Opportunities for historical and psychological research of scientific traditions

The article is a response to the work of A.L. Zhuravlev and Yu.N. Oleinik (published in № 3 and № 4 of “Psychological Journal” for 2024). The author dedicates the article to solving the problem of studying the continuity of psychological knowledge and scientific traditions as a mechanism for its implementation. She discusses the results of implementing a system approach in developing authors’ theoretical model for studying scientific traditions. In order to test the possibilities of operationalization of “scientific traditions” concept, she makes the attempt to analyze the formation of a scientific tradition within the walls of the Psychological Institute in 1910–1920 based on the three-dimensional model of studying scientific traditions proposed by the authors. The results of the analysis allow us to talk about the possibility of identifying as objects of tradition not only the theoretical and methodological characteristics of institute’s employees activities, but also its organizational structure, personnel, the work of its own print media, etc. Conclusions are drawn about the prospects of applying the proposed approach and the model in analyzing the laws of ensuring the scientific knowledge’s continuity of at different levels of the collective subject of psychological knowledge; studying the scientific tradition as a new phenomenon of historical and psychological research and a possible unit of historical and psychological analysis.