The concept of the psyche in Russian pre-revolutionary psychology

Abstract

The article examines the concept of the psyche in Russian pre-revolutionary psychology. In the course of the study, the main meanings of the concept of «psyche» («soul») were studied from the point of view of three directions in pre-revolutionary psychology (empirical, philosophical and natural science) using comparative historical and bibliographic methods, categorical analysis; The source base of the study consisted of monographs, textbooks and articles by leading Russian psychologists from 1900 to 1917 inclusive. As a result of the study, it was found that in Russian pre-revolutionary psychology there was no unified interpretation of the concept of the psyche, as it would be later, starting in the mid-1930s in Soviet psychology; It was also found that this interpretation depended on the methodological orientation of representatives of three trends in Russian psychology of the specified period: the rejection of the direct use of the concept of the psyche in empirical psychology, the understanding of the soul as the inner world of man in philosophical psychology, understanding of the psyche as an adaptation, having subjective and objective sides, in natural science psychology.