The Principle of the Dominant by A.A. Ukhtomsky: a Philological View

The principle of dominance was formulated and substantiated by the outstanding Russian and Soviet physiologist Alexei Alexeevich Ukhtomsky. Despite the fact that the dominant principle was first described exclusively on biological material as a feature of the physiology of complex organisms, this phenomenon was already extended by the author himself, A.A. Ukhtomsky, to other areas of human life: society, psychology, pedagogy, philosophy and, of course, creativity. The article describes one of the options for applying A.A. Ukhtomsky’s principle of dominant to text research, the psychophysiology of perception. The relevance of the article is determined by its contribution to the development of a systemic method for studying texts based on the works of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, A.A. Potebnya, G.P. Melnikov. The main part of the article provides a biographical overview and shows the path of A.A. Ukhtomsky’s development as a scientist, the factors that favored the development of scientific interest and allowed to make an outstanding discovery not only in the field of physiology; the influence of important people who had a significant impact on the character of A.A. Ukhtomsky is emphasized. The article also examines in detail the mechanics of the dominant as a general biological principle of the work of nerve centers: the features of its formation, development and attenuation, as well as the consequences of dominant behavior for the nervous system in general and the human psyche in particular. The main features of the dominant are listed: the integral principle, the readiness of the dominant, the inertia of the dominant, the inhibition of other reflexes, the end of the dominant. The peculiarity of the cortical dominant inherent in organisms with developed higher nervous activity (humans) is revealed, the role of the dominant principle in the study of verbal art is shown, as well as the connection of A.A. Ukhtomsky’s ideas with the theory of mneme by N.A. Rubakin.