At the beginning of the 19th century, new approaches to psyche based on physiology began to be developed, which turned the organism into the object of application of strict natural-scientific methods, first of all, of experiment.
The scientific approach is aimed at the production and application in practice of objective, most reliable knowledge about nature, society, man and his psyche. In search of such knowledge science uses:
- empirical method;
- theoretical method;
- a special system of cognition organization.
There are two main ways of empirical cognition: observation and experiment:
-Observation is a deliberate, purposeful perception of an object that results in primary information;
-Experiment is a research method with the help of which an object is either modeled, reproduced artificially, or placed in certain, artificially created conditions that meet the goals of research.
Empirical knowledge obtained in this way forms the basis of theoretical knowledge, which looks for the reasons for the phenomena, tries to explain the essence of scientific facts, to identify the laws underlying them, i.e. necessary, stable, repetitive, universal connections.
These two main methods fit into the historically established system of scientific research organization, which includes the following mandatory stages:
-Awareness of the contradictions between the old theory and the new scientific facts, which cannot be explained by the old theoretical concepts. This contradiction leads to the formulation of a problem, the formulation of a question, which acts as the first, initial stage of scientific research;
-The second stage is to search for a supposed answer to the question with the help of already known facts. This is the stage of the ultrasound and hypothesis forms;
-The third stage is to test the hypothesis with new facts, practices on the basis of which the hypothesis is either refuted or confirmed;
-The fourth stage is the creation of the theory, logically grounded system of enanies explaining the newly received facts about the essence of this class of phenomena and the laws of their development.
As a rule, this fourth stage in due course leads to occurrence of new problems and new hypotheses, which continuous process of research is the content of the history of science.
Thus, science can be presented as an infinite process of approaching the truth. Since the moment of appearance of a classical science of New time the science began to develop both as the special social phenomenon, and as a special way of knowledge with the complex of methods and principles of the organization. Having established itself initially in the natural-scientific knowledge, in the sphere of so-called "exact sciences", scientific methods of cognition soon became the property of humanities and other sciences, including psychological knowledge.
The creator of the first variant of psychology as an independent science in the form of physiological psychology was the German scientist Wilhelm Wundert (1832-1920), a German scientist who came to psychology from physiology. Calling the new discipline physiological psychology, Wundert began to study the problems borrowed from physiologists - the study of sensations, reaction times, and associations.
Having organized the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig in 1879, Wundert decided to study the content and structure of consciousness on a scientific basis by singling out the simplest structures of consciousness in the human experience. Consciousness was presented as a system of mental elements (feelings, images), which became the subject of study.
Unique subject of psychology, no other discipline not studied, was recognized as "direct experience" acquired by a person. The main experimental method was recognized as the method of introspection, the essence of which was to observe the subject's processes in his consciousness, his simplest structural elements: perceptions of form, color of objects, strength of sounds, etc.
However, some difficulties in applying the methods of experiment to psychological phenomena soon became apparent. These difficulties were caused by special variability, dynamism, mobility of psychic phenomena, and also by the fact that, as it turned out, the psyche is not reduced only to the consciousness, but also to the big one, and sometimes even the decisive role is played by the subconscious, which cannot be revealed with the help of rational means.
Criticizing these structuralism deficiencies, the outstanding American psychologist William James (1842-1910) argued that it is necessary to focus attention not so much on the structure of the psyche as on what exactly human needs are met with its help, what tasks important for the person, she decides what useful functions she performs.
Thus. James proposed to study the psyche from other, closer and more important positions for practice. This new direction in psychology was called "psychological functionalism".
According to functionalists, the main function of the soul is to help people adapt to the harsh world around them, survive in the difficult conditions in which they find themselves from morning to evening, from birth to death.