Abstract: | The present work constitutes a inetatheoretical study devoted to the argumentation in
favour of the thesis concerning the unique status of the problems of human agency within
the framework of historical psychology and of discussion on some issues and consequences
resulting from the acceptance of such a standpoint. Historical psychology is understood here
rather as the name of a certain theoretieal/methodological orientation which is closer to
the humanities than to natural sciences and not as a branch or a subdiscipline of psychology.
According to the main thesis within historical psychology so understood, human agency
may have as it were a „double” status, i.e. it is a inetatheoretical category and it may simultaneously
be an object of cognition. This is acceptable on the basis of the assumption
of the multi-layer organization of reality.
As a inetatheoretical category human agency constitutes an element of the metatheoretical
perspective, that is to say of the specific cognitive tool which enables the creation of
theoretical representation of reality. As an object of cognition, on the other hand, human
agency is conceptualized as a form of the primary relational system man — the world. According
to the above mentioned assumption concerning the multi-layer organization of reality
this relational system is thus element of a higher level of the organization of reality
than, for instance, the psychological mechanisms constituting the structure of this system.
Due to this appropriate description of human agency so understood (e.g. carried out in
terms of the historical development of its shape) could become the basic constituent of the
functional explanans in explianation of the already mentioned psychological mechanisms.
In order to do this, however, it would be necessary to reinterpret the notion of human agency
within the framework of historical psychology. It is usually understood as the name of
some constant characteristics of an individual anil, as a result, human agency so understood
is basically absent as the direct object of cognition of historical psychology and it only
functions as a inetatheoretical category. |