From the history of Soviet psychology of religion: K.K. Platonov on the phenomenon of faith

Abstract

The article reconstructs and critically analyzes the ideas about faith expressed by one of the key Soviet psychologists of religion, K.K. Platonov (1906–1984). It is told that initially the scientist interpreted faith as belief in the supernatural (later he changed his opinion), and considered it as a special religious feeling that creates an illusion of cognition and reality of what is created by fantasy. He defined the psychological nature of faith on the basis of the opposition between faith and knowledge, behind which he antagonized religion and science. Openly speaking from atheistic and Marxist positions, K.K. Platonov argued that (religious) faith is harmful and leads a person into the world of illusion. As non-religious analogs of faith, he proposed to call similar states “conviction”, “confidence”, “trust” and argued that all of them are absolutely different psychological phenomena. In this article, the author proves the opposite and argues that contrasting faith and knowledge within psychology is inapplicable. It is argued that K.K. Platonov’s ideas about faith reflect the conceptual apparatus, the peculiarities of scientific thinking and the ethos of Soviet science in the 1960–1980s. Despite the scientist’s engagement in the tasks of anti-religious propaganda, the author believes that K.K. Platonov’s lack of objectivity is partially compensated by his cognitive attitude to the phenomenon of faith. The author emphasizes the contribution of the scientist who introduced the concept of faith into the thesaurus of Soviet psychology and stimulated further studies of the phenomenon.