This determined the ability for complex mental activity of a person, the ability for instrumental and collective activity. Biological evolution was one of the prerequisites for the emergence of man, but man has a number of fundamental differences from animals. This is, first of all, the ability to choose, and not just behavior based on instincts biologically inherent in nature, variability of behavior, the ability to plan subsequent activity and the special status of instrumental activity (including the ability to make tools). These biological features of the natural species called man prepared the possibility of its further development at a new level - the social one.

A person builds his behavior on a biological basis, but society, as a special specific reality, has its own laws and introduces its own characteristic features into this unity of the biological and social. It is important to emphasize here that man, as a social being, can come into conflict with his original biological nature, suppress instincts and even overcome the most important of them. For example, a warrior overcomes his instinctive fear of mortal danger and goes on the attack. Nevertheless, the social is a part, albeit a special one, of natural existence; the specificity of social reality does not negate the original physical and biological data of the human race.

12.3. The relationship between the spiritual and the physical, the problem of soul and mind

The biological and social characteristics of man are reflected in a number of philosophical terms that have a fairly long history. We are talking about such terms as spiritual, bodily, soul, mind, consciousness, conscious and unconscious, and a number of others. Spirit, soul and body are terms coming from antiquity through which man’s place in the universe was determined. The ancient cosmos, according to A.F. Losev’s definition, has two levels in the universe. The first is the level of material scattered things, devoid of life and individuality; it comes into contact with the second level, the level of the Absolute Mind (Spirit). The mediator between them is the soul, which, being a part of the Absolute Mind (Spirit), gives life and individuality to the material body.

Spirit, soul, body and mind are terms of religious and philosophical thought that have traditionally served to reveal the nature of the human being. Ancient thought views the cosmos as a triad of Absolute mind, soul and body. The absolute mind is eternal, unchanging, perfect, but it is devoid of life, because it is above life. The bodies of living beings, including humans, belong to the level of the cosmos, which consists of inert, material things, devoid of life and individuality. But the mediator between these two levels of the cosmos (the Absolute mind and the world of material things) is the soul - it brings life and individuality to bodies. The human soul, unlike the souls of other creatures, has a rational part that allows a person to act judiciously and overcome the original animal nature. Christian religious philosophy understands the soul as the bearer of the image of God. It is by improving the soul that a person can get closer to God. Reason controls human passions, helps a person overcome sinfulness and exist in harmony with other people, take care of the natural world around him and ultimately become like God.

Modern scientific and philosophical thought resorts to the terms spirit, soul, mind mainly in a retrospective sense. But most modern scientific concepts of the psyche, social life, and philosophical theories of consciousness go back to ancient teachings about spirit, soul, body and mind.

A person, thanks to his spirituality, stands out from the world around him and, with the help of his mind, forms his attitude towards it on the basis of his own inner world, which leads to the emergence of a worldview.

Worldview is a set of principles, views, beliefs and attitudes that determine the attitude towards reality of an individual, a social group and society as a whole. Based on a certain worldview, a person determines his place in the universe.

There are three main types of worldview: mythological, religious and scientific.

The mythological worldview was formed at the dawn of humanity and existed for quite a long time, determining the cultural development of the ancient world. Then, coexisting with a religious worldview, it to a certain extent determined the medieval culture of Europe and even survived into the era of industrial civilization within the subcultures of various social and ethnic groups.

The features of the mythological worldview include:

• perception of the world as a single living being;
• animation of everything that exists, including material objects;
• the unity of man with the entire natural world.

The religious worldview is traditionally viewed as accompanying the world's monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), since polytheistic religions correspond to a mythological worldview based on the deification of the plurality of natural forces.

The main features of the religious worldview are:

• contrasting the natural world with the supernatural world and identifying supernatural causes for natural phenomena;
• the formation of ideas about the supreme being (God), the creator of the world and man;
• understanding of man as a being closest to God and having a special status in relation to the entire natural world.

The scientific worldview as a special type of worldview began to take shape in modern times in Europe. It overcame and rejected the religious and mythological types of worldview. The formation of a scientific worldview is inextricably linked with the progress of natural science knowledge and the crisis of the religious picture of the world.

The main features of the scientific worldview are:

• understanding of the natural causes (physical, biological, etc.) of the existence of natural phenomena;
• denial of the supreme creative being;
• understanding of man as the only bearer of consciousness, capable of transforming the world around him at his own discretion.

The type of worldview determines the cultural development of society, the functioning of social institutions and the spiritual life of the individual.

Worldview is both the result of a person’s active interaction with the world around him and a setting for further conscious activity.

12.4. Activity as a way of human existence. Activities

Activity is the basis of human existence, a form of expression of its essence. The complexity of human nature is most fully revealed in the variety of forms and types of human activity. Human activity differs significantly from the behavior of animals, which is characterized, first of all, by adaptation to the world, adaptation to the existing environment. Activity always presupposes a conscious change in the natural world as a human habitat, as well as the improvement of the social system, which, in fact, is the main indicator of the fruitfulness of human activity. Thus, unlike an animal, whose behavior is determined solely by an unconscious motive, human activity is based on a consciously formulated goal and a plan to help achieve it. At the same time, a person often uses a variety of auxiliary means that contribute to a more complete and rapid achievement of the goal.

Any type of activity requires the presence and interrelation of the following components:

• a person (or subject) with his goals, values, knowledge and skills;
• operations of expedient activities;
• objects to which the subject’s activity is directed in the process of these operations.

All human efforts culminate in a result or product of activity. In the scientific field - this is scientific knowledge, discoveries; in art, these are original works of art; in the political sphere - these are new political ideas, powers of power, etc.

Thus, it is necessary to highlight the following most important characteristics of the concept of “activity”:

1. Activity is a specific human form of relationship to the world, the content of which is the purposeful and expedient transformation of the world, the creation by people of their own social relations and themselves.
2. Unlike biologically motivated behavior in the animal world, activity involves free goal-setting and design of goals. It is always arbitrary.
3. The method of activity is determined not by biological inclinations, but by historically developed sociocultural programs. These programs are not only implemented in activity, but are developed and changed in it.
4. Activity is capable of unlimited self-development. This reveals its fundamental openness and universality.

The first and last goal of any activity is to satisfy one or another need.

A need is a person’s objective need for something. Modern scientists put forward several classifications of needs: by subject (individual, group, collective, public); by objects (material, spiritual).

Satisfaction of needs is carried out within a certain sphere of social life. Therefore, activities can be divided into the following types: economic, social, political, spiritual. It is clear that as social relations become more complex, types of activities become increasingly differentiated.

Among primitive people, it is generally problematic to identify types of activities that are in an undivided unity. In the modern world, the specification of people's active activity reaches its highest degree. This provides certain advantages in terms of organizing their lives. The principle of division of labor, which is being updated in the system of cooperation between “narrow” specialists in all sectors of social activity, helps to improve the objective quality of the results achieved.

Thus, the diversity of human activities largely determines the degree of development of society.

Its forms should be distinguished from types of human activity. The variety of forms of activity is due to the complexity of human nature. Unlike types of activity, each of which is associated with the satisfaction of a particular need, forms of activity are associated with basic human abilities. There are many typologies of abilities. One of these typologies identifies the following abilities: intellectual, physical, communicative, creative. Entering into various relationships, abilities determine the following forms of activity:

• labor (labor);
• cognitive (cognition);
• communicative (communication);
• creative (creativity).

Labor activity (labor) is the basic form of human activity. All its other forms have signs of “labor” that distinguish a person from an animal. Labor is a process in which a person, through his own activity, mediates, regulates and controls the exchange of substances between himself and nature, purposefully influences natural objects and transforms them. In the process of labor, a person “invests” his physical and spiritual forces into an object, they pass into the object, turn into special properties of the object generated by labor. Thanks to this, a person changes the object, adapts it to his needs and requirements. At the same time, the opposite process is also inherent in work: a person includes into the composition of his activity, transforms into his own knowledge and skills what previously belonged to the subject. And this presupposes reliance on the experience of previous generations, because nature appears to man as mastered by human labor, and when he is included in social life, he finds the established production system, the necessary rules and methods of labor activity. Consequently, labor is social in nature, that is, it is a process that takes place in society and with the help of means created by society.

Cognition is the active reflection or reproduction of reality in an ideal image in the human mind. There will be a more detailed discussion about it ahead.

Communication is a form of activity in which ideas and emotions are exchanged. Spiritual communication performs important social functions: exchange of information, transfer of experience, organization of people for any activity. No sphere of human activity can be carried out without communication. Along with social functions, communication performs psychological functions, that is, it has a certain impact on a person’s mental state.

A game is a form of physical and intellectual activity that is devoid of direct practical expediency and provides the individual with the opportunity for self-realization beyond the framework of his current social roles. The game is interpreted as a form of existence of human freedom, the highest passion, an intrinsically valuable activity. The game is classified into competitive games, games of imitation (theater), gambling, educational and business games, games of human imagination. It creates a specific gaming space that models reality, complements it or opposes it.

The game has considerable value as an element of creative search; it contributes to the construction of possible models of the phenomena under study, the construction of new artistic and philosophical systems, and the spontaneous self-expression of the individual.

12.5. Creative human nature

Creativity is the constructive activity of creating something new. The most important types and results of creativity are discovery and invention. Creativity is an integral part of human life. Creativity manifests itself in activity and expresses a specific human attitude towards the world.

Creative activity involves the transformation of the external world in accordance with the individuality of the creator, as well as the self-realization of the creator in the creative act. It is important to understand that creativity is not just one of many forms of human activity, but also a special attitude of the creator to the activity itself. Creativity is always the creation of something new. It is no coincidence that many mythological and religious concepts of the origin of the cosmos were based on the act of creation by the Supreme Being of the visible world. And man stood out from all other creatures precisely because of his ability to create like God.

As a result of creative activity, a person creates material and intangible values. At the same time, a person also transforms social reality, creates his environment and himself in it.

Creativity can be present in all types and forms of human activity, transforming them from a process closed within the framework of simple necessity into a process of self-discovery of personality.

Understanding human nature as creative is especially important today, in a consumer society. It is necessary to see in a person not only a consumer of material and spiritual goods, but also their creator, bringing his unique individuality into the world.

12.6. The problem of the meaning of life

The creative conscious activity of a person allows him to ensure his existence and self-realization. People in various historical eras tried to understand the highest purpose of human existence, the meaning of human life.

The problem of the meaning of life can be considered in two ways. Firstly, at the level of everyday consciousness and personal everyday experience of each person. In this case, a person subjectively measures the value of his own life and determines the basic strategies of his existence.

Secondly, the problem of the meaning of life can be considered at a theoretical level, when each particular fate is considered in conjunction with the fate of other people and the fate of humanity as a whole. In addition, ideas about the meaning of human life must be understandable taking into account the historical type of worldview of each era. Strictly speaking, there are two possible approaches to solving the problem of the meaning of life. The first approach assumes that meaning lies beyond the boundaries of a specific human life. The second approach is that the meaning of life is inextricably linked with the individual existence of a person.

An illustration of the first approach is the philosophy of Socrates and Plato, who assumed that the true existence of man lies in the world of ideas, beyond the boundaries of human life. And, therefore, strategies for staying on earth should be focused on the most successful, perfect entry into another world. Christian religious philosophy also assumes that the true life of man is eternal life in the Kingdom of God. The meaning of life is to overcome the sinful nature, to become like God. Everything earthly has value only as a preparation for the future heavenly life.

The second approach existed in antiquity. Thus, the philosophical school of the Epicureans pointed out the value of human life itself, that a person should strive to get maximum pleasure from life, and the school of the Stoics called for learning to live in harmony with nature.

Philosophers who support this approach also include the German philosopher F. Nietzsche, who criticized the Christian ideology of the “other world.” In the 20th century, the philosophy of existentialism speaks of the uniqueness of human existence. The study of the philosophical heritage devoted to solving the problem of the meaning of human existence largely allows us to understand the entire richness of human culture.

12.7. Human existence and the problem of death

The problem of the meaning of life becomes especially acute given the awareness of its finitude and the inevitability of death.

It is important to understand that death as a fact of the end of human existence is not only a random biological event, but an event that has important social and cultural significance. The event of death has a long tradition of understanding within the framework of religious and philosophical traditions.

Ancient thought urged people not to be afraid of death (“where we are, there is no death, where there is death, we are not there.” Democritus). Other philosophers, such as Socrates, the Stoics, and others, boldly looked death in the face. Christian religious and philosophical thought considers physical death itself only as a transition to another world, to true eternal life. Earthly life is preparation for the future life. Buddhist religious thought defines death as liberation from everyday suffering (illness, poverty, old age, etc.), but simple human death does not provide final liberation, since after death a person’s spiritual essence goes through a series of incarnations in the bodies of other beings. That is why a person should strive during his lifetime to achieve spiritual liberation - nirvana.

Modern philosophy, such as existentialism, sees death as a tragic fact, but this fact gives uniqueness to individual human existence.

In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the social side of the phenomenon of death. Since ancient times, there have been many ritual practices associated with death. The event of death has always had and continues to have a significant public resonance. The experience of the death of another has moral significance for any person, and this is not only the experience of directly seeing death, but also the perception of death through the artistic and religious experience of other people. A person is formed into a socially mature personality, including through understanding the event of death, revealing for himself the value of his own life.

conclusions

Man is the result of natural evolution, a biosocial being with consciousness as a special property of reflecting reality in an ideal way.

Activity is the conscious goal-setting activity of a person, ensuring his existence and development.

Questions of psychology, No. 3/90
Received by the editors on October 21, 1989.

Since the time of Aristotle, the nature of the soul, psyche, and consciousness of a person has been associated with his ability to freely navigate and act in uncertain situations, involving the search and construction of such methods of action that would be consistent with the logic of the future, i.e., with the special universal creative activity of man. Similar views appear with varying degrees of clarity in the works of Stagirite, Augustine, Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant. However, over time, this understanding was consigned to relative oblivion and gave way to a flat reproductiveist interpretation of the psyche, put forward in associationism, tightened by behaviorists and which found its “natural scientific justification” among a number of representatives of the physiology of higher nervous activity. In a modernized version, this interpretation is presented in various kinds of adaptation-homeostatic models of the psyche. This is, for example, the concept of J. Piaget, where cognitive adaptation is considered as the functional and genetic core of consciousness (intelligence), which, “like its biological counterpart, consists of balancing assimilation and accommodation.”

In our philosophy and psychology, the reproductive interpretation of the psyche has taken root on the basis of the vulgar, schoolboyishly interpreted theory of reflection as passive doubling in the creation of objects in the external world. The subsequent “enrichment” of this interpretation with ideas about the isomorphism of an object and its subjective image, “neurodynamic codes of mental phenomena,” etc. led to the final disappearance of the creative principle of consciousness.

It should be noted that the reproductiveist interpretation of the psyche, in its own way, correctly reflected the situation that has developed in a society of divided labor, when the majority of working individuals turn out to be carriers of “transformed” (in this case, reproductive) forms of consciousness. But such an approach largely set the logic of development and structure of psychological knowledge, right up to its modern state, orienting researchers to the study of completely “transformed” forms of the psyche.

Consciousness was deprived of its genetic initial dimensions, its “substantiality” (we are talking, of course, not about consciousness as a special substance, but about its correspondence, speaking in Hegelian language, to its own concept). Consciousness as a “function of the brain” did not need intrinsic value; it was enough for it to remain a “certain link” of the conditioned reflex. The evaporation of the “authenticity” of consciousness (i.e., its creative nature) was facilitated by a widespread discussion of the so-called psychophysical problem (and its component, the psychophysiological problem), which already in its original formulation completely crossed out the named nature: “The object is a seal, the brain is sealing wax. .. To study the properties and features of a print, naturally, you need to study it yourself

sealing wax. Then, it goes without saying that the content of the print is a simple copy of the seal design. This is the logic of the creators of the notorious psychophysical problem." There is no point in going into an analysis of the cognitive situation around the psychophysical (psychophysiological) problem - this has been done in other works, in particular in the book by F. T. Mikhailov. Let us only note that there was also a "reverse move" - attempts to build a psychologically oriented physiology (A. A. Ukhtomsky, N. A. Bernshtein, A. R. Luria, etc.), within the framework of which the generation of physiological neoplasms inside a living body was associated with the ways of action of this body relative to other bodies, with methods of solving them some “motor tasks”, close in form to creative ones. Nevertheless, such an understanding was met with hostility by the official creators and organizers of the science of consciousness and its material substrate.

But let's return to psychology. The generally accepted - at the level of declarations! - provisions about the creative nature of human activity and that human consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but also creates it, formulated by dialectical philosophy, do not at all extend to the definition of the subject of psychology. The psychology of creativity, which in the light of these provisions should acquire the status of a methodologically constitutive theory in psychology, continues to exist as a private section of the latter. As for the psychological interpretation of the category of activity, it remains largely reproductive to this day, with the exception, perhaps, of that surprisingly insightful version of the activity approach to problems of the psyche and consciousness, which was put forward by S. L. Rubinstein in the article “The Principle of Creative Amateur Activity” "back in 1922.

Further. The problems of human mental development, the emergence of his main mental new formations have almost no contact with the problems of creativity1. But the “new” in a social person can only be a product of his own productive activity, when he himself goes not only beyond the framework of his existing systems of knowledge, skills and abilities, but also beyond the requirements of the original problematic task, sets new goals and problems. The nature of mental development cannot be understood in abstraction from the “factor” of creativity. This “factor” constitutes a universal mechanism, the driving force of mental development. Neglect of it creates fertile ground for naturalism, vulgar sociologism and even outright hoaxes. It is not surprising that in genetic psychology there is still an evolutionary orientation with its inevitable ignoring or blurring of the logic of dialectical contradiction in the development of the subject, as T.V. Kudryavtsev wrote about, for example. Contradiction is a universal source of creativity.

Currently, opportunities are opening up to revive the understanding of the psyche as a creative process. The prerequisites for this are created by the concepts of the origin of sensitivity (A. N. Leontyev), III type of orienting activity (P. Ya. Galperin), “living movement” (N. A. Bernshtein, A. V. Zaporozhets, V. P. Zinchenko) etc. There is a growing awareness of the fact “that the psyche as a whole provides orientation in the situation and contains certain possibilities not only for situational, but also for supra-situational, field-independent behavior... That is, the psyche is a tool not only for adaptation to the situation, but and going beyond it."

The position about the universally creative nature of the human psyche does not yet have a sufficiently complete theoretical justification. Such a justification seems to us to be fundamentally important, since it will entail the need to rethink the specifics of the mental as such.

First of all, the task arises of correlating the position about the universally creative nature of the human psyche with ideas about its cultural and historical origin and nature. This is all the more necessary because universality is often considered as an abstract general property of the psyche of humans and animals (in which, by the way, it is absent in this sense of the word). Thus, Spinoza included animals in the category of universally acting thinking bodies along with humans; P. Ya. Galperin, introducing the concept of universal orientation in terms of images as a universal definition of the psyche, did not address its specifically human forms. We will not multiply examples.

At first glance, it may seem that the provisions about the universally creative nature of the human psyche and its socio-historical essence generally contradict each other, because in the second case we are talking about the reproduction and appropriation of socially given content by the bearer of the psyche. But this is only at first glance.

The psyche (individual consciousness) of a person is a product of the objective activity of socialized humanity, which is universally creative in nature, and with “iron necessity” must manifest the specified nature of its own substance - activity. Manifestations of social-human activity universality (and “creativity”) are as diverse as the objective contents disobjectified by activity. The psychologist is faced with the reality of universality and creativity not only where the individual’s thought processes are in the focus of his attention. Psychological metaphors such as “productive perception”, “visual thinking”, “manual thinking”, “intelligent eye”, “motor task”, “emotional imagination”, “smart emotions”, etc. once again confirm this. Metaphors, of course, are not arguments. Let's try to look at the problem under consideration, as they say, from the inside.

Such a view from the inside takes us out of the sphere of pure psychology into the sphere of history and logic of the social objective life of the human race and makes us recall the words of Marx that political economy does not begin where it is discussed as such. The same is with psychology, which dared to unravel the mystery of the creative human soul.

The historically developed culture of mankind is a product of the universal and therefore free (K. Marx, L. Feuerbach) objective assistance of many generations of people. Therefore, the process of appropriation of this product by an individual (and thereby the crystallization of individual consciousness as the semantic core of culture) must have an equally universal character. This circumstance was repeatedly emphasized by K. Marx (see: and others 2).

The universality of an individual’s appropriating activity is the most important condition for its adequacy to the logic of social-clan activity, embodied in the “objectively developed wealth of a human being.” It is quite natural that for K. Marx the problem of the social individual stands as a problem of his development on the basis and in the direction of universality - regardless of any predetermined scale. In the course of the latter, the inorganic body of human civilization was formed, the system of organs of which is the objectified wealth of the essential forces of man, matured in the crucible of the purposeful labor activity of cooperative people, which is basically “positive, creative.” These organs simultaneously serve as organs of the individual’s unpredetermined and unprogrammed activity in the cultural-historical “space and time” of social existence, but precisely as its organs, and not as organons for obtaining ready-made solutions. The method of action of a human individual, ideally capturing the logic of “previous historical development,” is directly built in the process of the real development of his social and objective life activity.

The forms of the animal's life activity are completely and completely “preformed” in the morphology of its body. The development of animal behavior is carried out through the exercise of these coded (instinctive) forms in relation to certain external situations. The environment only corrects this development. In the case of a person, we are not talking about adjusting ready-made patterns of behavior under the influence of the “social environment”. We are talking about the active appropriation of such (socially developed by nature) methods of action, which in the morphology of the human body are not initially represented in any way, are not “impressed” in any way, are not given to a person, but are sought for and form the subject of his special universal search activity (cm.: ).

The socially developed methods of acting with cultural objects themselves are not given like certain “natural” physical properties of things; they are not written on these objects. The “supersensible” essence of cultural objects cannot be felt, which is how, in the words of K. Marx, it differs from the widow Quickly from Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV”. It is also impossible to directly discern it - in the Husserlian sense - in the phenomena of culture. This essence can only be revealed, disobjectified in the process of extensive creative activity.

The social predetermination of the objective content of an individual’s appropriating activity does not at all mean that the forms of orientation in this content are predetermined for him. The universal nature of culturally given content presupposes a significant number of degrees of freedom in the course of its assimilation by the individual. Thanks to this, the human psyche turns into a truly universal functional organ, located in the “absolute movement of becoming.”

It is necessary, however, to clarify the very concept of universality. A person reveals himself to be a universal subject, a thinking body (B. Spinoza) among other bodily certainties, not only because he can “grasp in his actions a countless number of any, no matter how complex and intricate external object forms, move freely along their contours (see: This is still a purely formal characteristic of human universality.

For example, in science fiction literature, the ability to take the form of any body and sensually become similar to it is often put forward as a criterion for the intelligence of a living being (see, for example,). It is also curious that this science fiction version has its own scientific “equivalent” in the form of the concept of likening a mental image to an external object. This emphasizes the universal plasticity of the activity of a being endowed with psyche, consciousness, and reason. But is the specificity of a rational, i.e., civilized, acting and thinking being limited to “similarity”?

Let's conduct a simple thought experiment. Water enclosed in an amphora inevitably takes on the shape of an amphora. We pour the hitherto “amphora-like” liquid into a wine glass, and it is already “wine-like.” Let's fill a jug with it - it takes the shape of a jug, etc. Why then is water not a thinking body? Metal is too hard for “thinking,” but if we melt it, we get a similar picture.

The universal action of the thinking body is not the blind and passive reproduction by this body of diverse empirically individual object forms. “The universal plasticity and flexibility of the actions of the thinking body is not at all the passive amorphism of clay or water. Quite the contrary, it is a manifestation of “free” shape-formation, the active action of the thinking body in accordance with the total necessity (emphasis added by us - V.K.).” The meaningful definition of human universality is that a person is capable of expediently reproducing in his actions any externally objective form in accordance with its specifically universal measure and essence, i.e. ideally.

From this point of view, the universal mental development of an individual is not just his ever-expanding mastery of cultural objects, means of human activity, etc. The uniqueness of an individual’s mental development is determined by the degree of completeness and depth of individuals’ penetration into the universal, social essence of cultural objects (which is never represented in these objects it is empirically present).

The act of universalization of each of the individual’s abilities is an act of conformity of his actions with the general, i.e., social, form of the human object3. Through the alignment of individual actions with the content-universal forms of cultural objects, the universality of the activity of the generic subject flows into the forms of activity of the individual subject. But this conformation is not carried out according to the laws of isomorphism, or any strict correspondence at all. Otherwise, the individual’s psyche would turn into a fragment of impersonal social structures and - as in the case of its reduction to “brain function” - would lose its peculiarity and intrinsic value.

The universality of human activity, accumulated by objective fragments of the culture of mankind, gives these fragments extreme uncertainty, and thereby problematic for the individual mastering the culture. Numerous psychological studies indicate that the genesis of not only thinking, but also a number of other mental functions and properties of the individual, which are formed in the process of mastering the world of social objects - motor action (A.V. Zaporozhets), perception (A.N. Leontyev, V.P. Zinchenko), memory (A.A. Smirnov, P.I. Zinchenko), emotions (A.V. Zaporozhets), etc. - is internally associated with the individual’s solution of specific problematic, creative tasks. Even “character, insofar as it is formed in life and through life (we would say: in activity and through activity. - V.K.), is something like a type of problem solving.” And it is no coincidence that “all cognitive processes... have a common psychological structure that approaches the structure of the mental act” 4.

The initial form of formation of any mental function of a person is a productive, creative process, which ensures the construction of an individual’s dynamic image of the world of culture in its universality and universality, as well as the formation of the individual’s way of existence in this world as a multi-layered problem field of historically developing objectivity.

The world of culture is multidimensional, and this leaves an imprint on the appropriating activity of the individual. Each cultural object has a kind of double bottom. And the decisive significance in the course of its deobjectification by the individual belongs not to what is clearly “invested” in this object, directly objectified in his body, but to what is “not included” in it, implicitly represented in it. The child learns to use a tablespoon. At the same time, he not only masters some utilitarian-pragmatic skill, objectified in the spoon, but also learns the historically established ethical and aesthetic norms of behavior behind it, which are in no way “inscribed” on the spoon itself.

Entering the world of culture, the child carries out orientation-research, creative activity, which includes the most complex processes of analysis and synthesis of social objects, their internal relationships and components, experimentation (including mental) with them, testing possible ways of transforming objective situations.

The child’s appropriation of culture proceeds in a creative form even in those cases when he masters such fragments of it that, in terms of their existing existence, have a completely definite and inert character, and the universality of human activity embodied in them is extremely “collapsed.” These are, say, the stable structures of human language, which the child nevertheless acquires in the process of solving specific problem problems. Let us note the following paradoxical fact: a child cannot master even a standard vocabulary without active word creation.

The true existence of culture is transcendental; its quintessence is rooted in its possibilities. The own content-objective “element” of the human soul, psyche is the sphere of possibilities, that is, the sphere of the ideal, embodied in historically mature forms of human culture. The designated objective orientation of the human psyche presupposes the presence of a productive imagination in its bearer, aimed at ideally tracing (testing) possible trajectories of development of cultural objects, at fully reproducing their always problematized social essence, and ultimately at idealizing the life activity of the individual subject. The power of imagination is used to highlight those potential properties that are specific to a given cultural object and adequate to its general, holistic nature. Even the imagination of a small child, grasping certain properties of social objects, has nothing to do with arbitrariness and is deeply realistic in nature.

This circumstance is well illustrated by an example from the work of A.V. Zaporozhets. The child is told the following fairy tale. In one village there lived a doctor. One day he was called to see a patient. He did not have a dog, and he left an inkwell to guard the house. At this time, a robber crept up to the house and wanted to steal all the doctor’s things. And the inkwell barked loudly at the robber. In response to this, the child expressed displeasure and said that the inkwell could not bark. Let her better pour ink on the robber, and then he will get scared and run away. In other words, the child, including the inkwell in a fundamentally new, special situation, did not lose sight of its historically developed specifically universal “whole-forming” function (characterizing the inkwell in general), but interpreted this function in accordance with the nature of this situation. Even the conventional fairy-tale plan did not prevent the child from adequately identifying properties that were objectively - albeit potentially - specific to the subject of the story. Let us note that if this realism of imagination were absent in a child, then he would be deprived of the most elementary forms of adequate orientation in the world of social objects and human relations regarding them. Let us also note that in this realism there is not a single gram of that flat “reflection” that was postulated by the above-mentioned interpretation of the theory of reflection.

E.V. Ilyenkov, following I. Kant, considered imagination a universal human ability. It seems to us that the view of imagination as a universal property of human consciousness is quite justified, since it is in the imagination that its essential creative, constructive orientation is most clearly manifested, imparting the impulse of creative formation to the entire ensemble of mental functions of a social person.

Turning to the problem of the genesis of imagination, it is logical to assume that it is based on orientation in terms of images, which contributes to the correct solution by a person of uncertain, unique and unrepeatable tasks (according to P. Ya. Galperin). Analyzing the features of orientation in terms of images, P. Ya. Galperin highlights an important point: “Orientation in terms of images allows... to use general patterns of behavior, each time adapting them to individual variants of the situation.” In the example with the child just given, this manifested itself in the fact that the child varied knowledge about the general function of the inkwell in a special (fairy-tale) situation. In this case, the act of imagination unfolds against the background of a special mental state - a problematic situation that expresses the subjective uncertainty of the means, goals and conditions of activity.

The uncertainty of the tasks facing a person and requiring him to orient himself in terms of images, has, as noted above, a cultural-historical nature, reflecting the objective universality of human activity, which is objectified in cultural products. A person navigates the objective world “on the basis of ideal images.” Imagination is the leading “mechanism” of subjectivization by a human individual (child) of the ideal images of their collective activity objectified in the sphere of material and spiritual culture of people.

Thus, apparently, the child’s imagination is associated with the emergence of operational meanings in a child - the fundamental components of his psyche, when he begins to act in order to achieve a certain result, while varying specific operational and technical techniques, but maintaining the general plan and “pattern” of the action (in other words , producing with the power of imagination a kind of “short circuit” of the universal to the individual). Such an action must be adequate, although empirically not identical to the socially standardized action performed by an adult with this object. The emergence of operational meanings in a child is also evidenced by his ability to apply one action in relation to different objects and different actions in relation to one object, the ability to combine already known methods of action to achieve a goal (this ability is directly related to the number of textbook-known phenomena of the imagination), i.e. i.e. the ability to construct a motor generalization, a generalization “in action” (ibid.).

In preschool children, a plan of emotional imagination develops when the child becomes able to adequately anticipate the “social consequences” of his own actions and the actions of another person, initially revealing the meaning of both at the level of experience. Thus, it is precisely the power of imagination that gives rise to cultural emotionality.

Culture in relation to each individual is not an incubator or a production line of socialization, but first of all, as P. A. Florensky so beautifully said, “an environment that grows and nourishes the personality.” The psyche does not dissolve in social structures, just as it does not become isolated in the skulls of billions of human individuals. In the creative actions of individuals mastering culture, it penetrates the outer shells of existing objective meanings, building their own semantic chronotopes.

Based on the above, we can highlight the following directions for updating the content of modern psychological theory. First, it is advisable to include the aspect of productivity and problems in the original psychological definition of activity. Secondly, it is necessary to reveal the universally creative nature of the entire system of human mental functions and explicate the productive imagination as their genetic basis. Thirdly, it is necessary to justify ways of experimentally reproducing any mental functions - from the simplest skills to fundamental personality traits - in the situation of solving a creative problem, since in the context of creative activity they reveal their true form. Such an experimental model can rightfully be regarded as ideal.

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1. Among the few exceptions here are the ideas about creativity as a mechanism of development, the productive process as a microstage of mental development, etc. At the same time, these ideas still require their implementation in specific models of the ontogenesis of the psyche.

2. The theoretical and psychological meaning of these provisions was analyzed in detail by us in a special work.

3. In this regard, it is quite natural that one of the leading functions of individual consciousness, starting from the first stages of ontogenesis, becomes generalization (moreover, the so-called meaningful generalization, initially carried out, of course, in a pre-conceptual form), which represents one of the main mechanisms for the universalization of an individual’s mental activity . “Generalization appears as a function of consciousness as a whole, and not just thinking. All acts of consciousness are generalization.” “Feelings-theorists” (K. Marx) are not a naked metaphor, but a completely definite mental reality.

4. Recently, in psychology, the idea of ​​​​connecting the creative capabilities of an individual with the personal level of his life activity, which “is revealed primarily in his creative attitude towards various forms of social life and through this - in the creative creation of himself,” has begun to take root.