Will there be germs of dissent? Principles of socionic methodology
V. Gulenko. Will there be germs of dissent? Principles of socionic methodology
Socionics came to the line when it was necessary to formulate its methodology. In terms of methodology, socionics relies, it would seem, on virtually the same methods as any of the traditional sciences of the socio-humanitarian class. However, in each of the general scientific principles, it brings to the fore such features that not only set off its image, but lay the framework for an entirely new scientific-cognitive style. The methodology of socionic research the farther, the more enters into competition with the methods of the scientific paradigm that now prevails, fixed by a long-standing tradition. In this regard, socionics is an example of dissent. Sadly, the fact remains that socionics is perceived by academic scientists as a dissident who is not worthy of joining the family of sciences of the end of the 20th century. We agree to consider that the following sections are necessarily present in the composition of more or less complete scientific theories: the structure of the subject of study, the laws of its functioning, the classification of varieties of the subject of study, its genesis and development. In order to give a general idea, I will list the principles of socionic methodology point by point, and then I will consider each of them separately. Socionics, from my point of view, is based on four principles, which form its specificity in each of the above theoretical sections. Here is how I would formulate them briefly: and then consider each of them separately.
- even structure,
- interactive functionalism,
- common end-to-end typology
- equifinality of evolution.
1. Even structure.
Socionics begins its analysis with dichotomies. The elementary structure is the division of the whole into two opposite poles. Plus there is no minus. Whatever the statement, you can always respond to it in no less than two ways - agree or challenge. Say "yes" or say "no." One of the favorite methods of socionic analysis is tetratomy., or the selection of the structure of the four components. Tetratoma is nothing more than the intersection of two dichotomies. In addition to the categorical "yes" and "no" appears "yes and no", as well as "no and yes." Tetratomy as a high-tech method of analysis is gradually gaining a position in qualitative theories. The theory of personality types in Akoff and Emery [5] is built in full accordance with this technology. They describe four types of adaptation to the environment: an objective external sheet, an objective internalist, a subjective externalist and a subjective internalist. It is based on two dichotomies: impact on the environment and sensitivity to the environment. Another example of tetratome. In R. Dawkins in the book "Egoistic Gene" [6] describes the psychological game "The Paradox of Prisoners." It represents a choice of one of four options - combinations of dichotomous strategies of two players: 1) mutual cooperation, 2) mutual refusal, 3) the first cooperates, the second refuses and 4) the first refuses, the second cooperates. American psychologists J. Thibault and G. Kelly relied on this scheme in their studies of communication in a dyad. Although in quantitative disciplines one cannot do without qualitative theories. It is impossible to imagine mathematics without a Cartesian system of rectangular coordinates dividing a plane into four quarters.
These quarters are formed by two dichotomies, the poles of which are marked plus and minus. The plane, therefore, is divided into four coordinate angles: ++, ±, -, ±.
At one time, Jung fought for quaternary (quaternity) [3]. The sciences of the past are most often based on the threefold principle. This is the dominant style in science, exploring incomplete, non-equilibrium processes. Stable structures are strictly symmetric, balanced. Therefore, the number of their structural units is necessarily even.
Here are some examples of oddness. The long-standing psychological triad of umchuvstva-will. Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis. D. Bell's pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial society. Three communicative positions in transactional analysis: parent, child, adult. Three channels in neuro-linguistic programming: visual, auditory, kinesthetic.
Socionics has to replenish ternary structures to fourfold. The psychological triad lacks the “imagination” component. Hegel missed antisynthesis. D. Bell did not include a transitional society in his scheme. In the transactional analysis there is no communicative position “old man”. Neuro-linguistic programmers are not counted as with a separate fourth channel signal exchange - emotionality.
Practice shows that quaternary has an internal asymmetry. The fourth member of the tetratome is pushed out, it turns out to be semi-inclusive in the structure. Due to this, the system acquires the ability to control its dynamics: to go out of balance, removing the floating term, or to restore homeostasis, returning it.
The formula of such a structure with adjustable parity: 3 + 1.
2. Interactive functionalism
Interactive means acting in a mode of free dialogue, exchange of communicative positions. Conventional functionalism implies a given, one-sided relationship between two variables. Therefore, it is also called role-playing.
Interpretation of function as a role is very common in social and humanitarian disciplines. Dictionary [9, p. 543] gives the following interpretation of the concept “function”: duty, range of activities, purpose, role. In all these synonyms, there is a common denominator - vectoriality, positionality, separation into cause and effect.
In the framework of the same interpretation lies the mathematical concept of a function. A mathematical function is a relationship between variables, when a change in one of them unambiguously corresponds to a change in another: y = f (x). And here there is an unequivocal vector orientation, the cause of cause and effect. An example from the field of philosophical sciences. The philosophy of pragmatism considers thinking as a function of practical action. The function is embedded in the meaning of subordination, instrumentality, hard following. Behaviorism, which has grown on this methodological basis, reduces functioning to a stimulus-response scheme. Summarizing these examples, we write the formula of role functionalism:
A -> B.
A more adequate picture will be when two views of the same relationship are taken into account - the direct and the reverse. An extended interpretation of functionalism is essentially based on the concept of a functional system.
The author of the theory of functional systems P. K. Anokhin defined function as the adaptation of an organism to environmental conditions. The function thereby absorbed the feedback mechanism. These principles became firmly established in the general scientific paradigm only after the creation of cybernetics.
The structural functionalism of T. Parsons and R. Merton also relies on a role-based understanding of the function with the separation of direct and inverse relationships.
For feedback regulating the role-playing behavior of individuals within the norm, the term social control was specially introduced.
Direct and inverse functioning are equivalent to the concepts of determination and compensatoryness. There is never an absolute determination of one phenomenon by another. Compensation comes the earlier, the more rigid the direct impact.
K. Jung paid close attention to compensatory reactions. He disagreed on the issue of dream interpretation with his teacher Freud, because he did not agree that the motives in the images of dreams are directly disclosed. Jung gave priority not to direct, but to the feedback of consciousness and the unconscious.
It will be a simplification to reduce the function to a fixed role, as role functionalism does. Otherwise, we will get an artificial connection, a message to an unknown addressee. Rather, the addressee can be anything. The environment, remaining no more than a passive background, is underestimated.
We will write system functionalism with a formula containing two oppositely directed arrows, one of which symbolizes a direct link, and the other inverse:
A -> B <- font="">
A step further in deepening the understanding of functionalism was made by an American psychologist and sociologist J. Mead. He laid the foundations of a fundamentally different interpretation of the function. According to Mead, the human “I” is formed in the course of social interaction. The decisive importance in this case belongs not so much to playing the role correctly, but to assuming the role of another. This concept is called interactionism. If the main achievement of the system functionalism lies in the feedback mechanism, then the interactive operation focuses on the exchange of roles between the subject and the object that controls and controls. Symmetric, free, contractual interaction takes the place of asymmetric interaction.
In a full-fledged interaction, direct and feedback merge, acting simultaneously. The record of the interactive relationship between the parties will be as follows:
A <-> B.
But you can go even further. The attitude of the parties in interactionism mode is still only a half-synthesis of the subject and the object of interaction. Attempts at complete synthesis were crowned with success in the theory of quantum physics. Interactions at the level of the microworld are fundamentally different in nature than in the macrocosm.
The interaction of microparticles is not just an exchange of “roles”, but rather a deep integration of elements into a super-system, that the opposites in it merge completely and become indistinguishable. Interpenetration underlies the “lacing” philosophy of nature, Jeffrey Chu, who believes that the Universe is a network of intertwining events, and not a collection of elementary particles.
This is the path to absolute interactionism. Energy waves, that is, the matter itself, the interactions become the primary principle in the microcosm. It generates the objects themselves. Particles with such functioning are nothing more than bunches of energy fields. From the point of view of the macro-observer, the functional connection takes undivided power over its carriers. This variant of interactionism is written with the help of an equivalence sign that conveys the dynamic equality of subject and object:
A B.
A similar approach is in socionics. It is built within the framework of the so-called relative socionics [10], the laws of which begin to be felt at close and very close communication distances. However, this is a departure from the usual A. Augustinavichiute intertype relationships theory, based on a mixed, system-interactive understanding of functionalism.
To summarize our reasoning. We came to the conclusion that there are analytical and synthetic interaction classes. Role and system theories belong to the analytical functionalism, and interactive ones to the synthetic one. Socionics seeks to work with both that and the other. It all depends on the communicative distance - the tightness of the connection between objects.
With a distant communicative distance, the function is understood as a vector directed at any object, either as a stimulus or as a reaction. At close distances, a function is understood as an interaction, that is, a constant exchange of roles up to the replacement of a dyad with its equivalent substitute — an integral type.
3. Uniform end-to-end typology
Most scientists oppose the standardization of structures. It became a habit for each phenomenon to develop its own, unique structure. Because of this, the number of scientific theories based on each time a new scheme is incalculable.
Socionics is subjected to the greatest criticism precisely for the principle of standard typology. One of the psychological reasons for the opposition, apparently, is that the science of the socio-humanitarian class is often not done by Scientists, but by humanitarian social types, especially EIE .
Why, then, no one criticizes formal logic for the principle of 16 logical connectives? [8, p. 229]. But these are the same uniform structures. Any complex judgment comes down to one or another combination of them. Probably because such an approach does not affect the spiritual life of a person.
In the head of most scientists, it does not fit that any object or phenomenon in this world has the property of belonging to one of the universal types. The unity of the world with pathos is declared, but the quest for universal structures is condemned. The only exception is for the micro level.
In 1953, F. Creek and J. Watson discovered the universal genetic code. It was found that four types of nucleotides encode the amino acid sequence of any protein. Thus, a molecular typology of the living is created. The consequences of mastering this code led to a revolution in biology.
At the same time, the discovery by K. Jung of information storage invariants — the archetypes of the collective unconscious — remained unrecognized. But a unified system for presenting information about any objects opens the way to automating and formalizing vast amounts of knowledge.
The type is often misunderstood. Although they use it as a term, they state that there is no pure type, that all systems are mixed. In fact, they do not accept the type that is understood as a rigid structural sample, as a solid crystalline formation. If the socionic type is compared with a crystal, it is not with a solid, but with a liquid one.
There is no frozen crystal lattice in the liquid crystal, but the orderliness of the parts is still preserved. That is the type of socionics. Although the individual components of the type change quantitatively, the proportions between them always remain within some specified limits.
4. Equivinal evolution
The current fundamental science is hard to imagine non-evolutionary. The dialectic breakthrough was made in the 19th century, when the minds of scientists captured the theories of C. Darwin, G. Spencer, G. Hegel. However, the term "dialectic", oddly enough, is understood differently.
It is widely known to understand development as enantiodromy (another Greek, “oncoming run”) —shifts from one opposition to another. Dialectical logic negates the laws of formal logic, and above all the law of the excluded middle. And this leads to the absolutization of the crisis side of development: all processes turn out to be transient, stable states disappear. On the other hand, since ancient times, dialectics has been understood as a healthy controversy, a clash of different points of view for comparing positions and developing a more adequate, more complete picture of a phenomenon. And here the focus is not on changing one extreme of another, but on their coordination and coexistence.
Socionic methodology works according to the principle of relative displacement of one opposite over another. The dialectical principle in it is refracted as follows: opposites compete with each other, but the outcome of this battle is predetermined. One extreme is still the dominant tendency, and the other complements it, balances, but never supersedes.
The principle of equifinality asserts that any subsystem seeks to find an optimal place for itself within the framework of a system, between which it has a choice. Development can go along a straight or winding path, but its gradient is always directed towards the only organization of parts. This is the property of finality, pregnancy (Gestalt psychology), archetypical (analytical psychology).
The final state is not reached immediately. A long or short process of approximation, centering, and aging takes place. The end in itself is realized by the painful search for its Self.
The principle of equipinality implies the laws of competition of similarities, not of opposites. Typography as a movement to type represents the genesis of poorly structured, loose systems, pushed by competition from similar entities in the direction of greater orderliness.
Real processes of movement in time are thus modeled as a spiral that can converge (evolution - the transformation of energy into information) or diverge (involution - the transformation of information into energy) [11]. The time trajectory of the system is developed as a balance between two factors of a single process of self-organization, thanks to which living systems differ from non-living, obeying the law of increasing chaos.
Jung spoke of developed systems as differentiated, specialized. The principle of individuation — Jung's understanding of ontogenesis — is the mastering of the resources of the self through finding one's place in the collective structure. A type gradually fits into a higher order system as its integral subsystem. Development is not treated as endlessly repeating enantiodromy, but as an integration of more and more specialized parts. Jung explained this idea in the following way: “But the point is not the transition to the opposite, but the preservation of the old values together with the recognition of their opposite” [1, p. 118].
As we move up the evolutionary ladder, symmetry is replaced by asymmetry. The more unpaired functions in the system, the stronger its need for cooperation. New and new levels of the system hierarchy are being built.
5. The problem of choosing a methodology
Assume that two methodologies compete for the right to be selected for research work. One of them will be called the methodology Y, and the other - Z. They are opposed to the basic requirements for the final scientific product. I will present these differences in the form of a comparative table:
| Y methodology | Z methodology |
|---|---|
| odd structure (based on trichotomy) | even structure (based on tetra -tomy) |
| under every problem | standardization of structures |
| new classification | common end-to-end typology |
| role functionalism | functionalism interactive |
| development as a type of movement , universalization | development as a movement to type, specialization |
I see the problem of choice not in which of the methodologies is more correct. It is not difficult to guess that they are both equivalent and equally provable. The task is to determine which of them to apply in each case. It is necessary to make a reservation that I will not be interested in a case of personal commitment, when any analytical device is liked or disliked by reason of taste. I ignore the option of random, chaotic choice.
The first selection criterion is quite simple: choose something new. If at the moment of choice the methodology Y prevails, then it is better to choose Z. And vice versa, if Z has become boring for a long time, then it is better to choose Y, since it will automatically be perceived as more progressive.
Secondly, the selection criterion may concern the nature of the very subject of the application of the methodology. If the problem under investigation is simple and fresh, the causes and effects in it are easily separated, the number of active factors is small, then it is better to choose Y.
However, if you encounter a problem multifactorial, with looped, difficult to distinguish cause and effect, and besides, she zamusolena, fairly confusing opposite approaches, do not hesitate to opt for the methodology Z. Finally, if you are due to some reasons not to arranges neither one nor the other option, you can compromise. The basis of the resulting methodology is to suppose, say, Y and supplement it with the elements Z.
Or, basically, rely on Z, but make an addition with some elements from Y.
An example of the second addition would be, for example, as follows: 3 + 1 structure (with variable parity),
- structures are standard, but with offsets from the sample,
- development to type, but with turns and crises,
- the functionality is interactive, but taking into account feedbacks.
The reader, probably, easily realized that the school of social analysis is oriented precisely on such a research program. The methodological principles of other socionic schools were either not clearly formulated or simply not published. Even if they did not coincide with those set forth in this article, there are nonetheless external forces that it is better for socionics to keep together.
Socionic sprouts of dissent are now jammed. However, it cannot be completely eradicated: the hands do not reach. Psychologists themselves are in distress, and the pluralism of the era does not welcome such actions.
Socionics will most likely be ruined by socionics themselves - impatient, arrogant, not able to get along with each other. Outraged by their ethical nihilism, disrespect for scientific succession. Socionics have already paid for the unpreparedness for dialogue by a complete failure of diagnostics. One more such defeat - and the entire socionic building will collapse.
Literature
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- Jung K. G. Psychological types. M .: Alphabet, 1992, p. 102
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- Gulenko V. V. Multi-window thinking. On the structure of scientific knowledge. Kiev, 16. 10. 1996.
- Ackoff R., Emery F. On purposeful systems. M., 1974 with. 128 - 130.
- Dawkins R. Egoistic gene. Per. from ang. - M .: Mir, 1993, p. 187 - 188.
- Kuhn T. Structure of scientific revolutions. M .: Progress, 1977.
- Formal logic. Edited by I. Ya. Chupakhin and I. I. Brodsky. Due to the Leningrad University, Leningrad, 1977.
- Dictionary of foreign words. - 11th ed., M .: Rus. lang, 1984.
- Gulenko V.V. Introverted Socionics. Internal relations in the group as a reflection of its integral type. Kiev, 12. 07. 1994.
- Gulenko V.V. On the waves of aging and renewal. Progressive orientation in combination with Jung signs. K, 7. 01. 1996.
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