THE INTEGRATION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND ONTOPSYCHOLOGY

By Albert A. Krylov

It is important to underline that the problem of individuality is not underestimated in Ontopsychology, but it is brought to the fore as the most important aspect for contemporary and future psychology.

Academician Professor Albert A. Krylov, born in 1935, is doctor of Psychological Sciences, professor and is medical training. Between 1967 and 1969 he was the Chairman of the Engineering Psychology Department of Leningrad University. Since 1976 he has been Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and holds the Chair of General Psychology. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers, and has a very large number of students both in Russia and abroad. He was awarded the honorary title of “Distinguished personality of Russian sciences”.

“One of the fundamental paradigms of our time is the systemic approach in the human being’s knowledge and activity. To understand such principles, we have to refer to Smuts (holism), Bogdanov (tectology), L. Von Bertalanffy (general theory of systems) and other researchers.
The process of integration of scientific knowledge can be considered a concrete phenomenon of the systemic approach. The integration of scientific knowledge is necessary to formulate complex laws and find profound connections in the universe, so as to understand the latter as a unitary system. Of course, such a path also presupposes a permanent passage towards new and higher levels of analysis of the data taken from every single science. From such point of view, psychology has an important characteristic inside the manifold existing sciences: the human being is surveyed both as the subject and the object of knowledge. Together with sociality and work, cognitive capacity is one of the fundamental expressions of the human being’s essence.
Mankind’s development, the comprehension of the world, the comprehension of man’s ego, the creation of sciences as forms of general consciousness and all the socio-cultural and spiritual richness of mankind are connected to this. Starting from what stated above, there are reasons to presuppose that the integrative processes in psychology have a deep specificity.
According to our opinions, it is possible to underline three general movements of psychological integration. Of course, the criteria that we have used to analyse the integrative psychological processes cannot be considered the only possible ones. Nevertheless, the model that we have proposed has a high degree of generalisation.
The first movement is connected with psychology itself, with factors of development of psychological knowledge. If we use Wundt’s conception as the starting point in the process of formation of psychology, we can see that this theory involved a change of conception of the same object of psychology. We can consider what follows: the pure elements of consciousness (structuralism); consciousness as a mechanism of adaptation, internal and external conditions (functionalism); personality and psycho-energetic equilibrium (psychoanalysis); behaviour (behaviourism); psychic reflection and psyche as the propriety of the physiological substratum of the brain (one of the most diffused conceptions to our days).
Cognitive psychology has also been acknowledged as scientific movement of contemporary psychology. So, we can conclude that the first movement of the integrative processes of psychology connected to the immanent properties of psychological knowledge has had, and still has, an important meaning for both a general and an applied knowledge in a concrete sector.
The second movement of integration in psychology is connected to the fact that psychological knowledge is always widely used by other sciences. The process of development of many sciences and their practical applications is directly connected to theoretical and applied psychology. The result given is the change of the social role and the importance of psychology.
The first Russian scientist who clearly showed this phenomenon is G. Ananiev.
In his main work, Man as object of knowledge, B.G. Ananiev has proved that, among all sciences somehow connected to the study of the human being, only psychology can be considered a general methodological and scientific centre. So, psychology acquires the properties of a systemic factor, which underlines the general practical and scientific sector of man’s knowledge (system). Thus, psychology actively assimilates the data belonging to other sciences with the primary aim of their psychological comprehension and the future “psychologisation” of the spheres of practical application.
One of the first successful attempts to apply Ananiev’s ideas (dealt in the book above mentioned) is the foundation of the first laboratory of Engineering Psychology in Russia, in 1959. Created by Ananiev’s student B.F. Lomov, this laboratory has had in Russia the same importance as V. Wundt’s laboratory in the worldly psychological panorama. The activity of the laboratory proved how successful the integration of psychological knowledge can be with the technical sciences in the field of design, as well as the richness of the methodological and scientific arsenal of psychology. All that we have said about engineering psychology can generally be applied to all the branches of psychology (social, legal, political, clinical etc.). We have enough elements to affirm the importance of the psychological integration for the real knowledge of the world and for the human being’s practical activity.
The third branch of the psychological integration can be considered as a unity, with the meaning above mentioned. According to our opinion, this branch of integration has two levels. The first is a compiling level, which we describe in general terms as a certain psychological phenomenon used by some science to construct new theoretical concepts. Going back to psychology, these concepts widen the knowledge of the human being’s substance and nature. Nevertheless they remain independent and do not form another level of integrity in psychological concepts.
That is how, for example, the Russian scientist V.I. Vernadskij elaborated the concept of noosphere as part of the biosphere, organised by the biochemical energy of man’s creative process. Another Russian scientist, the ethnographer L.N. Gumilev, proposed the original idea of ethno-genesis, with the basic concept of the change of the behavioural stereotype in people, as a result of some cosmic (solar) influences. In psychology, such elaborations allow us to draw the conclusion that a person’s development is not caused by nature alone but by biosphere as well. It is not caused solely by society but also by the noosphere. Not only by mankind, but by ethno-sphere as well.
It is natural to presuppose that the integrator can be the psycho-sphere which includes the bound psychic energy (people who live in a given period of time) and free psychic energy, which can originate from some famous people who lived in the past. The psycho-sphere is open to the Cosmos. With such an approach it is unlikely that we would be satisfied with a concept of psychology as a science that studies the function of reflex of the brain. Probably, a conception of psychology as science of the human being’s spiritual essence and variety of forms of psychic reflection is closer to the truth. The basis of such model is Ananiev’s elaboration, published in the book Man as object of knowledge, from which we differ in some points.
The third level of psychological integration can be called constructive or creative. First of all, its result leads to the construction of a unique and new theory, based on the theoretical conceptions of sciences which do not seem to have anything in common. Secondly, it leads to an adequate method and an instrument which guarantee the success of practical activity. All of this undoubtedly allows us to consider the historical and current experience of all the psychological movements in the world.
This means that we are talking of a level of integration which corresponds to a new movement of psychology, a new psychological school. The school that most of all responds to our needs is surely Ontopsychology, founded and developed by the Italian scientist Antonio Meneghetti. In the figure on the side (according to P. and D. Schultz’s chronological model which shows the development of psychological schools in the world) we have a scheme of the integrative process up to the third millennium. It is dearly necessary to give a brief explanation of the positions that we have used in analysing A. Meneghetti’s Ontopsychology. First of all, we start saying that the word “Ontopsychology” was coined a long time ago. In Ananiev’s conception, for example, it is explained like a branch of psychology that studies ontogenesis, i.e., the development of the individual as a totality of organic properties (regarding the organism only). In Meneghetti’s theory, the term “Ontopsychology” has a new meaning: it is the development of individuality as a whole, it is the psychology of the being in the human being.
Ontopsychology is based on some fundamental concepts, like “semantic field” and “In-itself”. As a concept, the semantic field is different from the term used in philology. It is the basic information that life uses within its individualizations (the Ego as agent individual and personality).
The “In-itself” is the haecceity of Being. In its principal form, the ontic In-itself is what regulates the human being in the form specified by the intentionality of Being. Based on the common being, the ontic In-itself is in relation with the cosmos, the universe and life. Based on the individual being, the ontic In-itself is in relation with the human being as historical haecceity.
The main result of the ontopsychological practice is to individuate the ontic In-itself. In explaining some basic concepts of Ontopsychology, we did not mean to give a complete treatise on the subject. Clearly, we have a new deep knowledge, that allows for the integration of psychological sciences as well as the integration of psychological knowledge with other sciences. In conclusion, there is still one thing to consider. All over the world, Wundt’s laboratory is considered of great importance for the birth of psychology as an independent science. This was surely helped by some external factor connected to the need to develop knowledge of man, a need that neither biology nor physiology could fulfil. We must also say that internal factors played an important role. A new theoretical concept was proposed, together with a method and instruments of research.
The laboratory became an international centre of training for professional psychologists. Specific monographs and an issue have been published; international congresses of psychology are regularly organised. We cannot forget Wundt’s work and personality.
If we look at Prof. Meneghetti’s work at the International Ontopsychology Association, we cannot help finding a substantial resemblance with Wundt’s laboratory, considering that Ontopsychology has a new important element, as it is successfully confirmed in practical activity. With this, we can be sure that Ontopsychology will have an important role in the integration of sciences.”

(Article published in the journal New Ontopsychology, no. 1/2001, Psicologica Ed., Rome)