23 PSYCHOLOGY IN THE FIRST HALF OF XIX C

At the beginning of the XIX century. gradually began to form new approaches to the psyche. Now not so much mechanics as physiology contributed to the development of psychological knowledge. Having as its object the natural body, physiology modified it into a subject of scientific research. At the main stages, the leading position of physiology was the “anatomical beginning”. Functions were studied in terms of their subordination to the structure of the body, its anatomy. The metaphysical views of an old era were transmitted by physiology in the language of experience.

English neurologist C. Bell, French physiologist F. Magendie, American psychologist G.-S. Hall and the German physiologist F. Muller formed the reflex direction. The successful development of psychophysiology was associated with the use of the method of observing oneself (introspection). The works of Hermann Ludwig Helmholtz "The Teaching of Auditory Sensations" and "Physiological Optics" are the basis of modern physiology of the sense organs.

The idea that mental phenomena depend on some established pattern, which is understandable to scientific research and can be identified by mathematical means, was stated in the current, called "psychophysics", founded by the German physiologist Gustav Fechner (1801-1887). Another physiologist Max Weber (1795–1879) experimentally proved a mathematically expressed correlation between physical impulses and sensitive reactions. The patterns revealed by G. Fehner and M. Weber, truly described the correlation of mental and physical phenomena.

According to his own experimental texture, R. Descartes' reflex model became plausible due to the fact that differences between tactile (sensory) and motor (motor) nerve paths leading to the spinal cord were shown. This discovery was demonstrated to doctors and naturalists I. Prochaska, F. Magendie, and Ch. Bell. It allowed us to interpret the mechanism of communication of nerves with the help of the so-called reflex arc, the electrification of one arm of which regularly and inevitably activates the other arm, causing a muscular reaction. Along with the theoretical (for physiology) and practical (for medicine), this discovery played an important methodological role. With the help of an experimental method, it substantiated the subordination of body functions relating to its behavior in the environment, the physical substrate, and not the mind (or soul) as a special disembodied substance.

Austrian anatomist F. Gall (1758–1829) proposed an original “brain map”, according to which various abilities are “located” in certain parts of the brain.