Psychology theorist Leo Vekker

Psychology

Abstract

The article presents a brief biography of the outstanding scientist L.M. Vekker, the characteristics of his theoretical heritage. Vekker hold materialist views. He sought to encompass all mental processes in a single conceptual system and explain them as a special case of general laws of nature. There is a hierarchy of carriers of the psychic, so the link to the original carrier — physical, neural substrate — is unrecognized. As at the highest levels of that hierarchy this connection is far from its material foundation, it gives the subject an illusion of their absolute autonomy. Therefore, the psyche has often been treated as the soul — an autonomous substance. Vekker never agreed with this theoretical position. He acknowledged the existence of the soul but interpreted it as the highest integration of mental phenomena in the material system «human». In his theory, he proves that mental phenomena are of the information nature, similar to technical and physiological signals. However, they are very specific and have properties of the projection, inaccessibility to direct sensory 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, his place in the Soviet and Russian psychological science. In the article, his anniversary speech is published for the first time.