Contribution of A.V. Petrovsky to the Formation of the History of Concepts of in Psychological Science (To the 100th Anniversary of His Birth)

Abstract

The article examines the contribution of the famous Soviet and Russian psychologist Arthur Vladimirovich Petrovsky (1924–2006) to the formation of the history of concepts of psychological science. It is argued that although the study of concepts (categories) in recent years has become increasingly important in Russian psychology as a kind of self-reflection strategy, the problem of the conceptual field of this science was first posed half a century ago and still remains unresolved. The purpose of this study was to determine the role of A.V. Pe trovsky in the formation of the history of the concepts of psychological science; the main task is to analyze the author's main publications on this topic in order to identify his research on the transformations of the meanings of the basic concepts of psychology in the course of its historical development. The main method of research was the bibliographic method, the source base consisted of textbooks and monographs written by the scientist mainly in the 1990s. As a result of the conducted research, it was found that thanks to the efforts of A.V. Petrovsky, the interest of the professional community in the problem of the categorical and conceptual apparatus of psychology was supported during the crisis period for Russian science, research in this field was updated, the development of a categorical “grid” of psychology was carried out in line with the created and developed by him and his co-authors (V.A. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevskiy) theoretical psychology, the history of the concepts of “attitude” and “personality” was studied. Based on this, it is possible to state that the significant contribution of A.V. Petrovsky is included in the conceptual history of psychological science in our country, and he himself is considered one of the pioneers of this kind of research in Russia.