Vygotskiy. [Methodology of reflexological and psychological research]

Abstract:
The article is based on a report at a joint meeting of psychological and reflexology sections of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Psychoneurology in Leningrad on January 6, 1924. It analyzes the teachings of Pavlov and Bekhterev against the backdrop of a developing global crisis of psychology. The author claims, that the methodology of human reflexological research has come to a turning point in it`s development. Since reflexology seeks to explain human behavior, it inevitably deals with the same material, as psychology does. Reflexology moves from the study of elementary human relationships with the environment — to the study of relationships, without which human behavior cannot be unraveled. A tendency toward the expansion of the reflexological methodology has been outlined, a line has been outlined along which the expansion will go. This line is directed towards closer convergence with research methods in experimental psychology. The laws of the addition of reflexes into complexes, the types of these formations, the type and form of interaction within them, and the interaction of entire systems are of paramount importance to the most acute problems of the scientific psychology of behavior. In the broad sense of the word - in speech lies the source of social behavior and consciousness. Speech itself is a system of reflexes of social contact, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, it is a system of reflexes of consciousness to reflect the influence of other systems. Consciousness or awareness of actions and conditions should be understood as a system of transmission mechanisms that functions correctly at every conscious moment from one reflex to another.