Human action: The invisible side.
Janet’s psychology of conduct and Soviet activity theory on the inner plane
of the human psyche.
Natalia Yu. Fedunina, PhD
Moscow City University for Psychology and Education
Moscow, Russia
Evolution is not yet finished, and human action has been and will always be a source of a
miracle.
Pierre Janet (1926)
The miracles of Evolution – new social phenomena, scientific discoveries, psychological
inventions. The winds of changes are so swift that we can even feel their breathe on our faces.
The paths of Evolution, as well as its embodiment in philo-, onto- and anthropogenesis, has
been profoundly investigated since ancient times. Every age is trying to capture its own
aspects, as if distinguishing its certain features, and examining itself in the mirror.
The mirror of the time at the turn of the XX century, both in France and in Russia, was
reflecting complex changes in the very souls of these nations. The Silver age of Russian
culture, and new trends in European arts, revolution, and wars… - they’ve all mixed into
some intricate tissue of the time, with new attempts to understand human nature, with an
appeal to action as the most remarkable manifestation of a human being, living in the world of
other people, in society. And the emergence of several action-oriented approaches wasn’t just
a mere coincidence. Behaviorists were seeking ways to predict and to control behavior, to
create a laboratory of society; Soviet psychology of activity cherished a dream of creating a
new, Soviet man person; Janet’s psychology of conduct was an attempt to understand the
whole range of was definitely left behind. Homo agens was standing in front of the mirror and
creating his self-portrait. Action in the variety of forms and aspects that had never been
investigated in the history of science before became the object of rigorous psychological
scrutiny. That was its epoch, an epoch of fluent changes, of deeds. Action was a hero of its
time.
Russian Activity Theory in Russia was born as a reflection of social needs, of deeply rooted
hopes to improve human nature by the means of science, to find ways of changing behavior.
Idea of social determination and development, accent on the notion of action were equally
important both for Janet and Russian psychologists. While behaviorists concentrated on
elementary forms of behavior, both Janet’s psychology of conduct and Soviet psychology of
activity didn’t restrict themselves to stimulus-reaction. “Psychology of action must make a
place for consciousness… one must necessarily be preoccupied with the higher forms of
conduct, beliefs, reflection, and experiences. These facts have ordinarily been expressed in
terms of thought, and in order to preserve the same language throughout the science of
psychology, it is necessary to express them in terms of action. This psychology may be
designated by the name psychology of conduct in order to indicate that it is concerned with a
broader and higher form than behaviorism”. [Janet, 1930, p.131].
I will not dare speak about a full-dress portrait of Action. In this article, I would rather restrict
myself to just one extremely interesting phenomenon in this sphere – to inner action, inner
thought, the invisible side of the Moon of the human psyche, which constitutes the innerspace in the mental organization of a human being, and which no doubt has changed the
destiny of humanity.
Nowadays, we are accustomed to inner action. We are accustomed to these capacities, and it
seems to us that humanity has always had them at its disposal – inner thought, silent
experiences, complex inner life, perception of ourselves as unique. But, we start reading Janet
and actually it sounds like a detective – “initially all psychological phenomena were public
but then humanity discovered the function of secret [Janet, 1929]”. As an animal is able to
hide its prey, we, humans, are able to hide our thoughts, feelings, develop our own innerworld – the property, which can’t be taken away from us.
But when and how do these phenomena arise in the history of humanity?
The insights of this question can be found, for instance, in philological investigations. M.M.
Bakhtin’s analysis of biographic and autobiographic forms in literature proves that biography
in antiquity was closely connected with social and political events, with public life – there
was no place for intimate, private, secret, personal forms. And there could be no principal
differences between attitudes towards one’s own life and the lives of others, between
biographic and autobiographic points of view. Inner life, feelings, thinking could exist only in
their visible, reverberant manifestations. Silent or mute suffering, joy, thinking were alien to
the ancient Greeks. According to Bakhtin, only in Hellenistic and Roman times did the whole
spheres of life start to become converted into a new, invisible form of being. Man got his
privacy … together with loneliness.
Janet most probably didn’t know M.M. Bakhtin’s works, but he also stressed this
psychological invention, which was marked by the development of the inner plane of action,
giving the property that can’t be that very easily taken away from us. He stated that the
development of the inner space of the human psyche had very far-reaching consequences not
limited to the cognitive sphere, but on the contrary, they opened new possibilities both for the
group and for the personality, modifying relations between these two basic notions.
Another Russian thinker, Yu.M. Lotman, gives a very interesting example, so important for
our topic. He quotes Turner’s description of a special statuette (Chamutang’a), used for
fortune-telling by one of the Central-African tribes. It depicts a man, his elbows on his knees,
and his hands supporting his chin. This figure denotes an unpredictable, inconsistent,
dangerous man, probably a sorcerer, from whom no one knows what to expect. Lotman draws
our attention to the similarities between the main gestures of this figure and of Roden’s
“Thinker.” The “Opacity” of a human being, his/her capacity for independent deeds, which
are inevitable consequences of the inner plane of the human psyche often become a test for a
social group. Among them is an initiative (ability to act according to inner causes, not
physical or social ones). A human being becomes the one who makes his own independent
decisions. The changes in personality due to inner-thought are so remarkable that Janet writes
about its separate form. But inevitably a question arises – how all of these miracles occur,
what their mechanisms are – a hard question to answer, but, sometimes even posing a
question is helpful.
Developmental mechanisms of the inner plane of action
Nil de nihilo fit
Nothing comes from nothing, and the mental inner plane of the human psyche doesn’t appear
from nowhere, and it isn’t given to us from the beginning. Where can we seek for the clue to
this mysterious realm of human psychology?
Both the Russian and French schools of psychology apply a genetic method here: Janet used
an anthropogenetic reconstruction, together with a pathogenetic analysis Soviet psychologists
used ontogenetic empirical studies.
In the works of Janet, the construction of the inner plane of the human psyche emerges in a
series of psychological inventions, and has, I would say, rather an ontological more than just a
gnoseological status. I don’t want to dwell long on this long series of psychological
inventions, which was so brilliantly investigated in Janet’s L’évolution psychologique de la
personnalité in my opinion it is one of the most enchanting books on the development of the
personality). Instead, I will mention several points, which seem to me to offer an idea about
some sources of inner action.
1) Janet spoke about two types of human behavior, and two branches of development
corresponding to them. Primary actions are the direct consequences of external stimulation.
But we have not only primary phenomena, not only immediate reactions to outer stimuli, but
secondary reactions as well, which are reactions a propos the primary ones. Primary reactions
guide our knowledge of the outer world; secondary reactions create some sort of inner life –
the first source of the inner plane. This second group is as wide and diverse as the first one.
It’s a long way to go from the sense of equilibrium, kinesthetic sense, feelings, to complex
inner actions, similar to the distance between a prehistoric axe and a modern computer in the
evolution of tools.
2) Janet repeatedly stressed that personality is a human invention, and the process of its
construction depends on the socii. Miraculous process of transformation of outer, social action
into the inner one depends on this prior statement.
Inner action is a human invention, which is based on centuries of preceeding inventions
concerning both an individual and a group, from its body regulators (kinesthetic sense, sense
of equilibrium) to the most complex forms of social behaviour. Development of inner thought
can be partially described by the general psychological law suggested by American thinkers
(James, Baldwin, Royce) and basic to Janet, the law of parallelism between the personality of
other people and our own personality – we attribute to ourselves the same characteristics, the
same emotions, the same properties, that [than] we attribute to other people [Janet, 1928]. All
social psychological laws have two aspects: an exterior aspect concerning other people, an
interior aspect concerning ourselves. The emphasize on social factors was also crucial for
Soviet psychology. This idea, elaborated by Janet, was taken and shaped into one of the
cornerstones in the edifice of psychology, namely by L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934). “The
human being, Vygotsky said, is homo duplex” [R. van der Veer, J. 1988]. “… any higher
mental function which has emerged in the process of human historical development appears
on the scene twice. It first appears as part of social-psychological adaptation, as a form of
interaction and co-operation among people, as an interpsychological category. Then it appears
as a form of individual adaptation, as a part of an individual’s psychology, as an
intrapsychological category [J. Wertsch, 1980, p.153].
This phenomenon, which received the name of ‘internalization,’ was widely investigated in
Soviet psychology, being understood as a process of “creating a specific realm of action – the
‘internal plane of consciousness’ that yields additional possibilities for adaptation,” as “a
specifically human, cultural form of knowledge acquisition” [Arievitch, Valsiner, 1995,
p.116].
How is this internal plane of consciousness formed? Can we study it empirically? What is the
constructive matter of this psychological invention? Both Janet and Vygotsky are quite
definite here. Janet stresses: “… A battle of words, of promises has developed into what is
called the discussion. … This verbal social conduct is taken over into ourselves and becomes
known as reflection” [P. Bailey, 1928, 219]. Vygotsky expresses it in the following manner:
“Speech is fist a communicative function. It serves the goals of social contact, social
interaction, and the social coordination of behavior. Only afterwards, by applying the same
mode of behavior to oneself, do humans develop inner speech. In this process, they, as it
were, preserve the “function of social interaction” in their individual behavior. They apply the
social mode of action to themselves. [Vygotsky, 1960, pp 450-451]. Another Soviet
psychologist, P.Ya. Gal’perin (1902-1988) also believed that only human speech makes it
possible to go beyond perception and to abstract an action from the physically displayed
situation, thereby creating the possibility for internalization and the formation of the internal
plane of action [Arievitch, van der Veer 1995].
P.Ya. Gal’perin elaborated a special method of studying the sequential transformations of
actions from material to the mental form – a stepwise formation of mental actions [ibid,
p.118]. Janet’s and Gal’perin’s positions have very much in common regarding the problem
of action, its properties, and contents. While best Janet’s material was connected to his
therapeutic practice, Galperin presented much of his empirical data in the fields of general and
developmental psychology. Galperin’s stepwise procedure was designed to analyze how this
‘material-born’ thought gradually develops into its mental form, thus becoming ‘internalized’.
Galperin stressed that internalization is related to the formation of the mental plane of actions,
and it gives humans a possibility to act independently of the perceived situation –‘in mind’ or
‘internally’ [ibid, p.121].
Nowadays, ontogenetic investigations are also very interesting in this respect. Developmental
psychologists assume that the main psychological acquisition of adolescence is the discovery
of one’s own inner world. And again, contemporary researchers stress that together with the
growing awareness of one’s uniqueness, together with the feeling of difference from other
people comes the feeling of loneliness [Psychology of a teenager, 2003, Rean]. It might be
one of the reasons for frequent mood swings, to say nothing of depressive states in teens and
even young adults.
But, surely inner action depends not only of this factor, of the speech. The whole range of
primary and secondary actions, the demands of the environment, the social situation itself are
crucial in this strange and wonderful invention of human beings.
Possible Therapeutic Implications
And finally, what is the price for these psychological
inventions? What and how much do we pay for having
our own dreams, thoughts, our own silent feelings? [ --- ]
These are we who are sitting on the horse next to
Mephistopheles, we are riding at a full gallop into the
darkness of the night. What price are we ready to pay for
acquiring this reckless, heady freedom of thought, the
flight of thought, for acquiring our own inner property
ourselves?
Remember J. Fowles’ “The Collector:” the main hero,
Clegg, begins to fantasize about how Miranda would
fall in love with him if only she knew him. And during
the next step, this dream violates the border of fantasy
and intrudes into reality. He buys a van and a house in
the country, he captures Miranda, and locks her in the
basement room. How many people chose living in the
M. Vrubel' a Flight of Faust and Mephitopheles world of their own dreams, which are becoming for
them more real than reality itself?
According to Janet, inner thought brings not only
possibilities but dangers as well. How can we not get
stuck, not be lost in the world of dreams and our own
mental constructions, and not make up a fantasy world
to live in? Janet remarked that when philosophers speak
about thinking they notice only its positive side – its
power and possibilities.
Thinking also brings difficulties and dangers, especially when it is blocked inside us, focused
exceedingly on us, without sufficient attention to the others, the society, and the world, which
surrounds us. Therefore, a special discipline of thought is required.
[1] Thought starts its development in order to serve a psychological operation of discussion
and deliberation. Firstly, the discussion is public, it proceeded in a group of people having
different opinions, and with the evolution of the thought, it is necessary to continue the
discussion, to see the opinions of others.
The inability to escape from one’s own inner world, one’s own mental constructions prevents
a person from living in the present, in the changing world, and it prevents a person from
his/her personal development in which one should overstep one’s own borders. And, it’s not
by chance that Janet was speaking about personality in time, about the present as the superior
from of memory, which unlike the fabulation has a very profound intimate connection with
the exterior world, a uniqueness of the moment, and of the world, and of the self.
Epilogue
Personal choice and loneliness, initiative and feeling “uprootedness,”, the possibility to have
one’s own opinion and position, and the necessity to be responsible for one’s own actions –
these are all the consequences of one of the crucial human psychological inventions, which
determines our own life, and also shapes psychotherapeutic approaches. Take away the
culture of inner action, thought, feeling and you’ll lose the biggest part of contemporary
psychotherapeutic approaches
I understand that the article is sketchy and doesn’t explain much (probably on the contrary, it
brings more confusion), but it is still important for me, since it is always especially
enchanting to approach the other side of the Moon. It also sparks my interest because Janet’s
books, and for sure my favourite L’évolution psychologique de la personnalité, is one of the
brightest examples of “la prise de conscience,” which gives insights to our history and
development, and offers an opportunity to scrutinize our contemporary approaches, posing
new questions.
The evolution of human action is not finished. What miracles are being invented now, by you,
and me? What dangers are connected with them?
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