Nemov R.S. Psychology: In 3 books. Book 1. - M.: Vlados, 1999
Chapter 5. HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS (p.132-144)

Summary

The nature of human consciousness. Consciousness as a form of human reflection of reality. The main signs of consciousness. Psychological characteristics of human consciousness. Meaning and meaning as components of consciousness. The role of speech in the functioning of human consciousness. Consciousness as a generalized, verbally defined human reflection of reality in its essential and most stable invariant properties.

The emergence and development of consciousness. Prerequisites and conditions for the emergence of consciousness: the joint productive activity of people, the distribution of labor, role differentiation and activation of communication, the development and use of language and other sign systems, the formation of human material and spiritual culture. The main directions of phylo- and ontogenetic development of consciousness. The emergence and development of human reflective ability. The formation of a system of concepts. Changing the psychology and behavior of people under the influence historical events. The successes of science, culture, industrial production, the emergence of new means of cognition and self-regulation (mental and behavioral) are factors that ensure the development of consciousness. The main directions of development of consciousness in modern conditions. Coming socio-economic changes and prospects for the development of human consciousness.

THE NATURE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

The essential difference between man as a species and animals lies in his ability to reason and think abstractly, to reflect on his past, critically evaluating it, and to think about the future, developing and implementing plans and programs designed for it. All this taken together is connected with the sphere of human consciousness.

Consciousness is the highest level of human reflection of reality , if the psyche is considered from a materialistic position, and the actual human form of the mental principle of being, if the psyche is interpreted from an idealistic position. In the history of psychological science, consciousness has been the most difficult problem that has not yet been solved from materialistic or idealistic positions, but many of the most difficult questions have arisen on the path of its materialistic understanding. It is for this reason that the chapter on consciousness, despite its vital importance in understanding psychology and human behavior, is still one of the least developed.

Regardless of what philosophical positions the researchers of consciousness adhered to, the so-called reflective ability , i.e. the readiness of consciousness to cognize other mental phenomena and itself. The presence of such an ability in a person is the basis for the existence and development psychological sciences because without it given class phenomena would be closed to knowledge. Without reflection, a person could not even have an idea that he has a psyche.

The first psychological characteristic of human consciousness includes the feeling of being a cognizing subject, the ability to mentally represent the existing and imaginary reality, control and manage one's own mental and behavioral states, the ability to see and perceive the surrounding reality in the form of images.

The feeling of being a cognizing subject means that a person is aware of himself as a being separated from the rest of the world, ready and able to study and cognize this world, i.e. to obtain more or less reliable knowledge about it. A person is aware of this knowledge as phenomena that are different from the objects to which they relate, can formulate this knowledge, expressing it in words, concepts, various other symbols, transfer it to another person and future generations of people, store, reproduce, work with knowledge as with a special object. With the loss of consciousness (sleep, hypnosis, illness, etc.), this ability is lost.

Mental representation and imagination of reality is the second important psychological characteristic of consciousness. It, like consciousness in general, is closely connected with the will. They usually talk about the conscious control of ideas and imagination when they are generated and changed by the effort of a person's will.

Here, however, there is one difficulty. Imagination and ideas are not always under conscious volitional control, and in this regard, the question arises: are we dealing with consciousness in the event that they represent a “stream of consciousness” - a spontaneous flow of thoughts, images and associations. It seems that in this case it would be more correct to speak not about consciousness, but about preconsciousness - an intermediate mental state between the unconscious and consciousness. In other words, consciousness is almost always associated with volitional control on the part of a person of his own psyche and behavior.

The representation of reality that is absent at a given moment of time or does not exist at all (imagination, dreams, dreams, fantasy) acts as one of the most important psychological characteristics consciousness. In this case, a person arbitrarily, i.e. consciously, distracts from the perception of the environment, from extraneous thoughts, and focuses all his attention on some idea, image, memory, etc., drawing and developing in his imagination what he does not directly see at the moment or does not see at all able to see.

Volitional control of mental processes and states has always been associated with consciousness. It is no coincidence that in the old textbooks on psychology, the topics "Consciousness" and "Will" almost always coexisted with each other and were discussed simultaneously.

Consciousness is closely connected with speech and without it in its higher forms does not exist. , Unlike sensations and perceptions, representations and memory, conscious reflection is characterized by a number of specific properties. One of them is the meaningfulness of what is represented, or perceived, i.e. its verbal and conceptual significance, endowment with a certain meaning associated with human culture.

Another property of consciousness is that not everything and not random, but only the main, main, essential characteristics of objects, events and phenomena are reflected in consciousness, i.e. something that is characteristic of them and distinguishes them from other objects and phenomena that look like them.

Consciousness is almost always associated with the use of words-concepts to denote the perceived, which, by definition, contain indications of the general and distinctive properties of the class of objects reflected in the mind.

The third characteristic of human consciousness is its ability to communicate, i.e. conveying to others what the person is aware of through language and other sign systems. Many higher animals have communication capabilities, but they differ from human ones in one important circumstance: with the help of language, a person conveys to people not only messages about his internal states(this is the main thing in the language and communication of animals), but also about what he knows, sees, understands, represents, i.e. objective information about the environment.

Another feature of human consciousness is the presence of intelligent circuits in it. A scheme is a certain mental structure, in accordance with which a person perceives, processes and stores information about the world around him and about himself. Schemes include rules, concepts, logical operations used by people to bring their information into a certain order, including the selection, classification of information, assigning it to one category or another. With examples of schemes that work in the field of perception, memory and thinking, we will still meet on the pages of the textbook when considering cognitive processes.

By exchanging a variety of information with each other, people highlight the main thing in the message. This is how it goes abstraction, i.e. distraction from everything secondary, and concentration of consciousness on the most essential. Being deposited in vocabulary, semantics in a conceptual form, this main thing then becomes the property of the individual consciousness of a person as he assimilates the language and learns to use it as a means of communication and thinking. The generalized reflection of reality constitutes the content of individual consciousness. That is why we say that without language and speech, human consciousness is unthinkable.

Language and speech, as it were, form two different, but interconnected in their origin and functioning layers of consciousness: a system of meanings and a system of meanings of words. The meanings of words are the content that is embedded in them by native speakers. Meanings include all sorts of shades in the use of words and are best expressed in various explanatory common and special dictionaries. The system of verbal meanings makes up a layer public consciousness, which in the sign systems of the language exists independently of the consciousness of each individual person.

The meaning of a word in psychology is that part of its meaning or the specific meaning that the word acquires in the speech of the person who uses it. With the meaning of the word, in addition to the part of the meaning associated with it, there are many feelings, thoughts, associations and images that given word evokes in the mind of a particular person.

Consciousness, however, exists not only in verbal, but also in figurative form. In this case, it is associated with the use of a second signaling system that calls and transforms the corresponding images. Most a prime example figurative human consciousness is art, literature, music. They also act as forms of reflection of reality, but not in the abstract, as is typical of science, but in a figurative form.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Human consciousness arose and developed in public period its existence, and the history of the formation of consciousness does not go beyond the limits of those several tens of thousands of years that we attribute to the history of human society. The main condition for the emergence and development of human consciousness is the joint productive activity of people mediated by speech. This is an activity that requires cooperation, communication and interaction of people with each other. She assumes creation of such a product, which is recognized by all participants in joint activities as the goal of their cooperation. individual consciousness at the dawn of human history arose , probably (it is difficult to judge this with certainty now, after tens of thousands of years), in the process of collective activity as a necessary condition for its organization: after all, in order for people to do something together, each of them must clearly understand the purpose of their joint work. This goal must be defined, i.e. defined and expressed in words.

In exactly the same way, apparently, the individual consciousness of the child arises and begins to develop in ontogeny. For its formation, joint activity and active communication of an adult with a child, identification, awareness and verbal designation of the purpose of interaction are also necessary. From the very beginning of the phylo- and ontogenetic emergence and development of human consciousness, speech becomes its subjective carrier, which at first acts as a means of communication (message), and then becomes a means of thinking (generalization).

Before becoming the property of individual consciousness, the word and the content associated with it must receive general meaning for the people who use them. This is the first time this has happened in a joint activity. Having received its universal meaning, the word then penetrates into the individual consciousness and becomes its property in the form of meanings and meanings. Hence, first there is a collective, and then an individual consciousness , and such a sequence of development is typical not only for phylogenesis, but also for the ontogeny of consciousness. The individual consciousness of the child is formed on the basis and subject to the existence of the collective consciousness through its appropriation (internalization, socialization).

Especially importance for the development of human consciousness has a productive, creative character human activity. Consciousness presupposes a person's awareness not only outside world, but also himself, his sensations, images, ideas and feelings. There is no other way of realizing this, except for getting the opportunity to “see” one’s own psychology, objectified in creations, for a person. The images, thoughts, ideas and feelings of people are materially embodied in the objects of their creative work, and with the subsequent perception of these objects as having embodied the psychology of their creators, they become conscious. Therefore, creativity is the way and means of self-knowledge and development of human consciousness through the perception of their own creations.

At the beginning of its development, human consciousness is directed to the external world. A person realizes that he is outside of him, thanks to the fact that with the help of the sense organs given to him by nature, he sees, perceives this world as separate from him and existing independently of him. Later, a reflexive ability appears, i.e. the realization that a person himself can and should become an object of knowledge for himself. Such is the sequence of stages in the development of consciousness in phylo- and ontogenesis. This first direction in the development of consciousness can be designated as reflexive.

The second direction is connected with the development of thinking and the gradual connection of thought with the word. Human thinking, developing, more and more penetrates into the essence of things. Parallel to this, the language used to denote the acquired knowledge is developing. The words of the language are filled with ever deeper meaning and, finally, when the sciences develop, they turn into concepts. The word-concept is the unit of consciousness, and the direction in which it arises can be designated as conceptual.

Each new historical era uniquely reflected in the minds of her contemporaries, and with the change in the historical conditions of people's existence, their consciousness changes. The phylogeny of its development can thus be presented in a historical perspective. But the same is true with regard to human consciousness in the course of its ontogenetic development, if, thanks to the works of culture created by people, the individual penetrates deeper and deeper into the psychology of the peoples who lived before him. It makes sense to designate this direction in the development of consciousness as historical.

At this moment in history, the consciousness of people continues to develop, and this development, apparently, is proceeding with a certain acceleration caused by the accelerated pace of scientific, cultural and technical progress. Such a conclusion can be drawn on the basis that all the processes described above in the main directions of the transformation of consciousness exist and are intensifying.

The main direction of the further development of human consciousness is the expansion of the scope of what is realized by a person in himself and in the world around him. This, in turn, is connected with the improvement of the means of material and spiritual production, with the socio-economic revolution that has begun in the world, which in time should develop into a cultural and moral revolution.

We are already beginning to notice the first signs of such a transition. This is the growth of the economic well-being of different peoples and countries, a change in their ideology and policies both in the international and domestic arenas, a decrease in interstate military confrontation, an increase in the significance of religious, cultural and moral values ​​in people's communication with each other. A parallel course is the penetration of man into the secrets of life, the macro- and microworld. Thanks to the successes of science, the sphere of knowledge and control of a person, power over oneself and the world, is expanding, human creative possibilities and, consequently, the consciousness of people.

concept, representation, reflecting the generalization of experience and expressing the attitude to reality

lofty thought

Main, main idea of ​​the work

Thought that does not dawn on everyone

thought, intention, plan

Defining concept underlying the theoretical system

The main idea of ​​a literary, artistic or scientific work

Among the main works of the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev there is also "Russian ..."

Something that cannot be explained to an idiot, and something that nothing can knock out of his head

What lies at the heart of any undertaking

Thinking, which, as history has shown, God forbid, if it takes hold of the masses

Good suggestion

Dominant

Ripe among the convolutions

Thought that claims to be exclusive

Comes to mind, and before that - is in the air

Good idea and on time

A fruit ripened among the cerebral convolutions

Almighty Thought

She's fresh at the innovator

IDEFIX

product of human thought

overshadowing thought

Thought ready for implementation

Woman's name

Main plot line

superthought

Obsessive...

Innovative thought

fruit of thinking

Intention

bright thought

product of thinking

Creativity

super thought

What is a dominant?

philosophizing

. "Eureka!"

idea

head visitor

Visit of inspiration

She comes on a whim

Sudden understanding of what to do

idea, vision, intention

keynote

Genius "thought"

ingenious proposal

Sometimes obsessive

Main idea, plan, insight

mental image

A sudden thought

Came to mind

obsessive constructive thought

Good idea

constructive thought

beautiful thought

Sudden constructive thought

the main idea

It comes with the prefix "fix"

great idea

bright idea

Mining "Brainstorm"

The concept of the work

Outstanding Thought

wonderful thought

Great idea

Great idea

brilliant idea

Initial Thought

Innovative...

Thought-Illumination

Thought, intention, plan

Main, main idea of ​​the work

thought, idea, intention

a mental image of something, a notion of something

. "Eureka!"

Genius "thought"

Mining "Brainstorm"

J. lat. concept of a thing; intellect, representation, imagination of an object; mental image. Thought, fiction, invention, fiction; intention, intention. Ideology thought, a part of metaphysics or psychology that talks about thinking and thought. An ideal is a mental model of the perfection of something, in some way; archetype, prototype, initial image; representative; dream sample. Ideal, referring to the ideal; ideal, imaginary, thoughtful, mental; primitive, archetypal, or primeval. Ideality is opposed to reality, the conceivable prototype of the essential. Idealist m. a thinker who is fond of unrealizable inventions in practice; dreamer, dreamer. Idealism is a philosophy based not on the phenomena of the material world, but on the spiritual or mental. Man's tendency to daydreaming of this kind

Thought is illumination

It comes with the prefix "fix"

Among the main works of the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev there is also "Russian ..."

What is a dominant

Illumination of gray matter

Topic: "Knowledge and Knowledge"

Option I .

1. Objective reality, given in the mind of a person, is ...

a) knowledge;b) knowledge;c) truth;d) imagination.

2. The process of self-knowledge is not characterized ...

a) determining their abilities;b) the formation of attitudes towards their appearance;

c) self-esteem;d) knowledge of social norms and values.

3. Elementary information about nature, about people, their living conditions, communication allows you to get ...

a) mythological knowledge;b) philosophical knowledge;c) everyday practical knowledge.

4. The subject of knowledge is ...

a) a set of methods and techniques that contribute to cognition;b) a knowing person;

c) that to which knowledge is directed.

5. Choose the correct answer.

A. Sensory cognition is carried out in the forms of sensation, perception and

representation.

B. The concept, judgment, conclusion are forms of rational knowledge.

a) the correct answer is A;b) the correct answer is B;c) there is no correct answer; d) both answers are correct.

6. A generalized sensory-visual image of reality, stored and reproduced in the mind through memory, is ...

a) sensationb) perception;c) worldview;d) presentation.

7. Judgment is...

a) a form of thought that establishes connections between individual concepts, and with the help of these connections, something

affirmed or denied;

b) a form of thought that reflects the general regular connections, sides, signs of phenomena that

fixed in their definitions;

c) a form of thought, which is the process and result of reasoning, during which from one or

several judgments, a new judgment is derived;

d) a holistic image of an object, directly given in living contemplation in the aggregate of all its

Parties and connections.

8. The criteria of truth include ...

a) the duration of the existence of the judgment;b) the number of people who adhere to this judgment;

c) the possibility of confirming the judgment in practice;d) consistency of judgment to all

previous.

9. Finish the phrase: “In philosophy, reliable, correct knowledge is called...”

10. Which of the two given judgments can be attributed to a scientific conclusion?

a) the makings of a person are social character, they are acquired during

socialization of the individual;

b) the natural basis for the development of human abilities are innate inclinations.

11. The level of scientific knowledge, characterized by the predominance of rational forms of knowledge -

concepts, conclusions, theories, laws, reflecting phenomena and processes in the aspect of their

internal connections and patterns are...

a) theoretical;b) sensual;c) empirical.

12. Choose the correct answer.

A. Sensual and rational cognition are two stages of cognition, they are not

are opposed to each other.

B. Sensual and rational cognition are in constant interaction,

form an inseparable unity of the cognitive process.

a) the correct answer is A;b) the correct answer is B;c) there is no correct answer;d) both answers are correct.

13. A form of knowledge containing an assumption formulated on the basis of a number of facts, true

the meaning of which is indeterminate and needs proof, is...

a) a hypothesis;b) theory;c) a problem;d) disposition.

14. The method of cognition, the essence of which lies in the initial knowledge of individual properties

studied phenomena, on the basis of which generalizations of various levels are then made,

called...

a) the method of induction;b) analysis;c) synthesis;d) deduction method.

15. Scientific knowledge involves ...

a) using the experience of everyday life;b) experimental testing of the hypothesis;

c) understanding of a literary text;d) interpretation of historical facts.

16. Explain the terms: truth, knowledge, sensationalism.

Later, the American psychologist D. Gilford (1897–1976) singled out 120 factors of intelligence based on what mental operations they are needed for, what results these operations lead to and what their content is (the content can be figurative, symbolic, semantic, behavioral).

According to the American psychologist J. Cattell (1860–1944), every person already from birth has a potential intellect, which underlies the ability to think, abstract and reason.

Intellectual abilities manifest themselves in different ways: the product of practical thinking is the world material culture; figurative - works of art, drawings, diagrams, plans, maps; verbal-logical - scientific knowledge.

Around the age of 20–21, verbal-logical intelligence reaches its peak.

The concept of imagination. Human consciousness not only reflects the world, but also creates it, and creative activity is impossible without imagination. In order to change the existing or create something new that meets material and spiritual needs, it is first necessary to ideally imagine what will then be embodied in material form. The ideal transformation of a person's ideas takes place in the imagination.

In the human mind, there are various representations as a form of reflection in the form of images of objects and phenomena that we do not directly perceive at the moment.

Representations that are reproductions of past experiences or perceptions are called memory representations. Representations that arise in a person under the influence of reading books, stories of other people (images of objects that he has never perceived, ideas about what has never been in his experience, or about what will be created in a more or less distant future) are called representations. imagination (or fantasies).

Imagination is of four kinds:

1) something that really exists in reality, but which a person did not perceive before (icebreaker, Eiffel Tower);

2) representations of the historical past (Novgorod Veche, boyar, Peter I, Chapaev);

3) representations of what will happen in the future (model aircraft, houses, clothes);

4) representations of what has never been in reality (fabulous images, Eugene Onegin).

Such images are built from the material received in past perceptions and stored in memory. The activity of the imagination is always the processing of those data that deliver sensations and perceptions to the brain. Imagination cannot create out of “nothing”: a person who is deaf from birth is not able to imagine the trills of a nightingale, just as a man born blind will never recreate a red rose in his imagination.

But the imagination is not limited to the reproduction of memory representations and their mechanical connection. In the process of imagination, representations of memory are recycled in such a way that new representations are created as a result.

Imagination - this is a cognitive mental process, which consists in the creation of new images by processing the materials of perceptions and ideas obtained in previous experience, a kind of reflection by a person of reality in new, unusual, unexpected combinations and connections.

The physiological basis of imagination should be considered the revival in the human brain of previously formed temporary nerve connections and their transformation into new combinations that can arise for various reasons: sometimes unconsciously, as a result of a spontaneous increase in excitation in certain centers of the cerebral cortex under the influence of random stimuli acting on these centers at the moment of weakening of the regulatory control from the higher parts of the cortex (for example, dreams); more often - as a result of conscious efforts of a person aimed at creating a new image.

Imagination is based not on isolated nerve centers, but on the entire cerebral cortex. The creation of images of the imagination is the result of the joint activity of the first and second signal systems, although any image, any representation should formally be attributed to the primary signal - a sensual reflection of reality. Consequently, images of the imagination are a special form of reflection of reality, characteristic only of man.

Imagination performs several important functions in the mental life of a person. First of all, this cognitive function. As a cognitive process, imagination arises in problem situation, in which the degree of uncertainty, the lack of information is very significant. At the same time, imagination is the basis of hypotheses that fill the gaps in scientific systems. Imagination is closer to sensory cognition than to thinking, and differs from it in conjecture, inaccuracy, imagery and emotionality.

Since a person cannot satisfy all his needs materially, the second function of the imagination is motivational, that is, a person can satisfy his needs in an ideal way - in dreams, dreams, myths, fairy tales.

In children, the imagination performs affective-protective function, as it protects the unstable psyche of the child from excessively difficult experiences and mental trauma. The mechanism of this protection is as follows: through imaginary situations, the child discharges the tension that has arisen and the symbolic resolution of the conflict, which can be difficult to remove by practical actions.

The meaning of imagination in human life is very great: it is organically connected with other mental phenomena. The French philosopher D. Diderot succinctly and figuratively assessed the importance of imagination: “Imagination! Without this quality one cannot be either a poet, or a philosopher, or an intelligent person, or a thinking being, or just a person ... Imagination is the ability to evoke images. A person completely devoid of this ability would be stupid ... "

Imagination, like other functions of consciousness, has developed historically, and above all in labor activity person. To meet their needs, people had to change and transform the world around them in order to receive from nature Moreover what it can give without human intervention. And in order to transform and create, you need to imagine in advance what you want, the ways and results of such a transformation. A prerequisite for this is the presence of a conscious goal: a person imagines in advance the result of his work, those things and changes in them that he wants to receive. This is the essential difference between humans and animals. The main significance of the imagination is that without it no work would be possible, since one cannot work without imagining the final result.

Without imagination, progress in science, technology, and art would be impossible. Inventors who create new devices, mechanisms and machines rely on observations of wildlife. So, studying the inhabitants of Antarctica - penguins, the designers created a car that can move on loose snow. The car was named “Penguin”. Watching how certain types of snails move around lines of force magnetic field Earth, scientists have created new, more advanced navigational instruments. In the beak of the albatross there is a kind of desalination plant that turns sea water into water suitable for drinking. Interested in this, scientists began developing for desalination sea ​​water; observations of the dragonfly led to the creation of a helicopter.

Work in any field is impossible without the participation of the imagination. A teacher, psychologist, educator needs a developed imagination: when designing a student’s personality, one should clearly imagine what qualities need to be formed or nurtured in a child. One of the common features of outstanding teachers of the past and present is optimistic forecasting - the ability to foresee, anticipate pedagogical reality with faith in the capabilities and abilities of each student.