Thinking characterized by schematicism and primitiveness. Primitive thinking

The first years of a child’s life are years of primitive, closed existence and the establishment of the most elementary, most primitive connections with the world.

We have already seen that a child in the first months of his existence is an asocial “narrowly organic” creature, cut off from the outside world and entirely limited by his physiological functions.

All this, of course, cannot but have a decisive influence on children’s thinking, and we must say frankly that the thinking of a small child of 3–4 years old has nothing in common with the thinking of an adult in those forms that are created by culture and long-term cultural evolution , repeated and active meetings with the outside world.

Of course, this does not mean at all that children's thinking does not have its own laws. No, the laws of children's thinking are completely definite, their own, not similar to the laws of thinking of an adult: a child of this age has his own primitive logic, his own primitive thinking techniques; all of them are determined precisely by the fact that this thinking develops on the primitive basis of behavior that has not yet seriously encountered reality.

True, all these laws of children's thinking were very little known to us until very recently, and only in very recent years, especially thanks to the work of the Swiss psychologist Piaget, we became acquainted with its main features.

A truly curious sight opened before us. After a series of studies, we saw that the thinking of a child not only operates according to different laws than the thinking of a cultured adult, but it is fundamentally structured significantly differently and uses different means.

If we think about what functions the thinking of an adult person performs, we will very soon come to the answer that it organizes our adaptation to the world in particularly difficult situations. It regulates our attitude to reality in particularly complex cases, where the activity of simple instinct or habit is not enough; in this sense, thinking is a function of adequate adaptation to the world, a form that organizes the impact on it. This determines the entire structure of our thinking. In order for it to be used to have an organized impact on the world, it must work as correctly as possible, it must not be separated from reality, mixed with fantasy, every step of it must be subject to practical testing and must withstand such testing. In a healthy adult, thinking meets all these requirements, and only in people who are mentally ill can thinking take forms that are not related to life and reality and do not organize an adequate adaptation to the world.

This is not at all what we see in the first stages of child development. It often doesn’t matter to him how correctly his thinking proceeds, how well it will withstand the first test, the first meeting with reality. His thinking often does not have an attitude towards regulating and organizing adequate adaptation to the outside world, and if sometimes it begins to bear the features of this attitude, it does so in a primitive way, with those imperfect tools that are at his disposal, which require a long development. to be put into action.

Piaget characterizes the thinking of a small child (3 - 5 years old) with two main features: his self-centeredness and him primitiveness.

We have already said that characteristic of an infant’s behavior is his isolation from the world, his preoccupation with himself, his interests, his pleasures. Try to observe how a 2-4 year old child plays alone: he does not pay attention to anyone, he is completely immersed in himself, lays something out in front of him and puts it back again, talks to himself, turns to himself and himself answers himself. It is difficult to distract him from this game; contact him - and he will not immediately tear himself away from his studies. A child of this age can perfectly play alone, being completely occupied with himself.

Let us present one recording of such a child’s play, made on a child aged 2 years and 4 months*.

*The recording was borrowed from materials kindly provided to us by V.F. Schmidt.

Marina, 2 years 4 months, was completely immersed in the game: she poured sand on her feet, poured it mostly above her knees, then began pouring it into her socks, then took handfuls of sand and rubbed it with her whole palm on her leg. Finally, she began to pour sand onto her thigh, covered it with a handkerchief, and stroked it with both hands around her leg. The expression on her face is very pleased, she often smiles to herself.

While playing, he says to himself: “Mom, here... here... more... more... Mom, pour more... Mom, more... Mom, pour... Mommy, pour more. .. Nothing... This is my aunt... Auntie, more sand... Auntie... the doll still needs sand..."

This egocentrism of children's thinking can also be revealed in another way. Let's try to observe when and how speaks the child, what goals he pursues with his conversation and what forms his conversation takes. We will be surprised if we take a closer look at the child at how much the child speaks alone, “into space,” with himself, and how often speech does not serve him to communicate with others. It seems that in a child speech often does not serve the social purposes of mutual communication and mutual information, as in adults.

Let us present another record of the child’s behavior, borrowed from the same source. Let us pay attention to how a child of 2 years and 6 months plays. accompanied by “autistic” speech, speech only for oneself...

Alik, 2 years 6 months (coming to his mother’s room), began playing with rowan berries, began to pick them, put them in a rinsing cup: “We need to peel the berries as soon as possible... These are my berries. They are lying in the crib. (Notices the cookie wrapper.) No more cookies? Is there only paper left? (Eats cookies.) The cookies are delicious. Delicious cookies (eats). The cookies are delicious. It fell! The drop has fallen! It's so small... Big... Small cube... It can sit, cube... It can sit too... It can't write... The cube can't write... (takes the milkman). We'll put matches there and give them a pie (takes a cardboard circle). Lots of pie...”

The same Piaget, already quoted by us, established that the most characteristic form of speech in a child is a monologue, speech for oneself. This form of speech is retained by the child even in a group and takes on specific, somewhat comical forms, when even in a group each child speaks for himself, continues to develop his topic, paying minimal attention to his “interlocutors,” who (if these children are his same age) They also speak for themselves.

“The child speaks in this way,” Piaget notes, “usually he does not care that his interlocutors listen to him, simply because he does not address them with his speech. He doesn't address anyone at all. He speaks out loud to himself in front of others.”*

*Piaget J. Le langage et la pensee chez lenfant. P., 1923. P. 28.

We are used to speech in a group connecting people with each other. And yet we often do not see this in children. Let us present the recording again, this time a recording of a conversation between a 6.5-year-old child in a group of same-year-olds, conducted while playing - drawing**.

**Ibid. P. 14-15. Individual letters are children's names.

Pius, 6 years old (addressing Ez., who is drawing a tram with a trailer):

23. “But they don’t have a platform, the trams that are attached to the back.” (No answer.)

24. (Talks about the tram he just painted.) “They don’t have attached cars.” (Does not address anyone. No one answers.)

25. (Addresses B.) “This is a tram, it doesn’t have any cars yet.” (No answer.)

26. (Addresses Hey.) “This tram doesn’t have any cars yet, Hey, you understand, you understand, it’s red, you understand.” (No answer.)

27. (L. says out loud: “Here’s a funny man...” Play after a pause, and without addressing Pius, without addressing anyone at all.) Pius; “Here is a funny man.” (L. continues to draw his carriage.)

28. “I’ll leave my carriage white.”

29. Ez., who is also drawing, declares: “I’ll make it yellow.”) “No, you don’t need to make it yellow.”

30. “I’ll make a staircase, look.” (B. replies: “I can’t come tonight, I have gymnastics...”)

The most characteristic thing about this whole conversation is that the main thing that we are used to noticing in a collective conversation is almost invisible here - mutual appeal to each other with questions, answers, opinions. This element is almost absent in this passage. Each child speaks mainly about himself and for himself, without addressing anyone and without expecting an answer from anyone. Even if he is waiting for an answer from someone, but does not receive an answer, he quickly forgets it and moves on to another “conversation.” For a child of this period, speech is only in one part a tool for mutual communication, in another it is not yet “socialized”, it is “autistic”, egocentric, and, as we will see below, it plays a completely different role in the child’s behavior.

Piaget and his collaborators also pointed out a number of other forms of speech that were egocentric in nature. Upon closer analysis, it turned out that even many of the child’s questions are egocentric in nature; he asks, knowing the answer in advance, only to ask in order to reveal himself. There are quite a lot of such egocentric forms in children's speech; according to Piaget, their number at the age of 3 - 5 years ranges on average between 54 - 60, and from 5 to 7 years - from 44 to 47. These figures, based on long-term and systematic observation of children, tell us how The child’s thinking and speech are specifically structured and the extent to which the child’s speech serves completely different functions and is of a completely different character than that of an adult*.

* Russian materials obtained during a long-term study by prof. S. O. Lozinsky, gave a significantly lower percentage of egocentrism in children of our children's institutions. This once again shows how different environments can create significant differences in the structure of the child’s psyche.

Only recently, thanks to a special series of experiments, have we become convinced that egocentric speech carries very specific psychological functions. These functions consist primarily of planning known actions that have started. In this case, speech begins to play a very specific role; it becomes in a functionally special relationship to other acts of behavior. One has only to look at at least the two passages we cited above to be convinced that the child’s speech activity is not a simple egocentric manifestation here, but clearly has planning functions. An explosion of such egocentric speech can easily be achieved by complicating the course of some process in the child**.

** Compare: Vygotsky L. S. Genetic roots of thinking and speech // Natural science and Marxism. 1929. No. 1; L u r i ya A. R. Ways of development of children's thinking // Natural science and Marxism. 1929. No. 2.

But it is not only in forms of speech that the primitive egocentrism of a child’s thinking is manifested. To an even greater extent, we notice features of egocentrism in the content of the child’s thinking and in his fantasies.

Perhaps the most striking manifestation of children's egocentrism is the fact that a small child still lives entirely in a primitive world, the measure of which is pleasure and displeasure, which is still affected by reality to a very small extent; What is characteristic of this world is that, as far as can be judged by the child’s behavior, an intermediate world is moving between him and reality, semi-real, but very characteristic of the child - the world of egocentric thinking and fantasy.

If each of us - an adult - encounters the outside world, fulfilling some need and noticing that the need remains unsatisfied, he organizes his behavior so that, through a cycle of organized actions, he can accomplish his tasks, satisfy the need, or, having come to terms with the need, refuse to satisfy a need.

Not at all the same for a small child. Incapable of organized action, he follows a peculiar path of minimal resistance: if the outside world does not give him something in reality, he compensates for this lack in fantasy. He, unable to adequately respond to any delay in the fulfillment of needs, reacts inadequately, creating for himself an illusory world where all his desires are fulfilled, where he is the complete master and center of the universe he created; it creates a world of illusory egocentric thinking.

Such a “world of fulfilled desires” remains for an adult only in his dreams, sometimes in his dreams; for a child this is a “living reality”; he, as we have indicated, is completely satisfied with replacing real activity with play or fantasy.

Freud talks about one boy whose mother deprived him of cherries: this boy got up the next day after sleep and declared that he had eaten all the cherries and was very pleased with it. What was dissatisfied in reality found its illusory satisfaction in dreams.

However, the fantastic and egocentric thinking of a child manifests itself not only in dreams. It manifests itself especially sharply in what can be called the child’s “daydreams” and which are often easily mixed with play.

It is from here that we often regard as children’s lies, from here a number of peculiar features in children’s thinking.

When a 3-year-old child, when asked why it is light during the day and dark at night, answers: “Because they have dinner during the day and sleep at night,” this, of course, is a manifestation of that egocentric-practical attitude ready to explain everything as adapted for himself, for his good. . We must say the same about those naive ideas characteristic of children, that everything around - the sky, the sea, and the rocks - all this was made by people and can be given to them *; We see the same egocentric attitude and complete faith in the omnipotence of an adult in that child who asks his mother to give him a pine forest, a place called B., where he wanted to go, so that she could cook the spinach like this; to make potatoes**, etc.

* It should be noted, however, that these data are typical for children who grew up in the specific environment in which Piaget studied them. Our children, growing up in different conditions, can give completely different results.

** See: Klein M. Development of one child. M., 1925. S. 25 - 26.

When little Alik (2 years old) had to see a car pass by, which he really liked, he persistently began to ask: “Mom, more!” Marina (also about 2 years old) reacted in the same way to a flying crow: she was sincerely confident that her mother could make the crow fly by again*.

*Reported by V.F. Schmidt.

This trend has a very interesting effect on children’s questions and answers to them.

We illustrate this with a recording of one conversation with a child**:

Alik, 5 years 5 months.
In the evening I saw Jupiter through the window.

Mom, why does Jupiter exist?

I tried to explain to him, but failed. He pestered me again.

Well, why does Jupiter exist? Then, not knowing what to say, I asked him:

Why do you and I exist?

To this I received an instant and confident answer:

For myself.

Well, Jupiter is also for himself.

He liked it and said with satisfaction:

And ants, and bedbugs, and mosquitoes, and nettles - also for yourself?

And he laughed joyfully.

** Reported by V. F. Schmidt.

In this conversation, the primitive teleologism of the child is extremely characteristic. Jupiter must necessarily exist for something. It is this “why” that most often replaces the child with a more complex “why”. When the answer to this question turns out to be difficult, the child still gets out of this situation. We exist “for ourselves” - this is an answer characteristic of the child’s unique teleological thinking, allowing him to solve the question of “why” other things and animals exist, even those that are unpleasant to him (ants, bedbugs, mosquitoes and nettle...).

Finally, we can catch the influence of the same egocentricity in the child’s characteristic attitude towards the conversations of strangers and the phenomena of the outside world: after all, he is sincerely confident that for him there is nothing incomprehensible, and we almost never hear the words “I don’t know” from the lips of a 4-5 year old child. We will see further below that it is extremely difficult for a child to slow down the first decision that comes to mind and that it is easier for him to give the most absurd answer than to admit his ignorance.

Inhibition of one's immediate reactions, the ability to delay a response in time, is a product of development and upbringing that arises only very late.

After everything that we have said about egocentricity in the thinking of a child, it will not be unexpected if we have to say that the thinking of a child differs from the thinking of adults and different logic, that it is built according to “primitive logic”.

Of course, we are far from being able to give here, within one short excursion, any complete description of this primitive logic characteristic of a child. We must dwell only on its individual features, which are so clearly visible in children's conversations and children's judgments.

We have already said that a child, egocentrically positioned in relation to the external world, perceives external objects specifically, holistically and, first of all, from the side that faces him and directly influences him. An objective attitude to the world, abstracted from specific perceived signs of an object and paying attention to objective relationships and patterns, has, of course, not yet been developed in the child. He takes the world as he perceives it, without worrying about the connection of individual perceived pictures with each other and about building that systematic picture of the world and its phenomena, which is for an adult cultured person; whose thinking should regulate the relationship with the world is necessary, obligatory. In the primitive thinking of a child, it is precisely this logic of relationships, causal connections, etc. that is absent and is replaced by other primitive logical techniques.

Let us turn again to children's speech and see how the child expresses those dependencies whose presence in his thinking is of interest to us. Many have already noticed that a small child does not use subordinate clauses at all; he does not say: “When I went for a walk, I got wet because a thunderstorm broke out”; he says: “I went for a walk, then it started to rain, then I got wet.” Causal connections in a child’s speech are usually absent; the connection “because” or “as a result of that” is replaced in the child by the conjunction “and”. It is absolutely clear that such defects in speech design cannot but affect his thinking: a complex systematic picture of the world, the arrangement of phenomena according to their connection and causal dependence are replaced by a simple “gluing together” of individual features, their primitive connection with each other. These methods of a child’s thinking are very well reflected in a child’s drawing, which the child builds precisely according to this principle of listing individual parts without any particular connection with each other. Therefore, often in a child’s drawing you can find an image of eyes, ears, nose separately from the head, next to it, but not in connection with it, not in subordination to the general structure. Here are a few examples of such a drawing. The first drawing (Fig. 24) was not taken by us from a child - it belongs to an uncultured Uzbek woman, who, however, repeats the typical features of a child’s thinking with such extraordinary brightness that we risked giving this example here*. This drawing should depict a rider on a horse. Even at first glance, it is clear that the author did not copy reality, but drew it, guided by some other principles, another logic. Having carefully looked at the drawing, we will see that its main distinguishing feature is that it is built not on the principle of the “man” and “horse” system, but on the principle of gluing, summing up individual characteristics of a person, without synthesizing them into a single image. In the drawing we see the head separately, separately below - the ear, eyebrows, eyes, nostrils, all this is far from their real relationship, listed in the drawing in the form of separate, successive parts. The legs, depicted in such a bent form as the rider feels them, a genital organ completely separate from the body - all this is depicted in a naively glued order, strung on top of each other.

*The drawing is taken from the collection of T. N. Baranova, who kindly provided it to us.

The second drawing (Fig. 25) belongs to a 5-year-old boy*. The child tried to depict a lion here and gave appropriate explanations to his drawing; he drew the “muzzle” separately, the “head” separately, and called everything else about the lion “himself.” This drawing, of course, has significantly fewer details than the previous one (which is quite consistent with the peculiarities of children's perception of this period), but the nature of the “gluing together” is completely clear here. This is especially clear in those drawings where the child is trying to depict some complex set of things, for example a room. Figure 26 gives us an example of how a child about 5 years old tries to depict a room in which a stove is lit. We see that this picture is characterized by the “gluing together” of individual objects related to the stove: firewood, views, dampers, and a box of matches (of enormous size, according to their functional significance) are prepared here; all this is given as the sum of individual objects located next to each other, strung on top of each other.

*Drawings were provided to us by V.F. Schmidt and taken from the materials of the Children's Home-Laboratory.

It is this kind of “stringing”, in the absence of strict regulatory patterns and ordered relationships, that Piaget considers characteristic of a child’s thinking and logic. The child almost does not know the categories of causality and connects action, cause, effect, and individual phenomena unrelated to them in one chain in a row, without any order. That is why the cause often changes place with the effect, and before the conclusion, which begins with the words “because,” the child, who knows only this primitive, pre-cultural thinking, turns out to be helpless.

Piaget conducted experiments with children in which the child was given. a phrase that ends with the words “because,” after which the child himself had to insert an indication of the reason. The results of these experiments turned out to be very characteristic of the child’s primitive thinking. Here are some examples of such “judgments” of a child (the answers added by the child are in italics):

Ts. (7 years 2 months): One person fell on the street because... he broke his leg and had to make a stick instead.

K. (8 years 6 months): One person fell off his bike because he broke his arm.

L. (7 years 6 months): I went to the bathhouse because... I afterwards it was clean.

D. (6 years old): I lost my pen yesterday because I I don't write.

We see that in all the above cases, the child confuses cause with effect and it turns out to be almost impossible for him to achieve the correct answer: thinking that correctly operates with the category of causality turns out to be completely alien to the child. The category of goal turns out to be much closer to the child - if we remember his egocentric attitude, this will be clear to us. Thus, one of the little subjects studied by Piaget gives the following construction of a phrase, which essentially reveals to us a picture of his logic:

D. (3 years 6 months): “I’ll make a stove... because... to heat.”

Both the phenomenon of “stringing together” individual categories, and the replacement of the category of causality, which is alien to the child, with a closer category of purpose - all this is visible in this example quite clearly.

This “stringing” of individual ideas in the child’s primitive thinking is manifested in another interesting fact: the child’s ideas are not located in a certain hierarchy (a broader concept - its part - an even narrower one, etc., according to the typical scheme: genus - species - family etc.), but individual ideas turn out to be equivalent for the child. So, a city - a district - a country for a small child are not fundamentally different from each other. Switzerland for him is something like Geneva, only further away; France is also something like his familiar hometown, only even further away. That a person, being a resident of Geneva, is also a Swiss at the same time, is incomprehensible to him. Here is a small conversation cited by Piaget and illustrating this peculiar “flatness” of a child’s thinking*. The conversation we present is between the leader and little Ob. (8 years 2 months).

Who are the Swiss?

This is who lives in Switzerland.

Friborg in Switzerland?
Yes, but I’m not a Friburger or a Swiss...

What about those who live in Geneva?

They are Genevans.

What about the Swiss?

I don’t know... I live in Fribourg, it’s in Switzerland, and I’m not Swiss. Here are the Genevans too...

Do you know the Swiss?

Very few.

Are there any Swiss people at all?

Where do they live?

Don't know.

*See: Piaget J. Le jugement et le raisonnement chez l`enfant. Neuchatel, 1924. P.163.

This conversation clearly confirms that the child cannot yet think logically consistently, that concepts associated with the external world can be located on several levels, and that an object can simultaneously belong to both a narrower group and a broader class. The child thinks concretely, perceiving a thing from the side from which it is more familiar to him; completely unable to distract from it and understand that, simultaneously with other signs, it can be part of other phenomena. From this side, we can say that a child’s thinking is always concrete and absolute, and using the example of this primitive child’s thinking, we can show how the primary, pre-logical stage in the development of thought processes differs.

We said that the child thinks in concrete things, having difficulty grasping their relationships with each other. A child of 6 - 7 years old clearly distinguishes his right hand from his left, but the fact that the same object can be simultaneously right in relation to one and left in relation to another is completely incomprehensible to him. It is also strange for him that if he has a brother, then he himself is in turn a brother to him. When asked how many brothers he has, the child answers, for example, that he has one brother and his name is Kolya. “How many brothers does Kolya have?” - we ask. The child is silent, then declares that Kolya has no brothers. We can be convinced that even in such simple cases a child cannot think relatively, that primitive, pre-cultural forms of thinking are always absolute and concrete; thinking abstracted from this absoluteness, correlative thinking is a product of high cultural development.

We must note one more specific feature in the thinking of a small child.

It is quite natural that among the words and concepts that he encounters, a huge part turns out to be new and incomprehensible to him. However, adults use these words, and in order to catch up with them, not to seem inferior, stupider than them, a small child develops a completely unique method of adaptation that saves him from a feeling of unworthiness and allows him, outwardly at least, to master expressions and concepts that are incomprehensible to him. Piaget, who perfectly studied this mechanism of children's thinking, calls it syncretism. This term means an interesting phenomenon, remnants of which are present in an adult, but which grows magnificently in the psyche of a child. This phenomenon consists of an extremely easy convergence of concepts that have only an external part, and the replacement of one unfamiliar concept with another, more familiar one.

Such substitutions and replacement of the incomprehensible with the understandable, such a shift in meaning in a child is extremely common, and in an interesting book K. Chukovsky* gives us a number of very striking examples of such a syncretic way of thinking. When little Tanya was told that there was “rust” on her pillowcase, she did not hesitate to think about this new word for her and suggested that it was the horse that “roared” to her. For small children, a horseman is a person who is in the garden, a slacker is one who makes boats, an almshouse is a place where “God is made.”

* See: Chukovsky K. Little children. L., 1928.

The mechanism of syncretism turns out to be very characteristic of the child’s thinking, and it is clear why: after all, it is the most primitive mechanism, without which it would be very difficult for the child to cope with the first steps of his primitive thinking. At every step he faces new difficulties, new incomprehensible words, thoughts, expressions. And of course, he is not a laboratory or desk scientist; he cannot go for a dictionary every time and ask an adult. He can maintain his independence only through primitive adaptations, and syncretism is such an adaptation that feeds on the child’s inexperience and egocentrism*.

*It is interesting that in one case syncretic thinking can be revived and flourish in an adult - this is in the case of learning a foreign language. We can say that for an adult reading a foreign book written in a language that is not familiar to him, the process of syncrete, rather than specific, understanding of individual words plays a huge role. In this he seems to repeat the more primitive features of a child’s thinking.

How does a child’s thought process proceed? By what laws does the child make his conclusions, build his judgments? After everything that has been said, it will be clear to us that developed logic cannot exist for a child with all the restrictions that it imposes on thinking, with all its complex conditions and patterns. The primitive, pre-cultural thinking of a child is constructed much more simply: it is a direct reflection of the naively perceived world, and for the child one detail, one incomplete observation is enough to immediately draw an appropriate (albeit completely inadequate) conclusion. If an adult’s thinking follows the laws of a complex combination of accumulation of experience and conclusions from general provisions, if it obeys the laws of inductive-deductive logic, then the thinking of a small child, as the German psychologist Stern puts it, is “transductive.” It goes neither from the particular to the general, nor from the general to the particular; it simply concludes from case to case, taking as a basis each time all the new, striking signs. Each phenomenon immediately receives a corresponding explanation from the child, which is given directly, bypassing any logical authorities, any generalizations.

Here is an example of this type of conclusion**:

Child M. (8 years old) is shown a glass of water, a stone is placed there, the water rises. When asked why the water rose, the child answers: because the stone is heavy.

We take another stone and show it to the child. M. says: “It’s heavy. He will make the water rise." - “And this one is the smaller one?” - “No, this one won’t force...” - “Why?” - “It’s light.”

** See: Piaget J. Le jugement et le raisonnement chez l`enfant. Neuchatel, 1924. R. 239 - 240.

We see that the conclusion was made immediately, from one particular case to another, and one of the arbitrary signs was taken as a basis. That there is no conclusion at all from the general position is shown by the continuation of experience:

The child is shown a piece of wood. “Is this piece heavy?” - "No". - “If you put it in water, will it rise?” - “Yes, because it is not heavy.” - “Which is heavier - this small stone or this large piece of wood?” - “Stone” (correct). - “Why does the water rise more?” - “From a tree.” - "Why?" - “Because it is bigger.” - “Why did the water rise from the stones?” - “Because they are heavy...”

We see with what ease the child throws away one sign that, in his opinion, caused the water to rise (gravity), and replaces it with another (magnitude). Each time he makes a conclusion from case to case, and the absence of a single explanation is completely unnoticed by him. Here we come to another interesting fact: there are no contradictions for a child, he does not notice them; opposite judgments can exist side by side, without excluding each other.

A child may claim that in one case water is displaced by an object because it is heavy, and in another - because it is light. He can say that boats float on water because they are light, and steamships because they are heavy, without feeling any contradiction in this. Here is the full transcript of one of these conversations.

Child T. (7.5 years old).

Why does a tree float on water?

Because it is light and the boats have oars.

What about those boats that don’t have oars?

Because they are light.

What about big ships?

Because they are heavy.

So, heavy things stay on the water?

Well, what about the big stone?

He's drowning.

What about the big ship?

It floats because it is heavy.

Just because?

No. Also because it has big oars.

What if they are removed?

He will feel better.

Well, what if we put them back?

It will stay on the water because they are heavy.

The complete indifference to contradictions in this example is completely clear. Each time the child makes a conclusion from case to case, and if these conclusions contradict each other, this does not confuse him, because those laws of logic that have their roots in the objective experience of man, in collisions with reality and verification of the provisions made, - the child does not yet have these laws of logical thinking developed by culture. Therefore, there is nothing more difficult than to confuse a child by pointing out the inconsistency of his conclusions.

Thanks to the characteristic features of children's thinking that we have indicated, which with extraordinary ease draws conclusions from particular case to particular case, without thinking deeper about comprehending real relationships, we have the opportunity to observe in a child such patterns of thinking that sometimes and in specific forms we find only in adults primitives.

When encountering phenomena of the external world, the child inevitably begins to build his own hypotheses about the cause and relationship of individual things, and these hypotheses must inevitably take on primitive forms that correspond to the characteristic features of the child’s thinking. Usually making conclusions from case to case, the child, in his construction of hypotheses about the external world, reveals a tendency to connect any thing with any thing, to connect “everything with everything.” Barriers to causal dependence, which exist in reality and which only after a long acquaintance with the outside world become understandable to an adult, cultured person, do not yet exist in children; in the child's mind, one thing can act on another regardless of distance, time, regardless of the complete absence of connection. Perhaps this nature of ideas is rooted in the child’s egocentric attitude. Let us remember how a child, who still has little distinction between reality and fantasy, achieves illusory fulfillment of desires in cases where reality denies him this.

Under the influence of such an attitude towards the world, he little by little develops a primitive idea that in nature, any thing can be connected with anything, any thing can in itself influence another. This primitive and naive psychological character of children's thinking became especially indisputable for us after a series of experiments that were recently carried out simultaneously in Switzerland by the already cited Piaget and in Germany by the psychologist Carla Raspe *.

*See: Raspe C. Kindliche Selbstbeobachtung und Theoriebildung // Zeitechrift f Angewandte Psychol .1924. Bd. 23.

The experiments carried out by the latter boiled down to the following: the child was presented with an object that, for well-known reasons, changed its shape after some time. Such an object could, for example, be a figure that gives an illusion under certain conditions; it was possible to use a figure, which, when placed on a different background, began to appear larger in size, or a square, which, when turned on its edge (Fig. 27), created the impression of enlargement. During the appearance of such an illusion, the child was deliberately presented with an extraneous stimulus, for example, an electric light bulb was lit or a metronome was used. And so, when the experimenter asked the child to explain the reason for the illusion that occurred, to answer the question of why the square grew, the child invariably pointed to a new, simultaneously acting stimulus as the reason. He said that the square grew because a light bulb came on or the metronome started beating, although, of course, there was no obvious connection between these phenomena.

The child’s confidence in the connection of these phenomena, the logic of “post hoc - ergopropter hoc” is so great that if we ask him to change this phenomenon, to make the square smaller, he will, without any thought, approach the metronome and stop it.

We tried to repeat such experiments in our laboratory and invariably obtained the same result in children aged 7–8 years. Only a very few of them were able to slow down this initial response, construct a different hypothesis, or confess their behavior. A significantly larger number of children showed much more primitive features of thinking, directly declaring that simultaneously occurring phenomena are interconnected and causal. Simultaneously means as a result; This is one of the basic principles of a child’s thinking, and one can imagine what kind of picture of the world such primitive logic creates.

It is interesting to note that even in older children this primitive nature of judgments is preserved, and the figures that Raspe gives us confirm this: out of ten ten-year-olds studied, eight indicated that the figure had grown as a result of the inclusion of the metronome, one constructed a theory of a different nature, and only one refused to give explanation.

This mechanism of “magical thinking” can be observed especially clearly in children 3–4 years old. These guys immediately show how a purely external assessment of some phenomenon pushes the child to a hasty conclusion about its role. A girl observed by one of us noticed that the little instructions her mother gave her were successful when her mother told her two or three times what she had to do. Several times later we managed to observe the following case: when one day the girl was sent to another room with a small errand, she demanded: “Mom, repeat three times,” and without waiting she ran into the next room. The primitive, naive attitude towards the mother’s words appears here with all clarity and does not need further explanation.

This is the general picture of the child’s thinking at that stage when he is still standing before the ladder of cultural influence or at its lowest steps.

Starting his life's journey as an “organic being,” the child retains his isolation and egocentrism for a long time, and long-term cultural development is needed so that the primary weak connection with the world is consolidated and in place of the child’s primitive thinking, that harmonious apparatus that we call the thinking of a cultured person develops.

Currently, scientific and technological progress is going much faster than biological progress, so the problem of the body “lagging behind” technology and the changing environment because of this is becoming more and more relevant. Primitive psychological attitudes, inherited from our ancestors, are regularly reproduced from generation to generation, which is why they exist to this day.
One of these attitudes is to transfer one’s qualities to everything around him. From this we immediately want to conclude that any phenomenon and event is necessarily under the control of someone, and the very possibility of any phenomenon without strict control over it is sharply rejected. Based on this idea, all religions, without exception, flourished around the world, especially paganism. Gods of the harvest, sky, sun, rivers, etc., everyday phenomena, and after, etc.
n. a single god in all images were invented precisely on the basis of this misconception, and with the fall in the level of education and the growth of savagery in upbringing, all “gods” acquire an increasingly human-like appearance and behavior, and the behavior of petty and bloodthirsty despots, who simply killed and maimed, is copied in all beliefs on a whim or for not bowing low enough. Therefore, wherever religion has significant power, the psychotype of believers becomes precisely the psychotype of a resident of a despotic state with
moral or physical elimination of all "unconverted". This kind of mentality is contradicted by the idea of the equality of everyone among themselves, therefore, by hook or by crook, inequality and cruelty towards the “inferior” are justified,
The tyrants are immediately declared “strong and correct” and are obeyed, while the “soft” ones immediately receive the brand of weaklings and are overthrown with particular cruelty at the first opportunity. Circles of favorites and outcasts are immediately formed, which change little in their composition, mutual responsibility develops with the suppression of any progressive initiatives by the collective itself. Since this becomes beneficial for those in power in terms of control over the population, such a system is maintained with stagnation and eventual destruction of the country. In relation to any tyrant (including gods of any kind), a primitive mentality nourishes only a servile attitude, and does not cause any real indignation of the despotism, being reproduced by bearers of such a mentality at the first opportunity.
The phrase “The little god does what he wants, and we are not his orders, we must honor and appease the little god, and if there is some trouble, then he is angry with us, and it serves us right, sinners” or, in short, “he who has the power is right "This is the hallmark of all primitive thinking as a whole. It seems to the bearer of a primitive character that it is necessary to crush anyone who seems weak and bow before the seemingly strong, real strength and weakness in this case do not matter at all, the assessment of strength and weakness occurs at the animal level with a clearly growing tendency to disorder in this case and uncleanliness, the growth of ostentatious illiteracy and lack of education in general. Hence, the contempt of the rich for the poor inevitably grows, contempt for knowledge and intelligence too, as well as for any mental and physical work, like “only slaves plow for their masters, they must be kept in a black body and systematically punished so that they know their place in the dirt and they bowed to their masters." The justification for such low behavior of the fallen is only his own ambition and someone else's cover; with the loss of this, the ostentatious impudence abruptly disappears, being replaced by vile politeness and the perpetration of cruel intrigues on everyone and everything. The revenge of such an individual is the most sophisticated and cruel; any methods of all degrees of baseness or height are used. This type of character is also very power-hungry, cruel and vindictive towards everyone around him, but not towards himself, the same applies to self-discipline, it is observed only as long as there is someone “above”, obeys any rules and etiquette is the bearer of primitive thinking only under pressure; in its absence, complete moral depravity is triggered with the demonstrative “construction” of everyone else.
The bearer of primitive thinking sets himself apart from everyone else, self-criticism and feelings of guilt are absent, the false idea of self-chosenness and uniqueness clearly dominates, unconditionally and without logical justification. In this regard, any laws that are universal for everyone, for example, the laws of physics, are also denied. The standard answer to any argument about universality is: “Rules are written for the weak, but the higher ones live without them.” However, if the “chosen one” himself is successful in his affairs, then his position changes to the opposite: “Fate itself, etc., elevated me above the worms in the mud, everything is for the best - nothing for the rest!” This
the division into “cattle” and “not cattle” is also a clear signal of primitive thinking.
Naturally, from all this flows careerism with “walking over heads”; those who helped him especially suffer, because the very idea that the fate of him, the chosen one, depended on “some cattle” is unbearable for him.
All methods of logical argument for such an individual come down to methods of demagoguery in order to prove a statement that is advantageous to oneself. The reaction of primitive thinking to any attempts to identify it is indicative, as well as to the discovery by someone of the slightest inconsistency of the “arguments”: sharp aggression with unsportsmanlike humiliation of the opponent and/or building plans to eliminate the “enemy”, from moral to directly physical. In scientific circles, such a carrier of primitive thinking uses typical falsification based on ignorance of the subject by non-professionals to give the status of pseudoscience
Sciences.
Such thinking does not lead to either progress or prosperity, just crisis and collapse, so there is no sense in it, and it’s time to throw it into the trash heap along with sacrifices and other savagery. Any system exists only as long as it is supported.

1.3.1. Primitive and simple thinking

Primitive thinking characterized by the fact that a person does not think about the question of whether his view on the subject of thinking is correct and why he adheres to this particular view, and rejects other points of view without analysis.

The correctness of the view is revealed by the result of activity, but a priori criteria are usually established from speculative considerations.

Primitive thinking has existed since ancient times.

Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753) lived in Ireland. He was a man of extraordinary intelligence, whose ideas are still understood only by a few. Berkeley has this phrase: “Few people think, but everyone wants to have an opinion.” Incredible, because we are talking about a reasonable person! However, Berkeley's thought is deeper than it may seem at first glance. Because everyone argues, but some are satisfied with opinions, while others seek the Truth in all its depth and completeness. It all depends on how you think.

The modern system of education and training actively contributes to the formation of opinions. A person acquires many opinions in childhood and adolescence, when, due to the natural ability to learn by imitation and due to an undeveloped mind, he takes what he hears and sees at face value and assimilates them into his consciousness and subconscious. Such firmly assimilated positions, regardless of their reliability, turning into opinions, largely determine the further nature of a person’s thinking. As a result, the thinking process ceases to be creative, since a person thinks with internalized mental cliches - mental dogmas and mental schemes - instead of deeply analyzing the phenomenon and explaining it in a special way, since everything that happens is unique and inimitable.

Opinion is not necessarily simple. It can be developed and relatively complex. Modern man often thinks within the framework of extensive, complex, difficult-to-understand schemes and ideas, subject to strict logic, but fundamentally axiomatic, not allowing going beyond certain, not always clearly defined boundaries. Much of modern science is largely similar schemes.

Thinking in images of a developed mental scheme gives rise to the illusion of a depth of understanding of the world, creates a feeling of breadth of thinking and through this helps a person to feel his apparent importance. He believes that the model he has accepted is certainly correct, he feels it as his own and partly identifies his “I” with it. Other thought patterns seem alien, and therefore a person subconsciously strives to reject them as unsuccessful. This explains the difficulty of accepting new things in science. The new is resisted until it is assimilated by the next generation and turns into its own mental dogma, which the latter will defend just as the previous one defended its own. Adherence to mental dogma blocks the process of effective thinking.

This circumstance was brilliantly illustrated by A.P. Chekhov with the words of the hero of the story “Letter to a Learned Neighbor,” who says: “This can’t happen, because this can never happen!”

Sometimes mental dogma enslaves a person so much that he stops believing his eyes and sees not what actually exists, but what mental dogma inspires him with. For example, the mental dogma “snow is white” makes people see it as white, despite the fact that in reality it almost never is, as photographs impartially testify.

Effective thinking requires liberation from slavery to mental dogma. In this regard, we will tell a Japanese parable.

Nan-in, a Zen teacher lived in Japan during the Meiji era (1867–1912). One day a university professor came to ask him about Zen. Nan-in began to serve tea. He filled the cup with tea and continued pouring.

The professor watched the tea overflow and finally couldn’t stand it: “The cup is full. It doesn’t fit in anymore!”

“Like this cup,” said Nan-in, “you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.” I won't be able to show you anything unless you free the cup.

The parable points to the typical nature of thinking, which has learned something and does not accept anything else. This situation arises, firstly, because the information located in the subconscious and consciousness of a person prevents the acceptance of new information. We emphasize! This is not about a lack of understanding of new information, but about its rejection, that is, a person internally cannot agree with it, although he understands it. For example, people raised in an atheistic environment often do not accept arguments of faith, since these arguments encounter a psychological barrier in their subconscious. This is also the reason for the rare change of religious affiliation. The use of mental dogmas and thought patterns creates psychological comfort for a person, sometimes completely eliminating the need to think, providing convenient mental clichés that give a ready-made imprint of reality.

The use of mental dogmas facilitates communication, since mental dogmas, being generally accepted, are easily understood by most people and do not meet with objections.

The use of mental dogmas, as noted above, gives the illusion of understanding what is happening and helps to feel one’s apparent importance.

Anyone who rejects mental dogma risks looking like a “black sheep.” He will be considered an eccentric, he will not be understood in society, he will be condemned and rejected as an encroachment on public psychological comfort. In the worst case, he will fall under repression and persecution, as has happened more than once in the history of mankind.

Due to these circumstances Primitive thinking dominates in society. Appendix 1 presents and comments on some frequently encountered mental dogmas.

The problems we are about to discuss require effective thinking. We will turn to it, but first we will explain the meaning of simple thinking.

Simple thinking represents a transitional form from primitive to effective. It means a technology of MP in which a person asks the question why he came to a given judgment about the subject of thinking. However, he receives a false conclusion due to ineffective thinking.

1.3.2. Effective Thinking Strategy

Thinking, which we called effective, is a way of thinking in which thought finds the correct view on the subject of thinking, develops a reliable product of thinking, or concludes that it is impossible to obtain it.

A. Centripetalness is a key characteristic of effective thinking.

The thinking subject operates with a subject information base (Fig. 1.3.1), which includes information that is closely related to the subject of thinking, as well as other, peripheral information that has a weak connection with it.

Peripheral information zones of various objects (objects) intersect due to the universal interconnection of phenomena in the world. Complete information about the item is contained in the item itself. Let's call this information the essence of the subject.

Thinking about an object is always associated with reasoning about it on the basis of available information, which can relate to both internal and external zones. If a thought goes to the periphery of the subject base, to zones that carry little information about the subject, and perhaps belong to a greater extent to other subjects, then such thinking means a departure from the main, most important, defining, and we will call it centrifugal. The result is a false opinion.

Another matter centripetal thinking: thought moves through the central zones and strives to penetrate into the essence of the subject. Such a thought focuses on the main, most important, defining, discarding the secondary as leading away from the essence. At the limit, we have the identification of the thinking “I” with the object of thought and entry into its objective self-essence.

There are ways of penetration of thought into the essence of an object, for which a psychoenergetic contact is established between the subject and the object of thought, during which the thinking mind, identifying itself with the object, feels it as itself and in this way explores the object. These techniques are called methods of identification or identification. We do not encourage the interlocutor to master these methods, but we show the condition for effective thinking that leads to the right decisions: effective thinking is subject-centripetal.

The absence of a central information base prohibits judgment on the subject. First you need to prepare such a base, and then start thinking.

This is exactly what little children do, whom we consider foolish. A child’s thinking is concrete and necessarily connected with real objects that he has learned through personal experience. He cannot think in relation to unfamiliar objects. The child initiates the thinking process in himself, imitating adults. The upbringing of children who are deaf-blind and mute from birth shows that they do not begin to think until their existing sense organs provide them with real objective experience.

Growing up, a person separates thinking from the essence of objects, moving the mind into peripheral information zones. The habit of centrifugal thinking is reinforced, which is greatly facilitated by secular education, and this leads people to erroneous opinions.

Human life is built on the basis of decision making. Decisions that are adequate to the essence of life require a reliable central information base. Here is a problem of problems and a question of questions. This is what our book is dedicated to. Choosing the right strategy and tactics in life is extremely difficult. And what does correctness mean in such a choice? Everyone considers their preference to be correct, which they rarely question. However, the results of human activity, including the results of life, are determined by the extent to which human actions are adequate to the laws of existence. An analogy with street traffic is appropriate here: strict adherence to the rules significantly reduces the risk of misfortune; violation of them leads to trouble. It is clear that what really matters is not what a person thinks about following the rules, but how he fulfills them, but actions depend on point of view. Consequently, it is not indifferent which views one holds. It’s the same in life. The strategy and tactics of life must correspond to the laws of existence and the purpose of man in it. Then they are beneficial for man. Otherwise, a person (also society) becomes a victim of his own behavior, no matter what he imagines about himself and the world.

In principle, correct behavior is possible even without an understanding of life due to the acquired correct traditions, but in everyday life this occurs as a rare exception, because a person is not perfect. But its potential is enormous. Reason gives him special opportunities, including allowing him to understand existence and himself in it, subject to effective thinking, the key point of which is centripetality.

Ineffective centrifugal thinking should not be confused with abstract thinking. The latter means the absence of a real object, but in relation to a fictional object one can think both centrifugally and centripetally. For example, when solving a mathematical problem, we are not dealing with a living object, but information zones are fixed in the condition, and it is necessary to determine, first of all, which data are objectively important and which are insignificant, because excess misleading information can be deliberately introduced into the condition.

Understanding the essence of effective thinking, unfortunately, does not mean its “automatic” application in practice, since habits learned in childhood and reinforced by everyday experience offer strong resistance. Effective thinking must be persistently trained, turning it into the only habitual way. In this regard, we recall the aphorism of Pythagoras: “Adopt for yourself only that way of life which your mind has recognized as the best, and habit will make it most pleasant for you.”

B. The right to paradox

In the process of cognition, logic is of great importance. Formal logic establishes the rules for obtaining “inferential knowledge” that follows from the previous one. It is generally accepted that violation of these rules leads to errors or absurdity. Thinking carried out within the framework of formal logic is limited by its framework. However, life does not fit into the shackles of formality, presenting paradoxical situations to the world. Reason will not make revolutionary discoveries, will not find the best of the best and will not find the Truth if it is strictly formalized. Here we want to be understood correctly. This is not about a deliberate violation of the rules of formal logic, but about replacing them with the rules of life logic, which do not always correspond to speculative logical schemes. The mental process must correspond to the realities of the world, and not to the dogmas of formality. He (MP) has the right to be paradoxical, although he is not necessarily one.

Effective thinking allows for paradox.

Consequently, his conclusions may be completely unexpected, surprising, divergent with generally accepted views that do not fit into known patterns and at first glance contradict common sense.

Science came to understand the need for paradoxical thinking only in the 20th century. The outstanding Danish physicist Niels Bohr expressed the idea of paradoxical thinking with the question: “Is this idea crazy enough to be true?” Modern scientific consideration of problems requires one-time acceptance of incompatible mutually exclusive phenomena in their unity. So physics established the concept of the electron as a particle and a wave. She was forced to accept such a paradoxical position, since the experiment, and therefore life itself, irrefutably testified to this. Today the fact of wave-particle duality is generally accepted and does not confuse anyone. Another thing is surprising: why are people who accept one paradox unable to accept another? Why is it difficult for many to recognize the Christian dogma of the Trinity, that is, the simultaneous existence of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit? However, the answer to this question was given above (see 1.3.1).

Let's look at another example. There are people who believe in fate, who believe that everything is predetermined and what will happen cannot be avoided. Others, on the contrary, argue that the future is not determined, but depends on how people act. Within the framework of formal logic, these positions are not compatible. But paradoxical thinking connects them without difficulty. A. S. Pushkin brilliantly demonstrated this in the poem “Song of the Prophetic Oleg”: the old magician predicts Oleg’s death “from his horse.” (Here it is, fate!) After many years, Oleg remembers the magician’s prediction, finds out that his beloved horse has died, and goes to honor his ashes. A snake crawls out of the horse’s ashes, bites Oleg, and he dies. Thus, fate is present (it is predicted), but Oleg creates it with his actions, so everything depends on him and is done according to his will. From this it is clear that human free will does not contradict fate as the predestination of existence. This is the paradoxical conclusion of A.S. Pushkin and ours together with him.

B. Thinking in discrete and continuous images

The thinking mind, reflecting reality in consciousness, creates models of phenomena based on information delivered by the organs of perception and instruments that probe the world around us within the narrow limits of their capabilities, snatching individual fixed areas from the endless natural diversity. This worldview encourages the creation of discrete (discontinuous) models of phenomena and events. A discrete understanding of the world is also facilitated by the desire to structure reality in order to better understand it, highlight the typical, find the essential, and discard the secondary. This creates a specific way of thinking in which the mind asserts discrete ideas about reality. Let us give examples: temperaments (sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic); leadership styles (authoritarian, democratic, passive); assessments (excellent, good, satisfactory, unsatisfactory), etc. When thinking in discrete images, people tend to operate with gradations and opposites, not paying attention to the intermediate spectrum of phenomena. For example, they consider nature in the categories of “living” and “non-living” and try to find the line between them, which, perhaps, does not exist. This also includes divisions into good and evil, light and darkness, believers and non-believers, heat and cold, strength and weakness, and very, very much more. This does indeed exist, but in a variety of shades, varieties, continuums, smoothly turning into each other.

However, reality is not always adequately represented by discrete models with clearly defined boundaries, although such models in many cases turn out to be practically sufficient and, therefore, legitimate. However, for a deep study of an object, thinking in discrete images is often unacceptable. Precise determination of the information base of the subject of thinking does not allow the loss of shades and requires continuum models. Representing phenomena as continua (one-dimensional and multidimensional) does not negate the possibility of the formation of condensations and rarefactions in individual sections of the continuum.

Continuum models of phenomena are also not always adequate to reality. There are cases when something can only be in strictly fixed stable positions, while any intermediate states are unstable and practically unrealizable, and the transition from one stable state to another occurs abruptly. Such phenomena require discrete models.

Finally, we can name paradoxical cases of the simultaneous use of discrete and continuous models in order to reliably and completely describe the same phenomenon. Let us recall, for example, the wave-particle duality of the electron mentioned above.

Effective thinking, depending on the situation, uses discrete and continuous models of describing reality.

For the reasons stated above, a person is more prone to discrete thinking than to continual thinking. In addition, the education system in modern society instills in people mainly discrete thinking. We, too, have so far proposed a discrete model of MP in the form of three ways of thinking. The continuum model will be presented below.

D. Compendium of characteristics of effective thinking

Effective Thinking:

– perhaps, provided that the properties of the mind of the thinking subject are adequate to the nature of the subject of thought;

– is assessed based on the result. Efficiency criteria are situational and depend on the result’s belonging to a specific sphere of human existence;

– relies on a reliable subject information base established by mass experience;

– involves the rejection of mental dogmas;

– requires identifying influencing factors (including non-obvious ones), taking into account their temporary nature and interactions (including contradictions), taking into account their spatial and temporal orientation;

– is subject-centripetal. This is achieved by ranking the influencing factors, separating the main ones from the secondary ones;

– allows for paradox;

– uses discrete and continuous models of describing reality separately or simultaneously.

D. Algorithm for effective thinking

It proposes a set of actions that enable effective thinking and attempts to indicate their approximate sequence. In real situations, some actions may be omitted due to the obviousness of the circumstances, due to the lack of need for them, or due to the impossibility of implementation. It is also possible to change the order of procedures.

An approximate sequence of effective thinking procedures:

1. Establish the goals of the MP and assign requirements for the result or product, if the product is also a result.

2. Determine the subject of thinking, that is, clearly imagine what exactly is being analyzed and (or) planned.

3. Collect information related to the subject of thinking:

– identify influence factors of short-, medium- and long-term action;

– organize a search for unobvious influencing factors;

– identify interactions (including contradictions) of influencing factors, taking into account their temporal and spatial orientation;

– predict the dynamics of development of influencing factors.

4. Structure the available information.

5. Rank the information, separating the significant from the unimportant.

6. Determine the sufficiency of information to obtain an answer to the essence of the question and assess the likely reliability of the conclusions.

7. Design and consider paradoxical options.

8. Develop and record the product of the mental process.

1.3.3. Mental Process Continuum

Let's form a continuum of MT, where previously established ways of thinking (primitive, simple, effective) will lose discreteness, acquire continuity, and together form a single spectrum of characteristics of intelligence.

The continuum is shown in Fig. 1.3.2. It includes types of thinking and is divided into seven stages in order to differentiate and clarify the qualitative characteristics of thinking.

An increase in the level of thinking means the removal of dogmatic obstacles and the emergence of new qualities of MP, turning it into an effective tool of cognition. The qualities of thinking actually do not have a strict connection to the levels. They may appear or disappear earlier or later depending on the situation. The continuum shows only the idea of the transition from primitive to effective thinking on the assumption that the higher levels of thinking are gradually freed from the dogmatic shortcomings of the lower levels and at the same time accumulate their own merits. The approximate content of the stages of the MP continuum is given in Table 1.3.2.

Table 1.3.2

The MP continuum (Fig. 1.3.2 and Table 1.3.2) includes simple thinking as a transitional stage from primitive to effective. Simple thinking is born in the depths of the primitive, but then makes a qualitative leap, which consists in raising the question of the causes and expediency of the accepted explanation of phenomena. The search for an adequate answer gradually leads to the abandonment of the use of mental dogmas and to the establishment of the limits of the suitability of mental schemes, and subsequently to the development and approval of truly perfect thinking.

Primitive thinking of a figurative, elementary concrete nature, poor in logical operations; observed in oligophrenia.

Large medical dictionary. 2000 .

See what “primitive thinking” is in other dictionaries:

Primitive thinking- a general and incorrect name for thinking disorders characterized by a decrease in the level or its insufficient development. In the specialized literature the term is practically not used due to its evaluative nature...

thinking in complexes- “THINKING IN COMPLEXES” is a concept introduced by L.S. Vygotsky to designate the main stage of development of children's thinking, as well as the characteristics of archaic thinking. The development of thinking and its characteristic ways of forming concepts... ...

syncretic thinking- SYNCRETIC THINKING (from the Greek synkretismos connection) childish and primitive thinking, in which heterogeneous ideas are undifferentiatedly associated with each other. Until the age of 7–8, syncretism permeates almost all of a child’s judgments.… … Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

syncretic thinking- (from the Greek synkretismos connection) childish and primitive thinking, in which heterogeneous ideas are undifferentiatedly connected with each other. Up to 7-8 years...

Thinking- Indirect - based on the disclosure of connections, relationships, mediations - and generalized knowledge of objective reality (Rubinstein S.L., 1940). M. is a reflection of significant connections and relationships between objects of reality. Mental... ... Explanatory dictionary of psychiatric terms

Syncretic thinking- [Greek synkretismos connection, unification] childish and primitive thinking, in which heterogeneous ideas are undifferentiatedly associated with each other. Until the age of 7–8, syncretism permeates almost all of a child’s judgments. This is expressed in... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

Syncretic thinking- (from the Greek synkretismos connection) childish and primitive thinking, in which a variety of ideas are undifferentiated. Until 7-8 years of age, syncretism permeates almost all of the child’s judgments, which creates incredible hypotheses about the causes... ... Pedagogical dictionary

As a system and dialogue semiotic. systems Relig. thinking is often described as mythological, prelogical, primitive, archaic. etc., i.e. identified with a certain stage or a certain form of thinking in general. By studying the history of religion, you can... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

practical thinking- Etymology. Comes from the Greek. praktikos active, active. Category. Form of thinking. Specificity. In it, problem solving is carried out in external practical activities. Unlike theoretical thinking, the task here is not... Great psychological encyclopedia

With A. m. actions of animals and physical. objects are interpreted as the result of processes similar to those that lead to people. to certain conscious actions related to knowledge, motivation, planning and choice. In the 19th and early 20th centuries. pl.... ... Psychological Encyclopedia

The child and his behavior

Chapter Three

§5 Primitive thinking

The first years of a child's life are years of primitive, closed existence and the establishment of the most elementary, most primitive connections with the world.

All this, of course, cannot but have a decisive influence on children’s thinking, and we must say frankly that the thinking of a small child of 3-4 years old has nothing in common with the thinking of an adult in those forms that are created by culture and long-term cultural evolution , repeated and active meetings with the outside world.

Of course, this does not mean at all that children's thinking does not have its own laws. No, the laws of children's thinking are completely definite, their own, not similar to the laws of thinking of an adult: a child of this age has his own primitive logic, his own primitive thinking techniques; everything is determined precisely by the fact that this thinking develops on the primitive basis of behavior that has not yet seriously encountered reality.

If we think about what functions the thinking of an adult person performs, we will very soon come to the answer that it organizes our adaptation to the world in especially difficult situations. It regulates our attitude to reality in particularly complex cases, where the activity of simple instinct or habit is not enough; in this sense, thinking is a function of adequate adaptation to the world, a form that organizes the impact on it. This determines the entire structure of our thinking. In order for it to be used to have an organized impact on the world, it must work as correctly as possible, it must not be separated from reality, mixed with fantasy, every step of it must be subject to practical testing and must withstand such testing. In a healthy adult, thinking meets all these requirements, and only in people who are mentally ill can thinking take forms that are not related to life and reality and do not organize an adequate adaptation to the world.

This is not at all what we see in the first stages of child development. For him, it is often not important how correctly his thinking proceeds, how well it will withstand the first test, the first meeting with reality. His thinking often does not have an attitude towards regulating and organizing adequate adaptation to the outside world, and if sometimes it begins to bear the features of this attitude, it does so in a primitive way, with those imperfect tools that are at his disposal and which require a long development. to be put into action.

Marina, 2g. 4 months old, she was completely immersed in the game: she poured sand on her feet, poured it mainly above her knees, then began to pour it into her socks, then took handfuls of sand and rubbed it with her whole palm on her leg. Finally, she began to pour sand onto her thigh, covered it with a handkerchief, and stroked it with both hands around her leg. The expression on her face is very pleased, she often smiles to herself.

This egocentrism of children's thinking can also be revealed in another way. Let's try to observe when and how the child speaks, what goals he pursues with his conversation and what forms his conversation takes. We will be surprised if we take a closer look at the child at how much the child speaks alone, “into space,” with himself, and how often speech does not serve him to communicate with others. It seems that in a child speech often does not serve the social purposes of mutual communication and mutual information, as in adults.

Let us present another record of the child’s behavior, borrowed from the same source. Let us pay attention to how the play of a child of 2 years 6 months is accompanied by “autistic” speech, speech only for oneself...

Alik, 2 years old 6 months (coming to his mother’s room), he began playing with rowan berries, began to pick them, put them in a rinsing cup: “We need to peel the berries as soon as possible... These are my berries. They are lying in the crib. (Notices the cookie wrapper.) No more cookies? Is there only paper left? (Eats cookies.) The cookies are delicious. Delicious cookies (eats). The cookies are delicious. It fell! The drop has fallen! It's so small... Big... Small cube... It can sit, cube... It can sit too... It can't write... The cube can't write... (takes the milkman). We'll put matches there and give them a pie (takes a cardboard circle). Lots of pie...”

Pius, 6 years old (addressing Ez., who is drawing a tram with a trailer):

23. “But they don’t have a platform, the trams that are attached to the back.” (No answer.)
24. (Talks about the tram he just painted.) “They don’t have attached cars.” (Does not address anyone. No one answers.)
25. (Addresses B.) “This is a tram, it doesn’t have any cars yet.” (No answer.)
26. (Addresses Hey.) “This tram doesn’t have any cars yet, Hey, you understand, you understand, it’s red, you understand.” (No answer.)
27. (L. says out loud: “Here is a funny man...” Play after a pause, and without addressing Pius, without addressing anyone at all.) Pius: “Here is a funny man.” (L. continues to draw his carriage.)
28. “I’ll leave my carriage white.”
29. Oz., who is also drawing, declares: “I’ll make it yellow.”) “No, you don’t need to make it yellow.”
30. “I’ll make a staircase, look.” (B. replies: “I can’t come tonight, I have gymnastics...”)

Piaget and his collaborators also pointed out a number of other forms of speech that were egocentric in nature. Upon closer analysis, it turned out that even many of the child’s questions are egocentric in nature; oh asks, knowing the answer in advance, only to ask in order to reveal himself. There are quite a lot of such egocentric forms in children's speech; according to Piaget, their number at the age of 3-5 years ranges on average between 54-60, and from 5 to 7 years - from 44 to 47. These figures, based on long-term and systematic observation of children, tell us how the child’s thinking and speech are specifically constructed and to what extent the child’s speech serves completely different functions and is of a completely different nature than that of an adult.

Perhaps the most striking manifestation of children's egocentrism is the fact that a small child still lives entirely in a primitive world, the measure of which is pleasure and displeasure, which is still affected by reality to a very small extent; What is characteristic of the atoro world is that, as far as can be judged by the child’s behavior, an intermediate world is moving between him and reality, semi-real, but very characteristic of the child - the world of egocentric thinking and fantasy.

If each of us - an adult - encounters the outside world, fulfilling some need and noticing that this need remains unsatisfied, he organizes his behavior in such a way as to fulfill a cycle of organized actions.

** Compare: Vygotsky L. S. Genetic roots of thinking and speech // Natural science and Marxism. 1929. No. 1; L at p and I A. R. Ways of development of children's thinking // Natural science and Marxism. 1929. No. 2.

their tasks, satisfy the need, or, having come to terms with the need, refuse to satisfy the need.

It is from here that we often regard as children’s lies, from here a number of peculiar features in children’s thinking.

When a 3-year-old child, when asked why it is light during the day and dark at night, answers: “Because they have dinner during the day and sleep at night,” this is, of course, a manifestation of that egocentric-practical attitude, ready to explain everything as adapted for himself, for his good. . We must say the same about those naive ideas characteristic of children, that everything around - the sky, the sea, and the rocks - all this was made by people and can be given to them *; We see the same egocentric attitude and complete faith in the omnipotence of an adult in that child who asks his mother to give him a pine forest, a place called B., where he wanted to go, for her to cook spinach to make potatoes**, etc. d.

** See: Klein M. Development of one child. M., 1925. P.25-26. 142

This trend has a very interesting effect on children’s questions and answers to them.

We illustrate this with a recording of one conversation with a child**:

Alik, 5 years 5 months.

In the evening I saw Jupiter through the window.
- Mom, why does Jupiter exist?

I tried to explain to him, but failed. He pestered me again.

Well, why does Jupiter exist? Then, not knowing what to say, I asked him:
- Why do you and I exist?

To this I received an instant and confident answer:

For myself.
- Well, Jupiter is also for himself.

He liked it and said with satisfaction:

And ants, and bedbugs, and mosquitoes, and nettles - also for yourself? -Yes.
And he laughed joyfully.

Finally, we can catch the influence of the same egocentric™ in the child’s characteristic attitude towards the conversations of strangers and the phenomena of the outside world: after all, he is sincerely confident that for him there is nothing incomprehensible, and we almost never hear the words “I don’t know” from the lips of 4-5- year old child. We will see further below that it is extremely difficult for a child to slow down the first decision that comes to mind and that it is easier for him to give the most absurd answer than to admit his ignorance.

inhibition of one's immediate reactions, the ability to delay a response in time is a product of development and upbringing that arises only very late.

* Reported by V.F. Schmidt. ** Reported by V. F. Schmidt.

After everything that we have said about egocentricity in the thinking of a child, it will not be unexpected if we have to say that the thinking of a child differs from the thinking of adults and has a different logic, that it is built according to “primitive logic.”

We have already said that a child, egocentrically positioned in relation to the external world, perceives external objects specifically, holistically and, first of all, from the side that faces him and directly influences him. An objective attitude to the world, abstracted from specific perceived signs of an object and paying attention to objective relationships and patterns, has, of course, not yet been developed in the child. He takes the world as he perceives it, without caring about the connection of individual perceived pictures with each other and about building that systematic picture of the world and its phenomena, which is necessary and obligatory for an adult, cultured person, whose thinking must regulate the relationship with the world. In the primitive thinking of a child, it is precisely this logic of relationships, causal connections, etc. is absent and is replaced by other primitive logical techniques.

not in connection with it, not in subordination to the general structure. Here are a few examples of such a drawing. The first drawing (Fig. 24) was not taken by us from a child - it belongs to an uncultured Uzbek woman, who, however, repeats the typical features of a child’s thinking with such extraordinary brightness that we risked giving this example here*. This drawing should depict a rider on a horse. Even at first glance it is clear that the author did not copy reality, but drew it, guided by some other principles, a different logic. Having carefully looked at the drawing, we will see that the main distinguishing feature is that it is built not on the principle of the “man” and “horse” system, but on the principle of gluing, summing up individual characteristics of a person, without synthesizing them into a single image. In the figure we see the head separately, separately below - the ear, eyebrows, eyes, nostrils, all this is far from their real relationship, listed in the figure as separate, one after another

* The drawing is taken from the collection of T. N. Baranova, who kindly provided us

friend of the moving parts. The legs, depicted in such a bent form as the rider feels them, a genital organ completely separate from the body - all this is depicted in a naively glued order, strung on top of each other.

The second drawing (Fig. 25) belongs to a 5-year-old boy*. The child tried to depict a lion here and gave appropriate explanations to his drawing; he drew the “muzzle” separately, the “head” separately, and everything else he called “himself” for the lion. This drawing, of course, has significantly fewer details than the previous one (which is quite consistent with the peculiarities of children's perception of this period), but the nature of the “gluing together” is completely clear here. This is especially clear in those drawings where the child is trying to depict some complex set of things, for example a room. Figure 26 gives us an example of how a child about 5 years old tries to depict a room in which a stove is lit. We see that this picture is characterized by the “gluing together” of individual objects related to the stove: firewood, views, dampers, and a box of matches (of enormous size, according to their functional significance) are prepared here; all this is given as the sum of individual objects located next to each other, strung on top of each other.

Piaget conducted experiments with children in which the child was given a phrase that ended with the words “because,” after which the child himself had to insert an indication of the reason. The results of these experiments turned out to be very characteristic of the child’s primitive thinking. Here are some examples of such “judgments” of a child (the answers added by the child are in italics):

Ts. (7 years 2 months): One man fell on the street because... he broke his leg and had to make a stick instead.

*Drawings provided to us by V.F. Schmidt and taken from the materials of the Children's Home-Laboratory.

K. (8 years 6 months): One man fell off his bike because... he broke his arm.

L. (7 years 6 months): I went to the bathhouse because... I was clean afterwards. D. (6 years old): I lost my pen yesterday because I don’t write.

We see that in all the above cases, the child confuses cause with effect and it turns out to be almost impossible for him to achieve the correct answer: thinking that correctly operates with the category of causality turns out to be completely alien to the child. The category of goal turns out to be much closer to the child - if we remember his egocentric attitude, this will be clear to us. Thus, one of the little subjects studied by Yazhe gives the following construction of a phrase, which essentially reveals to us a picture of his logic:

D. (3 years 6 months): “I’ll make a stove... because... to heat.”

Both the phenomenon of “stringing together” individual categories and the replacement of the category of causality, which is alien to the child, with a closer category of purpose - all this can be seen quite clearly in this example.

This “stringing” of individual ideas in the child’s primitive thinking is manifested in another interesting fact: the child’s ideas are not located in a certain hierarchy (a broader concept - its part - is even narrower, etc., according to the typical scheme: genus - species - family, etc.), but individual ideas turn out to be equivalent for the child. So, city - district - * country for a small child are not fundamentally different from each other. Switzerland for him is something like Geneva, only further away; France is also something like his familiar hometown, only even further away. That a person, being a resident of Geneva, is also a Swiss at the same time, is incomprehensible to him. Here is a small conversation cited by Piaget and illustrating this peculiar “flatness” of a child’s thinking*. The conversation we present is between the leader and little Ob. (8 years 2 months).

Who are the Swiss?
- This is who lives in Switzerland.
- Friborg in Switzerland?
- Yes, but I’m not a Friburger or a Swiss...
- And those who live in Geneva?
- They are Genevans.
- And the Swiss?
- I don’t know... I live in Fribourg, it’s in Switzerland, and I’m not Swiss. Here are the Genevans too...
- Do you know the Swiss?
- Very few.
- Are there any Swiss people at all? -Yes.
-Where do they live?
- Don't know.

This conversation clearly confirms that the child cannot yet think logically consistently, that concepts associated with the external world can be located on several levels, and that an object can simultaneously belong to both a narrower group and a broader class. The child thinks concretely, perceiving a thing from the side with which it is more familiar to him, completely unable to abstract himself from it and understand that, simultaneously with other signs, it can be part of other phenomena. From this side, we can say that a child’s thinking is always concrete and absolute, and using the example of this primitive child’s thinking, we can show how the primary, pre-logical stage in the development of thought processes differs.

We said that the child thinks in concrete things, having difficulty grasping their relationships with each other. Child 6-7 years old

* See: P i a g e t J. Le jugement et le raisonnement chez l "enfant. Neuchatel, 1924. P. 163.

clearly distinguishes his right hand from his left, but the fact that the same object can be simultaneously right in relation to one and left in relation to another is completely incomprehensible to him. It is also strange for him that if he has a brother, then he himself is in turn a brother to him. When asked how many brothers he has, the child answers, for example, that he has one brother and his name is Kolya. “How many brothers does Kolya have?” - we ask. The child is silent, then declares that Kolya has no brothers. We can be convinced that even in such simple cases a child cannot think relatively, that primitive, pre-cultural forms of thinking are always absolute and concrete; thinking abstracted from this absoluteness, correlative thinking is a product of high cultural development.

We must note one more specific feature in the thinking of a small child.

It is quite natural that among the words and concepts that he encounters, a huge part turns out to be new and incomprehensible to him. However, adults use these words, and in order to catch up with them, not to seem inferior, stupider than them, a small child develops a completely unique method of adaptation that saves him from a feeling of unworthiness and allows him, outwardly at least, to master expressions and concepts that are incomprehensible to him. Piaget, who perfectly studied this mechanism of children's thinking, calls it syncretism. This term means an interesting phenomenon, remnants of which are present in an adult, but which grows magnificently in the psyche of a child. This phenomenon consists of an extremely easy convergence of concepts that have only an external part, and the replacement of one unfamiliar concept with another, more familiar one.

See: Chukovsky K. Little children. L., 1928.

Here is an example of this type of conclusion**:

Child M. (8 years old) is shown a glass of water, a stone is placed there, the water rises. When asked why the water rose, the child answers: because the stone is heavy.

We take another stone and show it to the child. M. says: “It’s heavy. He will make the water rise." - “And this one is the smaller one?” - “No, this one won’t force...” - “Why?” - “It’s light.”

It is interesting that in one case syncretic thinking can be revived and flourish in an adult - this is in the case of learning a foreign language. We can say that for an adult reading a foreign book written in a language that is not familiar to him, the process of syncrete, rather than specific, understanding of individual words plays a huge role. In this, he seems to repeat the primitive features of the child’s thinking.

** See: Piaget J. Le jugement et le raisonnement chez l "enfant. Neuchatel, 1924. P. 239 - 240.

The child is shown a piece of wood. “Is this piece heavy?” - "No". - “If you put it in water, will it rise?” - “Yes, because it is not heavy.” - “Which is heavier - this small stone or this large piece of wood?” - “Stone” (correct). - “Why does the water rise more?” - “From a tree.” - "Why?" - “Because it is bigger.” - “Why did the water rise from the stones?” - “Because they are heavy...”

We see with what ease the child throws away one sign that, in his opinion, caused the water to rise (gravity), and replaces it with another (magnitude). Each time he makes a conclusion from case to case, and the absence of a single explanation is completely unnoticed by him. Here we come to another interesting fact: for a child there are no contradictions, he does not notice them, opposing judgments can exist side by side, without excluding each other.

Child T. (7.5 years old).

Why does a tree float on water?
- Because it is light, and the boats have oars.
- And those boats that don’t have oars?
- Because they are light.
- What about the big ships?
- Because they are heavy.
- So, heavy things stay on the water?
- No.
- Well, what about the big stone?
- He's drowning.
- What about the big steamer?
- It floats because it is heavy.
- Just because?
- No. Also because it has big oars.
- What if you remove them?
- He will feel better.
- Well, what if we put them back?
- It will stay on the water because they are heavy.

Under the influence of such an attitude towards the world, he little by little develops a primitive idea that in nature, any thing can be connected with anything, any thing can in itself influence another. This primitive and naive psychological character of children's thinking became especially indisputable for us after a series of experiments that were recently carried out simultaneously in Switzerland by the already quoted Piaget and in Germany by the psychologist Caria Raspe*.

The experiments that were carried out by the latter boiled down to the following: the child was presented with some object, which, due to the well-known

* See: Raspe S. Kindliche Selbstbeobachtung und Theoriebildung // Zeitechrift f. angewandte Psychol. 1924. Bd. 23.

For some reason, it changed its shape after some time. Such an object could, for example, be a figure that gives an illusion under certain conditions; it was possible to use a figure, which, when placed on a different background, began to appear larger in size, or a square, which, when turned on its edge (Fig. 27), created the impression of enlargement. During the appearance of such an illusion, the child was deliberately presented with an extraneous stimulus, for example, an electric light bulb was lit or a metronome was used. And so, when the experimenter asked the child to explain the reason for the illusion that occurred, to answer the question of why the square grew, the child invariably pointed to a new, simultaneously acting stimulus as the reason. He said that the square grew because a light bulb came on or the metronome started beating, although, of course, there was no obvious connection between these phenomena.

The child’s confidence in the connection of these phenomena, the “post hoc - ergopropter hoc” logic is so great that if we ask him to change this phenomenon, to make the square smaller, he will, without any thought, approach the metronome and stop it.

We tried to repeat such experiments in our laboratory and invariably obtained the same result in children 7-8 years old. Only a very few of them were able to slow down this initial response, construct a different hypothesis, or confess their behavior. A significantly larger number of children showed much more primitive features of thinking, directly declaring that simultaneously occurring phenomena are interconnected and causal. Simultaneously means as a result; This is one of the basic principles of a child’s thinking, and one can imagine what kind of picture of the world such primitive logic creates.

This mechanism of “magical thinking” can be observed especially clearly in children 3-4 years old. These guys immediately show how a purely external assessment of some phenomenon pushes the child to a hasty conclusion about its role. A girl observed by one of us noticed that the little instructions her mother gave her were successful when her mother told her two or three times what she had to do. Several times later we managed to observe the following case: when one day the girl was sent to another room with a small errand, she demanded: “Mom, repeat three times,” and without waiting she ran into the next room. The primitive, naive attitude towards the mother’s words appears here with all clarity and does not need further explanation.

This is the general picture of the child’s thinking at that stage when he is still standing before the ladder of cultural influence or at its lowest steps.

The recording was borrowed from materials kindly provided to us by V.F. Schmidt.
P i a g e t J. Le langage et la pensée chez l "enfant. P., 1923. P. 28. Ibid. P. 14-15. Individual letters are the names of children.