Problem of Understanding in the Psychology Science Studies of Ukrainian and Russian Researchers

The article discusses the phenomenon ‘understanding’ from the position of psychological science. The paper also examines the relationship between the categories of ‘understanding’, ‘knowledge’, ‘perception’, ‘sense’, in particular the relationship (interdependence) in dyads ‘understanding–knowledge’, ‘understanding–perception’, ‘understanding–sense’. The article also covers the functions of understanding (cognitive, regulatory, ideological), levels of understanding (depth, clarity and completeness), forms of understanding (understanding–recognition, understanding–hypothesis (prediction), understanding–unification), stages of understanding (pre-understanding, a vague understanding, insufficiently clear understanding, a clear understanding, a complete understanding), types of understanding (natural, cultural, creative). The analysis of scientific literature made it possible to draw conclusions that understanding is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, which can act as a natural and social, conscious and unconscious, objective and subjective, as the process and as the result. Understanding as a psychological phenomenon covers all mental processes: thinking, memory, representation, creative imagination, emotional and volitional processes, properties and abilities of the individual and pervades and mediates cognitive procedures (observation, description, prediction, explanation, etc.). Understanding is the target process, motivated, active, emotional and volitional, productive and individually personal.