Sources of developmental psychology in the work «About soul» by Аristotel

The psychology always declared itself a science beginning from Aristotle. However the idea of an origin, central for the treatise "On the Soul", is neglected by psychology, being replaced with poorly obliging philosophical principle of development. Therefore the purpose of given article is to show, how the idea of an origin looks out in the treatise "On the Soul" and what formal apparatus it describes. Results of the analysis may allow looking at structure of modern psychology under other, evolutionary perspective, alien for modern psychology. From a substantive point of view the Aristotelian scheme of development "the preceding is always contained potentially in the succeeding" – allows double interpretation. Taking elements A0, A1, A2 and A3 as respectively inanimate (A0), vegetable (A1), animal (A2) and human (A3) worlds, we get systems B0, B1, B2 and B3, which are understood respectively as the inanimate world (B0), inanimate and vegetable worlds (B1), inanimate, vegetable and animal worlds (B2) and, finally, inanimate, vegetable, animal and human worlds (B3). This interpretation presumes that in former times the system of the world consisted only of inanimate objects, and then transformed into a system consisting of inanimate objects and plants, then transformed into a system consisting of inanimate objects, plants and animals, and only then was supplemented by the human world. Hereof it follows that this interpretation has a phylogenetic character, and therefore belongs seemingly more to the evolutionary biology than to psychology. However, the analysis of the "Treatise of the soul" clearly shows that Aristotle studied mental processes, states and properties that were understood them exclusively in evolutionary, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, planes.