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On the Tasks of Humanistic Psychology
Leopold Blaustein
Translated from Polish by Filip Golaszewski Abstract and keywords prepared by Filip Golaszewski Bibliography edited by Filip Golaszewski
Abstract
The essay examines the theoretical basics and methodological framework of humanistic psychology, a psychological approach that investigates experiential wholes of higher order within humanistic reality. In contrast to non-humanistic psychology, which focuses on elementary lived experiences in isolation, humanistic psychology emphasizes the study of complex psychological phenomena as they emerge in relation to cultural artefacts, social relationships, and creative processes. The paper argues
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that humanistic psychology serves as an auxiliary science for the humanities, while maintaining methodological pluralism in its investigative approaches.
Keywords: humanistic psychology, experiential wholes of higher order, humanistic reality, understanding, cultural artefacts.
O nalogah humanistične psihologije
Povzetek
Esej obravnava teoretsko osnovo in metodološki okvir humanistične psihologije kot psihološkega pristopa, ki znotraj humanistične resničnosti raziskuje izkustvene celote višjega reda. V nasprotju z nehumanistično psihologijo, kakršna se osredotoča na izolirane elementarne doživljaje, humanistična psihologija poudarja študij kompleksnih psiholoških fenomenov, kakor se prikazujejo v odnosu do kulturnih artefaktov, družbenih razmerij in kreativnih procesov. Članek zagovarja mnenje, da lahko humanistična psihologija služi kot pomožna znanost za humanistiko in obenem 324 ohrani metodološki pluralizem lastnih raziskovalnih pristopov.
Ključne besede: humanistična psihologija, izkustvene celote višjega reda, humanistična resničnost, razumevanje, kulturni artefakti.
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[| 33]1 § 1. Programmatic investigations into challenges, subject matter, and methods of psychology are less rewarding than the study of concrete issues. Nevertheless, such investigations are important in an attempt to establish a new discipline, as they often lead to the discovery of new areas of ignorance, novel problems, approaches, innovative methods, and perspectives.
This essay concerns humanistic psychology, formulated forty years ago by [Wilhelm] Dilthey in his book, Ideen über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie [Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology] (Dilthey 1894 [1977]).2 The concept of humanistic psychology, which is influential mainly in Germany, underwent numerous transformations, primarily thanks to Spranger who is a disciple of Dilthey. In Poland, humanistic psychology has received minimal attention, in contrast to other approaches, such as [Franz] Brentano's and [Kazimierz] Twardowski's descriptive psychology, [Edmund] Husserl's phenomenological psychology, depth psychology, Gestalt psychology, and behavioristic psychology.
This essay adopts a polemical attitude, although it does not engage with any particular opponent. It introduces a polemic against the unjust 325 underestimation of humanistic psychology. There is one more reason for the polemical attitude adopted in my article. [| 34] The limited consideration of humanistic psychology in the Polish scholarly literature may result from
1	[This translation indicates original pagination directly in the text in square brackets; all page numbers refer to: Blaustein, Leopold. 1935. "O zadaniach psychologii humanistycznej." Przeglqd Filozoficzny 38 (1-2): 33-57.]
2	Dilthey employed different terms for his psychology over time, such as: "Realpsychologie [empirical psychology]" (1865), "beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie [descriptive and analytic psychology]" (1894), and "Strukturpsychologie [structural psychology]" (1905). The term "geisteswissenschaftliche Psychologie [humanistic psychology]" seemingly originates from Spranger (Seidemann 1920, 192-193), and [Richard] MüllerFreienfels (1929, 128). However, proponents of related tendencies existed both before and after Dilthey, developing independently of his influence.
This translation is a result of the project supported by the National Science Center, Poland (SONATA BIS, project no. 2021/42/E/HS1/00108): The Philosophy of Leopold Blaustein in Context: Brentano, Gestalt Psychology, Lvov-Warsaw School and Early Phenomenology.
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the fact that humanistic psychology is a discipline of psychology, which is saturated with metaphysical assumptions.3 In what follows, I will attempt to consider relevant issues in a manner completely free from such assumptions, thus deliberately departing from the form, in which contemporary prominent representatives of humanistic psychology approach metaphysical problems.
This essay does not provide a survey of the views of particular representatives of humanistic psychology, nor does it claim originality. Rather than starting from the scholarly literature, it begins with the things themselves, but I still acknowledge that this essay has a debt to previous scholarly achievements.
§ 2. I begin my investigations with a description of the originally natural psychological whole, i.e., a lived experience or complex of lived experiences that would not be distinguished through abstraction, but rather "originally encountered." With this approach, the proper domain of humanistic psychology, its research focus, and central problems will come to the fore. In search of such a natural psychological whole, I encounter primarily the psychic 326 life of the human individual being—the stream of lived experiences, states of consciousness flowing continuously from birth to death. One isolates further wholes in a more or less artificial manner within this natural, original whole.4
Psychic life, which is a natural psychological whole, is most closely linked with human behavior. From a biological perspective, psychic life appears rather
3	Polish authors, by contrast, have produced numerous publications that belong to humanistic psychology as I understand it. Such publications include substantial fragments of [Wladyslaw] Witwicki's Psychologia [Psychology] (Witwicki 1925), [Stefan] Baley's Psychologia wieku dojrzewania [Psychology of Adolescence] (Baley 1931), certain of Szuman's investigations, and numerous others. Humanistic psychology in Spranger's conception received examination in Poland in connection with structural psychology (Kreutz 1933, 202; Wiegner 1933, 26). [Edward] Frauenglas provided a more comprehensive discussion of Spranger's views (Frauenglas 1929, 93 ff.).
4	One could object that periods of sleep repeatedly disrupt this wholeness. According to this view, the natural whole constitutes rather a stream of lived experiences, commencing at the moment of awakening and concluding at the moment of falling asleep. However, such a view does not appear accurate. Lived experiences do not cease to disappear during sleep. Moreover, their connection with lived experiences before sleep and those after awakening proves often to be remarkably intimate.
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as a part than as a whole.5 [| 35] A loose but equally essential connection occurs between the psychic life of a certain person and that person's products. It is impossible to overlook these connections even in purely psychological studies. Therefore, studies of psychic life consistently go beyond their required scope.
Now, I will consider more closely the psychic life of an individual human being, as it is given in his or her inner lived experience. A person constantly "experiences something"—sometimes perceiving aesthetically, contemplating a landscape or listening to music, other times thinking about a specific matter, seeking resolution to an unpleasant situation, making plans, creating or recreating something, undertaking professional tasks, and talking to another person. The lived experiences of a given moment arrange themselves in various ways, depending on what constitutes the intentional correlates of personal lived experiences: goals more or less clearly guiding someone at a given moment, what one attempts to achieve, what drives one, passions, or other inclinations—all of these factors are significant. The mutual relationships between lived experiences also vary: different aspects dominate, others serve merely as a psychological background, the focus of attention changes, different 327 memories become associated, and various dispositions and attitudes emerge. Let us think about what goes through someone's mind when casually listening to light music on the radio—the person enjoys the music aesthetically, feels relaxed, and allows thoughts to wander freely. Now, let us compare how the same person's mental state changes moments later when receiving a letter from a friend that deeply affects him or her, creates emotional tensions, and triggers an active response.6
5	I share [William] Stern's belief who writes as follows: " Uberall ist die Scheidung in einen psychischen Anteil und einen physischen Anteil etwas Sekundäres, oft lediglich zum Zweck wissenschaftlicher Betrachtung künstlich Isoliertes." ["Everywhere the division into a psychological part and a physical part is something secondary, often artificially isolated merely for the purpose of scientific observation."] (Stern 1928, 194; Saupe 1928, 194.)
6	The discussion was precisely about human lived experiences in a "certain moment." This obviously does not refer to a temporal moment, but to what Germans call "psychische Präsenzzeit [psychic presence time]," through which lived experiences that actually occurred sequentially in time can be reviewed simultaneously (Erismann 1924, 119).
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The just described natural psychic whole, otherwise termed the psychic life of man in its totality, may become the subject matter of investigations. Researchers have studied the totality of psychic life by identifying major phases of inner life and their controlling principles, as demonstrated in Charlotte Bühler's book (Bühler 1933). However, psychology also distinguishes other wholes from different angles. Depending on the adopted viewpoint, the natural appearance of psychic life may be more or less distorted. [| 36] If one describes an individual human being's psychic life in terms of various presentations, feelings, and judgments, one certainly provides an accurate description. However, one will also move far from lived experiences. When one focuses on presentations, feelings, and judgments, one specifically mentions elementary mental experiences, which are originally given in wholes of higher order. Only a psychological analysis of these wholes reveals the elementary lived experiences within wholes of higher order. When a person listens to radio music or reads a letter, psychic actions connected with these situations are very complex;
328 only further analysis will reveal presentations, judgments, feelings, or resolutions. Furthermore, in psychological descriptions, one sometimes ascribes to correlates of mental lived experiences certain "anonymity." This kind of anonymity is in fact alien to mental experiences. When one claims that individual human beings subjectively present something, think about something, desire, decide, or investigate something, one provides an example of research that describes mental reality. A similar case occurs when one investigates connections between presentations of something and other lived experiences concerning this something. This [approach] often leads to the discovery of important and interesting laws. However, this type of investigation has to do with psychic life already modified in a certain way: it is stripped from concrete connections with the surrounding world. In reality, a person watches a film or looks at children playing on the beach. This person is not looking at anonymous "something" occupied by thoughts about the upcoming future or about just noticed strange behavior of foreign passers-by. Each time, the diversity of situations and intentional objects causes diverse lived experiences, despite the analogous composition of lived experiences. This diversity of lived experiences applies
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particularly to the class of simple mental lived experiences occurring at a given moment.7
One can distinguish various "levels" of psychological problems within psychology. Here, I have in mind the possibility of the multilayered character of psychological problems, whereby one of the layers is—as I believe—the real domain of humanistic psychology.
§ 3. I encounter chronological wholes [calosci chronologiczne] while looking within psychic life for further natural wholes of experiences. These chronological wholes are wholes of experiences focused together within a certain time period, such as the psychic life of a particular day or hour. Psychology has not yet systematically studied this type of psychological wholes. [| 37] This [approach] is more popular within literature. For example, novels may describe the stream of lived experiences of individual human beings during twenty-four hours of their life. The psychological study of such wholes would have limited significance. It could, however, be quite interesting to show how various psychological laws manifest themselves during one hour of psychic 329 life. According to psychologists, the most significant experiential wholes are those that neither accumulate within one time period nor occupy the entire psychic life. These experiential wholes stand out against the background of the entirety of psychic life as something relatively distinct, without losing their connection with this entirety.
A series of lived experiences that forms wholes (since those lived experiences are a partial cause of creating psychophysical products or even a complete cause of creating psychic products) should be included primarily in this group [of chronological wholes].8 Such experiential series include, for example, lived experiences related to writing an academic publication, painting a picture, or arranging a budget for an institution. These lived experiences need not follow
7	Lived experiences are given "anonymity" in psychological research also in the sense that lived experiences, artificially isolated from the totality of lived experiences, are treated, as if they constituted independent wholes and were not a non-independent part of the psychological life of concrete human individuals.
8	Regarding the concept of psychophysical and psychic products, see Twardowski's publication (Twardowski 1912 [1999]).
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each other directly; their entirety can consist of a series of smaller wholes that may be called "phases" of a given creative activity. These phases are separated from each other by longer or shorter breaks, yet they form an originally natural whole with non-adjoining phases in a manner that will be discussed further.
Other mental lived experiences form such wholes, because they connect with a receptive attitude toward a certain product; for instance, a musical piece, an academic lecture, a radio drama, or a film (Blaustein 1933, 5, 45 ff.). In addition, one can refer to the wholes of experiences that are connected with certain activities, behaviors, or actions that fall outside the categories of creativity or receptivity. Clear examples of this phenomenon include lived experiences connected with traveling, practicing sports, material ownership, etc.
There are also other sequences of lived experiences connected with either a) non-durable or b) durable social relationships. Those series of lived experiences form experiential wholes as well. In the first group, I include mental lived experiences connected with a chess game or house sale. Lived 330 experiences connected with friendship, child-rearing, [| 38] or the relationship between son and father or superior and subordinate, belong to the second group. Experiential wholes connected with relationships to God and to oneself are close to both groups (for example, religious lived experiences and others concerning self-sentiment, self-knowledge, self-assessment,9 and self-love).
Mental lived experiences form wholes not only through their connection with social relationships between individual human beings, but also between individual human beings and groups of people, human groups, societies, social organizations, and institutions. These wholes encompass human lived experiences tied to relationships with one's own country or foreign nations, family, political parties, and temporary groups, such as specific gatherings or circus audiences. Similarly, experiential wholes emerge from one's receptive relationships with various products. Beyond relationships with individual works—particular pieces of art or science—, I can identify relationships with entire categories of products. Mental lived experiences connected to music,
9 Müller-Freienfels rightly considers lived experiences related to one's relationship to oneself as a social product (Müller-Freienfels 1930, 154; Blaustein 1931a, 13-17).
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philosophy, and lyric poetry also form distinct wholes within a person's psychic life.
I have thus shown that, besides elementary experiences, psychic life includes various experiential wholes of a higher order [calosci przezyciowe wyzszego rzgdu],10 which are composed of elementary experiences. These are experiential wholes that either partially cause the emergence of psychophysical products or completely cause the emergence of certain psychic products. Additionally, there are wholes connected with people's receptive attitudes toward certain products, with permanent and temporary social relationships, with people's relationships with groups of other people as well as groups of products, and others. A psychologist who observes psychic life discovers these wholes and analyzes them to uncover their components, but does not construct them from individual elements.11
§ 4. Let me examine some properties of the experiential wholes of higher order more closely. [| 39] I have already stated that the lived experiences contained within experiential wholes of higher order need not constitute the 331 entirety of psychic life during the time periods when they occur. This point requires no detailed explanation. When a cinemagoer follows events on the screen with intense attention, she can simultaneously notice many things happening around her in the audience. A cinemagoer might also experience taste sensations while eating chocolate. Someone giving a public speech may recall, during the talk, an urgent letter previously prepared. The lived experiences that constitute a particular experiential whole of higher order need not be accumulated within one continuous time period. Inner experience shows that the way of how non-consecutive phases combine into a natural whole contains nothing mysterious. Memory allows a person, experiencing certain things at a given moment, to recall temporally distant, but closely
10	In order to distinguish elementary wholes from different types of wholes, I use the term wholes of higher order, because elementary experiences are also wholes. The totality of an individual's psychic life could be called an "experiential whole of the highest order."
11	Analysis, as opposed to construction, as a method of humanistic psychology is by Dilthey emphasized in: Dilthey 1894, 168-169 [1977, 51-52].
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related lived experiences. Memory "revives" the necessary beliefs, feelings, desires, and resolutions. The necessary attitudes and dispositions are activated at that very moment. The aforementioned process creates a natural connection to the previous phase of a given creative activity. Let us consider a translator who works on a dissertation written in a foreign language, and who interrupts his or her work to read a newspaper. When the translator returns to work after the break, lived experiences related to newspaper reading fade. Other lived experiences that constitute a continuation of the pre-interruption lived experiences appear again. The dependence of temporally distant mental states, as Erismann (1924, 125) emphasizes, is given directly.
I have said above that one can distinguish various elementary experiences within the psychological wholes. Generally, some of these elementary experiences dominate, and give the whole a clear [emotional] coloring. Sometimes, as Dilthey emphasizes, emotions and acts of will appear, as if they serve intellectual lived experiences. At other times, intellectual lived experiences serve emotional experiences. Different coloring characterizes lived 332 experiences during conversations on theoretical topics. Coloring is different also in conversations that constitute "scenes of jealousy."
Experiential wholes of higher order undoubtedly possess the property of intentionality. However, this is not true in the same sense as applied to simple psychic acts. The lived experiences that are parts of the experiential wholes of higher order are connected with objects through common intention. [| 40] This common intention sometimes aims toward artificially isolated objects of single acts, but often involves intentional objects of experiential sequences that form separate wholes or are connected in other ways. Spranger terms these wholes "intendierte komplexe Gegenstände [intended complex objects]" (Spranger 1918, 361). Such complex object correlates of experiential wholes include theatrical spectacles, political factions, and sets of events, such as social revolutions and scientific theories.
The psychological wholes, which are the objects of my investigations, also constitute teleological connections of lived experiences. The lived experiences an inventor has while working to improve a technical product serve goals that are more or less conscious and arrange themselves accordingly. The same applies to a merchant's conversation with a goods recipient about a transaction.
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It also applies to sightseeing in a foreign country or a subordinate's relationship with a superior. As the preceding examples show, teleological character belongs not only to creative-type experiential wholes. It also belongs to the receptive types corresponding to social relationships, etc.
With the above in mind, I want to emphasize that such experiential wholes remain under the overwhelming influence of a given person's basic tendencies, which provide those experiential wholes with a teleological character.12 Experiential wholes are shaped under the influence of humans striving to satisfy drives toward happiness. In the entirety of a person's life plan—according to [Alfred] Adler's terminology—, they play the role of means to master life. There is always an aim or duty governing one's psychic life in a given period (Driesch 1929, 50). Factors guiding psychic life are discovered not through psychological descriptions of elementary experiences, but through the study of experiential wholes of higher order. The study of experiential wholes of higher order reveals their influence on shaping human psychic life and demonstrates how striving for positive self-feeling and increased striving for power manifests itself in creativity or social relationships. It also shows how desires for aesthetic 333 experiences and feelings of knowledge find expression in receptivity, etc.
[| 41] Phases of a certain experiential whole of higher order, temporally distant from each other, remain under the influence of the same basic tendencies that constitute another link between temporally distant lived experiences. A lover who meets again with his or her beloved after work that absorbs all thoughts remains again under the influence of the same feelings and desires that shaped their relationship at the previous meeting. The present meeting thereby becomes, from a psychological viewpoint, a natural continuation of the previous one.
When I look more closely at experiential wholes of higher order, I notice the multiple genetic relationships that connect their parts. Lived experiences while
12 "Sofern die Teile in der Struktur so miteinander verbunden sind, dass die Verbindung Triebbefriedigung und Glück hervorrufen, Schmerzen abzuwehren geeignet ist, nennen wir sie zweckmässig." ["To the degree that the parts are so linked together in the structure that their combination is capable of satisfying the instincts, of giving rise to happiness and averting suffering, we say that this nexus is purposiveness."] (Dilthey 1894, 207 [1977, 88].)
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reading a second volume of the novel depend significantly on lived experiences while reading the first volume. The impression made on a backpacker by new landscapes depends partly on his or her lived experiences during previous trips. Genetic conditioning between temporally distant phases of the same experiential whole of higher order is generally stronger than that between the current phase and the immediately preceding phase belonging to another whole. A reader's experiential course during a novel's second volume depends more on earlier lived experiences from the first volume than on, for instance, an exchange on summer resort stays that took place before one started to read.
The claim presented above does not exclude a certain dependence of lived experiences on mental situations. This situation is determined not only by the object of lived experiences to which they refer and by the basic tendencies guiding a person's psychic life, but also by other factors, such as echoes and remnants of recently past lived experiences belonging to different higherorder wholes. Other factors include passing attitudes, such as the moods of a given hour or day. The course of lived experiences connected with family 334 dinner exchange is at least initially under the clear influence of moods evoked in the morning by professional work. A cinemagoer's reaction to a film is conditioned not only by stimuli provided by the screen and accompanying music, but also by the viewer's lived experiences during the given day. The mental situation also depends on various non-mental factors affecting psychic life at a given moment—the set of which may be called the "non-mental constellation" ["konstelacja pozapsychiczna"]. Multiple factors should be considered, including geographical, historical, biological, and especially social factors. The course [| 42] of lived experiences in a certain situation is shaped differently, depending on whether a person is at a given moment alone or in the company of others. If someone is accompanied by others, the course of their lived experiences depends on the number of people and the relationships between them. For example, it is well known that a person in a mass thinks less independently and critically. Convictions lose their stability and become more influenced by emotions and wishes, whereas individual impressions and feelings grow increasingly one-sided and intolerant. Individual differences become leveled and affect gains in strength. Furthermore, one witnesses a range of intensified behaviors: excessive self-confidence, irritability,
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wildness, increased courage, readiness for sacrifice, heightened activity, and impulsiveness.13 People work more intensely in well-organized groups. People's experience of beauty changes, depending on whether they are with friends or by themselves. Students often act differently toward teachers depending on whether other students are watching. Also, the common lifestyle of human groups—customs, habits, language, thinking patterns, technique, and art— shapes experiential wholes of higher order. After all, human life occurs along certain "social tracks" (soziale Geleise), as [Richard] Muller-Freienfels puts it. Lived experiences of courtship have varied across different historical periods and cultures, and continue to differ among people from various countries and social classes. Muller-Freienfels correctly observes that people in different life situations play various roles that society expects. How differently the experiences and behavior of the same person—say, a high official—are shaped in the office, in the family circle, or at a social reception (Muller-Freienfels 1930, 18, 225 ff.)!
It is not the investigations of elementary experiences and their laws, but the psychological investigations of experiential wholes of higher order that 335 fully reveal the dependence of lived experiences on mental situation, along with the dependence of mental situation on external factors. I have already mentioned several factors as examples. This is yet another proof of the need for, and benefit of, investigations of such wholes in addition to investigations of elementary experiences.
In conclusion, with this descriptive characterization of experiential wholes of higher order, it would be good to focus on some circumstances emphasized by Dilthey. These wholes and their phases are most often accompanied by a sense of their value and importance for psychic life as a whole. Lived experiences arising from friendship [| 43] are more important than those derived from activities, such as listening to radio broadcasts. However, the evaluation of one's past, present, or future lived experiences does not always remain unchangeable. Perhaps in the future, experiential wholes that were insignificant at the past moment of their experience will,
13 See [Theodor Paul] Erismann's arguments on the psychology of masses in the collective publication already cited (Erismann 1928, 293 ff.; Saupe 1928, 293 ff.).
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in memories, be felt as immensely important in the totality of life. For instance, the first exchange with someone I will eventually marry. When young people write their first verses, they experience unusual tension and feel that these moments have great weight, but as adults they evaluate these lived experiences as insignificant life episodes. The experiences that people anticipate, to which they attach considerable attention and which they desire passionately—will prove to be disproportionate in relation to their expectations, whether exceeding or falling short of what was expected. In general, from the point of view of various experiential wholes of higher order, individual lived experiences may have different values and play various roles in life. The youthful lived experiences of a future novelist, connected with someone of the opposite sex, may prove insignificant for the formation of this novelist's family life. Nevertheless, the same youthful lived experiences, considered from the point of view of the novelist's creative development, may possess considerable vital weight.
As a summary of the above descriptions, I would hold that experiential 336 wholes of higher order are characterized by continuity, even when they consist of phases that are temporally distant from each other. Experiential wholes of higher order are characterized by an intentional directedness toward particular objects, a teleological character, and genetic connections among the lived experiences that compose them. Such wholes depend on fundamental human striving, mental situations, and the extra-mental constellation. Moreover, experiential wholes of higher order usually have distinct coloring, depending on the type of lived experiences that dominate them. Furthermore, experiential wholes of higher order are accompanied by a sense of essentiality and importance for psychic life. I would not exclude the possibility that a closer examination would reveal more properties of experiential wholes of higher order. I am actually inclined to think this is what will happen.14
14 Prof. Roman Ingarden rightly drew my attention to one such view. According to Ingarden, the essential property of lived experiences lies in their connection
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[| 44] § 5. Experiential wholes of higher order constitute the proper domain of research within humanistic psychology. It is humanistic, because it studies the psyche of an individual human being living within humanistic reality— his or her lived experiences in relation to the elements of this reality. I must therefore focus on humanistic reality and its elements.15
The reality studied by the humanities or humanistic reality is identical to natural reality. Humanistic reality is the entire real world, which is considered from a special, anthropocentric viewpoint. The viewpoint consists of the fact that the world concerns the humanities, only insofar as it is humanity itself, human products, the material in which they [i.e., human beings] create, and a more or less direct cause of their history. This special perspective also grants certain components of the real-world privileged position in the humanities. The position consists of the fact that components of the real world interest these sciences for their own sake, not merely because of their connection with something else being at the center of research.16 These components
with a person. The task of humanistic psychology, thus, should be to grasp lived experiences as "discharges" of a person. As follows from the above arguments, I consider experiential wholes of higher order as something artificially isolated from the originally natural psychological whole. This whole constitutes the psychological life of a concrete human being, most closely connected with that person's behavior. However, experiential wholes of higher order can be distinguished against the background of psychological life as separate wholes. Such wholes are much clearer and more distinct than elementary experiences. When examining experiential wholes of higher order isolated for research purposes, one should not forget their connection with the totality of human life. This totality exerts an essential influence on their course.
15	I analyzed in detail the concept of humanistic reality and its components in a lecture entitled "O rzeczywistosci, badanej przez nauki humanistyczne" ["On Reality Studied by the Humanities"] delivered in 1933 at the meeting of the Warsaw Philosophical Society. See the abstract in Ruch Filozoficzny 13 (Blaustein 1935/1937).
16	Earthquakes, climate, sea, and similar phenomena do not possess this privileged position in the humanities. Such phenomena interest the humanities only in terms of their influence on the history of certain human communities, on clothing types, the development of trade, and so forth. The privileging of certain components of the real world does not exclude the study of others that seemingly diverge from human affairs. Such elements may at a certain moment enter the orbit of the humanities. The fact remains that individual human being, as the axis of humanistic reality, constitutes a psychophysical being connected with the world of nature. Dilthey rightly emphasizes in Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften [Introduction to Human Sciences] that the humanities concern facts of nature to a
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are primarily human individuals and their groups. Among human groups, I distinguish unorganized and organized groups. Organized groups include (Berman 1932, 293 ff.): [| 45] (a) societies (such as nations and generations) and (b) institutions as well as social organizations (such as states and political parties). Both types of groups are organized, but the first is organized rather semiconsciously, whereas the latter is organized more consciously. They both possess a certain structure, but the first type of structure emerges naturally from shared properties and experiences. The second type of structure is established in earlier or later developmental phases through durable conventions. Members of the first group act the same way. because they have shared mental lived experiences. The uniform action of members of the second type of group usually results from the deliberate division of individual functions for realizing the entire group's tasks. Both types of human groups contain facts that Dilthey (1922, 83-84 [1989, 132-133]) identified as foundational to societies. The foundational facts are the sense of solidarity arising from common conditions, and the relationship between domination and dependence. However, in groups 338 of the first type, the sense of solidarity comes to the foreground. In groups of the second type, the relationship between domination and dependence is prominent. Second-type groups, with a transparent division of functions, also have more clearly defined leadership structures and corresponding obligations.
Individual human beings and human groups form the very center of humanistic reality and are surrounded by products of the most diverse kinds. Even natural products, which humanity adapts to its needs and transforms into useful objects, can be considered human products. Domesticated animals or agricultural products serve here as examples. To an even greater extent, other utility items are human products. These include machines, tools, equipment, and buildings—for which nature provided only materials and which one usually calls "products of human technology or human civilization."
Another type of human product consists of psychophysical products, to which individual human beings provide the functions of representatives in the psychological sense. Those products are used as the imaginatively reproducing
large extent (Dilthey 1922, 6, 17 [1989, 58, 69]). The humanities are based on the knowledge of nature.
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objects (pictures, sculptures), schemes, symbols, or signs, equipping them with a certain sense or meaning (Blaustein 1930; 1931b, 56, 106 ff.). In this way, people created and preserved The Battle of Raclawice,17 Sir Thaddeus,18 scientific claims, religious dogmas, legal orders, and similar works. Groups of such products include art, literature, science, [| 46] law, religion as a set of dogmas, tradition as a group of nameless statements, and folklore as a set of folk proverbs and legends. They all are included in the group called "human culture."
Among both products, to which humans gave utility object functions and those to which they gave a certain sense or meaning, I find products possessing the property of arousing aesthetic feelings and to which this property was consciously given. However, yet another type of products—those deprived of utility purpose or meaning—is created to satisfy aesthetic needs. Certain arrangements of colors, spatial forms, and sounds belong here, such as those found in certain types of plastic arts or music (Ossowski 1933, 9 f., 17 f., 35 f.).
Human products also include so-called human customs and habits. These include ways of preparing and consuming food, cultivating land, exchanging goods, ceremonies, and entertainment. All these customs constitute types of actions of 339 individual human beings or human groups, often repeated traditionally under specific conditions. These human products can also be combined into groups. Religious ritual or social etiquette, for instance, form groups of such customs.
Previously, I discussed organizations and institutions as collectivities [zbiorowiska] that possess durable, crystallized structures usually established by conventions. These structures also constitute human products. Examples include here democratic state systems, capitalistic economic systems, and hierarchies of administrative authorities.19
Among various human products, I distinguish between individual human beings' products and human groups' products, as well as collective products.
17	[Blaustein refers here to a painting commemorating the winning battle of the Polish army under the leadership of Tadeusz Kosciuszko with Russian forces in Raclawice in 1794. Blaustein could be referring specifically to Jan Matejko's painting from 1888 or a more famous one by Jan Styk and Wlodzimierz Kossak from 1894.]
18	[Blaustein refers here to Adam Mickiewicz's epic poem, Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania.]
19	These structures are the subject matter of sociological research, theory of state, social economics, and related disciplines.
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Individual products include specific technical discoveries, Rafael's paintings, and Shakespeare's dramas. Collective products include customs, folk poetry, and economic structures, as well as all groups of collective products and some groups of individual products. Civilization, science, law, language, art (not only folk art), etiquette, and religious ritual therefore also are collective products.20 [| 47] It is also appropriate to draw attention to the circumstances, in which complexes of products form further complexes, whereby a certain hierarchy emerges. Such a complex is, for instance, civilization, which is a complex of complexes of functional objects, certain customs, and habits. Humanity involves complex human groups. Culture is a complex of such complexes as science, religion, music, etc. Products and their complexes unite into larger complexes on the basis of various points of view. When a chronological point of view is applied, a complex, such as ancient culture, can be obtained. By creating complexes of products according to their individual or collective creators, one can obtain complexes, such as the creativity of Mickiewicz or Dutch painting. Creating them according to kinds, one shall obtain 340 complexes, such as civil law or mathematics. Products of certain or different kinds with certain common properties also form further groups. Thus, for instance, Gothic style is a common property of works of Gothic architecture. Romanticism, understood as a group of products, involves products unified by certain common properties, such as poetry, painting, music, and philosophy.21 One might object that events are also elements of humanistic reality, in addition to individuals, groups of individuals, products, and their groups. However, events are processes that take place on the basis of objects mentioned
20	Among collective products, [Adolf] Berman aptly distinguishes two further groups: 1) those that constitute the conscious and purposeful product of collective actions, such as statutes, 2) groups that are expressions of common psychological contents. These result from mutual influences of community members on each other, but not from organized actions. Examples here are as follows: customs, folk poetry, linguistic forms, and similar phenomena (Berman 1932, 301).
21	By considering various viewpoints simultaneously, one may be able to examine such a formation as medieval Polish literature. As Dilthey emphasizes, the scope of various ensembles varies. The scope of languages or customs remains rather regional. In contrast, art, ethics, and especially science spread throughout the world. They are not limited by the state borders or religious nations (Dilthey 1922, 72-76 [1989, 121-125]).
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above as privileged components of this reality. These kinds of events include the behavior and actions of individual human beings and human groups. Among them is such behavior and action whose result is the product, change, or disappearance of certain products or their groups. Events also form groups. Revolution, war, educational reform, development, decline, flourishing of economic systems, and religious movements present examples of groups of events. Humanistic reality is described by the humanities (especially historical reality) as a tangle of events when considered from a dynamic viewpoint. The humanities describe humanistic reality as a tangle of processes taking place on the emerging, changing, and disappearing components of this reality.22
[| 48] § 6. The individual human being lives in humanistic reality and relates to its components. Individual human beings relate to themselves and other people, their various groups, various products, and sets of products. Additionally, individual human beings relate to processes as well as to groups of processes. In this context, experiential wholes of higher order appear within psychic life. These wholes include lived experiences, which are the cause of 341 created products, connected with receptive attitudes toward them; they are the basis of permanent and non-permanent social relationships, and other types of lived experiences. Experiential wholes of higher order are the primary subject matter of humanistic psychology.
Conversely, non-humanistic psychology is practiced when studying (a) lived experiences in relation to the elements of everyday world, which are not captured as components of the humanistic world, but because of their physical, chemical, or quantitative relationships (Spranger 1926, 177), or (b) generally in abstraction from their object correlates, appearing in these investigations completely anonymously. Thus, Wundt-style studies concerning sensory impressions or Brentano's theory of presentations [understood] as the psychological basis of other lived experiences do not belong to [the field of] humanistic psychology. Psychological studies that examine scientific or artistic creativity, play, discipline, patriotism, readership, cinema viewing, and similar
22 Alongside the dynamic viewpoint, one uses static and typological approaches within the humanities (Blaustein 1935/37).
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topics are part of humanistic psychology. In humanistic psychology, one deals with the integration of lived experiences, with their experiential wholes of higher order. In non-humanistic psychology, lived experiences are studied first and foremost in isolation from other lived experiences.23 Humanistic psychology does not aim at studying the laws of dependence of psychic lived experiences upon physical stimuli. Nor does it study the regular connections of elementary experiences that are common to everyone, regardless of their characterological properties and the environment in which they live. However, humanistic psychology includes studies of lived experiences in relation to human physiological properties, if the discovery of connections between psychic life and bodily constitution sheds light on experiential wholes of higher order. The studies of [Ernst] Kretschmer or [Claude] Sigaud shed more light on this [issue], while Spranger's position strikes me as incorrect. After all, according to studies by Kretschmer or Sigaud, bodily structure has an impact on creative and receptive inclinations, dispositions, and ways of relating to [| 49] others. Therefore, bodily structure has an impact on experiential wholes of 342 higher order, as they are examined by humanistic psychology.
Both humanistic and non-humanistic psychology share a common focus: human psychic life. However, the simplicity or complexity of lived experiences results in the multilayered character of psychological problems. These factors enable one to investigate psychic life at various "levels" ["poziomach"]. Because lived experiences connect both to physical stimuli and to important elements of humanistic reality, they can be studied from multiple viewpoints. In this way, humanistic psychology may emerge as an autonomous discipline of psychology or an autonomous research program. It would benefit abundantly from the results of other disciplines and support them generously with its own results. A complete understanding of psychic life can be achieved only through multi-perspectival analysis.
23 Nonetheless, given that non-humanistic psychology sometimes adopts non-atomizing and holistic methods, a reference to isolation may be insufficient to distinguish humanistic and non-humanistic psychology.
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§ 7. It is insufficient to determine the actual tasks ofhumanistic psychology24 by simply defining experiential wholes of higher order—whose object correlates are components of the humanistic world—as the proper domain of research. Several important questions arise here. Does humanistic psychology study experiential wholes of higher order in their typical forms that are common to all people? Or does it focus on forms that are common to people with specific characteristics— certain professions, temperaments, education levels, genders, and in particular developmental phases? Theories thus far and scientific practices have resolved this dilemma by acknowledging that humanistic psychology considers and should consider all the mentioned perspectives.25 The first perspective raises the most doubts. Is it possible to study experiential wholes of higher order in the form, in which they occur in a "typical human being"—as Dilthey puts it?26 I believe that humanistic psychology must understand the term "typical human being" differently than non-humanistic psychology does. When studying laws governing elementary experiences or the connection of lived experiences with physical stimuli, the psychologist states that facts occur in principle in all people, regardless [| 50] of the characterological differences that exist between them. The 343 case differs from experiential wholes of higher order that relate to the elements of the humanistic world. Individual differences between people cannot be ignored, since those differences play a significant role in the formation of experiential wholes of higher order. One cannot, for instance, describe the psychology of a cinemagoer, without indicating that it concerns a person with a typical lifestyle. Film shows that are viewed for the first time by uncivilized [niecywilizowane] people, evoke entirely different reactions. Thus, humanistic psychology sets aside only more subtle differences, such as education level, gender, and disposition, and understands by the term "typical human being" an adult civilized human
24	The research field in humanistic psychology obviously includes, alongside given experiential wholes of higher order, corresponding psychological dispositions, such as patriotism, religiosity, laziness, discipline, etc.
25	See, for example, chapters 8 and 9 of Dilthey's Ideen über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie [Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology] (Dilthey 1894 [1977, 94-117]).
26	Regarding descriptive and analytic psychology, Dilthey notes: "Sie stellt diesen Zusammenhang des inneren Lebens in einem typischen Menschen dar" ["It describes this nexus of the inner life of a typical man."] (Dilthey 1894, 152 [1977, 35].)
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being. These differences constitute the research field in differential [rozniczkowa] and developmental humanistic psychology. As examples of topics in these specialized fields, one can refer to the psychology of women's relationship with politics or the psychology of self-assessment in adolescence.
One might ask whether humanistic psychology studies the specific way of manifestation of experiential wholes of higher order in a concrete human being, against the background of his or her individual personality? One might also wonder whether phenomena, such as Goethe's drawing creativity in childhood, Mickiewicz's self-assessment, or Napoleon's relationship with women, belong to humanistic psychology? I believe that the answer to these questions must be negative. All of the problems mentioned above belong to particular disciplines of the humanities. Their development should benefit from the achievements of humanistic psychology concerning children's drawing creativity in general, self-evaluations in human beings generally or among eminent people, and similar topics. Conversely, the psychology of poetic creativity can benefit from in-depth examinations of creativity in Goethe, Mickiewicz, and other poets, drawing on 344 these individual cases as inductive material for psychological generalizations.27
[| 51] § 8. Humanistic psychology does not study all experiential wholes of higher order that refer to humanistic reality components, but only
27 Referring to the arguments in § 4, Prof. [Juliusz] Kleiner rightly drew my attention to an important fact. By studying experiential wholes with discontinuous phases, psychology approaches the literary image of the human soul. According to Prof. Kleiner, this fact reveals something significant. Contrary to widespread beliefs, science created a preparation [preparat] of reality, while art was closer to truth. However, I believe that the difference between a humanistic psychologist and a poet remains significant. The same applies to the difference with a connoisseur of people. A connoisseur of people can understand others intuitively. This understanding extends to those with whom connoisseur deals directly or indirectly through people's publications or publications written about those people. If connoisseur is a poet, he or she additionally possesses the gift of subjective expression. In poetry, the poet expresses lived experienced and imagined psychological experiences. The poet also possesses the ability to poetically shape fictional or dramatic characters. These characters possess a clear psychological profile and rich psychological life. A psychologist, on the other hand, can be called only a person who formulates general truths concerning the human psyche or the psyche of certain types of people. Furthermore, these observations must be based on constantly controlled scientific methods (Blaustein 1932).
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those experiential wholes that are particularly interesting to humanistic disciplines, for which humanistic psychology serves as an auxiliary science. Thus, humanistic psychology focuses on phenomena relevant to pedagogy, political history, cultural history, and similar fields. From this perspective, the psychology of religious or artistic creativity, the psychology of governing people or learning are particularly interesting for humanistic psychology. Humanistic psychology is not in a different position than other disciplines of the humanities, since disciplines, such as historical disciplines, basically make selections of people, products, and events, to which they pay special attention.
Humanistic psychology serves as an auxiliary science of various disciplines of the humanities. It provides the key to understanding humanistic reality and mainly its central axis—the human being. Within the humanities, one is interested in concrete human beings and their relationships with certain products, with other people, and their creative processes. Conversely, humanistic psychology provides the humanities with the basis for understanding concrete human beings. It explains, for instance, what the relationships of humans in general or humans of certain types to others depend on. This field of psychology 345 describes people's relationships with their own or the others' products, and examines how individual human beings depend on their environment, along with similar matters. The idea of humanistic psychology arose from the need to establish psychological foundations for the humanities, and its historical development reflects this originating purpose that was a priori ascribed to it.
Humanistic psychology serves as a key to understanding, not only individual human beings, but also human groups and their products. I believe, however, that the psychology of human groups and products is essentially the psychology of individual human beings. When I study, in a psychological manner, human groups, I examine the common properties of their members, the lived experiences commonly shared by them, and the influence of individuals on the group and the group on individuals. But the proper research field is always the individual psyche. This includes its formation in a mass and arranged collective, its kinship with other group members, and not some mystical collective psyche. The situation is similar here to the psychology of products. Humanistic psychology is not concerned with analyzing and interpreting products, which are of interest within the theory and history of literature, art,
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customs, the state, [| 52] and similar fields. However, humanistic psychology provides a psychological foundation for investigations carried out in those fields. Humanistic psychology studies the processes of creativity, receptivity, the manifestation of common lived experiences of human group members in more or less consciously created works, and related phenomena. Similarly, the psychology of human groups provides the humanities (addressing human groups) with general claims. For instance, the psychology of human groups provides claims that concern the typology of leaders and their influence on organized and unorganized groups, the emergence and spreading of mental epidemics, factors that integrate or destroy group cohesion, and similar matters. On the basis of general claims, the psychology of human groups enables one to understand concrete historical events, the influence of certain historical figures on their societies, the development of certain religious or political currents, as well as the flourishing and declining of certain institutions and social organizations. Finally, it should be noted that humanistic psychology can play not only the role of auxiliary science in relation to other disciplines 346 of the humanities, but also with regard to praxeology in Kotarbinski's sense (Kotarbinski 1929, 452 ff. [1966, 375 ff.]). Praxeology is based on purposeful work aimed at shaping reality. Pedagogical psychology, in some parts, can serve as an example of a part of humanistic psychology that functions as a praxeology in this very sense (Baley 1933, 309; Blachowski 1933).
§ 9. The preceding analysis, intended to explain the tasks of humanistic psychology, requires some additional remarks. The task of a scientific discipline is to study its field from certain viewpoints, and according to certain methods. I must, therefore, emphasize a few remarks about the methods of humanistic psychology. Among the representatives of humanistic psychology, there is a widespread belief that humanistic psychology is understanding [rozumiejqca] psychology, i.e., it is characterized by a specific method: so-called understanding.28 This position does not seem correct to me. Humanistic
28 Understanding can be understood differently, yet this issue would exceed the scope of the present essay. For this reason, I assume that there exists understanding of oneself, other people, and products as a scientific method, without examining here the question of whether these are different methods or variations of one method.
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psychology can and should use all methods that can contribute to our knowledge [| 53] of the objects under consideration. Thus, introspective and retrospective descriptions, psychological analysis, understanding of oneself and other people, [understanding of] products, interpretation of products, experiments, observational studies of behavior, questionnaires, statistical methods, and comparative methods can be utilized by humanistic psychology. Thus, both methods based on so-called insight (einsichtige Methoden)29 as well as inductive methods can fulfill this task (Erismann 1924). Müller-Freienfels emphasized that humanistic psychology in Dilthey's and Spranger's approach is the most distant from the objective attitude among all subjective approaches within psychology. Its proponents stress the fundamental differences in both methods as well as results, and they avoid any connection with the findings of objective psychological approaches (Müller-Freienfels 1929, 125). The present study adopts a different attitude. The difference between humanistic and non-humanistic psychology lies in the problem setting. This difference lies rather in the dimensions and viewpoints, from which psychic life is considered within the two psychological schools, and not in different research 347 methods. There is no good reason to reject any method that can contribute to solving the issues that humanistic psychology sets for itself. And thus, when studying lived experiences connected with creative painting, behavioral observation is useful; when the psychology of theatergoers is studied, statistical methods are appropriate; when examining self-assessment, questionnaires are the right choice; when investigating children's musical sensitivity, one should use experiments. Conversely, it seems correct to say that, because humanistic psychology examines experiential wholes of higher order that are intentionally directed at humanistic reality and its components, humanistic psychology's predominant methods include inner experience (introspection
29 This approach is justified also in light of, as I believe, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz's view on the division of sciences ("Logiczne podstawy nauczania" ["Logical Foundations of Teaching"] (Ajdukiewicz 1934, 51 f.). According to Ajdukiewicz, the humanities are disciplines that employ three types of ultimate premises. These are directly a priori claims, claims directly based on experience, and claims directly based on understanding certain statements. Humanistic psychology, as one of the humanities, is therefore not based exclusively on understanding.
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and retrospection), description and psychological analysis, understanding of oneself, other people, and their products.
When Spranger describes the methods of humanistic psychology, he claims that there exists a priori knowledge about [| 54] what can coexist simultaneously in a certain person and what cannot. This view is somewhat accurate. "[D]as wichtigste Apriori des Verstehens"—is, according to Spranger—"in dem Wissen um die mögliche Koordination und Subordination der geistigen Grundakte" (Spranger 1918, 391).30 I do not share Spranger's view that knowledge of the possible coordination and subordination of the basic psychic acts concerns a priori certain knowledge. However, I believe that accurate generalizations based on the introspection and understanding of others play a significant role in humanistic psychology. An example of such a generalization is the question of which lived experiences or mental dispositions can coexist in the same person and which cannot. Notably, inner experience provides a more valuable means of understanding experiential wholes of higher order than does studying elementary experiences, which are harder to access through introspection.
348 According to [Hans] Driesch, understanding psychology is not psychology, but rather a preparatory tool that enables one to collect rough material for further studies. In terms of value, it equals descriptive biology—for example, anatomy—, at best, it can be considered systematic biology (namely, characterology) (Driesch 1929, 124-125). I do not know whether Driesch would also apply his view to humanistic psychology, which employs all methods. I do not contradict Driesch's position. However, whether humanistic psychology can be considered characterology does not affect its methodological validity, provided that the results of humanistic psychology are accurate and useful for the humanities and for understanding the human psyche.
§ 10. In these investigations, I have relied on many points related to the views of humanistic psychology's main creators—Dilthey and Spranger. Already in the course of preceding examinations, certain differences were noted, including the case of methods or the case of studying connections between psychic life
30 ["[T]he most important a priori of understanding [lies] in the knowledge of the possible coordination and subordination of the basic psychic acts."]
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and bodily constitution. However, the most important differences are rooted in the desire to avoid certain concepts usually used in the theoretical field of humanistic psychology. For instance, Spranger's humanistic psychology is permeated with the theory of objective spirit. It is burdened—as Karl Bühler emphasized—with the sin of accepting causal relationships between ideal and real objects (Bühler 1926, 513). The objective-spiritual world is built— according to Spranger—from supra-individual theoretical content meanings (Bedeutungsgehalte). These must constantly actualize anew in subjective lived experiences of understanding (Verständniserlebnisse). Through these actualizations, [| 55] as Spranger writes,
[...] erhalten sie den Charakter von geistigen Wirkungszusammenhängen und werden somit zu historischen Wirklichkeiten, die in der Mitte zwischen den überindividuellen ewigen Ideen und den individuellen zeitlichen Subjekten stehen. Sie bestimmen die einzelseelischen Strukturen, in die sie hineingreifen, und motivieren ihr geistiges Verhalten dadurch, dass Bedeutungen subjektiv adäquat und inadäquat verstanden und Werte zu subjektiv erlebten Triebkräften	349
werden. (Spranger 1926, 186.)31
Without going into ontological disputes about whether such claims as just quoted can be justified at all, I believe that psychology will proceed properly by not burdening its research and considerations with such assumptions. Similarly, I have above avoided the distinctions between soul and spirit (seelisches und geistiges Subjekt, seelische und geistige Akte [soulful and spiritual subject, soulful and spiritual acts]) (Spranger 1918, 371; 1926, 183) and the concept of supra-individual subjects (Spranger 1918, 293). I am convinced that they are by no means indispensable for humanistic psychology. The above concepts were eliminated here because of the danger of introducing harmful
31 ["[T]hey obtain the character of spiritual effect connections and thus become historical realities, which stand in the middle between the supra-individual eternal ideas and the individual temporal subjects. They determine the individual spiritual structures, into which they intervene, and motivate their spiritual behavior by the fact that meanings are subjectively adequately and inadequately understood and values become subjectively experienced driving powers."]
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and unnecessary hypostases. In contrast, basic concepts of German humanistic psychology—such as sense or value—are avoided rather because of their unclarity (Sztejnbarg 1933, 94-98). I do not rule out that after numerous and difficult semantic analyses, it would be possible to introduce, for example, the term "sense" for academic usage and that it should be done. However, I believe that tasks of humanistic psychology can be defined without using this term.
§ 11. To conclude, the originally natural psychological whole is the stream of consciousness, the psychic life of an individual human being. When I examine psychic life, in order to notice further relatively natural wholes, I encounter, among others, experiential wholes of higher order. Experiential wholes of higher order are partial causes of creating psychophysical products or complete causes of creating psychic products. Such experiential wholes are connected with receptive attitudes toward certain products or groups of products, with durable or non-durable social relationships, with human relationships with groups of people, and similar phenomena. Experiential wholes of higher order 350 are characterized, among other things, by continuity, even if they consist of temporally distant phases. Such wholes are characterized by intentional reference to certain objects, [| 56] teleological character, genetic connections of constituent lived experiences, dependence on basic human tendencies, mental situations, and non-mental constellations. Experiential wholes of higher order usually possess clear [emotional] coloring, depending on the types of lived experiences that dominate them. When one experiences such wholes, one is also accompanied by a sense of importance and awareness of their significance in one's own psychic life. The described experiential wholes of higher order remain closely dependent on the totality of someone's psychic life, forming integral parts of that larger whole.
Experiential wholes of higher order, whose object correlates are components of humanistic reality, constitute the proper research field of humanistic psychology. This psychology is "humanistic," precisely because it studies the psyche of individual human beings who exist within humanistic reality. Humanistic psychology examines lived experiences arising against the background of people's relationship to the elements of humanistic reality—that is, to the self, others, groups of people, and various human products as well as
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groups of these products—, to processes that affect them, and to groups of these processes. Conversely, I apply non-humanistic psychology, when I would like to study lived experiences in relation to elements of the surrounding world that are not grasped as components of the humanistic world, but are instead considered for their physical, chemical, or quantitative relationships, or generally examined in abstraction from object correlates. In non-humanistic psychology, lived experiences appear completely anonymous. The common research area—human psychic life—connects both types of psychology despite the variety of viewpoints, from which psychic life is considered. Humanistic psychology and non-humanistic psychology complement and mutually condition one another.
General humanistic psychology examines experiential wholes of higher order in their typical form, characteristic of all adults, civilized people, whereas differential psychology examines experiential wholes of higher order in the form of people of a certain defined character, a certain gender, etc. Finally, developmental psychology examines such wholes in their characteristic shape taken during specific developmental phases. It is not, however, the task 351 of humanistic psychology to study the specific way of manifestation of the experiential wholes of higher order in a concrete historical person against the background of his or her personality. Humanistic psychology does not actually study all experiential wholes of higher order that are related to components of humanistic reality, but rather it focuses on those, which are particularly interesting to various disciplines of the humanities, for which humanistic psychology serves as an auxiliary discipline. Humanistic psychology plays the role of an auxiliary science by providing general propositions concerning the psyche of the human individual, its various types, its development, its lived experiences against the background of group life, [| 57] processes of creativity, receptivity, etc., in relation to products. Such knowledge facilitates the psychological understanding of the subject matter of the humanities.
Humanistic psychology uses all methods known to psychology. Thus, it uses mainly intra- and retrospective descriptions, psychological analysis, self-understanding, understanding of others, understanding of products, and interpretation of products. It also uses experiments, observations of behavior, questionnaires, statistical methods, etc. It does not abandon any method
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352
that can facilitate knowledge of the subject matter. Among other things, very probable generalizations concerning what lived experiences and mental dispositions can coexist side by side, and which cannot, play a significant role in humanistic psychology.
The above approach to the tasks of humanistic psychology is based on numerous points of its classical representatives, i.e., Dilthey and Spranger. It diverges in many others. This difference is motivated by the premise that one should avoid certain ambiguous concepts or concepts loaded with metaphysical assumptions.
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REVIJA ZA FENOMENOLOGIJO IN HERMENEVTIKO JOURNAL OF PHENOMENOLOGY AND HERMENEUTICS
Phainomena 34 | 132-133 | June 2025 Transitions | Prehajanja
Dean Komel | Paulina Sosnowska | Jaroslava Vydrovâ | David-Augustin Mândrut | Manca Erzetic | Dragan Prole | Mindaugas Briedis | Irakli Batiashvili | Dragan Jakovljevic | Johannes Vorlaufer | Petar Segedin | Zeljko Radinkovic | René Dentz | Malwina Rolka | Mimoza Hasani Pllana | Audran Aulanier | Robert Gugutzer | Damir Smiljanic | Silvia Dadà
Phainomena 33 | 130-131 | November 2024
Human Existence and Coexistence in the Epoch of Nihilism
Damir Barbaric | Jon Stewart | Cathrin Nielsen | Ilia Inishev | Petar Bojanic | Holger Zaborowski | Dragan D. Prole | Susanna Lindberg | Jeff Malpas | Azelarabe Lahkim Bennani | Josef Estermann | Chung-Chi Yu | Alfredo Rocha de la Torre | Jesús Adrián Escudero | Veronica Neri | Žarko Paic | Werner Stegmaier | Adriano Fabris | Dean Komel
Phainomena 33 j 128-129 j June 2024 Marcations j Zaznačbe
Mindaugas Briedis j Irfan Muhammad j Bence Peter Marosan j Sazan Kryeziu j Petar Šegedin j Johannes Vorlaufer j Manca Erzetič j David-Augustin Mândrut j René Dentz j Olena Budnyk j Maxim D. Miroshnichenko j Luka Hrovat j Tonči Valentic j Dean Komel j Bernhard Waldenfels j Damir Barbaric
INSTITUTE NOVA REVIJA FOR THE HUMANITIES
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PHENOMENOLOGCAL SOOTY OF LJUBLJANA
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