At any time, the inner world of man was of interest to researchers. Therefore, the emergence of psychological science has become a natural phenomenon. What is the subject of psychology? What is studying a discipline whose name translates as “knowledge of the soul”?
Many hundreds of years ago, people came to the conclusion that a person has something special, intangible and elusive, which either makes existence sublime and joyful, or overthrows and leads to death. They called it something soul, but they did not find a single definition for it, however, it hardly exists.
Unanswered are other questions, no less important and exciting. For example, where did a man come from, where do his roots come from? What happens to a person after death? Where is the development of mankind going, what will it lead to? In addition to such general questions, people are worried about others related to everyone, his capabilities, abilities, and purpose. There are answers in society. It preserves the accumulated knowledge and transforms it, turning it into a kind of general and integral picture of the world. This picture is called a worldview, it contains information about the structure of the world, about the place of a person in it and about the principles of interaction of these two quantities.
Humanity has existed for a very long time. During this time, worldview paintings succeeded each other, but in each of them there was a place for a "soul", although in different cultures the subject of psychology was perceived differently.
Mythology
This is the first representation of people in which they and the world around them were something whole. Man did not separate himself from nature, and even more so did not enter into a confrontation with it. Each thing had its own anima - spirit. He was understood as an entity independent of the body, but controlling it. There was no boundary between living and nonliving.
Religion
The subject of psychology in the religious pictures of the world is the soul as the breath of God, its particle, animating the body. Not every person has a soul, but only the elect, and it is opposed to the body, which brings discord to people's self-consciousness.
Natural philosophical picture
It was built on the ideals of contemplation and peace. In the framework of natural philosophy, the beginnings of synthesis and analysis begin to form. This approach includes contemplation and subsequent reflection on the topic of what he saw. This worldview takes from mythology the possibility of a harmonious life in unity with nature. The ideals of natural philosophy have been practiced by the civilizations of the East for many thousands of years. In India, Persia, and China, the subject of psychology is the individual self, control over intellectual, sensory, and volitional processes.
Science look
This picture of the world originated in Europe in the 16th century and was permeated with the desire to subordinate nature to man. In the 18th century, the concept of “psychology” was introduced, and the soul, although present in this worldview, ceases to be called the soul. Now she is called the psyche.
There are several ways to answer the question of what is an object and subject of psychology.
1 way - "see and see." Usually in everyday life people use a show and everyday rationale. In everyday meaning, the word “soul” is synonymous with the concepts of “experience”, “inner world”, “consciousness”. However, for the scientific community this definition is primitive.
2 way - "list what studies where applied." Giving an idea of ​​any science, they resort to information about what scientists are doing and indicate areas in which the results of their work are used. This amount of knowledge is enough for a person to have an idea of ​​a specific scientific field. But not everything is so simple when we mean the subject and the object of psychology. This is due to the fact that it is too difficult to isolate an object from such an object as the soul.
3 way - "determine by the rules." In science, the psyche is characterized through a certain activity - a process, activity, property, function. Understanding it as a thing is not considered. This is a fundamental detail, since the word "soul" itself, as well as "will", "thinking", etc. refer to nouns, which makes a person unconsciously imagine a certain object. P. Ya. Halperin suggested interpreting the subject of psychology - the psyche - as a special property of highly organized matter. This definition is most often used by modern psychologists.