Boris Lomov`s Systems Approach in the Context of the Science Culture of the Late Soviet Period

Abstract

The focus of the article is the research program of B. F. Lomov, viewed through the prism of Russian scientific culture, while taking into account the nuances of the late Soviet period. Scientific culture is analyzed in accordance with a model that singles out practices as a typical and stable way of doing things, and patterns as cognitive elements that integrate culture into a concise whole. Viewed via this model, any innovation appears to involve introduction of new practices into the culture. That means the risk of the introduced practices colliding with existing patterns. There are three main patterns of the Russian scientific culture that operated in the Soviet period, which are described as formulas analogous with the themes of S. Moskovichi: (a) science is a state matter, (b) basic science creates groundwork for the technologies of the future, (c) science is a selfless service. The practices promoted within Lomov's program were largely associated with American engineering psychology as practiced by A. Chapanis, and, as such, collided with the organization of the Soviet scientific establishment, built around the patterns mentioned. As a consequence of this contention, the article examines the tension that arose in Soviet psychology in the 1970s and 1980s between the supporters of the activity theory of A. N. Leontiev on one side and B. F. Lomov’s systems approach on the other. It draws parallels between this collision and the collision of the practices promoted by Lomov with the patterns of the science culture of the late Soviet period. Both external and internal perspectives are employed: the article examines the theoretical contradictions between the activity theory and the systems approach, and at the same time investigates the context of the theoretical argument: the transfer of the leadership in the psychological science from the Academy of the Pedagogical Sciences to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the mosaic outlay of the newly established Institute of Psychology, the influence of new approaches to the organization of research.