Psychologistics _____________________________________________________________________ Essays on Psychologistic Themes 1 Yakov A. Iosilevskii 1 E-mail: [email protected] Preface Besides my treatise «A theory of the Comprehensive Endosemasiopasigraphic Algebraico-Predicate Organon and its conformal catlogographic interpretations: A general analytical solution of trial decision problems for first order predicate calculus» (Iosilevskii [2016]), being the principal part of Psychologistics, the latter is supposed to include an indefinite number of relatively independent essays, which are called Psychologistic Essays or briefly Essays, and which form supplementary material to the subject matter of the above treatise – the material to be treated primarily egocentrically (like the treatise itself) with one or another degree of thoroughness. The Essays are supposed to be included under the common heading “Essays on Psychologistic Themes” (briefly “EPT”). The Essays are not formally included into the treatise, because they are not related to the main object of the treatise as straightforwardly as the Appendices of the latter. Consequently, in contrast to a separate Appendix, which has the same status as a section of the treatise, a separate Essay has the status of a chapter of the EPT and hence the same status as a chapter of the treatise. Since separate Essays are relatively autonomous, therefore the EPT is provided with a list of references of its own, which is however a certain part of the list of references of the treatise. In this case, the treatise will briefly be referred to in the Essays as the Theory of Trial Logic or as the Trial Logic Theory and also most briefly as the TTL or TLT respectively. An Essay may, when convenient, contain some pertinent fragments of the TTL or of another Essay, repeated or cited. Separate Essays are arranged in the EPT in the order, in which they are written, and not in the order, in which the associated topics are used or mentioned of the TTL for the first time, for convenience in cross-reference, they are numbered by ordinal numerals in that order. By the moment the EPT comprises ten Essays, the subject matters of which are recapitulated in the following abstract; “Essay” is abbreviated as “E”. Abstract of the current EPT. The subject matter of the current EPT comprises the following topics: E1 addresses various trends of psychology in historical prospect; E2 addresses the complete taxonomy of the senses of a man; E3 is a discussion of native languages and their codes, and also of artificial (contrived) languages; E4 treats special quotations and some relevant topics in greater detail as compared to their treatment in Preface of the TTL; E5 addresses my solution of the problem of 2 universals; E6 addresses taxonomies of bionts, i.e. instances of hierarchal systems of irregular, or proper, classes of bionts as opposed to regular, or small, classes of objects, called also sets; E7 deals with basic biochemistry including basic principles of genetic theory (theory of DNA macromolecules); E8 comprises historical remarks on philosophy, logic, and psychology; E9 presents formulation and proof of generalized associative and commutative laws for an abstract binary composition operator; E10 comprises some general remarks on the TTL and Psychologistics. 3 Table of contents Essay 1. Psychology ....................................................................................................... 5 Essay 2. Taxonomy of the senses of a man and the classification of nyms by adequate senses ............................................................................................................ 41 Essay 3. Miscellaneous properties of alphabetic and polysyllabic native languages (AbNL’s and PSbNL’s) ................................................................................ 45 Essay 4. Special quotations .......................................................................................... 59 Essay 5. The problem of universals ........................................................................... 107 Essay 6. Taxonomies of bionts .................................................................................. 174 Essay 7. Basic biochemistry ...................................................................................... 224 Essay 8. Historical remarks on philosophy, logic, and psychology ........................... 242 Essay 9. A commutative semigroup calculus: ........................................................... 305 Essay 10. The theory of trial logic and Psychologistics ............................................ 328 References .................................................................................................................. 346 4 Essay 1. Psychology 1. Trends and branches of psychology In the course of development of the field of study and discourse that is presently called “psychology”, the meaning of this word has been defined in many different ways, each definition having its immediate scope. Therefore, for avoidance of confusion, I shall employ the noun “psychology” and the letter ‘Ψ’ as general names of the above entire field in its historical perspective and distinguish different trends or branches, or particular treatises of Ψ by means of the appropriate added words as qualifiers to “psychology”. In this case, it is, understood that in quoting of or referring to definitions of “psychology” by different writers, the sense of that word will be specified correspondingly. Any discourse on psychology necessarily involves treatment of certain meanings of the nouns “mind” and “consciousness”, being two most fundamental terms of psychology (cf. section 4 below). Here follows the definition of “psychology” by James [1890; 1950, vol. 1, p. 1], the definition whose immediate scope is his own monograph. «Psychology is the Science of Mental Life, both of its phenomena and their conditions. Phenomena are such things as we call feelings, desires, cognitions, reasonings, decisions, and the like; and, superficially considered, their variety and complexity is such as to leave a chaotic impression on the observer.» Along with the initial fragment of this definition (which is unfortunately cited sloppily), some other definitions of psychology can be found in Atkinson et al [1987, pp. 12, 13]. These writers themselves briefly define psychology as «the scientific study of behavior and mental processes» (ibid. p. 13), the understanding being that the immediate scope of this definition is the writer’s monograph, – just as the immediate scope of James’ definition is his monograph. James’ treatment of psychology is based on the following four principles, which are stated in some other places of his monograph (e.g., ibidem, vol. 1, pp. 183– 187, 218–219 ff): i) Psychology is a natural science that studies the minds of distinct sapient subjects and particularly the mind of a psychologist as an object «in a world of other objects» and that therefore psychology has nothing to do with metaphysics and its notion of absolute Mind unattached to a particular body. 5 ii) Introspection of each individual psychologist, i.e. examination of his own conscious experience, is the main general method of acquiring data and formulating concepts of various aspects of the mind (consciousness) of any sapient subject. iii) The assumption that the terms “mind” and “consciousness” are synonyms. iv) Cartesian dualism, an ontological doctrine according to which reality consists of two independent and fundamental principles (primary sources): mind and matter. James’ treatment of psychology and also the entire field of study of the mind and consciousness of a sapient subject, which is based on the first two, but not necessarily on the last two, of the above four principles, will be called introspective psychology or introspectionism. By contrast, Atkinson et ale’s treatment of psychology and also the entire modern field of study and discourse, which is based on mediately studying various observable manifestations of the mind and consciousness of a sapient subject (as his conscious behavior) by extrospective (objective) methods, will be called extrospective psychology or extrospectionism. Particularly, an obstinate attempt to study the mind of a sapient subject by studying exclusively his conscious behavior is called behavioral psychology or behaviorism. Accordingly, an adherent of introspectionism, extrospectionism, or behaviorism is called an introspectionist, extrospectionist, or behavioralist, respectively. 2. Scientific psychology versus metaphysical one In accordance with the above said, modern psychology can most generally be defined as the scientific study of the mind of a sapient subject. That is to say, modern psychology is scientific psychology – in contrast to metaphysical psychology. Particularly, use of the name “the mind of a sapient subject” and not of “mind” alone is designed to emphasize the fact that a mind unattached to the human body is an impossible abstraction that cannot be an object of scientific psychology. By contrast, the main object of metaphysical psychology is Mind as such, which is not attached to any material body. James [ibidem, vol. 1, p 145] describes some perplexing features of metaphysical approach to psychology, which he rejects, as follows. «Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly. The fundamental conceptions of psychology are practically very clear 6 to us, but theoretically they are very confused, and one easily makes