The article examines the relationship between psychology and art in different historical periods. Their mutual attraction to each other can be noted recently, however, even at the time of the emergence of psychology as a science, its close connection with aesthetics was observed. Both psychology and aesthetics pointed to sensory experience and the sensory sphere as their subject. Cultural-historical psychology was born in many ways from the analysis of art objects. According to L. S. Vygotsky, a work of art acts as an instrument for transforming feelings, and cultural forms of experience arise in the process of its perception. However, a true synthesis of psychology and art occurred in new artistic practices in the 20th century. The artistic search expanded the boundaries of art and aesthetics. It was assumed that art is called upon to change people’s lives, to become a part of it, and life should be built according to the laws of art. The artistic tasks themselves change. The act of perception, a living human reaction to the perceived world becomes the subject of art. The focus is not on objective reality, but on psychological reality, the reality of consciousness. There was an appeal to the expressive characteristics of individual elements of the artistic language – lines, dots, geometric figures, color, sound, movement. In the course of experiments with sound, color, etc., the phenomena of synesthesia were discovered. It was also shown that the phenomenon of intermodality in perception can develop during special exercises. The new artistic practices are based on the idea of transferring impressions from one area of art to another or from one modality to another. Thus, the sounding music or poem is translated into the language of movement. This is not a formal translation, but a creative process in which a new work emerges. The techniques found were later used in trainings on initiating creativity, in methods of aesthetic education, in psychotherapy, revealing the psychological, psychotechnical and pedagogical potential of these practices.

The article considered the synthesis of art in the light of the formation and functioning of the non-classical cultural paradigm. The mystery religious roots of synthesis in traditional culture are revealed, and the connection between the idea of synthesis in modernism and the crisis of Enlightenment and positivism on the one hand, and religious consciousness on the other, is traced. Synthesis as a search for a “big style” in a culture that has lost its stylistic unity is associated with the category of myth and aims to break through to the totality of being. The anthropological dimension of the phenomenon of synthesis in non-classical culture is associated with the need to overcome the “particularity” of man as a subject of cognition, as well as the problem of the atomization of individuals in society. Based on a comparative analysis of non-classical artistic practices and philosophical attitudes, the logic of the movement of Romanticism, neo-Romanticism, symbolism, Art Nouveau and avantgarde through mythologization and world-building towards a new total synthesis is analyzed. These directions are analyzed from the point of view of the synthetism of form and the commonality of metaphysical, anthropological and aesthetic attitudes. The article reveals a common temporal component in the culture of modernism, uniting its various trends and serving as the basis for synthesis at both the substantive and formal levels.

The article is devoted to the psychological work of a person when encountering a literary text. The author relies on the psychology of art by L. S. Vygotsky, in particular, on his theses that the perception of a work of art, firstly, requires creative activity and, secondly, advances us along our path of personal development. Since such perception does not always occur, the question arises about practices that can promote creative activity of perception and activate the internal work of the individual when encountering a literary work. One of such practices is the method of dramatic improvisation based on literary works developed by the author of the article. The method combines in a holistic process of group work a) joint reading of a fiction text, b) its discussion, c) creative role-playing based on what has been read, and d) psychological work aimed at creating a non-judgmental, accepting, psychologically safe and trusting atmosphere in the group. The article describes the key points of the method and examines in detail the results of a study conducted under the supervision of the author of the article, which compared the personal results of perception of the same fiction text during its simple reading and during work with it in a dramatic improvisation group. None of the respondents who simply read the text evoked any deep personal response. On the contrary, the work with the text prompted the participants of dramatic improvisation not only to reflect on moral topics, but also to “read themselves” and comprehend their actions, experiences and behavior patterns. The article also examines the proposed mechanism for activating psychological work of a person in a dramatic improvisation group, which distinguishes the described method from other practices of working with literary texts.

The author proceeds from the fact that man is a creative being by nature, called upon to realize his unique creative potential in life. The thesis is put forward that the ability and need for creativity is not an exception, but a norm of human existence. In this regard, the difference between the statistical understanding of the norm and its axiological understanding, characteristic of humanitarian psychology, is emphasized. The fact that creativity is the norm, and its deficiency or absence is a pathology dangerous in its consequences, is associated with the demand for creativity therapy, primarily art therapy. The question is raised about the extent to which existing art therapy practices rely on the specific possibilities of art as such. The author believes that involvement in art and artistic creativity has a beneficial effect on a person in two interconnected dimensions – vertical and horizontal. In the first case, we are talking about overcoming a person’s isolation from his own creative nature, the gap between everyday self-awareness and the higher creative “I”. In the second, the feeling of isolation, alienation from the outside world, and the opposition of “I” and “not-I” are overcome. Based on his own research, the author claims that children have favorable age prerequisites for artistic and creative development, and therefore early experience of artistic creativity can serve as a preventive measure against psychological ill-being in their later life. The question is raised about the conditions under which the impact of art can be healing for a person.

The article briefly traces the development of the idea of «perpetual peace», from its Renaissance roots till the present day. The article focuses on Immanuel Kant’s treatise «Towards Perpetual Peace» (Zum ewigen Frieden,1795). In it, the great Königsberger attempts to overcome the political and legal limitations of the peacekeeping thought of his predecessors. Kant comes to a conclusion which, by all standards, was paradoxical for the eighteenth century, and is extremely relevant for the twenty-first century: either perpetual peace will be achieved truly, or it will arrive in the graveyard of humanity. Catching the public attention in the twentieth century, this idea of Kant seemed more like a subject for philosophical reflection that needed to be tested for its worth. Has Kant’s treatise survived this sort of testing? We may get an answer to this question within the lifespan of a generation, or two. The author claims that Kant’s peacemaking legacy has changed from a seemingly hopeless utopia into a blueprint of urgent necessity. With a view to the current situation (the author of the article concludes), it is vital to reset Kantian peacekeeping wheels in motion. For there is no other option.

Over the past decades, the solution of interdisciplinary problems and tasks has become one of the important areas of training and education, socially approved and institutionally supported at various levels. At the same time, the topic of the actual construction (and not only the use) of interdisciplinary, interdisciplinary tasks is covered only in a small number of works. There are at least two reasons for this. Not all researchers and practitioners who turn to interdisciplinary problems and use them construct them themselves. And even for those who construct them, reflection, explication and generalization of their experience, a strategic vision of new types of interdisciplinary tasks is a special meta-task that is set by a few.

Probably, no meaningful classification of ways of constructing interdisciplinary problems can be completely exhaustive. In this construction, the creativity of the developer of interdisciplinary problems can be manifested, the results of which will not fit into the previous classifications. It is hardly possible to describe and predict all the possible ways of reasonable linking of certain disciplines (including future ones) and the types of questions based on these connections. At the same time, such classifications are important, useful and heuristic.

One of the important possible ways of constructing interdisciplinary problems and tasks can be the use of R.T. Williams’ ideas about the ecology of various types of knowledge. His metaphor of the ecology of knowledge allows us to analyze different types and kinds of knowledge produced in different «ecological niches», as well as their «ecological diversity». The introduction of explicit ideas about different sources and types of knowledge into the content of interdisciplinary tasks can become one of the important areas of interdisciplinarity in education as a whole.