The concept of association and apperception in psychology. Izmailov G. Leibniz and Kant: on the question of apperception. How do different scientists see this concept?

Apperception (from the Latin ad - to and perceptio - perception) is a concept of philosophy and psychology of modern times, meaning a clear and conscious perception of any impression, sensation, etc. This concept was first introduced by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, but most often it is mentioned in connection with the name of his compatriot, Immanuel Kant. Is there any similarity in the concept of apperception in Leibniz and Kant - this is the question that will be considered in this work. In Leibniz's theory of knowledge, apperceptions are called conscious perceptions(so, for example, in “New Experiences ...", book II, chapter XIX, §4 - apperceptions), that is, those that are clearly perceived by the mind. However, under this term he sometimes uses process of awareness perceptions (ibid., book II, chapter IX, § 4 - s "apercevoir), in contrast to their perception(perception) and even our very consciousness(ibid., book II, chapter II - apperception).

Without dwelling in detail on the theory of small perceptions, unconscious due to their multitude, scattering our attention, or due to their being pushed aside by stronger perceptions, we should pay attention to the fact that the very fact of Leibniz’s division of perceptions into conscious and unconscious ones plays a very important role. Previous philosophy, both rationalistic (Descartes) and empirical (Locke), identifies perception and consciousness. In “Rules for the Guidance of the Mind,” Descartes writes that “nothing can be known before reason, since the knowledge of everything else depends on it, and not vice versa; then, having comprehended everything that immediately follows the knowledge of pure reason, he will, among other things, list all the other instruments of knowledge that we possess, except reason; there will be only two of them, namely fantasy and feeling.”

Locke, in the 1st chapter of the 2nd book of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, says that it is very improbable that anyone thinks without realizing and not noticing it. Leibniz responds to this that here lies the key point of the whole problem and that this difficulty has confused many learned people. To get rid of it, “we should keep in mind that we think about many things at the same time, but we pay attention to the thoughts that stand out most; Yes, it cannot be otherwise, since if we paid attention to everything, then we would have to carefully think at the same time about infinite number things that we sense and that make an impression on our senses."

Leibniz, as mentioned above, also considers apperception as an act of reflection, distinguishing it from perception. “A distinction must be made,” he says, “between perception-perception, which is the internal state of the monad, reproducing external things, and apperception-consciousness, or reflective cognition of this internal state." In these reflective acts, the soul is turned to itself, “and thinking about ourselves, we also think about being, about substance, about the simple and the complex, about the immaterial and about God himself.”

These provisions of Leibniz's theory of knowledge can be given an interpretation that brings them closer to Kant, namely: the act of apperception undoubtedly immanently includes the statement “I think”; hence this statement accompanies all conscious perceptions of the subject, turning it into the basis for personal identity, which will be discussed in more detail below.

Above we have already pointed out another important position of Leibniz’s theory of knowledge, namely the distinction between perception and awareness. It takes on special significance in the context of our consideration of the similarity of the concepts of apperception in Leibniz and Kant. Here is what the famous historian of philosophy, researcher of Kant’s philosophy, Burkhardt Tuschling says about this: “By separating consciousness from perception, removing their Cartesian-empirical identity and developing towards an internal difference between virtuality and the actuality of thinking, consciousness and perception, Leibniz creates the precondition for Kantian “I think it should be possible to accompany all other representations,” hence, a prerequisite for the concept of transcendental subjectivity."

Kant most fully and systematically reveals the term “apperception” in the Critique of Pure Reason. After the “Analyst of Concepts” gave a list of all the original pure concepts of synthesis, “which the understanding unites in itself a priori and with the help

which only he can understand anything in the diversity of visual representation,” Kant carries out his famous transcendental deduction of categories. The purpose of this deduction is to show the constitution of objects accessible to knowledge as a result of the application of categories to intuitions. In § 15-20 he attempts to find in the mind itself the primary source of all possible types of connections and syntheses. “The variety of ideas,” he says here, “can be given in a visual representation, which has an exclusively sensory character, i.e. represents only receptivity, and the form of this visual representation may lie a priori in our faculty of representation, being, however, only the way in which the subject is affected (affiziert wird).

However, Kant goes on to say that the combination of diversity “can never be perceived by us through the senses,” because it is an act of self-activity of the power of representation, in other words, an act of the understanding, which means that the connection means synthesis. Further, we see that in addition to the concepts of diversity and its synthesis, the concept of union must necessarily include the concept of the unity of diversity, and it is this that determines the union, a priori preceding all its concepts, and also joining the representation of diversity.

In the next paragraph (§ 16) Kant reveals the concept of visual representation: it is “a representation that can be given before any thinking,” he says. However, it would be wrong to assume that it belongs to sensuality: after all, it is an act of self-activity. Kant calls this representation pure apperception; “it is self-consciousness producing the idea "I'm thinking" which must be able to accompany all other ideas and be identical in every consciousness."

Occurs pure apperception, since it expresses the unification of all representations into concepts of objects and does not depend on particular experimental processes. Consequently, it differs from empirical apperception related to an individual person, which shows only the dependence of ideas, perceptions on the specific previous experience of this particular person. And this initial apperception since it can no longer be accompanied by any further self-consciousness.

Unity of identity transcendental. Thanks to him, a priori knowledge is possible. “Indeed,” says Kant, “the manifold representations given in a certain visual representation would not all be collectively my representations if they did not all belong together to one self-consciousness; in other words

as my ideas (even if I did not recognize them as such), they must necessarily be consistent with the condition under which they alone can exist in one common self-consciousness, since otherwise they would not all belong to me.”

Here the question arises: how can we prove the identity of our personality? By the way, Leibniz was already aware of this difficulty. Deducing the truth of the existence of our soul from simple perception, like Descartes and Locke, Leibniz noted, however, that the reliability of information about the soul extracted from self-consciousness does not extend far. Even about the unity of substance, about the identity of our personality, Leibniz says that, knowing it only through experience, we do not know it with absolute certainty. The identity of a person in different states of time is cognized with an inner sense, but it could be clearly known only a priori, and therefore we cannot have an unconditionally reliable knowledge of the identity of our personality: “It is necessary,” says Leibniz, “that there be a basis for saying with the certainty that we continue, i.e. that I, who was in Paris, am now in Germany. For if it were not for him, they would have just as much right to say that it was someone else. True, my inner experience convinced me a posteriori of this identity, but it is necessary that there also be an a priori basis for this. But no other reason is possible than this, that both my attributes of a previous time and state, and my attributes and states of a subsequent time, are predicates of the same subject and are in the same subject. But this is precisely what experience is unable to present to us, since all previous states of our “I” are directly accessible to us only through our own memory, which, as Leibniz believed, does not provide the necessary logical certainty at all.

According to Leibniz, the conditions for the objectivity of the object of external perceptions in our consciousness are the ideal, purely speculative demands of our thought, which have their basis in our “I”, in consciousness, in unity. As Cassirer says, this “I” “in relation to the various empirical states of consciousness takes on the meaning of the pure foundation of their connection.” Thus Leibniz, according to Cassirer, prepares the tools for Kant's concept of apperception.

Indeed, Kant's train of thought is approximately the same as that of Leibniz. “Indeed, the empirical consciousness that accompanies various representations is disjointed and in itself has no relation to the identity of the subject. Consequently, this relationship does not yet arise due to the fact that I accompany every idea with consciousness, but is achieved by the fact that I I attach one [view]

to another and am aware of their synthesis. So, only due to the fact that I can combine the variety of given representations in one mind, it's possible that I imagine identity of consciousness in these very ideas» .

“So,” Kant continues, “the synthetic unity of the diversity of visual representations, as given a priori, is the basis of identity in apperception itself, which a priori precedes everything.” my a certain way of thinking. [In any case] it is not the object that contains the connection, which could be borrowed from it through perception and thus first received by the understanding, but, on the contrary, the understanding itself will produce the connection, it is nothing other than the ability to connect a priori and bring the diversity of data under the unity of apperception."

Further, Kant points to the specific role of the synthesis of the given in the visual representation of diversity in establishing the identity of self-consciousness. “In fact,” he says, “I, as a simple representation, does not yet give any variety; diversity can only be given in a visual representation different from the Self and can be thought through compound in one mind. [...] So, I am aware of my identity I'm in in relation to the variety given to me in a visual representation, because I call all its elements their representations, and [all of them] constitute one[performance]. But this means that I am a priori aware of their necessary synthesis, called the original synthetic unity of apperception.”

"Transcendental unity Apperception is the name of that unity by means of which all data in the visual representation of diversity are united into the concept of an object.” This unity is thus objective, unlike subjective unity consciousness, which is only "definition of inner feeling, by means of which the said variety of visual representation is empirically given for such unification.”

Each of us thinks differently, that is, as Kant says, “one connects the representation of a known word with one thing, and another with another”; therefore, in what is empirical in nature, the unity of consciousness does not have a necessary and universal meaning “in relation to what is given.” Such necessity and universality are signs of an a priori, pure form of visual representation in general, which is subordinated to the original unity of consciousness through the pure synthesis of the understanding, which a priori underlies the empirical synthesis.

is a subject whose moral and real identity of personality is proven by apperception, that is, our awareness of past perceptions. This I is the basis for all - conscious or unconscious - perceptions of the subject. Therefore, when the question of personal identity arises, it is necessary to turn to self-awareness; It is sufficient only to have an indirect connection between consciousness and the state closest to it, since “present or immediate memory or memory of what happened immediately before the present moment, i.e. consciousness, or reflection, accompanying internal action cannot naturally deceive...”

What is the world around us? Why does it seem bright and clean to some, but evil and unfriendly to others? After all, in fact, the world is one for everyone. Why does each person have his own special attitude to what is happening? Apperception plays a major role in this matter. Along with it, there is perception and the transcendental unity of apperception, examples of which will also be considered.

The world always remains the same, only the way a person sees it changes. Depending on how you personally look at the world, it takes on such colors. And the amazing thing is that no matter how you look at it, you will see evidence of your opinion. Everything that a person sees is present in the world. Only some people focus only on good things, while others focus on bad things. That's why everyone views the world differently. It all depends on what things you pay attention to most.

Your sense of self is determined only by your opinion about the circumstances, your attitude towards everything that happens. What you think and how you feel about a particular event determines your feelings, emotions, forms a certain point of view, idea, etc.

Absolutely everything that is subject to the human mind happens in the world. It is necessary to learn tolerance and not be surprised that the world contains both the most beautiful and the most terrible things. Showing tolerance means being conscious of the imperfections of the world and oneself, understanding that no one and nothing is immune from mistakes.

Imperfection lies only in the fact that the world, you or another person does not correspond to your own or other people’s ideas. In other words, you want to see the world as one thing, but it is not. They want to see you as a blonde, but you are a brunette. Tolerance is about understanding that you, other people, and the world around you do not have to conform to anyone else's expectations and ideas.

The world is what it is - real and permanent. Only the person himself changes, and with him the worldview and idea of ​​​​what is happening in this world change.

Apperception

Have you ever noticed that people can talk about one event in which they took part, but everyone will tell their own story as if they were two different events? Apperception is a conditional perception of the surrounding world (objects, people, events, phenomena), depending on personal experience, knowledge, ideas about the world, etc. For example, a person who is engaged in design, once in an apartment, will first of all evaluate it in terms of furnishings, color combinations, arrangement of objects, etc. If in the same room If a person who is interested in floristry comes in, he will first of all pay attention to the presence of flowers, their well-groomed condition, etc.

The same room - different people with different experiences, professional skills and interests - different perceptions of a room that essentially remains the same for everyone who enters it.

Thoughtful and attentive perception of the world around us based on one’s own experience, fantasies, knowledge and other views is called apperception, which varies from person to person.

Apperception is called “selective perception”, since first of all a person pays attention to what corresponds to his motives, desires, and goals. Based on his experience, he begins to study the world around him with passion. If a person is at the “I want” stage, then he begins to look in the world around him for something that corresponds to his desires and will help in their realization. It is also influenced by a person’s attitudes and mental state.

This phenomenon has been considered by many psychologists and philosophers:

• I. Kant combined human capabilities, highlighting empirical (knowledge of oneself) and transcendental (pure perception of the world) apperception.
• I. Herbart perceived apperception as a process of cognition, where a person receives new knowledge and combines it with existing knowledge.
• V. Wundt characterized apperception as a mechanism for structuring personal experience in consciousness.
• A. Adler is famous for his phrase: “A person sees what he wants to see.” A person notices only what corresponds to his concept of the world, which is why a certain model of behavior is formed.
• In medicine, this concept is characterized as a person’s ability to interpret his own sensations.

Separately, social apperception is distinguished - personal attitude or assessment of surrounding people. You experience one or another attitude (feelings) towards every person you communicate with. This is called social apperception. This also includes the influence of people on each other through ideas and opinions, the course of joint activities.

The following types of apperception are distinguished:

1. Biological, cultural, historical.
2. Congenital, acquired.

Apperception is important in human life. The site for psychological assistance has two functions:

1. A person's ability to change under influence new information, which he realizes and perceives, thereby complementing his experience and knowledge. Knowledge changes, the person himself changes, as thoughts influence his behavior and character.
2. A person’s ability to put forward hypotheses regarding people, objects, and phenomena. Based on existing knowledge and receiving new material, he assumes, anticipates, and puts forward hypotheses.

Perception and apperception

A person perceives the world around him. How exactly does he do this? Here not only apperception, but also perception can be traced. What is their difference?

• With apperception, a person perceives the world consciously, clearly, depending on past experience, existing knowledge, goals and direction of his activity. It is an active form of learning about the world around us in order to complement our own knowledge and experience.
• In perception, a person is “uninvolved.” It is also called “unconscious perception,” when the world is perceived simply, vaguely, independently.

The perception may not carry any meaning or significance. A person sees and feels the world around him, but the incoming information is so insignificant that a person does not pay attention to it and does not remember it.

With apperception, a person acts consciously, looking for something from the environment that will help him in solving a certain cognitive task.

A simple example of perception and apperception is a sound that is heard not far from a person:

• If an individual pays attention to it, analyzes, realizes, and remembers what happened, then we speak of apperception.
• If an individual heard, but did not pay attention, did not bother to realize what was happening, we speak of perception.

Perception and apperception are interconnected. There are often situations when a person at first does not pay attention to some phenomena or people, and then needs to reproduce them, when in the process of apperception he realizes the importance of remembering them. For example, a person knew about the presence of a certain series, but did not watch it. Having met an interesting interlocutor, the conversation turns to this series. A person is forced to remember information that he had not previously paid attention to, now making it conscious, clear and necessary for himself.

Social perception is characterized by the perception of another person, the correlation of conclusions drawn with real factors, awareness, interpretation and prediction of possible actions. Here an assessment of the object to which the subject’s attention was directed occurs. The most important thing is that this process is mutual. The object, for its part, becomes a subject who evaluates the personality of another person and draws a conclusion, makes an assessment, on the basis of which a certain attitude towards him and a behavioral model are formed.

The functions of social perception become:

1. Knowing yourself.
2. Knowing partners and their relationships.
3. Establishing emotional contacts with those whom a person considers reliable and necessary.
4. Readiness for common activities where everyone will achieve certain successes.

What appears in your mind when you hear this or that word is how you react and see the world around you. The world itself is neither good nor bad. He is whatever assessment you give him.

Here you can hear: “But what about people who constantly interfere with life, offend, betray?” As you calm down after a negative situation or breakup, why not look at your offender with a smile? After all, there is something good in another person that you once liked, pleasant events happened in your life with him. As long as you look at your offenders with a smile, they cannot harm you and take away your happiness. Moreover, you can take from them those qualities that once attracted you and cultivate them in yourself. After all, while you try to avoid your offenders, try to forget them, they hurt you with every memory or reminder of them. You spend energy trying to escape, instead of simply not reacting and developing, becoming better and stronger.

If you don't like something, just change your attitude. Stop being afraid, hiding, running. Start not reacting to unpleasant things, but seeing them, and devoting time only to what makes you happy. After all, the world depends on your vision of it. He can be beautiful and happy if you focus on this. Or it can be gray and boring if you spend time on a depressive state. The world must be seen as it is.

Transcendental unity of apperception

Each person has the skill of transcendental unity of apperception, which is understood as the unification of new knowledge with existing life experience. In other words, it can be called learning, development, change. A person constantly receives new knowledge, information, and develops skills. This is combined with what has already been received previously, creating a new idea of ​​\u200b\u200boneself, about people, about the world as a whole.

The transcendental unity of apperception includes three factors:

1. Deduction is the identification of a particular conclusion based on general information. Through perception, a person moves to apperception - the knowledge of the information that he needs.
2. Contemplation is an observation that can then be analyzed and analyzed.
3. – presentation of information that is complementary.

A person is mistaken when he thinks that he sees the world around him as it really is. In reality, a person sees everything in a distorted spectrum due to the influence of certain factors on the worldview. These can be beliefs about what is good and what is bad, focus on certain ideals and rejection of others, prejudices and complexes regarding some life phenomena. Many factors influence an erroneous worldview. How does this manifest itself in the outside world?

People are notorious for often making decisions in advance and then creating conditions in which the earlier conclusions are confirmed. A person consciously notices cases that confirm his suspicions and expectations. He only notices what he wants to see—examples that reinforce his prejudices. For example, a man who suspects his woman of cheating will see evidence of cheating in every interaction she has with other members of the opposite sex. Such a man will not see simple business communication between his woman and another man, but clear signs of flirting, which will ultimately lead to sex. He sees what he wants, and not what really is.

Stereotypes play their role. This is very clearly manifested in the desire to win over a person. For example, a woman brings a man beer because she believes that all men drink, given that her first marriage failed due to alcoholism. The question arises: why continue the stereotype further if it has already destroyed previous relationships? This is, unfortunately, what many people do. In their normal state of mind, they can condemn or encourage some of a person’s actions, but when it comes to winning over another, they forget that stereotypes can play a cruel joke if used. What do you think will cause the woman’s marriage with this man to whom she brought beer to collapse? That's right, because, as in the first case.

A person, when criticizing another person, does not speak about him, but about the fact that he saw himself in him. He criticizes those qualities that are inherent in himself. And he reacts negatively to them because he hates these qualities in himself. A person is always irritated in others by what is in himself. A large number of convictions speaks of integrity. The more principled you are, the more you judge others. This game is an excellent defense mechanism for the human ego. Selfishness never allows its owner to notice his mistakes and shortcomings, as this kills him. Hiding behind the imperfections of the surrounding world and people, the ego protects a person from considering his shortcomings.

Another wonderful distortion of worldview is the so-called errors. It is more common for a person to say that something was done wrong than to look at the situation from the other side. In fact, there are no mistakes! They simply don't exist! There are only situations that a person treats as mistakes. But in themselves they are not erroneous.

Examples of apperception

Every person has apperception, but is not aware of it. There can be numerous examples of apperception here:

• When communicating with people, the choreographer pays attention to how they move, how flexible their arms and legs are.
• Watching TV is about remembering important information. For example, when a new episode of your favorite TV series will be released, although the TV show could talk about an actor who plays the main role in this genre.
• A person who does not trust people will see deception, lies, and a desire to manipulate behind their every word.
• A ski maker and a skier evaluate skis differently. The master will look at the quality and methods of processing the material, and the skier will evaluate the elasticity, strength and other properties of the skis.
• Wanting to answer his question, a person will highlight information that partially or completely provides the necessary knowledge. For example, a woman, after the departure of her beloved man, will look for any information that will answer her question: how to get him back?
• When a person goes to work, he does not pay attention to anything other than what is associated with the process of travel. For example, he will not pay attention to people standing at the bus stop, but will only note which minibus numbers are arriving.
• Listening to a melody, a person will highlight only those sounds that are pleasant to his ear.
• When choosing where to go to relax, a person will be guided by the experience of experiences that he went through while already relaxing in one place or another.

Concentration on specific sensations, beliefs, ideas and emotions causes a person to limit his decisions, conclusions and choices. A person will avoid what previously frightened or hurt him, while going or being carried away only by what gives him positive experiences.

Bottom line

Through what lens do you view the world? People look at the world each through their own prism. When you hear the word “apple,” some people imagine a green apple, while others imagine a red one. Looking out one window, someone sees stars, and another sees bars. Thus, beliefs, beliefs, principles of “what is good and what is bad” are the prism through which a person looks at the world, which characterizes the phenomenon of apperception. The result is a certain limited perception of the world, ignoring everything else.

This prism forces a person to act in one way or another. Looking through it, a person commits certain actions. Accordingly, there are people who consider it normal to blow their nose in public places, and those who will endure it until they get to the restroom to clear their nose. There are people who consider themselves worthy of becoming rich, despite the fact that they are now living in a train station in a cardboard box, and those who consider themselves unworthy of wealth, even if they have graduated higher education and has a roof over his head.

Depending on the set of beliefs, principles, rules, permissions and prohibitions through which a person views the world around him, he allows himself one way of life or another. It can be said that many people do not achieve their goals and desires only because they consider themselves unworthy of having them or unable to achieve them. Of course, if a person considers himself unworthy and incapable, then he will not do anything to achieve his goals. And here it no longer matters who has what capabilities. There are people without arms and legs who earn more money than those who are physically completely healthy.

It all depends on what you believe in, what you are guided by and what you allow and forbid yourself. The prognosis for life with apperception can be either happy or unhappy. It all depends on the eyes of the beholder, who selects from all the information what he wants to know, see and hear.

But if a person changes his usual prism, then his actions, lifestyle, relationships and even his social circle will change. If you want to change your life, change your beliefs, principles, “I allow” and “I do not allow.” All this will inevitably lead to changes in your behavior and the commission of new actions, and these, in turn, will lead to new consequences. And depending on what and in what direction you change, your life will change in one direction or another.

Man lives in direct connection with the outside world. He gets to know it, draws some conclusions, reasons. Why do some people perceive the world as bad and others as good? All this is explained by apperception and. All this is united into the transcendental unity of apperception. A person experiences the world not as it is, but through the prism...

The world is cruel? Is he unfair? Finding himself in a situation of pain and suffering, a person suddenly begins to think about what kind of world he lives in. While everything in his life is going well and wonderful, he doesn’t think much about this topic. A person doesn’t care about the world as long as everything goes “like clockwork” for him. But as soon as life turns in a direction unsuitable for a person, he suddenly begins to think about the meaning of his existence, about people and about the world that surrounds him.

Is the world as bad as many people think it is? No. In fact, people do not live in the world in which they appeared. It all depends on how people look at what surrounds them. The world looks different in the eyes of every person. A botanist, a lumberjack and an artist look at trees differently when they get into the forest. Is the world bad, cruel and unfair? No. This is how those people who call him such words look at him.

If we return to the fact that a person usually begins to evaluate the world around him only when something in his life is not going as he would like, then it is not surprising why the world itself seems cruel and unfair to him. The world itself has always been the way you see it. And it doesn’t matter whether you look at the world in a good mood or in a bad one. The world does not change just because you are sad or happy now. The world is always the same for everyone. It’s just that people themselves look at him differently. Depending on how you look at him, he becomes for you the way you see him.

Moreover, note that the world agrees with any point of view, since it is so diverse that it can correspond to any idea about it. The world is neither good nor bad. It simply has everything: both good and bad. It’s only when you look at it that you see one thing without noticing everything else. It turns out that the world is the same for all people, only people themselves see it differently depending on what they pay their personal attention to.

What is apperception?

The kind of world a person lives in depends on apperception. What it is? This is an unambiguous perception of surrounding objects and phenomena, which is based on the views, experience, worldview and interests, desires of a person. Apperception is a thoughtful and conscious perception of the world that is amenable to human analysis.

The world is the same for all people, yet everyone evaluates and perceives it differently. The reason for this is the different experiences, fantasies, views and assessments that people give when looking at the same thing. This is called apperception.

In psychology, apperception also refers to the dependence of the perception of the surrounding world on a person’s past experience and his goals, motives, and desires. In other words, a person sees what he wants to see, hears what he wants to hear, understands current events in a way that is convenient for him. There is no talk of a variety of options.

The perception of the world around us is influenced by many factors:

1. Interests and desires.
2. Urgent goals and motives.
3. The activity in which a person is engaged.
4. Social status.
5. Emotional condition.
6. Even health status, etc.

Examples of apperception include the following:

• A person engaged in apartment renovations will evaluate the new environment from the point of view of a well-made renovation, without noticing the furniture, aesthetics and everything else.
• A man who is looking for a beautiful woman will first of all evaluate the external attractiveness of strangers, which will influence whether to get acquainted with them or not.
• When shopping in a store, a person pays more attention to what he wants to buy, without noticing everything else.
• A victim of violence will evaluate the environment in terms of the presence of danger signals that may indicate that there is a risk of a violent situation developing.

Many psychologists tried to explain apperception, which gave many concepts to this phenomenon:

1. According to G. Leibniz, apperception is a sensation achieved by consciousness and memory through the senses, which a person has already comprehended and understood.
2. I. Kant defined apperception as the desire for knowledge of a person who proceeds from his own ideas.
3. I. Herbart considered apperception to be a transformation of existing experience on the basis of new data obtained from the external world.
4. V. Wundt defined apperception by structuring existing experience.
5. A. Adler defined apperception as a subjective idea of ​​the world, when a person sees what he wants to see.

Social apperception is considered separately, where a person looks at the world around him under the influence of the opinion of the group in which he is located. An example would be the idea of female beauty, which today comes down to the parameters 90-60-90. A person succumbs to the opinion of society, evaluating himself and the people around him from the point of view of this parameter of beauty.

Transcendental unity of apperception

Every person is prone to self-knowledge and knowledge of the world around him. So I. Kant united this property of all people into the transcendental unity of apperception. Transcendental apperception is the combination of past experiences with new ones. This leads to the development of thinking, its change or consolidation.

If something in a person’s thinking changes, then changes in his ideas are possible. Cognition occurs through sensory perception of phenomena and objects. This is called contemplation, which actively participates in transcendental apperception.

Language and imagination are connected to the perception of the surrounding world. A person interprets the world as he understands. If something is not clear to him, then a person begins to speculate, invent or elevate it into some kind of postulate that requires only faith.

The world turns out to be different for people. The term apperception is actively used in cognitive psychology, where the main role in a person’s life and destiny is given to his views and conclusions that he makes throughout his life. The basic principle says: a person lives the way he looks at the world and what he notices in it, what he focuses on. That's why things work out well for some and poorly for others.

Why is the world hostile for some and friendly for others? In fact, the world is the same, everything depends only on how the person himself looks at it. When you are exposed to positive emotions, the world seems welcoming and colorful to you. When you are upset or angry, then the world seems dangerous, aggressive, dull. Much depends on what mood a person is in and with what kind of gaze he looks at it.

In many circumstances, a person decides for himself how to react to certain events. It all depends on what beliefs he is guided by. Negative and positive evaluations are based on the rules you use that tell you what other people should be like and how they should behave in certain circumstances.

Only you can make yourself angry. People around you cannot make you angry unless you want to. However, if you succumb to the manipulation of other people, then you will begin to feel what was expected of you.

It is obvious that a person’s life depends entirely on how he reacts, what he allows, and what beliefs he follows. Of course, no one is immune from unexpected unpleasant events. However, even in such a situation, some people react differently. And depending on exactly how you react, there will be further developments. Only you decide your destiny by your choice of what to feel, what to think and how to look at what is happening. You may begin to feel sorry for yourself or blame everyone around you, and then you will follow one path of your development. But you may understand that you need to resolve issues or simply not repeat mistakes and take a different path in your life.

Everything depends on you. You will not get rid of unpleasant and tragic events. However, you have the power to react to them differently so that you only become stronger and wiser, and do not succumb to suffering.

Perception and apperception

Each person is characterized by perception and apperception. Perception is defined as the unconscious act of perceiving the world around us. In other words, your eyes just see, your ears just hear, your skin feels, etc. Apperception is included in the process when a person begins to comprehend the information that he perceives through his senses. This is a conscious, meaningful perception experienced at the level of emotions and thoughts.

Thus:

• Perception is the perception of information through the senses without understanding it.
• Apperception is a reflection of a person who has already put his thoughts, feelings, desires, ideas, emotions, etc. into the perceived information.

Through apperception a person can know himself. How does this happen? The perception of the world occurs through a certain prism of views, desires, interests and other mental components. All this characterizes a person. He evaluates the world and life through the prism of his past experiences, which may include:

1. Fears and complexes.
2. Traumatic situations that a person does not want to go through anymore.
3. Failures.
4. Experiences that arose in a particular situation.
5. Concepts of good and evil.

Perception does not include the inner world of a person. This is why data cannot be analyzed for the purpose of understanding a person. The individual simply saw or felt what is characteristic of all living beings who have encountered the same stimuli. The process of self-knowledge occurs through the information that has been apperceived.

Perception and apperception are important components in human life. Perception simply gives an objective picture of what is happening. Apperception allows a person to react unambiguously, quickly draw conclusions, and evaluate a situation from the point of view of whether it is pleasant to him or not. This is a property of the psyche when a person is forced to somehow evaluate the world in order to automatically react and understand what to do in various situations.

A simple example of two phenomena is a sound heard near a person:

1. In perception, a person simply hears it. He may not even pay attention to it, but note its presence.
2. With apperception, sound can be analyzed. What is that sound? What does he look like? What could it be? And a person draws other conclusions if he paid attention to the sound being heard.

Perception and apperception are complementary and interchangeable phenomena. Thanks to these properties, a person develops a holistic picture. Everything is stored in memory: what was not paid attention to, and what the person was aware of. If necessary, a person can retrieve this information from memory and analyze it, forming new experience what happened.

Bottom line

Apperception creates an experience that a person then uses in the future. Depending on the assessment you gave to one event, you will have a specific opinion and idea about it. It will differ from the views of other people who gave the event a different assessment. The result is a world that is diverse for all living creatures.

Social apperception is based on people's assessment of each other. Depending on this assessment, a person chooses a specific individual as a friend, favorite partner, or turns him into an enemy. Public opinion also takes part here, which rarely lends itself to analysis and is perceived by a person as information that should be unconditionally accepted and followed.

New experience is included in a transformed form into the system of existing knowledge.

Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

APPERCEPTION

(from lat. ad - to, on and perceptio - perception), a concept of philosophy and psychology, denoting the impact of the general content of mental. activity, all previous human experience on his perception of objects and phenomena. The term "A." introduced by Leibniz, designated by him(in the broad sense of the word) , as well as the allocation in the soul of elements of experience and perception, conditioned by previous knowledge. In Kant's philosophy, the concept of A. characterizes the thinking subject in the aspect of his a priori synthetics. functions that determine the unity of feelings. experience. Kant distinguished transcendental A. - the unity of the knowing subject himself, who, with the help of reason, constructs(thinks)

their objects, and empirical. A. - unity manifested in products of knowledge. activity and realized as a derivative of the first unity. Further concepts of psychology are related to the development of psychology. I. F. Herbart believed that any new perception is realized and interpreted on the basis of previous experience, depending on existing interests and focus of attention. New knowledge, according to him, is combined with old under the influence of an already accumulated stock of ideas.(“appercipient mass”) , on the basis of which the ordering and new(“appercipated”) (masses of ideas. The understanding of A. developed by Herbart was a prerequisite for pedagogy. teachings about ways and techniques of acquiring knowledge. The concept of A. became widespread in psychology thanks to the works of V. Wundt, who gave it a fundamental meaning and placed all spheres of the psyche in its place. activities. In his interpretation, A. combines various aspects: clear and distinct perceptions, attention, synthesizing activity of thinking and self-awareness. The totality of these abilities, according to Wundt, determines the elect. and regulation of behavior. In the subsequent development of psychology, the concept of A. was modified into new concepts - for example, Gestalt cm. Gestaltpsychology) , installations and etc.

, expressing various aspects of personality activity. Modern proceeds from the fact that previous experience is reflected in every psychic. process(from simple perception to the most complex activities) . Thanks to the specific experience of the individual(knowledge, skills, traditions or habits) Each new impact of the world takes on a special character. Therefore, the same thing is perceived differently depending on a person’s worldview, his education, belonging, social experience in general. At the same time, it is precisely the social person. psyche and consciousness determines the general significance of the perception and understanding of reality by different people.

Leibniz G.V., Monadology, in book: Fav. Philosopher Op., M., 1908; him, New people. mind, M.-L., 1936; Ivanovsky V., On the question of A., “Questions of Philosophy and Psychology”, 1897, No. 1 (36); V u n d t V., Essays on Psychology, M., 1912; Rubinshtein S.L., Fundamentals of General Psychology, M., 19462; Teplov B. M., Psychology, M., 19515.

Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ch. editor: L. F. Ilyichev, P. N. Fedoseev, S. M. Kovalev, V. G. Panov. 1983 .

APPERCEPTION

(from Latin ad - with and kuperclptio - perception)

in logic, the theory of knowledge, starting with Leibniz and Kant, the same as conscious perception (transcendental apperception); in W. Wundt’s psychology, it is the same as perception that requires effort of will (psychological apperception; see Attention), as opposed to the mere possession of ideas (cf. Perception); an active state of the psyche when confronted with new content of consciousness, new knowledge and new experience in the system of existing knowledge, enrichment and classification of available material in accordance with the structure of consciousness. Modern psychology interprets this concept as the life experience of an individual, which ensures the development of hypotheses about the characteristics of the perceived object, its perception.

Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2010 .

APPERCEPTION

(from Latin ad - to and perceptio - perception) - the dependence of perception on past experience, on the stock of knowledge and the general content of the mental. human activities, which in turn are the result of a reflection of reality based on societies. practices. The term "A." introduced Leibniz, denoting the transition of the unconscious mental. states (perceptions) into clearly and distinctly conscious ones. “The perception of color or light, of which we are conscious, consists of a number of small perceptions of which we are not conscious, and noise, of which we have a perception, but to which we do not pay attention, becomes accessible to consciousness by a small addition or increase” (New Experiments about the human mind", M.–L., 1936, p. 120). In this sense, Leibniz’s A. is close to modern. the concept of attention, but does not coincide with it, because Leibniz also associated self-awareness with A.: thanks to A., a clear representation of not only a k.-l. becomes possible. content, but also what is in my consciousness (see “Monadology”, § 30, Selected philosophical works, M., 1908, p. 347, see also p. 326). A. acquires a new meaning from Kant, who distinguished between empirical. A. and transcendental A. The first is the awareness of the unity of continuously changing mental. states. It has pure meaning. On the contrary, transcendental A. is assigned a center. as the initial basis of the unity and integrity of experience and knowledge. “The transcendental unity of apperception is that unity through which all the diversity in visual representation is united into the concept of an object” (I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, P., 1915, pp. 101–102). Reason constructs an object with the help of categories and thereby realizes the unity of transcendental A. They themselves “are concepts that a priori prescribe laws for phenomena, that is, nature, as the totality of all phenomena” (ibid., p. 113). Thus, transcendental A. is a being. part of the Kantian doctrine which claims to attribute laws to nature. According to him. to the scientist Herbart, A. - awareness of what is newly perceived under the influence of an already accumulated stock of ideas. Herbart called this reserve “apperceptive mass.” New ideas awaken old ones, merge with them and form new connections (see I. F. Herbart, Psychologie als Wissenschaft.., Bd 2, Königsberg, 1825, Car. 5, § 125). There was a point in Herbart’s concept that led to its great popularity in pedagogy and pedagogy. psychology. The connections and interactions of new perceptions and ideas with existing knowledge and the interpretation of the unknown by using past experience were put forward. The concept of A has become widely known in recent psychology thanks to the work of Wundt and his students (Külpe, Meumann, and others). Wundt gave A. the character of the main. the beginning of the whole mental activities. A. – unity. an act, thanks to which a clear awareness of the psychic becomes possible. states. It can be passive (when new content enters consciousness without volitional effort) and active, allowing it to be deliberately directed at an object. But in all cases, A. “carries in itself all the signs of volitional action” (Wundt V., Lectures on Man and Animals, St. Petersburg, 1894, p. 258) and therefore acts as a manifestation of will. Wundt made A. dependent on all internal work, and external behavior: objects and establishing relationships between them (comparison, analysis, synthesis), regulation of actions (in particular, them), etc. Having made an attempt to find a correspondence for A. physiological , Wundt put forward a hypothesis about “apperception centers” in the brain, stipulating, however, that the influence of these centers does not extend to the so-called. higher psychological processes (“Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie”, Bd 1, 6 Aufl., Lpz., 1908, S. 378–385). Wundtovskaya A. was a reaction to the doctrine of the reducibility of all manifestations of the psyche. activity to the laws of association (see Associative psychology). Mechanistic the interpretation of the association made it impossible to understand the active, elected. nature of consciousness and behavior. In an effort to solve this problem, Wundt used A. as the initial explanation. principle, thereby moving psychology away from determinism. explanations of the phenomena being studied, because the final cause of the latter was proclaimed to be an unconditioned purely mental. Act. Idealist psychologists who criticized Wundt could not, based on false methodological principles. positions, to offer positive problems of direction and unity of consciousness. German idealist E. Hartmann, for example, argued that active, regulating mental. processes, operates not in the sphere of consciousness, but beyond it: “...apperceptions... can only be absolutely unconscious mental functions” (Modern Psychology, M., 1902, p. 121). German Münsterberg, accusing Wundt of ignoring motor functions, also admitted in his attempts to explain inhibition and other manifestations of the body’s activity primary factor strong-willed Gestalt psychology reduced A. to the original structural integrity of perception, supposedly rooted in the very nature of the subject.

Development of scientific physiology and psychology showed that operations, which were classified as manifestations of A. (synthesis, analysis, establishment of relationships, etc.), represent reality conditioned by the real activity in the human brain. The unity and integrity of knowledge are based on the unity of the material world. Modern scientific Psychology understands by A. the dependence of perception on the general content of a person’s mental life. In this sense, A. is one of the simplest and at the same time the foundation. psychological patterns. The reflection of an object is not a mirror, but a complex dialectic. the process and nature of perception, its content and depth are constantly changing as a result of mastering new knowledge, with the emergence of new interests. Therefore, 2 people can, as it were, look at the same thing with “different eyes,” i.e. have different A.

A. can be stable and temporary. In the first case, perception is influenced by stable personality characteristics (worldview, education, professional interests, etc.), in the second case - by mental. state at the moment (waiting, fleeting). Physiological the basis of A. is revealed by Pavlov’s teaching about the closure and preservation of temporary connections in the cerebral cortex and on the systemic nature of higher nervous activity, as well as Ukhtomsky’s teaching about the dominant as the center of greatest excitability, subordinating the work of other nerve centers.

Lit.: Ivanovsky V., On the question of apperception, “Questions of Philosophy and Psychology,” 1897, book. 36(1); Teplov B. M., Psychology, 2nd ed., M., 1948.

M. Yaroshevsky. Kulyab.

Philosophical Encyclopedia. In 5 volumes - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Edited by F. V. Konstantinov. 1960-1970 .

APPERCEPTION

APPERCEPTION (from Latin ad-k and perceptio- perception) is a concept that expresses the awareness of perception, as well as the dependence of perception on past spiritual experience and the stock of accumulated knowledge and impressions. The term “apperception” was introduced by G. W. Leibniz, denoting consciousness or reflective acts (“which give us the thought of what is called “I”), in contrast to unconscious perceptions (perceptions). "T. o., should be done between perception-perception, which is the internal state of the monad, and apperception-consciousness, or reflective cognition of this internal state...” (Leibniz G.V. Works in 4 vols., vol. 1. M. , 1982, p. 406). He made this distinction in polemics with the Cartesians, who “considered unconscious perceptions to be nothing” and on the basis of this they even “strengthened... in the opinion of the mortality of souls.”

I. Kant used the concept of “apperception” to designate “self-consciousness that produces the representation “I think,” which should be able to accompany all other representations and be identical in every consciousness” (I. Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. M., 1998, p. 149). In contrast to empirical apperception, which is merely a “subjective unity of consciousness,” arising through the association of ideas and of a random nature, it is a priori, original, pure and objective. It is thanks to the transcendental unity of apperception that it is possible to unite everything given in the visual representation of diversity into the concept of an object. Kant’s main thing, which he called “the highest basis in all human knowledge,” is that the unity of sensory experience (visual representations) lies in the unity of self-consciousness, but not vice versa. It is to affirm the primordial unity of consciousness, imposing its categories and laws on the world of phenomena, that Kant introduces the concept of transcendental apperception: “... The unity of consciousness is that indispensable by which representations of an object are created... that is, they are brought into knowledge; on this condition, therefore, the possibility of understanding itself is based” (ibid., pp. 137-138). In other words, in order for visual representations to become knowledge about an object for the subject, he must certainly recognize them as his own, that is, unite them with his “I” through the expression “I think.”

In the 19th-20th centuries. the concept of apperception received in psychology as the interpretation of new experience by using the old and as the center or main principle of all mental activity. In line with the first understanding, I. F. Herbart considered apperception as awareness of something newly perceived under the influence of an already accumulated stock of ideas (“apperceptive mass”), while new ideas awaken old ones and mix with them, forming a certain one. Within the framework of the second interpretation, D. Wundt considered apperception to be a manifestation of the will and saw in it the only act through which a clear awareness of mental phenomena becomes possible. At the same time, apperception can be active in the case when we receive new knowledge thanks to the conscious and purposeful directing of our will towards an object, and passive when the same knowledge is perceived by us without any volitional effort. As one of the founders of experimental psychology, Wundt even made an attempt to discover the physiological substrate of apperception, putting forward a hypothesis about “apperception centers” located in the brain. Emphasizing the volitional nature of apperception, Wundt polemicized with representatives of associative psychology, who argued that all manifestations of mental activity can be explained using the law of association. According to the latter, the appearance of certain conditions one mental element is evoked in consciousness only due to the appearance of another, associated with it by an associative connection (similar to what happens during the sequential reproduction of the alphabet).

IN modern psychology apperception is understood as the dependence of each new perception on the general content of a person’s mental life. Apperception is interpreted as meaningful perception, thanks to which, based on life experience, hypotheses are put forward about the characteristics of the perceived object. Psychology proceeds from the fact that the mental reflection of an object is not a mirror reflection. As a result of mastering new knowledge, human perception continuously changes and acquires content, depth and meaningfulness.

Apperception can be stable or temporary. In the first case, perception is influenced by stable personality characteristics (worldview, education, habits, etc.), in the second, by the mental state immediately at the moment of perception (mood, fleeting hopes, etc.). The physiological basis of apperception is the very systemic nature of higher nervous activity, based on the closure and preservation of neural connections in the cerebral cortex. At the same time, apperception is greatly influenced by the dominant - the brain center of greatest excitation, subordinating the work of other nerve centers.

Apperception is one of the basic mental properties of a person, which is expressed in the conditional perception of surrounding phenomena and objects, depending on the experience, views, and interests of the individual in certain phenomena.

The concept of apperception comes from Latin, literally translated ad – to, percepcio – perception. The term was introduced by G.W. Leibniz, a German scientist. He proved that this process is prerequisite self-awareness and higher knowledge. And included attention and memory in it. Leibniz was the first to distinguish between the concepts of perception and apperception. The first means a primitive, unconscious, vague presentation of some content, and the second means the stage of conscious, clear, distinct perception. An example of apperception would be two people, one a botanist, the other an artist. The first, going for a walk, will look at plants from a scientific point of view, and the second - from an aesthetic point of view. Their perceptions are based on the characteristics of their specialty, passions and experience.

The American scientist Bruner introduced the term social apperception. It is understood not only as the perception of material objects, but also of social groups, that is, individuals, peoples, races, etc. They drew attention to the fact that subjects of perception are capable of influencing our assessment. When perceiving people, we can be subjective and biased, unlike the perception of objects and phenomena.

In Kant's philosophy, a new concept was introduced - the transcendental unity of apperception. Kant divided empirical and pure (original) form. Empirical perception is temporary and is based on a person’s perception of himself. But awareness of oneself cannot be separated from awareness of the surrounding world; it is precisely this judgment that the scientist expressed under the concept of the unity of apperception.

Alfred Adler created a diagram, presenting in it the property of perception, apperception, as a link in the life style developed by the individual. He wrote in his book that we feel not with real facts, but with subjective images, that is, if it seems to us that the rope in the dark corner of the room is a snake, then we will be afraid of it like a snake. Adler's scheme has occupied an important place in cognitive psychology.

Methods for diagnosing apperception

The most well-known methods for studying personality perception are tests. They can be of two types:

• symbol apperception test;
• thematic apperception test;

In the first case, a person is offered 24 cards with symbols, it is specified that these symbols are taken from myths and fairy tales, the subject must classify the cards on the basis that is most convenient for him. At the second stage of the examination, it is proposed to mentally supplement the given 24 characters with one more, which is missing, in the opinion of the subject. After this, the same cards should be divided into groups: “power”, “love”, “game”, “cognition”, with an explanation of the principle of division and interpretation of symbols. As a result of the test, it is possible to identify the priorities and value-semantic orientation of the individual. Stimulus material is presented with a game element, which implies comfort in testing.

Another type of study, the thematic apperception test, is a set of tables of black and white photographic images. They are selected taking into account the gender and age of the subject. His task is to compose plot stories based on the image of each picture. The test is used in cases requiring differential diagnosis, as well as when choosing a candidate for an important post (pilots, astronauts). It is often used in cases of emergency psychotherapeutic diagnosis, for example for depression, with a possible suicidal outcome.