Podmiotowość człowieka a psychologia historyczna

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.