Philosophical-religious concepts about the soul and the origin of psychological knowledge in cultures of the ancient east

Abstract

The article traces the evolution of ideas about mental reality from mythological intuitions to philosophical systems and the further formation of experimental psychology in 1879 by Wundt. It is shown that language and metaphorical thinking became the first tool for describing internal states, and the emergence of writing ensured the accumulation and systematization of knowledge. Civilizational models of the soul are revealed: in Ancient Egypt - a multicomponent structure (Ka, Ba, Shuit, Ren, Ah) and ritual regulation of life and death; in Mesopotamia - belief in divine determination of events, development of observation and interpretation of signs; in India - a multilevel soul, karma and reincarnation, yoga and Buddhist meditative and ethical practice; in China - the socio-ethical optics of Confucianism with an emphasis on the education and harmony of man and society. Three stages of the development of psychological knowledge are substantiated: mythological, philosophical and scientific-experimental. Concepts of psychic reality have evolved from mythological intuitions to philosophical systems and further to experimental psychology. The origins of concepts of the psyche are rooted in linguistic and metaphorical models of experience that allowed early man to comprehend the soul as a vital force, an inner state and a spiritual “double”. The emergence of writing became a civilizational milestone that ensured the ordering, accumulation and transmission of knowledge, creating the basis for the formation of complex concepts of the inner world in the cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. These civilizations developed different but complementary visions of the soul - from a multi-component spiritual structure and ritual regulation of being to developed practices of self-observation, moral improvement and spiritual discipline. The scientific formation of psychology in 1879 by Wundt consolidated an experimental and empirical approach, but its intellectual and cultural prerequisites - language, symbolism, ritual, written tradition and social norms - were formed over millennia. The principle of historicism allows us to realize the continuity of the development of views on the psyche and shows that modern ideas about consciousness and mental processes have deep sociocultural origins, which determined the multidimensionality and richness of modern psychological thought.