The Theory of the Organism-Environment System as a Basis of Experimental Work in Psychology

The interpretation of the organism-environment relation is central to both biology and psychology but is here usually assumed to follow the post-Cartesian paradigm whereby the organism is regarded as the active agent and the environment as something that only supports the actions of the organism or provides the basic factors for its niche. Hence the organism is perceived as agent and dynamic carrier of the mind and the environment as “objective” background for its actions. Inspired by the significant results of natural sciences, such as Newtonian physics based on the concept of isolated bodies, scientific psychology started with the application of objective methodology to the study of human behavior and mental activity. In biology, the concepts of selection, environmental fitness, and adaptation were introduced, which were usually understood in terms of organisms born into an objective environment that sets the basic constraints for its survival. In psychology, the study of mental activity was characterized by such concepts as sensation and idea. However, the ontological status of these concepts was not specified, and so they were usually thought to exist in their own world with thinglikeNewtonian properties or were reduced to the actions of