Vladimir Ledin. Comparing Paradigms of the School of Humanitarian Socionics and the School of Systems Socionics

September 21, 2006 12:00 amCategories: Methodology and Philosophy

Content:

1. Notes:

Before turning to the actual comparison itself, I think it is worth briefly explaining what and why it will be compared.

The concept of paradigm in its modern interpretation introduced Thomas Coon into the philosophy of science in his work “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (1962). Initially, this concept had some duality - a paradigm is a certain set of samples of problem statement and their solution (not only at the level “how to formulate”, but also at the level that will be considered as a problem at all and what its solution is). At the same time, a paradigm is some general set of methods for evaluating a theory that help a researcher to understand what is good and what is bad in this science - a hypothesis that coincides with the general direction of the development of the discipline within this paradigm is good, but the hypothesis which contradicts the generally accepted canons, it is better to reformulate or postpone until better times.

The answer to the question of why to compare different paradigms is generally understandable from the very meaning of this concept - once a paradigm directly determines the form of research and is mediated by their results, it is simply incorrect to try to compare the results of the work of researchers working within different paradigms without correcting for this difference.

Therefore, it is necessary to compare paradigms, first of all, in order to create the possibility of establishing a full-fledged dialogue between different directions, because if you try to compare different theories, and even more concrete results of research, then it will quickly turn out that representatives of different paradigms completely differently argue their conclusions, and evidence that one side perceives as an absolutely compelling iron argument, the other side can perceive as a thesis in itself needing proof, or even voo slit not perceive. As a rule, such discussions become protracted and often end simply by blaming each other for not knowing the basics.

I also want to note that such problems are not at all something unique and characteristic exclusively for socionics, but rather exactly the opposite - absolutely all sciences inevitably go through a similar process in the process of formation (the philosophy of science called this problem translation).

Turning directly to the comparison of paradigms, I want to say that two main comparison spaces can be distinguished - ontological, which determines the difference in the entities used (for example, how the socionic type interpretation in humanitarian socionics differs from the interpretation of the same concept in system socionics) and epistemological, which determines the difference in methods of knowledge. I will also say right away that as a material for analysis I took mainly published information and my observations on the real work of school representatives, so it is quite possible that some moments, perhaps even the most important, were left out of my attention, since they refer to the inaccessible to me implicit knowledge.

In terms of ontology, the most basic entity, around which everything else already accumulates, is the object of study and I must say that the difference between schools is already at this level and even forms the basis for the names of directions - in humanitarian socionics the object of the study is a person and a group of people. in system socionics, it is easy to guess, respectively, the system and the group of systems. With this approach, it immediately catches the eye that a person is a special case of the system, and therefore all the properties that characterize the system as a whole can be transferred to a person, but the opposite is not true (as Captain Vrungel used to say: “Each herring is a fish, but not every fish - herring "). Accordingly, if we narrow down the subject of system socionics only to humans, then after making all the refinements and corrections, we will get somethingvery similar to the theory of humanitarian socionics and vice versa - having idealized a person in the humanitarian socionics to a system, we will get something very similar to system socionics at the output (in any case, it happened with me).

Already on the basis of this fact, many differences in theories can be explained. For example, it is well known that one of the most important theories of humanitarian socionics is the theory of socionic temperaments, while system socionics temperaments are not recognized, but not in the sense that their existence is denied, and that they are related to socionics (in other words - temperaments separately, socionics separately). The explanation of this difference is extremely simple - a person always has a temperament, but an abstract system does not have to. I can also give another example - at one time I had a rather long discussion with the representatives of system socionics on whether the seventh function is problematic or not. I was told that it was not a problem one, but I defended the point of view that, nevertheless, not everything is so good ... In the end, when I nevertheless managed to show that it was I who considered evidence of problematic issues, the answer made me think seriously. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact wording now, but its essence was that what I am saying is not a problem, it’sfeatures of the function . That is, “systems have no problems,” problems arise in a real person.

I will allow myself to make a small comment on these examples, in order to explain why I actually consider them so important - after all, these two points of view do not objectively contradict each other, and the problem can really be called just a feature of the function. But the researcher is not an object, he is always a subject, and therefore his opinion is always more or less, but subjective. And it is precisely these hardly noticeable differences in interpretations of concepts and shifts of emphasis in the perception of reality and sum up the differences in paradigms. And depending on how we perceive and interpret the information we have about reality, we determine in which direction to develop the theory (“what do you call a yacht - so it will float”). For example, if we consider this or that function as a problem, then a number of questions automatically arise - what exactly will we consider as a criterion of problematicness, what exactly will it manifest, whether this problematicness will always and in everything or only in some issues (and which ones), how can we construct our activity so that This problem did not interfere with et cetera, et cetera ... But if we consider the function not as problematic, but simply having a number of features that partially coincide, but partially differ from the features of other functions, then most likely similar issues before E just will not occur and the study goes in the other direction, where, in turn, is also important questions can arise completely, the occurrence of which in the first approach is unlikely...

The same fundamental ontological difference, in my opinion, is connected with the difference in views on the intratype variation - recognition of it or denial (taking it out of socionics). As is known, intratype variability is related to the fact that the carrier of a type (remember, in humanitarian socionics is a person or a group of people, in a systemic system or a group of systems), develops in conditions that are not ideal for themselves and have to develop skills that do not fully correspond to theoretical ones. However, if for a person the real conditions of his life are always not ideal (and, therefore, intratype variation cannot but arise), then the system, as a rule, functions in conditions that are normal for oneself, just the concept of a norm for it includes all the conditions which it can function in principle ². Thus, if in system socionics the type is “normalized” (the concept was introduced by V. D. Ermak), then in humanitarian it is rather “realized”.

An important consequence of this basic ontological difference is the difference in the socionic diagnosis or identification methodology. Here I will allow myself to make a small digression and remind you of the essence and purpose of the diagnosis. It can be said that the purpose of diagnosis is to define a socionic type, but if you think about it, it’s just a name, a convenient label, which we denote the essence of interest to us, namely the specific nature of the interaction of this psyche with information. However, the information is thin and not perceived directly by the senses and we can only guess how it is processed by the psyche ... And, actually, the difference in the principles and methods of such "guessing" is the difference between the directions I would like to draw your attention to. . the result of information processing. However, when we are dealing not with an abstract system, but with a specific person, then we can use the principle of synchronicity of the mental and the physical (Jung wrote a lot about this phenomenon) and observe not only the result, but also the manifestations of the information processing process itself , and this is emphasized by the school of humanitarian socionics (as it is one of the main reasons why humanitarian socionics pays such special attention to the study of functional states).

This, in turn, results in another rather interesting distinction regarding the interpretation of the model. The fact is that in socionics information processing is modeled as the interaction of the information aspect with the mental function of a model that occupies a certain position. Thus, we have a triad “aspect-position-function”. And if we are primarily interested in the result of processing and, consequently, the aspect structure of the information flow, then in this triad the main focus shifts to the “aspect-position” bundle (and the functions are implicit, implicit), but if we are interested in the processing and , respectively, the work of the functions, the emphasis is shifted in the other direction to a bunch of "position-function" (and aspects are implied).

In my opinion, these are the main ontological differences between these directions. From the epistemological point of view, unfortunately, it was not possible to find some basic difference from which all the others could be inferred. Therefore, I will simply list them and describe them.

The first difference lies in the very nature of the construction of socionic theory. In system socionics, the theory begins with the fact that a number of some basic assumptions are postulated, from which everything else is logically derived. Thus, the theory can be presented as a kind of rigid theoretical framework, development - as a gradual, systematic strengthening and growth of this framework. At the same humanitarian socionics theory kernel is not axiomatic, but hypothetical, that is, to describe socionical reality puts forward a number of hypotheses which may not fully correspond to reality, but as long as they adequately describe this reality, they are used, and if they begin to contradict the vehicle function thatin reality, these hypotheses are refined, reformulated, perhaps even discarded as erroneous. That is, in other words, it can be said that in system socionics the development of socionics is rather a quantitative increase in knowledge (with relative constancy of quality), and in humanitarian socionics, development is a qualitative transformation of knowledge (with relative constancy of quantity).

The other side of this difference concerns the structure of the socionic type model. In system socionics, as is known, the model is, by and large, one, but it models the entire type - all essential qualities that a TIM has should have its own mapping in model A (the model is single and complex, but the best). In humanitarian socionics, there are a lot of non-contradictory, complementary models, the dignity of the model is no longer complexity, but rather its simplicity, the model should reflect some kind ofthe side of the sociotype, and the other side is quite possible to display its model. For example, if we are interested in the sociotype, so to speak, from the inside, from the point of view of ourselves, then we can take the classical positional-functional model, if we are interested in the sociotype from the outside, from the point of view of other sociotypes, then it is much more convenient to use the attribute model ...

And the last contrast difference in paradigms, which I would like to say today, is the difference in the emphasis placed in the relationship between theory and reality. System socionics, from my point of view, goes from theory to reality, that is, we initially have a theory that describes a certain side of reality and the task of the researcher is to find this side and relate it to theory. Humanitarian socionics, on the contrary, goes from reality to theory - there is a certain aspect of reality that we study and the task of the researcher is to find an adequate theory to describe it and relate it to reality.

Notes:

1. I want to note that when the turn came to my report at the conference, there was almost no time left and I was initially placed in a much closer timeframe than was provided for by the regulations, as a result of which I was somewhat reduced my report and omitted . This text is a complete, not abridged version of the report.
2. It is noteworthy that when system socionics takes a person as an object of study, then intratype variation appears in her as well, but either as a “distortion of the TIM of the psyche” (i.e. something negative), or as a “concrete filling of the model with information”, studying which goes beyond socionics. In humanitarian socionics, intratype diversity is completely natural and normal (  each person has (they cannot but have) a subtype, a certain pattern of behavior, etc.) and is modeled using the socionic toolkit.