PSYCHOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY VIEWED FROM ANOTHER FLANK

Abstract

Jerome Bruner believed that the gap between psychology and anthropology was the biggest mistake of the science studying the human being. Despite fragmentary attempts, real cooperation between psychologists and anthropologists has not been yet established in the field of psychological anthropology. Considering this field a subdiscipline still prevents psychologists and anthropologists from intense cooperation to create a joint, synthetic intellectual product. The solution of conceptual and epistemological  dilemmas  and overcoming the dichotomic understanding of antithesis along with the clear orientation of empirical  and research practice on a mutually supplementary, hybrid use of methods, places modern psychological  anthropology among the disciplines which aim to pursue a fundamental goal: to integrate controversial  realities into a whole, while recognizing their complex interaction and coexistence. It is quite clear that the above cannot be an aspiration of any subdiscipline. Today, psychological anthropology is facing a number of issues related to self-reflection and conceptual and methodological rethinking, the tasks requiring synthetic solution. Psychological anthropology is the space where the most complex dilemmas, with a powerful cognizing potential equally important for psychology and anthropology, intersect. It is a meeting space for versatile methodological resources. By its nature, psychological anthropology is an interdisciplinary space where different sciences (humanities, natural, social, behavioral) intersect and which is able to create a fertile ground for the development of a transdisciplinary theory of human being.&nbsp