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The origin of ethnopsychology in history and philosophy. Stefanenko T. Ethnopsychology History of Ethnopsychology in Fundamental and Applied Research

1. The origin of ethnopsychology in history and philosophy.

2. Ethnopsychological aspect in the philosophical studies of the Enlightenment.

3. Ethnopsychological ideas in German philosophy.

4. Psychology of peoples and historical psychology. Researching patterns social phenomena.

The origin of ethnopsychology in history and philosophy

The origins of ethnopsychology begin with the works of ancient philosophers and historians: Herodotus, Hippocrates, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo.

Herodotus, who is considered the founder of history, ethnography and ethnopsychology, traveled a lot and talked about the amazing features of the peoples he met, their beliefs, religion, art, and everyday life. In his work "History" Herodotus for the first time carried out comparative analysis the characteristics of the life and characters of different peoples with the help of the environment. Based on the results of his own observations, he submitted an ethnographic description of Scythia, which included stories about the gods, the customs of the Scythians, and myths about their origin. Herodotus drew attention to such characteristic qualities of the Scythians: cruelty, inaccessibility, severity. The presence of these qualities, in his opinion, is due to the peculiarities of the environment (a plain with many rivers and grasses) and the way of life of the Scythians (nomadic).

Other researchers Ancient Greece the influence of the environment on the formation of the mental characteristics of different peoples was also noticed. So, Hippocrates believed that the leading objective factors of all differences between peoples, their behavior, customs, are the nature and climate of the territory where the people live. Noting the differences in culture, traditions, the appearance of peoples and tribes, ancient thinkers sought to highlight the factors of these differences.

The founder of ethnopsychology is J. B. Vico. In his treatise "On the General Nature of Things", he considered the problems of the development of the people, the conditioning of its psychological characteristics. JB Vico established that each society in the history of its development goes through three eras: 1) the era of the gods; 2) the era of heroes; 3) the era of people, and the mental characteristics of a person as a representative of a certain people appear in the course of the history of this people. At the same time, the activity of each individual person determines the national spirit.

In the second half of the XIX century. in European sociology, various scientific trends have appeared, they consider human society as such, which is identical to the animal world. Until now, trends include: anthropological school in sociology, organic school, social Darwinism. The leading position that unites these movements is that their representatives underestimated the features of objective trends, and on social phenomena mechanically transferred biological laws discovered by Charles Darwin.

Supporters of these trends tried to prove that there is a direct influence of biological laws on the social, economic and spiritual life of the people. They tried to substantiate a "theory" about the direct influence of anatomical and physiological inclinations on the psyche and, on this basis, explain the features of their internal, moral and spiritual makeup with the help of biological signs.

Ethnopsychological aspect in philosophical studies of the Enlightenment

In modern times, the time of the rapid development of capitalism, geographic factors were most often used by researchers to explain the reasons for the differences between peoples and tribes. The main idea of ​​geographical determinism is that the leading factor in the development of any society is geographical position and climatic conditions.

Geographic determinism is necessary for the interpretation of such ethnopsychological conclusions:

1) why it is impossible to find two absolutely identical peoples in the world with ethnically psychological characteristics and way of life;

2) the presence of differences in the development of intelligence, manifestations of emotions among representatives of different peoples.

In the philosophical studies of the French enlighteners, the ethnopsychological concept of "the spirit of the people" appeared for the first time, which was explained with the help of geographical determinism. The outstanding French philosopher C. Montesquieu defined the concept of "the spirit of the people" as the characteristic psychological traits of the people. The spirit of the people must be studied in order to understand the essence of society and the features of its political and legal foundations.

The thinker noted that the people's spirit is formed objectively under the influence of moral and physical factors. He referred to the physical factors that affect the history of the development of society and the general spirit of the people: geographical location, climate, soil, landscape. C. Montesquieu gave such examples of the influence of climate as the most important factor on the spirit of peoples: characteristic features. Residents of southern countries with a hot climate are indecision, laziness, inability to feat and developed imagination; representatives of the northern peoples are distinguished by their courage and asceticism. At the same time, he noted that the climate affects the spirit of the people not only directly, but also indirectly. Thus, depending on climatic conditions and soil, there are traditions and customs, which in turn affect the life of the people. In the process of historical development, the direct influence of climate on the spirit of the people decreases, while the effect of other factors increases. For example, nature and climate govern the savages, customs govern the Chinese, and laws govern the Japanese.

Among the moral factors stood out: religion, laws, principles of government, examples of the past, customs, traditions, norms of behavior, which are of great importance in a civilized society.

Compliance with the provisions of the geographical direction led to the emergence of false ideas about the immutability of the national psychology of the people. Quite often they live in the same geographic area different nations that should be similar to each other. However, over many millennia, various transformations took place in the life of mankind (changes in socio-economic systems, the emergence of new social classes and social systems, new forms of ethnic relations, the unification of tribes and nationalities), which led to significant changes in the customs, traditions and psychology of peoples.

The absolutization of the role of the geographical factor in the development of the national qualities of peoples contributed to the assertion of scientific thought about the invariability of such qualities.

During this period, other views on national psychology appeared. The English philosopher D. Hume in his work "On National Characters" called the following as the most important factors in the development of national psychology: social (moral) factors, to which he attributed the circumstances of the socio-political development of society (forms of government, social upheavals, the state of ethnic community, the standard of living of the people , relations with other ethnic communities, etc.).

An important condition for the development of common features of the national character of people (general inclinations, customs, habits, affects), he considered communication in the process of professional activity. Common interests contribute to the formation of national features of the spiritual image, a single language and other components of ethnic life. Separate parts of the people are also united on the basis of common economic interests. Thus, D. Hume made a conclusion about the dialectic of the relationship between the characteristics of various professional groups and the specifics of the national character of people.

This science is also one of the progenitors of ethnopsycholinguistics. At the moment, there are many concepts that explain the essence of the ethnos in many aspects. However, we must nevertheless consider the ethnos as a psychological community that can perform important functions for each person:

1) Orientate in the surrounding world, supplying relatively ordered information;

2) Set common life values;

3) Protect, being responsible not only for social, but also for physical well-being.

Now we must consider the historical development of ethnopsychology in order to understand the essence of science itself as a whole. Let's start with N. Gumilyov (1912-1992), who considers the formation of an ethnos with psychological aspect- self-awareness and stereotype of behavior, which he understands as the norms of relations between people and groups. Stereotypes of behavior arise in a child in the first years of life. This means that belonging to an ethnic group is acquired in the process of socialization. Gumilyov does not mean education, but formation in a certain cultural sphere. For example, Anna Akhmatova, Gumilyov's mother, who grew up from a French cultural sphere... However, this situation did not prevent her from being a great Russian poetess. But when the stereotypes of the child's behavior are fully formed, then they cannot be radically changed. The cultural environment is an important factor in the formation of a representative of any ethnic culture, its development.

In addition to Gumilyov, there is also Bromel Yu.V. (1921-1990), who understood the ethnos as a historically formed in a specific territory a stable set of people with common features of culture, language and psyche, awareness of their unity and difference from other similar societies. In addition to him, he singles out an ethnos in the broad sense of the word - an ethnosocial organism, an example of which is a nation that has an economic and political community.

There are three fundamental directions in ethnopsychological research. First, relativists believe that psychological phenomena are conditioned by the cultural context. Its extreme pole is the deepening of intercultural differences in the structure of mental processes.

Secondly, the theoretical orientation in the absolutization of the similarities between cultures: not considered any features, ignored the obvious differences between them. Proponents are little concerned with ethnocentrism issues, and, as a result, they ignore the possibility of the influence of the culture of researchers on their research works.

The absolutist concept - the use of intelligence tests in interethnic and interracial studies - you are already familiar and should be aware that this particular approach serves as a medium for attempts to justify the superiority of some peoples over others due to the "scientifically proven" inferiority of the latter.

V modern world ethnological scientists say that an ethnos as a social group, whose members are linked by such objective characteristics as language, customs, religion, psychological peculiarity, etc., has developed in the process of historical development. When proving this approach not only by politicians, but also by scientists - as V.A.Tishkov and the messengers notes - it can be concluded that all members of the group practice or should practice the same religion speak the same language, wear the same clothes, eat the same food, sing the same songs [Tishkov, 1997, p. 64].

It is not the differences between modern approaches to understanding the ethnos that are important for psychologists. More importantly, what they all have in common is the recognition of ethnic identity as one of its characteristics. All this means that an ethnos is a psychological community for individuals. This is the purpose of the psychologist - to study the groups of people who are aware of their membership in specific ethnic groups.

It is also not very important for psychologists that on the basis of which the characteristics of the awareness of ethnicity are built. The main thing is that the representatives of the ethnos fully understand their difference, their difference from others. They understand that all this: values ​​and norms, language, religion, historical memory, ideas about the native land, national character, myth about ancestors, folk and professional art - ethnodifferentiating features This idea can be discussed endlessly. For example, it may have the shape of the nose, and the way of closing the robe, as in the ancient Chinese, and even the nature of the cough, as in the Kutenai Indians. The meaning and role of signs in the perception of members of an ethnic group change depending on the historical situation, on the characteristics of the ethnic environment and many other factors. It is no coincidence that attempts to define an ethnos through a number of features have consistently failed, especially since with the unification of culture, the number of "traditional" ethnodifferentiating features is steadily decreasing, which, however, is compensated by the involvement of new elements.

It is not the cultural distinctiveness of the group itself that is important, but the community of ideas of its members about ethnic markers, people's belief that they are connected by natural ties. For example, the common origin of members of modern ethnic groups is a beautiful myth; several peoples can associate themselves with the same territory; many elements of folk culture have been preserved only in ethnographic museums; the ethnic language can be lost by the majority of the population and be perceived only as a symbol of unity. Therefore, from the standpoint of a psychologist, one can define an ethnos as follows.

Ethnicity is a group of people who are aware of themselves as members on the basis of any characteristics perceived as natural and stable ethnodifferentiating characteristics.

Thus, we come to the conclusion that psychology is the central core of ethnopsycholinguistics, since it is through cognitive processes that general representations of the world are formed. External factors - the culture of an ethnos, people, its specific features in language, tradition, mentality - affect cognitive (cognitive) processes, which also undoubtedly affect the formation of a personality by transforming them into bases that form a full-fledged personality.

Summarizing all of the above, we can identify all those basic provisions (also problems) that we received in the course of this short article:

1) The basics of personality formation are the cultural, linguistic and psychological environment in which she is from the moment of birth;

2) Changing his environment to another (having gone to another country), a person can radically change his linguistic component, having learned and made the native language of a given country, and become the soul of a representative of this state. However, the formed behavioral characteristics do not change only if a person emigrated to another cultural environment as an adult. The child can change.

3) The inability to learn the basic stylistic and grammatical structures of the language, the influence of another culture and other reasons are factors of how a person can lose the ability to express himself correctly in his language. A direct consequence of this is the use of occasionalisms by people - the misuse and ignorance of the basic roots that form the words of the language.

4) The above lead us to the idea that, perhaps, negative external factors on cognitive processes can lead to disturbances in the perception of the world. All this, presumably, will lead, if this happens, to the degradation of the individual - the entire society and humanity.


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The history of the development of ethnopsychology

Ethnopsychology, like any science, arose and develops as a social need of society, and depending on the specific socio-historical conditions that determine this need, its content reflects those ideas and interests of society that are characteristic of the corresponding time and level of existing knowledge.

Ethnic differences in the social organization of many peoples, their way of life, culture, customs have always attracted attention when travelers and scientists interact with them, forcing the latter to think about the essence of ethnic groups and their differences. The problems of mutual cognition were dictated, first of all, by a practical need - the exchange of goods and knowledge. It is difficult to name the time when these interests became a conscious need for the development of social relations between different peoples. However, even ancient Greek scientists and thinkers tried to understand the reasons for the differences in the life of certain peoples. So, the first scientific attempts to explain the nature of these differences can be found in the treatise of Hippocrates "On the air, the waters of the localities" (about 424 BC). He believed that the main reason that leads to significant differences in the life of peoples is contained in the geoclimatic conditions among; their life, that is, the climate, natural factors, the geographical position of the country completely determine the external conditions of life and interdependent relations between people. However, this mere external statement could not explain the real reasons for ethnic differences. Emphasizing the importance of climatic and geographical conditions of life, the ancient authors did not touch upon the factor that it was the conditions of existence that determined the economic structure, the level of development of the language, the culture of scientific knowledge, etc.

Nevertheless, the middle of the 18th century can be considered a new stage in the development of the science of ethnic groups, when the developing bourgeois economic and socio-political relations required the expansion of the sales market, the search for a new cheap raw material base and producer. At this time, intra-ethnic relations and inter-ethnic ties began to develop rapidly. The mass production of goods and their exchange significantly influenced the national culture, way of life, and traditions. The establishment of new interstate relations led to the creation of regular national armies, which, on the one hand, defended the state from outside encroachments, and on the other, seized the territories of other countries and peoples, expanding their consumer interests. The science of ethnic groups was called upon to strictly fulfill the social order of its time and to come up with a theoretical substantiation of such concepts as the unity of the culture of peoples, its spiritual and psychological community. This is discussed in the works of C. Montesquieu, I. Fichte, I. Kant, I. Herder, G. Hegel.

So, C. Montesquieu (1689-1755) in his views adhered to the principles of the geographical determination of ethnic differences among different peoples, arguing that national character is the result of the influence of climatic and geographical conditions. In his work "On the Spirit of Laws," he characterized the national characters of the northern and southern peoples, comparing their virtues and believing that the southerners are more vicious. The French thinker cites countries with a temperate climate as an intermediate form between them. The extremely naive substantiation of the nature of ethnic differences in culture, everyday life, social relations and processes, in his opinion, is based on a number of objective facts. Naturally, the way of life and adaptation to harsh conditions require a kind of interdependent relationship, affect the density of the population, the way of obtaining food, that is, on the satisfaction of natural needs. This aspect of the issue practically affects the conditions of existence of the population as a biological species and constitutes climatogeographic criteria for the boundaries of survival, which, undoubtedly, are reflected in the elements of life, culture, and traditions. Thus, the climate is an integral part of the biogeographic factor in the development of an ethnos and affects the boundaries of its movement from the usual comfortable living conditions.

In the studies of scientists from the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, devoted to the study of the natives of the Asian North, a striking difference in the norms of medical and biological indicators for assessing the health of the European and Asian part of the USSR population is indicated [Kaznacheev, Pakhomov, 1984]. However, in the works of C. Montesquieu and his followers, the desire to find the objective reasons for the differences in climatic-biological factors looked overly simplified.

A completely different direction in the coverage of the peculiarities of the national character can be traced in the works of other representatives of the French Enlightenment. So, K.A. Helvetius (1715-1771) in his work "On Man" highlighted a special section "On the changes that took place in the characters of peoples and the causes that caused them", in which he analyzed the characterological traits of the people and the reasons that shaped them. K.A. Helvetius believed that the main factors influencing the formation of national character are public education and forms of government. National character in his view is a way of seeing and feeling, that is, it is something that is characteristic of only one people, and it depends on the socio-political history of the people, the forms of their government.

Thus, Helvetius associated character traits with a change in the political system, its freedoms, and forms of government. He denied the influence of geographic factors on the spiritual structure of the nation. The scientific concept of Helvetius served as the basis for the development of knowledge about the phenomenon of national character in further research devoted to the study of the problems of ethnic groups. He also formulated an idea of ​​a certain range of socio-political conditions characteristic of a particular nation, which in turn determines the national character, way of life, culture and traditions. Thus, supporters of two directions in the study of ethnopsychological problems substantiate the presence of a certain range of characteristics, which, in their opinion, are decisive in the formation of a national character.

The first works in which it was said about the influence of both geographical and social factors on the formation of ethnic and national characteristics culture and character of the people, were the works of the English philosopher D. Hume (1711-1776). Thus, in his work "On National Characters" he pointed out the importance of physical and moral (social) factors in the formation of national traits in the psychology of character. In this case, the natural conditions of life of the community, which determine specific traits everyday life, labor traditions. He refers to moral factors as socio-political relations in society, which affect the mind as motives and form certain complexes of customs. First of all, these are the forms of government, social conflicts, abundance or need, in which the people live, their attitude towards their neighbors.

Considering social relations as factors in the formation of the psychology of communities and specific strata of society, D. Hume put forward the thesis about the need to take into account the psychology of various strata of society and about their correlation with national features. Pointing to the peculiarity of the psychological traits of various social and professional groups, he noted that the determining factor in this case is the different conditions of their life and activity. A nation and an ethnos act not as a homogeneous mass, but as a complex structure of socially interdependent groups and strata of the population. D. Hume saw an economic basis in the formation of a commonality of traits, emphasizing that on the basis of communication in professional activity, common inclinations, customs, habits, affects arise, which constitutes the spirituality of a particular social and professional group. These features deepen under the influence of political and economic interests. Common interests contribute to the formation of national features of the spiritual image, a single language and other elements of national life. Thus, D. Hume put forward the economic and political laws of the development of society as the leading factor in the development of historical communities. He did not consider the ethnic community to be unchanged, emphasizing that the mores of one people change significantly over time due to changes in the system of government, due to mixing with other peoples. His merit in the development of ethnopsychological issues lies in the fact that he asserted the historicity of the formation of a national character.

However, in the works of Hume there are judgments about the characters different nations, with the appropriation of some peoples features of courage, others of cowardice, etc. These stereotypes of social consciousness, having no scientific justification, turned out to be extremely tenacious. Naturally, the conclusions drawn by him were largely determined by the level of development at that time of scientific knowledge about ethnology.

A significant contribution to the development of ethnopsychological research was made by German classical philosophy of the late XVIII - the first half of the XIX cc. These are primarily the works of I. Herder (1744–1808), I. Kant (1724–1804), G. Hegel (1770–1831).

Thus, I. Herder represented the views of the German enlighteners. Interest in the problem of national character in the German Enlightenment was due to the development of internationalist economic and political relations, which actualized the problems of national specificity and interethnic communication. In his works, the ideas of ethnic ecology are postulated and indicate the predisposition of various peoples to life in specific climatic conditions, which allows us to talk about ecological harmony and lifestyle. He defended the idea of ​​the unity of the laws of the history of society and the history of nature. The ideas of the unity of development lead him to the recognition of the interconnection of cultures and their continuity.

The legacy of I. Kant occupies an essential place in the history of ethnopsychological research. In his work "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View" Kant gives definitions to such concepts as people, nation, character of the people. By the word "people" he understands a multitude of people united in a specific place, which constitutes one whole. This multitude or part of it, which, in view of their common origin, recognizes itself as united into one civil whole, he gives the definition of a nation. However, both in one and in the other definitions do not indicate the force that unites a multitude of people, which allows for a fairly broad interpretation of this concept, but does not indicate the possible minimum number of a given multitude. The character of a people is determined in its attitude and perception of other cultures. If only the character of his people is recognized, then Kant defines this as nationalism.

Recognizing the influence of natural and social factors on the formation of the character of the people, I. Kant gave the main preference to the innate traits of distant ancestors, which significantly weakens the value of his scientific contribution to the development of the problems of ethnopsychology.

The works of G. Hegel became an important stage in the development of ideas about the character of the nation. The main work devoted to this issue is "Philosophy of the Spirit". There are significant contradictions in Hegel's judgments about the character of the people. On the one hand, he recognizes that the character of the people is the fruit of social phenomena, and on the other hand, he believes that the national character acts as an absolute spirit. Affirming the proposition that not all peoples can be carriers of the spirit, he denies their world-historical belonging. This approach had a significant impact on the later development of ethnopsychological concepts.

In the second half of the XIX century. there is a new wave of interest in ethnopsychological problems, especially with regard to German scientists. At this time, the joint work of G. Steinthal and M. Lazarus "Thought about folk psychology" appeared. In fact, this work is semi-mystical and does not contain deep scientific results. Having set the task of building a system of folk psychology as a science, the authors could not solve it, since the idealization of the people's spirit, the non-recognition of objectively acting social factors made the latter a non-historical formation.

W. Wundt made a more significant contribution to the development of ethnopsychological concepts. It was he who laid the foundations of social psychology in his research. His work "The Psychology of Nations" was the basis of social and psychological research of large groups of the population. "The soul of the people", according to Wundt, is not a simple sum of individuals, but a connection and their interaction, which gives rise to new, specific phenomena with peculiar laws. W. Wundt saw the task of folk psychology in the study of mental processes that underlie the development of the human community and the emergence of spiritual products of universal value. Wundt introduced huge contribution in the formation of ethnopsychology as a science, defined its subject more specifically, made a distinction between folk psychology (later social) and individual. He noted that the psychology of peoples is an independent science along with individual psychology, and both of these sciences use the services of each other. W. Wundt, as noted by the Soviet psychologist S. Rubinstein, introduced the historical method in the study of collective consciousness. His ideas had a significant impact on the development of ethnopsychological research in Russia.

Among the authors dealing with folk psychology, it is necessary to note the French scientist G. Le Bon (1841–1931), whose work "The Psychology of the Popular Masses" was published in 1995 in Russian. His views were a vulgarized reflection of the ideas of previous authors. This approach was a reflection of the social order of that time, associated with the need to justify the colonial aspirations of the European bourgeoisie and the development of a mass labor movement. Emphasizing the development of peoples and races, he pointed out the impossibility of their equality. This makes it possible to classify peoples into primitive, lower, middle and higher. However, their fusion and unification is impossible, because for the development of the higher races, the development of the living space of the lower ones with their further colonization is quite admissible. In general, the views of Le Bon. in their essence antisocial and inhuman.

The vital problems of ethno-national relations and ethnic psychology are characteristic, as you know, for multinational countries. This explains the great interest of Russian public thought in the study of the problems of ethnic psychology. Revolutionary democrats V.G. Belinsky (1811-1848), N.A. Dobrolyubov (1836-1861), N.G. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889). They based the consideration of questions of a national character on the general sociological theory and the theory of the people. The theory of the people was an important means of studying culture as an integrity in its national form, which made it possible to consider the nation from various angles, including the socio-psychological one.

Russian revolutionary democrats were one of the first in European science to clearly formulate the predominant importance of social relations in the formation of national character traits, in particular, and the character of the people as a whole. They noted that mental and moral forms of behavior are greatly modified under the influence of social circumstances, and when they change, changes occur in these forms of behavior.

N.G. Chernyshevsky emphasized that every nation of historical importance is a combination of people very different from each other in terms of the degree of mental and moral development. The heterogeneity of a people in its structure is largely determined by social characteristics cultural development groups, layers, estates. In each case, the national character acts as a resultant characteristic of various qualities that are not inherited, but are formed by the environment, the form of being and are the result of historical development. This is what determines the heterogeneity of the concept of "national character". The structure of national consciousness includes a complex of elements and represents a systemic, developing phenomenon. This includes intellectual, moral qualities, language, lifestyle, customs, educational level, ideological convictions.

It should be noted the special merit of the revolutionary democrats in that they gave a deep critical analysis of the current (existing) ideas about the nature of peoples, interethnic stereotypes. N.G. Chernyshevsky emphasized that the current concepts of the character of the people were created under the influence of generalizing ideas about sympathy and antipathy towards a certain people and that they do not correspond to the true concept of the polysyllabic character of a particular people and always pursue a socio-political goal, being the product of a social order the existing government. Walking characters interfere with communication and mutual understanding of peoples, causing distrust of each other. The formulation of the question of stereotypes of understanding the character of the people, based on socio-political and ideological factors, is a great contribution of N.G. Chernyshevsky in the development of the theory of ethnopsychology.

Despite the great contribution made at the end of the 19th century. in the development and study of the issue of national character, in contemporary literature representations of interethnic stereotypes of behavior continue to be encountered. Naturally, the nature of this phenomenon is of the same nature, and its roots go back to socio-political goals.

An important feature of considering the question of the character of a people has always been the ratio of national and social (class). Even in the works of N.G. Chernyshevsky it was noted that each nation has its own concept of patriotism, which manifests itself in international affairs, and in this the community is one whole. But in internal relations, this community, as a whole, consists of estates, groups, classes, whose interests, feelings of patriotism differ significantly and can enter into extreme contradictions, giving rise to social conflicts.

The estate, class feeling of patriotism is less similar within one nation and its people than among the corresponding estates and classes of other peoples. It is these facts that determine international aspirations, on the one hand, and national ones, on the other, and only social equality smooths out these opposing forces.

In his work "Essays on Scientific Concepts on Certain Questions of World History" N.G. Chernyshevsky emphasized that in terms of lifestyle and concepts, the agricultural class of the entire Western Europe represents as if one whole; the same can be said about artisans, wealthy commoners, and the noble class. So, the Portuguese nobleman in his way of life and in terms of concepts was more similar to the Swedish nobleman than to the farmer of his nation; the Portuguese farmer is more like a Scottish farmer in this respect than a rich Lisbon merchant. This is what determines the unity of interests with opposites in social conflicts that arise in different nations and states. While on the one hand and on the other hand, international aspirations prevail, which are generated by the same socio-political position of a particular part of the people, social strata or classes.

The analysis of the ratio of the national and the social in the spiritual image of the nation is an important contribution to the theory of ethno-national relations by the representatives of the Russian school, which in a deeper and more substantiated view reflected the ratio of these two components in the history of the development of peoples than did representatives of German classical philosophy and the school of folk psychology.

A special role in the study of the national character was played by the religious-idealistic trend of Russian social thought, represented in the works of the Slavophiles, who created their own sociological theory. In this theory, the leading importance was attached to Russian originality and national identity. Their main goal was to determine the place of the culture of the Russian people in the system of cultures of the surrounding peoples.

The national program of the Slavophils included the definition of the concepts "nation", "people" in relation to humanity in general and the individual, in particular, a qualitative assessment of national "ideas", the national essence of the historical life of various peoples, the problem of their relationship. The most prominent representatives of this trend were I.V. Krishevsky, P.Ya.Danilevsky, V.S.Soloviev, N.A. Berdyaev.

So, VS Soloviev (1853-1900) emphasized the desire of each people to stand out, to isolate themselves, considering this a positive force of the nationality, but capable of turning into nationalism, against which he always warned his compatriots. Nationalism in its most extreme form, in his opinion, destroys the people who have fallen into it, making them the enemy of humanity. Such conclusions of V.S. Solovyov remain one of the scientific justifications for the desire of peoples to isolate themselves and preserve their independence. Therefore, the nationality itself does not have much value, but the universal Christian idea is put forward in it - the unification of the whole world into a single whole. In his views, he completely ignored the socio-economic relations in society, presenting all people as cells of the body of one organism, united into more complex organs - tribes, peoples.

The first ethnopsychological studies in Soviet times date back to 1920 and are associated with the name of G.G. Shpet (1879-1940), a representative of the phenomenological school in philosophy. In the same year, he organized the first in Russia study of ethnic psychology at Moscow State University, and in 1927 published the book "Introduction to Ethnic Psychology". In the 20s. great attention was paid to the study of local history, characteristic features national minorities. Particular interest in the study of the problems of ethnopsychology and arose in connection with the formation of a new multinational state - the USSR. G.G. Shpet gave a new interpretation of the content of collectivity, the dialectic of the general and the particular. In his ideas, the "spirit" of the people is a reflection of collective unity, responding to every event in the life of this unity. He paid a lot of attention to the study of such concepts as "collective", "collective". Collectivity in G.G. Shpet is the subject of ethnic and social psychology. In his opinion, ethnic psychology finds its own subject and is defined not as an explanatory, basic science for other disciplines, but as a descriptive psychology that studies collective experiences.

At present, interest in the problems of ethnopsychology is growing again in connection with the implementation of fundamental social transformations both in the country and in the surrounding world. The problems of ethnopsychology are being updated again, prospects for its development are outlined, the number of studies is increasing, which are extremely controversial and determine the need to develop a curriculum, especially in the system of higher education in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, since ethnopsychology has always been used as a theoretical basis in ideological work.

Questions for self-control

1. The reasons for the emergence of ethnopsychology as a science.

2. When and to whom did the first scientific substantiation of the nature of ethnic differences belong?

3. What did the scientists of antiquity see the reason for ethnic differences?

4. The reasons for the increased interest in ethnopsychological issues in the 18th century.

5. Which of the scientists of the XVII – XVIII centuries. dealt with issues of ethnopsychology?

6. Theoretical views of KL. Helvetia on the causes of ethnopsychological differences.

7. What are the two independent views that underlie the substantiation of ethnic differences between peoples?

8. Views of D. Hume on the nature of the formation of an ethnos.

9. Progressive and erroneous views of D. Hume in substantiating the nature of ethnic differences.

10. Contribution of German classical philosophy to the development of ethnopsychological research.

11. Ethnopsychological approaches of I. Kant in his philosophy.

12. G. Hegel on the character of the nation and people.

13. The peculiarity of considering ethnopsychological problems in the second half of the XIX century. in the views of German scientists

14. V. Wundt's contribution to ethnopsychological science.

15. Views of G. Le Bon on ethnopsychological problems in his work "Psychology of the masses".

16. Contribution to the development of ethnopsychology of Russian revolutionary democrats.

17. National programs of the Slavophiles.

18. Ethnopsychological research in Soviet psychology in the 1920s.

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Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… ... 3

The history of the development of ethnopsychology …………………………………………… 6

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………… .15

References ………………………………………………………… .... 17

INTRODUCTION

The problem of ethnic differences, their influence on the life and culture of peoples, on the life of people has long been of interest to researchers. Hippocrates, Strabo, Plato and others wrote about this.

The first researchers of ethnic differences associated them with the climatic conditions of different geographic environments. So, Hippocrates in his work "On Air, Water, Localities" wrote that all differences between peoples, including in psychology, are due to the location of the country, climate and other natural factors.

The next stage of deep interest in ethnic psychology begins in the middle of the 18th century. and is due to the development public relations, economic progress, deepening political and national independence, as well as strengthening intra-national ties. At the same time, the national specificity of the way of life, national culture and psychology acquired clearer outlines. Questions of the unity of the culture of the people, its spiritual and psychological community - have taken a certain place in science. Interesting coverage of these issues was found in the works of Montesquieu, Fichte, Kant, Herder, Hegel, and others.

Montesquieu, perhaps, most fully expressed the general methodological approach of that period to the essence of ethnic differences in spirit (psychology). He, like many other authors, adhered to the principles of geographical determinism and believed that the spirit of the people is the result of the influence of climate, soil and terrain. Moreover, such an impact can be direct and indirect. The direct impact is characteristic of the first stages of the development of the people. Indirect influence occurs when, depending on climatic conditions, a people develops special forms of social relations, traditions and customs, which, along with geographical conditions, affect its life and history. Thus, the geographical environment is the primary basis of the spiritual traits of the people and their socio-political relations.

Other representatives of the French enlightenment, in particular Helvetius, also addressed problems of a national character. In his book "On Man" there is a section "On the changes that have occurred in the character of peoples and the causes that have caused them", which examines the characteristic features of peoples, the reasons and factors of their formation.

According to Helvetius, character is a way of seeing and feeling, this is something that is characteristic of only one people and depends more on the socio-political history, on the forms of government. Changes in the forms of government, that is, changes in socio-political relations, affect the content of the national character.

The position of the English philosopher Hume, reflected in the work "On National Characters", is also interesting. The author identifies the main factors that form the national character, in particular physical factors. By the latter, Hume understands the natural conditions of life of the community (air, climate), which determine the character, temperament, traditions of work and life. However, according to Hume, the main factors in the formation of the national traits of psychology are social (moral) factors. These include everything related to socio-political relations in society.

Considering the history of the formation of ethnic psychology, one cannot ignore the German philosophy of the 18th century. - the first half of the 19th century. First of all, it is necessary to remember such names as Kant and Hegel.

The legacy of Kant occupies an important place in the history of ethnopsychological research. In his work "Anthropology from a practical point of view" Kant defines such concepts as "people", "nation", "character of the people." According to Kant, a people is a multitude of people united in one locality or another, constituting one whole. Such a multitude (or part of it), which, due to their common origin, recognizes itself as united into one civil whole, is called a nation. Each nation has its own character, manifested in emotional experience (affectation) in relation to and perception of another culture. Kant criticizes those who do not recognize the differences in the characters of peoples, and argues that refusal to recognize the character of this or that people is recognition only of the character of their people. The main manifestation of national character, according to Kant, is the attitude towards other peoples, pride in state and public freedom. The estimated content of the national character is determined by the fact that Kant attaches great importance to the relationship of peoples in their historical development. He does not consider in detail the determinants of national character. In a somewhat scattered form, they are revealed when describing the psychological traits of various peoples of Europe. While recognizing the influence of geography on the national character, he argues that climate and soil, as well as a mode of government, are not the basis for understanding the character of a people. Such a basis, from the point of view of Kant, is the innate traits of ancestors, that is, that which is inherited from generation to generation. This is confirmed by the fact that when the place of residence, forms of government change, the character of the people most often does not change, there is an adaptation to new conditions, in the language, occupation, clothing, traces of origin are preserved, and, consequently, the national character. 1

HISTORY OF ETHNOSYCHOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

In the second half of the XIX century. the formation of ethnic psychology as an independent discipline takes place. It is associated primarily with the names of Steinthal, Lazarus, Wundt, Le Bon.

In 1859, a book by German scientists, philologist Steinthal and philosopher Lazarus "Thoughts on folk psychology" was published. The authors divided the sciences into those who study nature and those who study the spirit. The condition for the separation was that in nature there are mechanical principles, laws of rotation, and in the field of spirit there are other laws, progress is characteristic of spirit, since it constantly produces something different from itself. Ethnic, or folk, psychology is called one of the sciences that study the spirit.

In the concept of Steinthal and Lazarus, the spirit of the people (the psychology of the people) is of an unspecific, semi-mystical character. The authors cannot determine the relationship between the dynamic and the statistical in folk psychology, they cannot solve the problem of continuity in its development. Despite this, there is a lot of positive in their views, especially in the formulation and solution of methodological problems of the science they create.

For example, the way they define the tasks of folk psychology:

a) to know the psychological essence of the national spirit and its activity;

b) discover the laws by which the internal spiritual activity of the people is carried out;

c) determine the conditions for the emergence, development and disappearance of representatives of a particular people.

Folk psychology, according to Steinthal and Lazarus, consists of two parts: an abstract one that answers the question of what the spirit of the people is, what are its laws and elements, and a pragmatic one that studies concrete peoples. Thus, Steinthal and Lazarus were the first to try to build a system of folk psychology as a science. However, the idealization of the people's spirit, ignoring the impact on it of objective, external, social factors made the people's spirit an extra-historical formation of a substantial nature that determines the entire spiritual and historical process. We can say that in the interpretation of the basic concept of ethnic psychology as a science, they took not the best from their predecessors Kant, Fichte, and Hegel.

The most developed is Wundt's ethnopsychological concept. It was the work of this German scientist in the field of the psychology of peoples that served as the basis for psychological studies of large social groups. The theory of the psychology of the peoples of Wundt arose from his idea of ​​the irreducibility of general psychological processes to individual psychology and the need to study the socio-psychological laws of the functioning of social communities and society as a whole.

Wundt saw the task of folk psychology in the study of those mental processes that underlie the general development of human communities and the emergence of common spiritual products of universal value. Under the national spirit, which constitutes the subject area of ​​the new science, he understood the higher mental processes that arise during the joint life of many individuals. That is, the soul of the people is a connection of psychological phenomena, the aggregate content of emotional experiences, general ideas, feelings and aspirations. The folk soul (ethnic psychology), according to Wundt, does not have an invariable substance. Thus, Wundt lays down the idea of ​​development and does not accept the reduction of socio-psychological processes to a certain being (substance) behind them. Mental processes, according to Wundt, are determined by the activity of the soul, which he calls apperception or collective creative activity.

In general, Wundt made a significant contribution to the formation of ethnopsychology, more specifically defined the subject of this science, made a distinction between folk (social) and individual psychology. 2

Among the authors adhering to the direction of folk psychology, one cannot fail to name the French scientist Le Bon. The origin of his system, which is a somewhat vulgarized reflection of the ideas of previous authors, is most likely associated with two factors of the late 19th century. - early XX century: the development of the mass labor movement and the colonial aspirations of the European bourgeoisie. Le Bon considered the purpose of ethnopsychological research to describe the mental structure of historical races and to determine the dependence of the history of a people and its civilization on it. He argued that the history of each nation depends on its mental structure, the transformation of the soul leads to the transformation of institutions, beliefs, art.

Development of Western Ethnic Psychology in the XX century. caused two most important factors: the desire to reduce all problems relating to various structural levels of ethnic communities, primarily to the individual and personal aspect and the manifestation of philosophical and methodological predilections; this or that researcher. The main trend has become a combination of "microproblem" -oriented psychology.

In the works of such famous American ethnologists as Benedict and Mead, aspects of the ethnic are considered with a significant bias in psychoanalysis and experimental psychology. The methodological concept of these works is largely borrowed from the studies of the Austrian psychiatrist Freud, and the methodology - from German experimental psychology, in particular from the works of Wundt. This is primarily due to the fact that anthropological field methods of studying individual behavior were found to be unsuitable for a detailed study of individuals in a specific cultural context... Thus, ethnologists needed a psychological theory focused on the study of the anthropological characteristics of the origin, development and life of the individual and based on the psychological methods of its study. At that time psychoanalysis became such a theory and method, which was used by ethnopsychologists along with methods borrowed from psychiatry and clinical psychology. A whole block of methods used in research in this area is highlighted: in-depth interviewing, projective techniques and means, analysis of dreams, detailed recording of autobiographies, intensive long-term observation of interpersonal relationships in families representing different ethnic groups.

Another direction of Western ethnopsychology is associated with the study of personality in various cultures. A number of comparative studies of ethnic groups using a variety of psychological tests (Rorschach, Blecky, etc.) allowed researchers to conclude that there is a certain "modal personality" reflecting the national character.

From the point of view of the American ethnopsychologist Honiman, the main task of modern ethnopsychology is to study how an individual acts, thinks, and feels in a specific social environment. He distinguishes two types of phenomena associated with culture: socially standardized behavior (actions, thinking, feelings) of a certain group and the material products of the behavior of such a community. Honiman introduces the concept of "behavior model", which defines as a fixed by the individual way of active thinking or feeling (perception). The "model" can be universal, real, or ideal. Desired stereotypes of behavior, which, however, have not been realized in a particular life, are considered as an ideal model. By analyzing ethnocultural models of personality behavior and socially standardized patterns of behavior, he formulates the following main question of ethnopsychology: how does the personality enter culture? Honiman identifies a number of factors determining this process: innate behavior; groups of which the individual is a member; role behavior; various kinds of service circumstances; geographic environment, etc.

Further development of this direction is associated with the works of Hsu, who proposed to rename the direction "culture and personality" in "psychological anthropology", since this name in to a greater extent, in his opinion, reflects the content of ethnopsychological research.

American ethnopsychologist Spiro formulates the main problem of modern ethnopsychological research as the study of psychological conditions that increase the stability of social and cultural ethnic systems. At the same time, he proposes to focus on the study of the role of the individual, both in changing and preserving entire cultures and ethnic communities. Therefore, the primary task of psychological anthropology is to describe individual behavior as a microphenomenon.

There is also an opposite position. It is occupied by the American culturologist Wallace, who continues the tradition of reducing all ethnocultural diversity to personality traits. It is these two types of orientation - on social and individual psychological theories and their mutual influence - that currently determine the directions of the general theoretical development of psychological anthropology.

Thus, the most important areas of modern Western ethnopsychological research are associated with the modification of theoretical orientations or types of psychological theories based on the metatheoretical foundations of various philosophical systems (existentialism, neopositivism, neobehaviorism, etc.).

Their influence is manifested in a different understanding of a person, personality, culture, in relation to the unconscious, in explaining the mechanisms of personality activity. At present, the research problems of Western ethnopsychologists are largely mediated by the specifics of such sciences as social geography and landscape science, biology and physiology, sociology and political science, ethnology and ethology. In recent decades, there has been a penetration into ethnopsychology of methodological principles and research methods of these sciences. 3

In Russia, ethnopsychological research was originally the work of writers, ethnographers and linguists.

The object of cognitive interest was the ethnic self-consciousness of the Russian people in the era of the Russian Enlightenment. The upbringing of national pride in compatriots was the leitmotif of the works of M.V. Lomonosov, who laid the foundation for a tradition picked up and developed by the enlighteners of the second half of the 18th century. Striving to form public opinion, to the education of national dignity, to counteract the "Frenchization" of the Russian nobility can be seen in the publications of Fonvizin, Karamzin, Radishchev.

The successors of the ideas of the enlighteners at the beginning of the X I X century became the Decembrists. The programs for the transformation of the Russian state, especially after Patriotic War 1812, they took into account the importance of the ethnopsychological factor of influence on Russian society.

The successor of the humanistic traditions of the Russian Enlightenment was Chaadaev, without taking into account whose work it is impossible to comprehensively assess the features of the development of Russian rational self-consciousness in the first half of the 19th century. His name is associated with the beginning of two major socio-political trends, within the framework of which the question of the originality of the Russian people was discussed. In "Philosophical Letters" P. Ya. Chaadaev for the first time not abstractly, but substantively raised the problem of the significance of the Russian nationality, its features. In Chaadaev's views, skepticism and rejection of the historical past of the Russian people were combined with faith in their special destiny, the messianic role of Russia in the future of Europe.

The idea of ​​the messianic role of Russia formed the basis of the theoretical constructions of the Slavophiles as representatives of a special trend in Russian social thought. This movement became most active in the 30-50s of the XIX century. The founders of the Lyubomudrov society Venevitinov, Khomyakov, Kireevsky considered the formation of Russian national identity as the most pressing problem in Russia, which is possible through the achievement of national identity, the creation of their own literature and art.

Slavophiles of the second generation Aksakov, Samarin, Tyutchev, Grigoriev in their artistic and publicistic works also tried to draw the attention of the nascent Russian intelligentsia and the reading public in general to the problems of the national identity of Russians as an ethnos with a unique history and geography of settlement. Slavophiles of the second generation, unlike their predecessors, did not speak about the folk foundations of national revival, but concretized that in post-Petrine Russia only the peasantry and partly the merchants act as keepers of the eternal distinctive features and traditions, in the words of I. S. Aksakov, "the independence of the Russian view."

Another direction of Russian social thought is Westernism associated with the orientation towards the entry of Russia as a European state into the world community of civilized Western states. The ideologists of this trend were Herzen, Ogarev, Belinsky, Botkin, Dobrolyubov. The Westernizers, unlike the Slavophiles, were not inclined to idealize either the historical past or the moral qualities of the Russian people. But at the same time, they opposed the leveling of the national, especially in the upper social strata of Russian society, the loss of a sense of national dignity by part of the nobility.

The importance of Russian ethnography in the development of ethnic psychology is also great. Expeditions equipped by the Academy of Sciences, starting from the 18th century, brought a variety of materials from the north of Russia and from Siberia.

To develop materials for expeditions and further study the country in 1846, the Russian Geographical Society was established. Its creation was associated with the implementation of not only, and even not so much scientific as social tasks. The society's program included a comprehensive study of Russia, its geography, natural resources and peoples. One of the main tasks was the study of the Russian peasantry in order to resolve the issue of serfdom. State interests also demanded information about the peoples of Siberia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. This left an imprint on the activities of the society and its ethnographic department, which organizes ethnopsychological research.

In connection with the program of complex ethnographic research, Nadezhdin in 1846 compiled an Ethnographic Instruction, which proposed describing: material life, everyday life, moral life, language.

Moral life included all the phenomena of spiritual culture and among them the "national characteristic", that is, the mental make-up; this also included a description of mental and moral abilities, family relationships and the characteristics of raising children. Thus, in the ethnographic department of the Russian Geographical Society at the end of the 1840s, the beginning of new industry psychology - folk psychology. 4

CONCLUSION

Historically, ethnic, or folk, psychology has developed in Russia in two directions. One was the collection of ethnographic material, and psychological problems were included in general descriptions life of different peoples. Another direction was associated with linguistics; here language acted as the basis for the unity of the mental makeup of a particular people. The idea was supported and developed that language is the basis of folk psychology and that it determines the existence of ethnic communities. This idea influenced the formation of the psychological trend in linguistics, dating back to the works of the German scientist Humboldt. And the main feature of folk psychology was its connection with linguistics.

The theory of national psychology, which was developed by Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, served the purpose of psychologizing the socio-historical problem of nations and nationalities, and practical conclusions for national policy were drawn from it. The author believed that the main issue of national policy comes down to the issue of language. Treating language as an instrument of ethnic identification, he saw in it a factor of national self-determination of the individual. Following the psychologization of social phenomena, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky took another step, biologizing them, introducing the concept of the pathology of nationality, “diseases” of the national psyche, such as nationalism and chauvinism. According to his views, the hypertrophy of social interethnic characteristics in some cases causes an atrophy of national traits, the phenomenon of "denationalization", but its consequence may also be an increase in national feeling, leading to national vanity and chauvinism.

In the pre-revolutionary years, a course in ethnic psychology was introduced at Moscow University, read by the philosopher Shpet. In 1917, his article on ethnic psychology was published in the journal "Psychological Review", and in 1927, a book on the subject and tasks of this science called "Introduction to Ethnic Psychology". This book was written back in 1916, later only comments were added to the foreign literature published during this time. 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Ananiev B.G. Essays on the history of Russian psychology XVIII - XIX centuries - M., 1947.
  2. Dessouard M. Essay on the history of psychology. - S.-Pb., 1912.

1 Yakunin V.A. History of Psychology: Textbook. - S.-Pb., 2001.

2 Dessouard M. Essay on the history of psychology. - S-Pb., 1912.

3 Martsinkovskaya T.D. History of Psychology. - M., 2004.

4 Zhdan A.N. History of Psychology: Textbook. - M., 2001.

5 Ananiev B.G. Essays on the history of Russian psychology in the 18th - 19th centuries. - M., 1947.

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CHAPTER I. ETHNOPSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAS IN EUROPEAN SCIENCE

1.1. The origin of ethnopsychology in history and philosophy

Grains of ethnopsychological knowledge are scattered in the works of ancient authors - philosophers and historians: Herodotus, Hippocrates, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo. Already in Ancient Greece, the influence of the environment on the formation of psychological characteristics was noticed. The physician and founder of medical geography Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 or 356 BC) put forward a general position according to which all differences between peoples - including their behavior and mores - are related to the nature and climate of the country.

Herodotus (born between 490 and 480 - d. C. 425 BC) is the "father" not only of history, but also of ethnography. He himself wandered willingly and a lot and talked about the amazing features of the peoples he met during his travels. In the History of Herodotus, we meet with one of the first attempts etic approach, since the scientist seeks to explain the features of the life and character of different peoples that interest him by their natural environment and at the same time compares them with each other:

"Just as the sky in Egypt is different than anywhere else, and as their river differs in natural properties from other rivers, so the customs and customs of the Egyptians are in almost all respects opposite to those of other peoples." (Herodotus, 1972, p. 91).

Rather, it is pseudo-etican approach, as any nation Herodotus compares with his compatriots - the Hellenes. The best example of an ethnographic sketch by Herodotus is considered to be a description of Scythia made on the basis of personal observations: it tells about the gods, customs, rituals of twinning and funeral rites of the Scythians, retells the myths about their origin. He does not forget about character traits, highlighting their severity, inaccessibility, cruelty. Herodotus tries to explain the attributed qualities both by the peculiarities of the environment (Scythia is a plain rich in grass and well irrigated by deep rivers), and by the nomadic way of life of the Scythians, thanks to which "no one can overtake them, unless they themselves allow it." (Herodotus, 1972, p. 198). In the "History" of Herodotus, we meet with many interesting observations, although he often gives absolutely fantastic descriptions of supposedly existing peoples. In fairness, it should be noted that the historian himself does not believe in stories about people with goat legs or people who sleep six months a year.

In modern times, the first attempts to make peoples the subject of psychological observations were made in the 18th century. Again, it was environment and climate that were seen as the factors underlying the differences between the two. So, discovering differences in intelligence, they explained them by external (temperature) climate conditions. The supposedly temperate climate of the Middle East and Western Europe is more conducive to the development of intelligence, and with it civilization, than the climate of tropical regions, where "the heat stifles human efforts."

But it wasn't just intelligence that was studied. The French enlighteners of the 18th century introduced the concept of "the spirit of the people" and tried to solve the problem of its being conditioned by geographic factors. The most prominent representative of geographical determinism among French philosophers is C. Montesquieu (1689-1755), who believed that “many things govern people: climate, religion, laws, principles of government, examples of the past, manners, customs; as a result of all this, a common spirit of the people is formed " (Montesquieu, 1955, p. 412). But among many factors, he put climate in the first place. For example, "the peoples of hot climates", in his opinion, are "timid like old people", lazy, incapable of feats, but endowed with a vivid imagination. And the northern peoples are "brave as young men" and are not very sensitive to pleasures. At the same time, the climate affects the spirit of the people not only directly, but also indirectly: depending on climatic conditions and soil, traditions and customs are formed, which in turn affect the life of peoples. Montesquieu believed that in the course of history, the direct influence of climate weakens, while the action of other causes increases. If "nature and climate rule almost exclusively over the savages," then "the Chinese are ruled by customs, in Japan tyrannical power belongs to laws", and so on. (Ibid, p. 412).

The idea of ​​the national spirit penetrated into the German philosophy of history of the 18th century. One of her prominent representatives, a friend of Schiller and Goethe, I. G. Herder (1744-1803) considered the spirit of the people not as something incorporeal, he practically did not share the concepts of "national spirit", "soul of the people" and "national character". The soul of the people was not for him and something all-embracing, containing all his originality. Herder mentioned the "soul" among other signs of the people, together with language, prejudices, music, etc. He emphasized the dependence of mental components on climate and landscape, but also admitted the influence of lifestyle and upbringing, social structure and history. Realizing how difficult it is to reveal the mental characteristics of this or that people, the German thinker noted that "... one must live with one feeling with the nation in order to feel at least one of its inclinations." (Herder, 1959, p. 274). In other words, he felt one of the main characteristics emic approach - the desire to study the culture from the inside, merging with it.

The soul of the people, according to Herder, can be recognized through their feelings, speech, deeds, i.e. it is necessary to study his whole life. But in the first place he put the oral folk art believing that it is the fantasy world that reflects the folk spirit the best way... As one of the first European folklorists, Herder tried to apply the results of his research in describing the features inherent in the "soul" of some of the peoples of Europe. But when he moved to the psychological level, the characteristics he distinguished turned out to be little connected with the peculiarities of folklore. So, he described the Germans as a people of courageous morals, noble valor, virtuous, bashful, able to deeply love, honest and truthful. Found Herder and the "disadvantage" of his compatriots: cautious, conscientious, not to say a slow and clumsy character. We are especially interested in the traits that Herder attributed to the neighbors of the Germans - the Slavs: generosity, hospitality to the point of extravagance, love "for rural freedom." And at the same time, he considered the Slavs to be easily obedient and obedient (Ibid .: 267).

Herder's views are just one example of the close attention of European philosophers to the problem of national character or popular spirit. The English philosopher D. Hume and the great German thinkers I. Kant and G. Hegel also contributed to the development of knowledge about the character of peoples. All of them not only spoke out about the factors influencing the spirit of peoples, but also offered "psychological portraits" of some of them.

1.2. Study of the psychology of peoples in Germany and Russia "

The development of a number of sciences, primarily ethnography, psychology and linguistics, led in the middle of the 19th century to the birth of ethnopsychology as an independent science. It is generally accepted that this happened in Germany, in which at that time there was a surge of general German self-awareness, due to the processes of uniting numerous principalities into a single state. The "founding fathers" of the new discipline are the German scientists M. Lazarus (1824-1903) and G. Steinthal (1823-1893), who in 1859 began publishing the "Journal of the Psychology of Peoples and Linguistics". In the programmatic article of the first issue of "Thoughts on folk psychology" the need for development psychology of peoples- a new science that is part of psychology - they explained the need to investigate the laws mental life not only separate individuals, but also whole communities in which people act "as a kind of unity." Among such communities (political, socio-economic, religious) stand out peoples, those. ethnic communities in our understanding, since it is the people, as something historical, always Given is for any individual absolutely necessary and the most essential of all communities to which he belongs. Rather, to which he refers himself, because according to La Tsarus and Steinthal, people there is a collection of people who look at themselves as one people, consider themselves to be one to the people. And spiritual kinship between people does not depend on origin or language, since people define themselves as belonging to a certain nation subjectively.

All individuals of the same people have "similar feelings, inclinations, desires", they all have the same folk spirit, which German thinkers understood as the mental similarity of individuals belonging to a particular nation, and at the same time as their self-consciousness, i.e. what we would call ethnic identity. It is the folk spirit that * manifests itself first of all in the language, then in the morals and customs, regulations and deeds, in traditions and chants. " (Steinthal, 1960, p. 115), and is designed to study the psychology of peoples. Lazarus and Steintal considered the main tasks of the new science: 1) cognition of the psychological essence of the national spirit; 2) the discovery of the laws by which the internal activities of the people are carried out in life, art and science; 3) identification of the main reasons for the emergence, development and destruction of the characteristics of any people.

The allocation of these tasks indicates that Lazarus and Steintal considered the psychology of peoples as an explanatory science, reducing the general laws of language, religion, art, science, morals and other elements of spiritual culture to a psychological essence. It should only be borne in mind that apart from historical psychology of peoples, explaining the spirit of peoples as a whole, German scientists distinguished the descriptive part of the psychology of peoples - a specific psychological ethnology, designed to give the characteristics of the spirit of individual peoples.

The concept of Lazarus and Steinthal cannot be regarded as a socio-psychological theory in the proper sense of the word. The psychology of peoples, from their point of view, is a continuation of individual psychology, since the spirit of the people lives only in individuals and the same processes that are studied by individual psychology take place in it. And yet, the founders of ethnopsychology warned against a complete analogy between individual psychology and the psychology of peoples, emphasizing that many individuals make up a people only when the spirit of the people unites them into a single whole. Like individual psychology, the psychology of peoples is called upon to study, first of all, imagination, reason, morality, but not an individual individual, but an entire people, discovering them in his work, practical life and religion.

The ideas of Lazarus and Steinthal immediately found a response in scientific circles of the multinational Russian Empire. Already in 1859, a Russian translation of the presentation of their programmatic article appeared, and in 1864 it was published in full. This interest is largely due to the fact that by that time in Russia an attempt had already been made to collect ethnopsychological data in essence, although a conceptual model of a new science was not built.

In our country, the birth of ethnopsychology is associated with the activities of the Russian Geographical Society, whose members considered "mental ethnography" as one of the sections of ethnography. NI Nadezhdin (1804-1856), who proposed this term, believed that psychic ethnography should study the spiritual side of human nature, mental and moral abilities, willpower and character, a sense of human dignity, etc. As a manifestation of folk psychology, he also considered oral folk art - epics, songs, fairy tales, proverbs.

In 1847, the collection of materials began on the program for studying the ethnographic identity of the population of different provinces of Russia, proposed by Nadezhdin. Seven thousand copies of the program were sent to the branches of the Russian Geographical Society located throughout the Russian Empire, offering to describe the peoples inhabiting a particular area. For many years, several hundred manuscripts were delivered to St. Petersburg annually from amateur collectors - landowners, priests, teachers, officials ... .e. about all the phenomena of spiritual culture from family relations and upbringing of children to "mental and moral abilities" and "national characteristics". Several manuscripts were published, reports were compiled containing psychological sections. But the work was not completed, and most of the materials, apparently, are still gathering dust in the archives of the Russian Geographical Society.

Later, in the 70s. of the last century, and in Russia, following Germany, an attempt was made to "build" ethnopsychology into psychology. These ideas arose from the jurist, historian and philosopher KD Kavelin (1818-1885), who in the 40s. participated in the implementation of the program of ethnographic research of the Russian Geographical Society. Not satisfied with the results of collecting subjective descriptions of the "mental and moral properties" of peoples, Kavelin suggested the possibility of an "objective" method of studying folk psychology based on the products of spiritual activity - cultural monuments, customs, folklore, and beliefs. In his opinion, the task of the psychology of nations is to establish the general laws of mental life on the basis of comparing homogeneous phenomena and products of spiritual life among different nations and among the same nation in different periods of its historical life.

Between KD Kavelin and I.M.Sechenov (1829-1905) - the founder of the natural science trend in Russian psychology - a discussion arose about what should be considered an objective method in scientific psychology, for which they both stood up. Recognizing the mental as a process, Sechenov considered it impossible to study the psyche from the products of spiritual culture. As a matter of fact, he denied the possibility of holding emic research in psychology, believing that "every psychologist, meeting with any monument of human mental activity and thinking about analyzing it, if necessary, must put the inventor of the monument and his own measure of observation and his own ideas about the ability to use analogies, draw conclusions, etc." (Sechenov, 1947, p. 208). In other words, having correctly noted the great difficulties faced by researchers emic directions, he found these difficulties insurmountable.

In Russia, the first were victorious in a dispute between supporters of Sechenov's natural science psychology and Kavelin's humanitarian psychology. And together with the defeat of Kavelin, the first attempt to create a scientific ethnopsychology within the framework of psychology ended in failure. But this does not mean that ethnopsychological ideas were not developed at all in our country. It's just that the interest in them, as before, was shown by philosophers, historians, linguists.

And above all, the analysis of the folk - mainly Russian - character continued. Most Russian thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries were more or less concerned with the problem of revealing the originality of the "Russian soul", isolating its main characteristics and explaining their origin. It is impossible even to list the authors who touched upon this problem, from P. Ya.Chaadaev to P. Sorokin, including A.S. Khomyakov and other Slavophiles, N. Ya.Danilevsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky, V.O. Klyuchevsky, V. S. Solovyov, N. A. Berdyaev, N. O. Lossky and many others. While some authors only described the features of the Russian national character, others tried to systematize the descriptions of their predecessors, to determine the significance of each of the factors under study. There are several ways to explain the "Russian soul" as a whole. Thus, the historian Klyuchevsky inclined towards geographical determinism, believing that "a living and peculiar participation in the structure of life and concepts of the Russian man" was taken by "the basic elements of the nature of the Russian plain" - forest, steppe and river (Klyuchevsky, 1956, p. 66). The philosopher Berdyaev emphasized "the correspondence between the immensity, the infinity of the Russian land and the Russian soul, between physical geography and spiritual geography." (Berdyaev, 1990 a, p. 44). He noted that the Russian people "did not design" these huge spaces because of their most dangerous flaw - the lack of "courageous character and temper of personality" (Berdyaev, 1990 b, p. 28).

Russian linguistics also contributed to the development of ethnopsychological ideas. AA Potebnya (1835-1891) developed an original concept of language based on the study of its psychological nature. According to the scientist, it is the language that determines the methods of mental work, and different peoples with different languages ​​form their thoughts in their own way, different from others. It is in language that Potebnya sees the main factor that unites people into a "nationality". For him, a nationality is more likely not an ethnos, but an ethnic identity, a sense of community on the basis of everything that distinguishes one people from another, constituting its originality, but above all on the basis of the unity of the language. Associating the nationality with the language, Potebnya considers it to be a very ancient phenomenon, the time of origin of which cannot be determined. Therefore, the most ancient traditions of the people should be looked for mainly in the language. As soon as the child masters the language, he acquires these traditions, and the loss of the language leads to denationalization.

1.3. W. Wundt: the psychology of peoples as the first form of socio-psychological knowledge

As already noted, in Russia, supporters of natural science and humanitarian psychology fought among themselves, in which there were winners and losers, but there was no place for ethnopsychology among other psychological disciplines. And in Germany, both orientations crossed in the work of one researcher - W. Wundt (1832-1920), the creator of not only the experimental psychology of consciousness built on the model of physiology, but also the psychology of the peoples as one of the first forms of socio-psychological knowledge.

Wundt published his first ethnopsychological article in 1886, then transformed it into a book, which was translated into Russian in 1912 under the title Problems of the Psychology of Nations. The last twenty years of his life, the scientist devoted entirely to the creation of a ten-volume "Psychology of Nations". Wundt's predecessors in the creation of a new science were Lazarus and Steinthal. At first, his disagreements with the latter were subtle, but then he seriously deviated from their proposed path.

At first, as we remember, for Lazarus and Steinthal, the study of the national spirit is reduced to the study of the same psychological phenomena as the study of the individuals who make up the people. Wundt agrees with them that soul of the people is not at all an incorporeal entity, independent of individuals. Moreover, it is nothing outside the latter. But he consistently pursues the idea, fundamental for social psychology, that the joint life of individuals and their interaction with each other should generate new phenomena with peculiar laws that, although they do not contradict the laws of individual consciousness, are not reducible to them. And as these new phenomena, in other words, as the content of the soul of the people, he considers the general ideas, feelings and aspirations of many individuals. From this, only one conclusion can be drawn: the psychology of peoples for the German scientist is an independent science. He emphasizes that she not only uses the services of individual psychology, but she herself assists the latter, providing material about the spiritual life of individuals and thus influencing the explanation of individual states of consciousness.

Secondly, Wundt seeks to narrow down the program of study of the psychology of peoples proposed by Lazarus and Steinthal. Although, according to him, in real research it is impossible to completely distinguish between description and explanation, the science of the soul of the people is designed to explain the general laws of its development. And ethnology, which is an auxiliary discipline for the psychology of peoples, should describe the mental properties of individual peoples. Incidentally, Steinthal, in his later writings, agreed with Wundt's point of view on this issue and left descriptive psychological ethnology at the mercy of ethnographers.

B-third, on According to Wundt, the general ideas of many individuals are manifested primarily in language, myths and customs, and the rest of the elements of spiritual culture are secondary and are reduced to them. So, art, sciences and religion for a long time in the history of mankind have been associated with mythological thinking. Therefore, as a subject of study, they should be excluded from the psychology of peoples. True, in his multivolume work, Wundt is not always consistent, for example, quite often he considers religion and art as part of the psychology of peoples.

But in the early works of the German researcher, we find a clear structure of the products of the creative spirit of the peoples:

• language contains the general form of ideas living in the soul of the people and the laws of their connection;

• myths, understood by Wundt in a broad sense as all the primitive world outlook and even the beginnings of religion, conceal the original content of these ideas in their conditioning of feelings and drives.

• customs include actions arising from these ideas, characterized by general directions of will and the rudiments of a legal order.

“Language, myths and customs are general spiritual phenomena, so closely intertwined with each other that one of them is unthinkable without the other ... Customs express in actions the same views of life that are hidden in myths and become common property thanks to language. And these actions, in turn, make them more durable and develop further the ideas from which they flow. " (Wundt, 1998, p. 226).

Having familiarized himself with Wundt's ideas, it is easy to guess that the main method of the psychology of peoples he considers the analysis of concrete historical products of spiritual life, i.e. language, myths and customs, which, in his opinion, are not fragments of the creativity of the folk spirit, but this spirit itself.

Wundt notes that the products of spiritual culture are also studied by other, in particular historical, sciences. Moreover, psychological and historical research go hand in hand. But the psychology of peoples - as an explanatory science - analyzes them from the side of the general laws of spiritual development expressed in them. She strives to psychologically explain the laws that objectively appear in language, myths and customs. If a psychologist studies the cult of tree spirits, which exists among the Germanic and Slavic peoples, he needs to answer the question of what psychological reasons lie at the basis of this cult and related ideas, and how psychologically justified are changes in ideas with the development of culture.

1.4. G. G. Shpet on the subject of ethnic psychology

In the 20s. XX century in Russia, taking into account the achievements and miscalculations of German predecessors, another attempt was made to create ethnic psychology, and it is under this name. In 1920, the Russian philosopher G. G. Shpet (1879-1940), in a memorandum on the establishment of an office of "ethnic and social psychology" at the historical and philological faculty of Moscow University, defined this area of ​​knowledge as a branch of psychology, covering the study of such manifestations of human mental life as a language, myths, beliefs, customs, art, i.e. the same products of spiritual culture that called to study Lazarus and Steinthal, Kavelin and Wundt.

He outlined his views in more detail in the book "Introduction to Ethnic Psychology", the first part of which was published in 1927. In this work, Shpet conducts a detailed methodological analysis of the concepts of Lazarus - Steinthal and Wundt. From his point of view, ethnic psychology is not at all explanatory, on which Wundt insisted, but a descriptive science, the subject of which is typical collective experiences. This is the first time we meet this concept, so we should dwell on how the Russian scientist interprets it.

In polemicizing with the Bund the volume for which the products of spiritual culture are psychological products, Shpet argues that in itself the cultural-historical content of people's life is not psychological. Psychologically different - attitude to the products of culture, to the meaning of cultural phenomena. Shpet believes that all of them - language, myths, morals, religion, science - cause certain experiences among cultural bearers: “no matter how individually people are different, there is a typically common in their experiences, as“ responses ”to what is happening in front of their eyes, minds and hearts " (Shpet,1996, with. 341). Trying to relate a person to the world of culture, Shlet understands this general not as an average, not as a set of similarities, but as a “type” that is a “representative” of a particular historical community (type of Chinese, type of bourgeois). According to the concept of the Russian thinker, analyzing the products of culture, ethnic psychology should identify typical collective experiences, in other words, answer the questions: What does the people like? What is he afraid of? What is he worshiping?

The first part of Shpet's book is a philosophical foundation of a new science - ethnic psychology, and we will not find in it examples of typical collective experiences of any people. We will never know how GG Shpet would have concretized his program settings: in the early 30s. he was repressed and in 1940 he died in the Stalinist camps.

But the ideas of the Russian philosopher, stated in the first part of his book. "" Sound extremely modern. At first, this refers to the concept he introduced collective experiences, which he does not reduce only to emotions or only to cognitions. Rather, this is what modern science calls mentality, when they understand it not just as social representations, but as an emotionally colored system of world outlook inherent in one or another community of people. GG Shpet proposes to study not the products of culture as such, but precisely people's feelings about them, emphasizing that "perhaps nowhere is the psychology of the people so vividly reflected as in their relations to their own" created "spiritual values" (Shpet,1996, with. 341). He talks about the same thing she came to modern science: on the need to study in psychology subjective culture.

Secondly, his assertion that a person's belonging to a people is determined not by biological heredity, but deliberate involvement to those cultural values ​​and shrines that form the content of the history of the people: “A person, indeed, spiritually defines himself, refers himself to a given nation, he can even“ change ”the people, enter into the composition and spirit of another people, but again not“ arbitrarily ", But by means of long and hard work of re-creation of the spiritual structure that determines it" (Shpet, 1996, p. 371).

But at the same time, Shpet notes a very important feature of ethnic identity, which many researchers of our day do not pay attention to: the unity of a person with a people is determined by a mutual act of recognition. In other words, in order to be a member of an ethnic community, the awareness of one's belonging to it is not enough, it is also necessary to recognize the individual as a group.

The ideas of Lazarus and Steinthal, Kavelin, Wundt, Shpet in most cases remained at the level of bare explanatory schemes, and their conceptual models were not implemented in specific psychological studies. But the enduring value of the psychology of the peoples of the XIX - early XX centuries lies in the fact that its creators tried to correlate the world of the individual not with the world of nature, but with the world of culture. Social psychology, which in the 20th century developed as an experimental science, rejected the psychology of peoples, along with other first socio-psychological theories for the "speculativeness" of methods and means of analysis. But the ideas of the first ethnopsychologists, primarily the ideas of W. Wundt, were taken up by another science - cultural anthropology. Ideas about the ties of culture with inner peace F. Boas, who was born in Germany and became the ancestor of cultural anthropology in the United States, transferred a man to American soil.

LITERATURE TO READ

E. A. Budilova Socio-psychological problems in Russian science. Moscow: Nauka, 1983.S. 112-148.

Introduction to Ethnic Psychology / Ed. Yu. P. Platonov. SPb .: Publishing house of St. Petersburg University, 1995.S. 5-34.

Wundt W. Problems of the psychology of peoples // Crime crowd. Moscow: Institute of Psychology RAS; Publishing house "KSP +", 1998. S. 201-231.

Shpet G.G. Introduction to ethnic psychology // Psychology of social life. Moscow: Institute of Practical Psychology; Voronezh: MODEK, 1996.S. 261-372.

Let us remember these qualities, with many of them we will meet in other "portraits" of Slavic peoples, in particular the Russian people.

Another concept of linguistic determinism - the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis - we will analyze in the third chapter. There we will also consider studies that tested this idea empirically.

He uses this very concept, and not the term spirit of the people, as his predecessors, but we will not delve into terminological disagreements.

Let us remember this, since general (or collective, or social) ideas are one of the central concepts of modern social psychology in general and social ethnopsychology in particular.

At the same time, he uses the term "type" in a meaning similar to the use of this word to characterize heroes literary works and familiar to everyone from literature lessons.