Section
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31429/26190567-21-2-97-110How to Cite
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2020 Виктор Владимирович Знаков
Abstract
The article shows that signs, cognitive and existential symbols are internal conditions of mental activity of a subject who understands the world. The psychological bases for understanding each reality — empirical, sociocultural, existential — are signs, cognitive symbols, and existential symbols, respectively. It is proved that the heterogeneity of understanding, its disparity and apparent divergence can not be considered a lack of psychological analysis of this phenomenon. On the contrary, the multiplicity of understanding, its focus on different types of signs and symbols when generating meanings of events and situations, is a characteristic of its completeness and variability. The difference in understanding is determined by the multilevel reality of the human world, which consists of at least three of the above-mentioned realities. It is argued that with the emergence and development of the psychology of the possible, scientists are increasingly paying attention to the implicit, hidden, non-obvious and even secret sides of the human world. Their identification and description is possible only on the basis of scientific ideas about the multiple nature of the determination of the natural and social worlds. Moving in the study of understanding from empirical reality to the understanding of existential reality, psychologists are forced to move from linear Laplace determinism to account for the natural randomness and unpredictability of many events and phenomena of natural and social reality. When understanding empirical reality, signs are represented in the psyche of the understanding subject as "cognitive knowledge" (Foucault, 2007). It reflects, but it does not transform: it does not change anything in the subject who knows reality. Cognitive symbols allow the subject to understand the multiplicity of variants of the understood socio-cultural reality. A cognitive symbol can point to different objects, but the understanding subject has not formed a personal attitude to them. In contrast to the cognitive, the existential symbol expresses something subjectively significant for a person. The existential symbol is inexhaustible and unlimited in its meaning, because it denotes something hidden, secret, often understood by people as only possible, but not real. Such a symbol indicates the existence of another reality that is not perceived by the senses.
Keywords
Funding information
The research was carried out through the financial support of RFBR, research project № 19–013–00032 “Psychology of understanding: from cognitive research to hermeneutic analysis and the psychology of human existence.”
References
Anderson, J. R. (2005). Human Symbol Manipulation Within an Integrated Cognitive Architecture. Cognitive Science, 29 (2), 313–341.
Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual Symbol Systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 4, 577–660.
Cantlon, J. F., Libertus, M. E., Pinel, P. et al. (2009). The Neural Development of an Abstract Concept of Number. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(11), 2217–2229.
Chen, Q, Li, J. (2014). Association between Individual Differences in Non-Symbolic Number Acuity and Math Performance: A Meta-Analysis. Acta Psychologica, 148, 163–172.
Fedorov, N. A. (2012). Psihologicheskie potencialy simvola [A Symbol Psychological Potentials]. Vestnik Omskogo universiteta. Seriya “Psihologiya” [Herald of Omsk University. Series: Psychology], 1, 24–30.
Foucault, M. (2007). Germenevtika sub''yekta: Kurs lektsiy, prochitannykh v Kollezh de Frans v 1981–1982 uchebnom godu [Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981–1982]. SPb.: Nauka.
Ivanov, V. I. (1994). Rodnoe i vselenskoe [The Native and Universal]. M.: Respublika.
Josephs, I. E. (1998). Constructing One's Self in the City of the Silent: Dialogue, Symbols, and the Role of 'As-If ' in Self-Development. Human Development, 41(3), 180–195.
Kulagina, N. V. (2006). Simvol i simvolicheskoe soznanie [Symbol and Symbolic Consciousness]. Kul'turno-istoricheskaya psihologiya [Cultural-Historical Psychology], 1, 3–10.
Leibovich, T, Ansari, D. (2016). The Symbol-Grounding Problem in Numerical Cognition: A Review of Theory, Evidence, and Outstanding Questions. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(1), 12–23.
Leont'ev, A. A. (2001). Znachenie i smysl [Meaning and Purpose]. Mir psihologii [World of Psychology]. 2 (26), 13–20.
Leont'ev, A. N. (1983). Nekotorye problemy psikhologii iskusstva. Izbrannye psikhologicheskye proizvedeniya: V 2 t. [Some Problems of the Psychology of Art. Selected Psychological Works: In 2 Vol.]. M.: Pedagogika.
Lobanova, N. I. (2019). Veshch' mezhdu znakom i simvolom (o semioticheskoy deyatel'nosti veshchi) [Thing Between Sign and Symbol (on Semiotic Function of Thing)]. Manuskript [Manuscript], 10, 202–208.
Losev, A. F. (2014). Problema simvola i realisticheskoe iskusstvo [The Problem of Symbol and Realistic Art]. M.: Russkiy Mir.
Malevich, K. S. (2016). Mir kak bespredmetnost' [The World as Pointlessness]. M.: Eksmo.
Nikonenko, S. V. (2016). K voprosu o sootnoshenii simvola i znaka [The Difference Between Symbols and Signs]. Vestnik SPbGU. Ser. 17. Filosofiya. Konfliktologiya. Kul'turologiya. Religiovedenie [Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Series 17. Philosophy. Conflict Studies. Culture Studies. Religious Studies], 3, 47–53.
Osorina, M. V., Celyaeva, S. I. (2014). Ispol'zovaniye informatsionnykh znakov dlya izucheniya protsessov ponimaniya sotsial'nykh situatsiy [Using Public Information Signs to Study the Processes of Understanding Social Situations]. Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Ser. 16. Psihologiya. Pedagogika [Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Series 16. Psychology. Pedagogy], 1, 6–20.
Petrosyan, Yu. S. (2018). Simvol: sushchnost' i prednaznachenie [Symbol: Its Essence and Purport]. Vestnik Omskogo universiteta [Herald of Omsk University], 4, 103–114.
Reynvoet, B., Sasanguie, D. (2016). The Symbol Grounding Problem Revisited: A Thorough Evaluation of the ANS Mapping Account and the Proposal of an Alternative Account Based on Symbol–Symbol Associations. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01581
Rikoeur, P. (1995). Konflikt interpretaciy. Ocherki o germenevtike [The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics]. M.: Medium.
Shalina, O. S. (2010). Simvolicheskoe oposredstvovanie perezhivaniy lichnosti v kriticheskikh situatsiyakh [Symbolic Mediation of Personality Experiences in Critical Situations] (Abstract of Candidate Dissertation). Moscow.
Spirova, E. M. (2011). Simvol kak ponyatiye filosofskoy antropologii [Symbol as a Concept of Philosophical Anthropology]. (Abstract of Candidate Dissertation). Moscow.
Subbotskiy, E. V. (2007). Stroyashcheesya soznanie [Consciousness under Construction]. M.: Smysl.
Sukhachev, V. Yu. (1997). Istoriya bez sub''yekta. Metafizicheskye issledovaniya [History without a Subject. Metaphysical Research.]. In Vypusk 3. Istoriya. Al'manakh Laboratorii Metafizicheskikh Issledovaniy pri filosofskom fakul'tete Sankt-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta [Issue 3. History. Almanac of the Laboratory for Metaphysical Research at the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University] (pp. 28–42). SPb.: Aleteyya.
Tsareva, N. A. (2017). Osobennosti germenevticheskogo podhoda k tekstu v russkom simvolizme [Peculiarities of The Hermeneutical Approach to The Text in Russian Symbolism]. Libri Magistri [Libri Magistri], 3, 29–38.
Tsybulya, V. I. (2012). Funktsii simvola v psikhoterapii [Functions of Symbol in Psychotherapy]. Konsul'tativnaya psikhologiya I psikhoterapiya [Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy], 2, 158–173.
Tsybulya, V. I. (2014). K probleme psikhologicheskogo ponimaniya i issledovaniya simvola v psikhoterapii [On the Problem of Psychological Interpretation and Exploration Of Symbol In Psychotherapy]. Kul'turno-istoricheskaya psikhologiya [Cultural-Historical Psychology], 3, 114–122.
Veraksa A. N. (2016). Simvol i znak: dialektika simvolicheskogo poznaniya [Symbol and Sign: Dialectics of Symbolic Cognition]. Voprosy filosofii [Voprosy Filosofii], 1, 51–58.
Vygotskiy, L. S. (1984). Sobranie sochineniy: V 6-ti t. T. 6. [Collected works: In 6 Volumes. Vol. 6.] Moskva: Pedagogika.
Znakov, V. V. (2019). Ponimanie kak psihologiya vozmozhnogo [Understanding as Psychology of Possible]. Sibirskiy psihologicheskiy zhurnal [Siberian Journal of Psychology], 72, 6–20.