Theorist of psychology Lev Markovich Vekker

Psychology

Abstract

The article provides a brief biography of the outstanding scientist L.M. Vekker and characterizes his theoretical heritage. Wecker stood on materialistic positions. He sought to cover all mental processes with a single conceptual system and explain them as a particular case of the general laws of nature. There is a hierarchy of carriers of the mental, so that the connection with the original carrier - the bodily, nervous substratum - is not realized. At the highest levels of this hierarchy this connection is so far removed from the material basis that it gives the subject the illusion of the absolute autonomy of the mental and the substantiality of the soul, which Wecker never agreed with. He recognized the reality of the soul, but interpreted it as the highest integration of mental phenomena in the material system "man". His theory proves that mental phenomena are of informational nature, similar to technical and physiological signals. At the same time, there are very specific properties of the mental - projection, inaccessibility to direct sensual perception, inexpressibility in the language of nervous processes, immanent activity. The article discusses not only the theory but also the personality of L.M. Vekker and his place in Soviet and Russian psychological science. A transcript of his jubilee speech at Leningrad University (SPbSU) is published for the first time.