| Parameter name | Meaning |
| Article topic: | The emergence and development of consciousness |
| Rubric (thematic category) | Psychology |
Human consciousness arose and developed during the social period of existence, and the history of the formation of consciousness probably does not go beyond the framework of those several tens of thousands of years that we attribute to the history of human society. The main condition for the emergence and development of human consciousness is joint productive instrumental activity of people mediated by speech. This is an activity that requires cooperation, communication and interaction between people. It involves the creation of a product that is recognized by all participants in joint activities as the goal of their cooperation. Individual consciousness at the dawn of human history probably arose (it is difficult to judge this now, after tens of thousands of years), in the process of collective activity as a necessary condition for its organization, because in order for people to do something together, each of them must clearly understand the purpose of their joint work. This goal must be stated, i.e. defined and expressed in words.
In the same way, apparently, in ontogenesis the individual consciousness of the child arises and begins to develop. For ᴇᴦο formation, joint activity and active communication between an adult and a child, identification, awareness and verbal designation of the purpose of interaction are also necessary. From the very beginning of the phylo- and ontogenetic emergence and development of human
ᴇᴦο speech becomes the subjective carrier of the psychological consciousness, which initially acts as a means of communication (message), and then becomes a means of thinking (generalization).
Before becoming the property of individual consciousness, a word and the content associated with it must acquire a general meaning for the people who use them. This is the first time this has happened in a joint activity. Having received its universal meaning, the word then penetrates the individual consciousness and becomes a property in the form of meanings and meanings. Consequently, collective consciousness initially appears, and then individual consciousness, and this sequence of development is characteristic not only of phylogenesis, but also of the ontogenesis of consciousness. The individual consciousness of the child is formed on the basis and subject to the existence of collective consciousness through appropriation (interiorization, socialization).
The productive, creative nature of human activity is of particular importance for the development of human consciousness. Consciousness presupposes a person’s awareness not only of the external world, but also of himself, his sensations, images, ideas and feelings. There is no other way for a person to realize this, except for gaining the opportunity to “see” his own psychology, objectified in creations. The images, thoughts, ideas and feelings of people are materially embodied in the objects of their creative work and with the subsequent perception of these objects precisely as embodying the psychology of their creators they become conscious. Therefore, creativity is the path and means of self-knowledge and development of a person’s consciousness through his perception of his own creations.
The emergence and development of consciousness - concept and types. Classification and features of the category “Emergence and Development of Consciousness” 2015, 2017-2018.
Human consciousness arose and developed during the social period of its existence, and the history of the formation of consciousness probably does not go beyond the framework of those several tens of thousands of years that we attribute to the history of human society. The main condition for the emergence and... .
Human consciousness arose and developed during the social period of its existence, and the history of the formation of consciousness probably does not go beyond the framework of those several tens of thousands of years that we attribute to the history of human society. The main condition for the emergence and... .
Human consciousness arose and developed during the social period of its existence, and the history of the formation of consciousness probably does not go beyond the framework of those several tens of thousands of years that we attribute to the history of human society. The main condition for the occurrence and... [read more].
According to Leontiev, only man is at the stage of consciousness. He distinguishes the stage of the human psyche into a separate stage. Despite the fact that man appears during the evolutionary process from the point of view of Soviet psychology, human development itself goes beyond... .
Introduction
Development of the psyche and the emergence of consciousness
Conclusion
List of used literature
Introduction
Man is the highest level of life on Earth. He is endowed with consciousness as the highest form of mental reflection.
For many centuries, people have debated whether man is fundamentally different from all other representatives of the animal world or is he a product of evolution lasting billions of years? There is still no single answer to this question.
Most modern scientists accept Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory about the origin of species and believe that man arose and separated from animals.
In psychology, this problem is considered in the aspect of the emergence and development of the psyche in phylogeny. The term "phylogeny" comes from the Greek. phyle (kind, tribe) and genesis (origin) and means a gradual change in various forms of the organic world in the process of evolution, and in relation to the psyche - its study as a product of evolution.
Development of the psyche and the emergence of consciousness
The emergence of the psyche
With the advent of living matter, the nature of the interaction of the organism with the environment has changed. Interaction in the form of metabolism has become a necessary condition for the preservation of life. In the process of evolution, living organisms developed the ability to extract necessary substances from the environment and react to them, which made the organism active in the process of metabolism. Activity is manifested in a special property of living organisms - irritability. Irritability is a pre-psychic form of reflection of the external environment, manifested in a response to substances necessary to maintain the existence of the organism.
Living conditions at the stage of pre-psychic reflection are such that the body does not need special orienting search activity, and, consequently, no special organ that provides orientation. He has developed the ability to reflect only a narrow range of external influences - those on which his existence depends. Such influences are called biotic. The response is also carried out only to biotic stimuli. Prepsychic reflection occurs in plants and some elementary forms of life, intermediate between the plant and animal worlds.
At the stage of prepsychic life, organisms are capable only of a specific type of movements, which are called tropisms. Tropisms– these are movements in a certain direction under the influence of biologically significant stimuli. Examples of tropisms are: the movement of plants towards the sun (phytotropism); movement of roots deep into the soil, where there is moisture and substances necessary for life (geotropism); movement towards heat (thermotropism). Tropisms can be positive - movement towards conditions necessary for life, or negative - movement from conditions harmful to the body.
Organisms that have irritability live in a strictly defined environment, where there are all the conditions necessary for life. But changes constantly occur in the environment that disrupt the established ways of interaction between the organism and the environment. If a species begins to lack the conditions necessary for metabolism, it will either die out or change the form of interaction with the environment. The evolution of the psyche and behavior is a series of similar changes.
The increasing complexity of living conditions (exit from the aquatic environment to land, lack of food resources, etc.) required the improvement of forms of adaptive behavior, the expansion of reflective functions and the transition from elementary tropisms to more complex behavioral acts that could provide search conditions of existence that are important for life. Organisms begin to react not only to biotic stimuli, but also to those that themselves are indifferent, abiotic, but can signal the appearance of biologically significant agents. They perform signaling and orientation functions in the life of organisms. The new form of reflection is called sensitivity. Living organisms have acquired the ability to experience sensations as a reflection of various types of environmental influences in their objective properties and connections with other things. This is how a new property of organic matter arose - mental reflection characteristic of animal life. Arose psyche as a special property consisting in the active reflection of objective reality and self-regulation on this basis of one’s behavior. The world of objects that the organism was able to perceive expanded significantly, which increased the adequacy of its orientation in the environment. A new type of behavior also arises - an active search for a biologically significant object, which is signaled by an abiotic stimulus. Gradually, living organisms acquire the ability to consolidate connections between neutral and significant influences, and subsequently to change them and form new connections.
The emergence of sensitivity determined a higher, qualitatively new level of reflection of objective reality and acts as an objective criterion for the emergence of the psyche. The variety of external conditions of life, their constant change, became the reason for the further development of the psyche, the emergence of its new, more advanced forms.
Stages of mental development
There are three main stages of development of the psyche in animals - the elementary sensory psyche and intelligence according to the following criteria: the form of mental reflection, the leading type of behavior and the structure of the nervous system.
Stage of elementary sensory psyche. The mental reflection of animals at this stage takes the form of sensitivity only to certain properties of the environment, i.e. form of elementary sensations. Accordingly, the behavior of animals corresponds to one or another individual property.
Taking into account the evolution within the stage, it is divided into lower and higher levels. At the lowest level there are organisms that stand on the border between the plant and animal worlds, for example flagellates. Representatives of the lower level are also sponges, protozoa, coelenterates, and lower worms. At the highest level there are a large number of multicellular invertebrates and some species of vertebrates. They are characterized by a rather complex structure of the nervous system and a complex and highly differentiated organization of the motor apparatus. Their forms of behavior are more complex and varied. However, they also reflect individual properties of the environment, rather than holistic things.
In the process of evolutionary development of animals at the stage of elementary sensory psyche, many of them developed a rather complex form of behavior - instinct. Instinct- this is behavior that corresponds to hereditarily programmed, stereotypical forms of action through which an animal, without special training, adapts to environmental conditions.
Perceptual psyche stage characterized by the ability to reflect external reality no longer in the form of individual elementary sensations caused by individual properties of the environment, but in the form of reflecting a set of qualities and things. At this stage, the lowest and highest levels are also distinguished. Most of the existing vertebrates are at different levels of the stage of perceptual psyche. At the highest level are all mammals.
In animals at the stage of the perceptual psyche, a more complex type of plastic individual behavior is formed, the mechanism of which is the analysis and synthesis of environmental conditions, carried out on the basis of a more developed form of mental reflection. The material substrate for a new form of reflection and a new type of behavior was the complication of the structure and functions of the central nervous system and, above all, the development of the cerebral cortex. Significant changes also occurred in the development of sensory organs, primarily vision. At the same time, the organs of movement also developed.
At the stage of the perceptual psyche, the animal retains its instinctive behavior, but it becomes much more plastic and adapts to the specific living conditions of the individual.
Intelligence stage. At this stage there is a small number of species of the most highly organized mammals - anthropoid apes. The distinctive ability of animal intelligence lies in the fact that in addition to reflecting individual things, they have a reflection of holistic situations and relationships between objects. An even more complex form arises in animal behavior - problem solving .
The complication of the forms of mental reflection and behavior of animals at the stage of intelligence is interconnected with the complication of the structure of the brain and the development of cortical structures. The most radical anatomical and physiological transformations occurred in the frontal lobes of the brain, which regulate intellectual behavior.
The stage of intelligence of apes represents the upper limit of the development of the animal psyche. Next, a qualitatively new stage in the history of the development of the psyche begins - a complex and long process of historical and evolutionary development of Homo sapiens, or “Homo sapiens”.
Human consciousness arose and developed during the social period of its existence, and the history of the formation of consciousness probably does not go beyond the framework of those several tens of thousands of years that we attribute to the history of human society. The main condition for the emergence and development of human consciousness is joint productive speech-mediated instrumental activity of people. This is an activity that requires cooperation, communication and interaction between people. It involves the creation of a product that is recognized by all participants in joint activities as the goal of their cooperation.
The productive, creative nature of human activity is of particular importance for the development of human consciousness. Consciousness presupposes a person’s awareness not only of the external world, but also of himself, his sensations, images, ideas and feelings.
Prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness
With the development of science, especially history and biology, views about the origin of man and his consciousness gradually formed.
The main prerequisite for the emergence of human consciousness was the difficult conditions for the existence of humanoid creatures - anthropoids. Under the influence of living conditions, their central nervous system became much more complex in structure and function. In the area of the cerebral hemispheres, the parietal, temporal and especially frontal lobes gradually developed, which carried out higher adaptive functions.
They developed quite noticeably in humans under the influence of labor. This is evidenced by the fact that in a monkey the frontal lobes make up 0.4 percent of the volume of the cerebral hemispheres, in orangutans and chimpanzees - 3.4 percent, and in humans - 10 percent.
At the biological stage of the development of the psyche, the prerequisites arose for the emergence of higher, purely human, forms of the psyche - consciousness. Knowledge of the biological stage of development of the psyche as the prehistory of human consciousness makes it possible to scientifically explain its occurrence.
Throughout development, in various types of human activity, specifically human, consciously directed cognitive activity, imagination, human feelings and qualities of will, and various mental properties were gradually formed, which differ significantly from the instinctive mental activity of animals.
Work and social way of life are the main factors in the historical development of human consciousness as the highest form of the psyche; it reveals a person’s attitude to his environment, the ability to change nature, adapt it to his needs.
These features are absent in the psyche of animals. They do not separate themselves from the environment and passively adapt to its changes.
Knowledge of the conditions for the emergence and development of human consciousness among the masses is of great importance for its formation.
Historical development of human consciousness
Human consciousness did not immediately become what it is now, but has overcome a long path of its socio-historical development.
The first people who emerged from the animal world differed little from their animal ancestors; their consciousness was limited. It represented a person's awareness of his immediate environment and his limited connection with other people. Man felt helpless before nature.
The consciousness of primitive man was still largely gregarious in nature.
The level of consciousness predetermined the low level of development of people's production activities and their social relations. Whatever a person’s way of life was, such was his consciousness.
With the development of people's methods of earning a living, methods of producing material achievements, their consciousness also developed. In an effort to satisfy their needs, which arose as a result of changes in living conditions, people invented fire and gradually moved from using stone tools, which they had used for hundreds of thousands of years, to bronze and iron tools.
Along with hunting, fishing, and cattle breeding, agriculture arose, and then handicrafts; from handicrafts people moved to machine production, etc.
And the change in the tools of labor led to complications in human relationships; people themselves, their needs, life experiences, their consciousness, abilities and other mental properties developed. The development of people’s mental properties was both a result and a necessary prerequisite for the improvement and development of their practical activities.
The historical development of human consciousness was and is possible due to the fact that each previous generation not only physically gives birth to the next generation, but also transfers to it its industrial and cultural heritage.
Each new generation begins its life activity by assimilating the results of the activities of previous generations, develops it further and passes on its achievements to descendants. For the connection of human generations, it is of great importance:
a) transfer of the tools themselves, technology created by people and material assets created with its help;
b) transmission by means of language of human experience (in the process of training and education), the results of cognitive activity, scientific achievements, etc.
Thanks to this, the historical progress of humanity and the development of human consciousness becomes possible.
Throughout history, humanity through its labor has created new conditions for its existence. At the same time, people themselves changed. Circumstances created people as much as people created these circumstances. The more people learned about the world around them and improved the tools of their work, the more power they acquired over their life circumstances.
The historical development of human consciousness turned out to be primarily in the enrichment of its content, reflecting objective reality, in the expansion of people's worldview. Along with the enrichment of the content of consciousness, its forms gradually developed, acquiring the diversity and specific features characteristic of modern people.
Over the course of history, direct sensory forms of man's reflection of the world have developed. Human vision becomes more perfect, especially its ability to subtly distinguish the spatial properties of objects, to grasp their various signs, to note the beauty of their forms and proportions, which distinguishes human vision from the vision of animals.
An eagle, flying above the clouds, sees its prey in the grass. A person is not capable of noticing such distant objects in space, but she sees what the eagle does not see, she has improved her vision through technology and art. Advantages and vision are found in the thoughtful perception of the proportions of objects, works of painting, sculpture and architecture. Human hearing has also acquired extraordinary sophistication, which is the result of verbal communication with other people, the emergence and development of song and musical creativity.
Thanks to labor and other activities, the human hand has achieved such perfection that it was able, as if by magical power, to bring to life masterpieces of fine art.
Other forms of human sensory knowledge of the world have also undergone qualitative changes.
Enriching the content of the human psyche also means the development of new, purely human types and forms of memory, which consist in voluntary memorization and reproduction of data from previous experience mediated by language. The need to transform reality in the process of work has led to the development in man of the ability to transform it into images, to imagine the objects for which he works.
The forms of human thinking have developed and are inextricably linked with the development of speech, with its rich vocabulary and developed grammatical structure. Prerequisites for human mental activity arose, giving it the opportunity to apply its results in practical activities, select the most appropriate methods of action, plan actions, and foresee not only their immediate but also long-term results.
In the process of labor and on its basis, a person arose a new goal and motives for activity, various production, technical, cognitive, scientific, aesthetic and other needs and interests were formed. New types of human activities have developed, including mental, spiritual and other activities.
With the development of people's lives, their emotions and feelings have also become richer.
Purely human feelings were formed, conditioned by various types of human activity, the form of their social relations. The emergence of new types of human activity contributed to the development of his natural abilities. During work, these abilities were not only demonstrated, but also formed. It is known that all the abilities that distinguish a person from an animal have developed and continue to develop in the process of labor.
By conquering nature, man has developed the ability to control himself, to be aware of his responsibilities as a member of society and to be guided by this awareness in his activities. By getting to know the surrounding nature and other people, she got to know herself. The historical development of human consciousness was simultaneously the development of its self-awareness.
A person's consciousness determines his social existence.
Therefore, it is possible to correctly understand the essence of consciousness only by taking into account the social conditions of human life.
Human consciousness has common features that are inherent in it at all stages of development. At the same time, it acquires its own specific historical features at each degree, depending on the social conditions of people's lives and their relations of production.
Thus, some traits were inherent in a person of the primitive communal type of society, when humanity confronted nature together, when the main means of production and its products were public property.
The contradictory social relations of people also determine the contradictory nature of the development of their consciousness.
The historical development of human consciousness occurs sequentially, with changes in human generations. Thanks to this, it becomes possible to continue the development of the human race, its history, which consists of numerous stories of the development of individual people of each new generation.
At the same time, the historical development of people creates the prerequisites for the individual development of the human personality and its consciousness.
The influence of the history of human life on human development is determined, firstly, by the hereditary prerequisites that are the starting points for individual development, and, secondly, by changes in the social conditions in which this development occurs.
A person is born with hereditary, innate capabilities for his further development. These possibilities are realized in certain social conditions of its existence. She lives and acts in society, in it she receives a certain upbringing and education. By entering into relationships with other people, assimilating material and spiritual achievements created by previous generations of people, she herself is formed as a conscious personality.
The main condition for the emergence and development of human consciousness is the joint productive instrumental activity of people mediated by speech. With the transition from animal existence to human society, two new factors in the formation of the human psyche arose: social work, use of tools and communication using words. With the advent of upright walking, a person’s hands were freed, his horizons expanded, and conditions arose for the intensive development of his orienting activity. This led to the emergence of tools and the labor process. A person begins to live in a world of permanent tools of labor, through which labor operations are transmitted from generation to generation.
Making the simplest tool inevitably requires such conscious actions as a preliminary idea of its functions, shape, and material properties. Actions to manufacture a weapon must be planned in a certain order. They must be realized and remembered for its re-production. The production of tools is associated with the mental division of the whole into parts (analysis), with the isolation (abstraction) of individual properties of an object, as well as with the mental unification (synthesis) of isolated properties into imaginable integral tools. Thus, the improvement of labor processes and the production of more and more complex tools was associated with the improvement of the analytical and synthetic activity of the human cerebral cortex. The instrument for this activity has also been improved - speech.
The social organization of work activity has led to the identification of individual actions that acquire meaning only through the work of other people. So, in labor conscious actions arise, divorced from the immediate biological goal, a person’s abstract thinking and his will are formed.
In the process of formation of the human psyche, his external physical actions with material objects precede the formation of internal mental actions. Only on the basis of action with material objects does a person gradually move on to operating with their ideal images, to actions in the mind. This transition from external actions to internal actions is called interiorization(“transformation into internal”). Thanks to the ability to act with mental, ideal images of objects, a person begins to model various relationships between objects and anticipate the results of his actions. Interiorization is carried out on a verbal, speech basis. The word is used both as a means of designating objects and as a symbol of their general, essential properties.
Having been formed on the basis of external actions, mental actions themselves begin to regulate external actions. All conscious actions of a person are exteriorization(external manifestation) of his internal mental activity.
Each new historical era is uniquely reflected in the consciousness of its contemporaries, and with changes in the historical conditions of people’s existence, their consciousness changes.
Prerequisites for the occurrence. Human consciousness arose and developed during the social period of its existence. The main condition for the emergence and development is the joint productive instrumental activity of people mediated by speech. The instinctive communication of human ancestors within the herd was replaced by communication based on production activities. Joint activities contributed to the transformation of the herd into a society. Thus, the reason for the humanization of our ancestors was the emergence of labor and the formation of society. Human consciousness, the highest form of reflection, also developed through work. An animal lives in a world of random things, a person creates for himself a world of constant objects. Human activity becomes conscious activity. Under the influence of labor, new functions of the hand were consolidated and upright posture developed. This had an impact on brain development. One of the needs of a person as a member of society was the need for communication, which led to speech formation.(abstract)
Hypothesis about the origin of human consciousness (A. N. Leontyev)
Consciousness– a reflection of objective reality, in which its objective stable properties regardless of the subject’s existing relations to it.
Biological prerequisites: brain development, upright posture, hand development.
1. Work – the process of influencing nature. This is tool making + Appearance collective work– separation of operations. Some of them are biologically meaningless (beater) - aimed at intermediate result. This result becomes independent for the individual purpose, which is separated from motive(biological) – isolation actions (operations become actions for the individual). Prerequisites:
1) the joint nature of the activities of higher animals
2) the identification of 2 phases in the activity of an animal: preparation and implementation, which can be moved away from each other in time. But the connection of the phases is determined by spatial, material relations
Action is a process whose subject and motive do not coincide. Understanding required sense actions!!
The meaning of the action is an understanding of the relationship between motive and goal.
The connection between a motive and an object reflects not natural, but objective-social connections and relationships. Meaning is acquired only in conditions of collective labor activity.
It is necessary that the meaning of actions be understood by a person. Consciousness of the meaning of an action occurs in the form of reflection of its object as a conscious goal.
The activities of people are now separated for their consciousness from objects. The idea of a thing is separated from the thing itself and can be retained in consciousness (for example, the idea of food).
2. Making and using tools is possible only in connection with the awareness of the purpose of the labor action.
1) The instrument of labor objectively reflects the properties of the object of labor. The instrument is the bearer of the first real conscious and intelligent abstraction.
2) A tool is a social object - it has a certain way of use, which socially developed and socially secured. In animals, the operation is not recorded in the instrument - there is no need to store it. The animal's tool is an extension of the hand. In man, the activity of tools itself created the specific capabilities of his hand.
Development of thinking in the process of work. The preparation phase becomes an independent activity, which then becomes internal, mental.
3. Speech and language development – in parallel with the development of work: the emergence of a need to say something to each other. Human actions acquire a dual function: direct production and the function of influencing others (communication). A gesture is a movement separated from its result. The transition from gesture to vocal sounds - speech. Language becomes a form of conscious generalization of reality. First, a direct connection with work. Then - the abstraction of verbal meanings from a real object - the possibility of the existence of meaning as a thought (ideally).
Consciousness is shared knowledge.
The main components of human consciousness: meanings and language values.
Conclusions:
1) the emergence of consciousness is possible only when a person’s relationship to nature becomes mediated by his labor connections with other people
2) consciousness is possible only in conditions active influence to nature (labor activity using tools)
3) consciousness is possible only in the conditions of existence language
4) individual consciousness is possible only in the conditions of existence public consciousness.