Российская психология в пространстве мировой науки

It should be noted, that in the mainstream the fact is virtually neglected, that commonly quoted Vygotsky counterposed drastically higher mental functions, which he called "cultural", and believed to be specific only for humans, to the "natural" functions, that both humans and animals have. Vygotsky is mainly popular among specialists in "linguistic turn" in cultural psychology, while, perhaps, the most striking example of development of his ideas we find in neuropsychology, in Vygotsky's colleague Luria's theory of dynamic brain localization of higher mental functions (Cole & Wertsch,1996). Luria has proved that unlike "natural" functions, which are linked to specific brain structures, higher mental functions are organized as chains of conditional reflexes, accessible to dynamic transformations and substitutions of brain units. As Galperin, a younger colleague of Vygotsky and Leontiev, stressed, "Vygotsky focused on the influence of the higher (social) mental functions on the development of natural mental functions" (Galperin 1983, p. 241).

The ideas on the impact of higher mental processes on psycho-physiological functions were creatively advanced by Boris G. Ananiev, who founded the Faculty of Psychology of Leningrad State University (Mironenko, 2009a, 2013). The key issue in the works of Ananiev was the impact of individual's activities on psycho-physiological functions, first of all on individual sensory development. In contrast to ideas dominating in the international science, Ananiev rejected the nativist view on sensory processes and sensory development. Ananiev insisted that sensory-perceptive processes are inextricably linked to the holistic structure of human personality development. Ananiev argued that in the course of human life all psycho-physiological functions undergo a general reconstruction, so that the adult human brain and human body as a whole become an integrated system fit for the typical forms of activity of the individual. These ideas were verified in many wide-scale experimental investigations, which revealed surprising effects of individualization of the ontogenesis of psycho-physiological functions. Ananiev (1961, 1977).

Never the less, this new Russian Marxist psychology was built on solid bases of European philosophy and science, which the founders were well acquainted with. Sergey Rubinstein, Nikolai Lange, Lazursky Shpilrein and others got education and internship in Germany, France, England, as it was usual for Russian intelligentsia before the October Revolution.

For example, Sergey Rubinstein, whose work laid main foundations of Soviet psychology school (mainly known as AT), is a German philosopher by his educational background. Rubinstein was born and spent his childhood in Odessa. After graduating from secondary school with a gold medal in 1908, he went to Germany for higher education. He graduated from Marburg University (1914), where he attended the lectures of Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, and in the same year he defended a Ph.D. thesis in Philosophy at Marburg University. When the First World War began he returned to Russia.

At the beginning of the 20th с many Russian students were educated in German universities and many Russian scientists were trained there. German philosophy was well-known and acknowledged in Russia. This changed in the beginning of the 1930s. During the time when Russian psychology was developing in relative isolation behind "the Iron Curtain" (from 1936 to early 1960s), German roots in Russian science and philosophy including works of Sergey Rubinstein were hardly ever brought to the attention of the readers of Soviet psychological literature for ideological reasons. It is only in recent decades that we are witnessing emergence of publications on German influence on RAT's scientific grounds (Lektorsky 2013).

Russian AT is a full representative of the praxeological approach, basing on Marx, which roots can be traced back to Aristotle's idea of the ability to initiate activity being the essence and the generative function of psyche. It should be also taken into account, that young Soviet psychology developed in close relation with Russian biology and physiology, aiming to become an "objective" science and grounding on works of Sechenov and Pavlov (Mironenko, 2009a). Ivan Sechenov (1829–1905), internationally acknowledged physiologist, whose works "Who Must Investigate the Problems of Psychology, and How?" (1873b), "Psychological Studies" (1873a), and "Elements of thought" (1878), greatly impacted the development of "objective psychology" in Russia, founded the tradition of considering psyche as, first of all, a function of nervous system enabling movement of the organism, its active interaction with the environment. Sechenov used to say: "psyche is born and dies with motion".