[Xmca-l] Re: Alex Kozulin's notion of three planes of understanding

[mike cole]

I thought you had an actual example, David.

So far as I know, LSV never used the term, and the terms " holism,
with anti-reductionism and Gestalt" were characteristic of many who did not
claim romantic science as an organizing framework. The way you wrote it
made it sound like a direct attribution to a specific individual.

Hence my question.
mike


On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 10:18 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>wrote:

> Oh, I got it from a wonderful book by Luria edited by Michael and
> Sheila Cole, "The Making of Mind". The phrase "romantic scientist" is
> not really Luria's to begin with; he took it from Max Verwoern. But on
> p. 174 of "The Making of Mind", he associates "romantic" with holism,
> with anti-reductionism and Gestalt, using Vygotsky's favorite quotes.
>
> "Classical scholars are those who look upon events in terms of their
> constituent parts. Step by step they single out important units and
> elements until they can formulate abstract general laws. These laws
> are then seen as the governing agents of the phenomena of the field
> under study. One outcoem of this approach is the reduction of living
> reality with all its richenss of detail to abstract schemas. The
> roperties ofhte iving whole are lost, which provoked Goethe to pen,
> 'Gray is eery theory, but ever green is the tree of life."
>
> "Romantic scholars traits, attitudes and strategies are just the
> opposite. They do not follow the path of reductionism, which is the
> leading philosophy of the classical group. Romantics in science want
> neither to split living reality into its elementary components nor to
> represent the wealth of life's concrete events in abstract models that
> lose the properties of the phenomena themselves. It is of the utmost
> importance to romantics to preserve the wealth of living reality, and
> they aspire to a science that retains this richness."
>
> Don't you think that sounds like a thumbnail of Vygotsky?
>
> On p. 175 he says "One of the major factors that drew me to Vygotsky
> was his emphasis on the necessity to resolve (sic) this crisis",
> meaning the crisis brought about by the split between classical and
> romantic tendencies. He then describes the rise of wave after wave of
> reductionism in psychology in the twentieth century.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
> On 18 March 2014 12:14, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> > David-- Where did luria say that Vygotsky was engaged in Romantic
> Science.
> > I missed it!
> > mike
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 2:34 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Larry:
> >>
> >> I'm not sure if this is on topic, but I'd like to pick up a strand of
> >> our thread that nobody else has touched. It's the idea that part of
> >> the trans-disciplinary, supra-psychological element of Vygotskyan
> >> theory lies in his early work on esthetics, and specifically on
> >> Hamlet.
> >>
> >> I have always resisted the Lurian characterization of Vygotsky as a
> >> romantic scientist, because I think he was, as Nadezhda Mandelstam
> >> said and as Bakhurst confirmed (in his piece on "Vygotsky's Demons" in
> >> the Cambridge Companion), a defender of Enlightenment ideas AGAINST
> >> the Romantic counter-revolution of the nineteenth century. When I read
> >> Vygotsky on Hamlet, I can see that he has completely rejected the
> >> nineteenth century idea of Hamlet as romantic hero--that is, an
> >> inspired individual hero among lesser breeds without the law. Hamlet's
> >> depressed, not inspired. He's divided, not individual. And the others
> >> in the play actually perceive Hamlet more accurately than he perceives
> >> himself; Hamlet simply cannot feel the weight of his own body, nor is
> >> he sufficiently aware of his own awareness to be able to distinguish
> >> it from the way things are.
> >>
> >> But I recently read a lot about Gordon Craig and Konstantin
> >> Stanislavski's 1912 Moscow production of Hamlet. Whether he saw it or
> >> not (and there is some debate on this point), it had a huge influence
> >> on the way that Vygotsky read Hamlet (we know that Vygotsky saw the
> >> revival of the 1912 production and that he disapproved of it).
> >> Perversely true to the play text, Craig's and Stanislavski's version
> >> was a completely divided production that almost fell apart before
> >> opening night: Craig saw the play as monodrama (that is, everybody in
> >> the play except Hamlet himself is a "ghost" in the mind of Hamlet).
> >> Stanislavski, of course, insisted on a historical drama of real people
> >> whose motivations were all too human; Hamlet was simply a man amongst
> >> men.
> >>
> >> You can see that all of Kozulin's planes are present and accounted
> >> for. Stanislavski, the social realist, accounts for the way in which
> >> Vygotsky made sense to his contemporaries. Craig is much closer to the
> >> way we interpret Vygotsky today: a way of making sense of individual
> >> psychology, alongside the work of Freud, Piaget, and others. And the
> >> third, trans-disciplinary, supra-psychological plane? Well, I think
> >> that is yet another plane that has gone missing. But when we find, I
> >> am sure that we will see that Vygotsky himself is safe and sound on
> >> board.
> >>
> >> David Kellogg
> >> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 17 March 2014 06:17, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Mike,
> >> > thanks for sending the article on the risks of being a public
> >> intellectual.
> >> > Anna Sfard also recently posted on who university scholars *address*
> in
> >> > their publications.
> >> > I have been re-reading Alex Kozulin's book written 25 years ago
> >> [Vygotsky's
> >> > Psychology: A Biography of Ideas.]
> >> >
> >> > Alex, in the epilogue to that book summed up by positing three trends
> in
> >> > Vygotsky scholarship which he called three *planes*.
> >> > The 1st plane corresponds to the understanding of Vygotsky's theory by
> >> his
> >> > contemporaries in the 1920's and 1930's.
> >> > The 2nd plane emerges with the discovery of Vygotsky's theory in the
> West
> >> > in the 1960's .
> >> > In 1990 Kozulin perceived the emergence of a 3rd plane of Vygotsky
> >> > scholarship which is re-evaluating the presuppositions of the 1920's.
> >> What
> >> > in the 1920's appeared to be a straight forward thesis of social
> >> mediation,
> >> > and in the 1960's as a necessary corrective to the individualistic
> >> > approaches of Western Psychology, in 1990 emerges as a radically new
> >> > question. The realization that within Vygotsky's theory social AND
> >> cultural
> >> > mediatory mechanisms do NOT coincide.
> >> >
> >> > Alex writes:
> >> > "The origins and context of Vygotsky's theories are now being seen in
> a
> >> new
> >> > light; in place of comparisons to Pavlov, the Gestaltists and Piaget
> >> comes
> >> > the context of philosophical hermeneutics and the theory of
> communicative
> >> > action. In an even broader sense, what looked like Vygotsky's
> >> contribution
> >> > TO psychology appears now as leading BEYOND psychology or at least
> BEYOND
> >> > traditional psychology and into the sphere of human studies BASED on
> the
> >> > humanistic, rather than the scientific model." [p. 278-279].
> >> >
> >> > I am not sure how relevant Kozulin's epilogue  seems to others 25
> years
> >> > later, but I found the themes in this book very current and relevant.
>  In
> >> > particular his analysis of Vygotsky's early humanistic writings
> explored
> >> > in chapter one on *The Psychology of Art* and chapter two on the
> theme of
> >> > Vygotsky's book on the tragedy of Hamlet.  These works were written
> by a
> >> > young public scholar developing his identity through engaging in  the
> >> deep
> >> > questions of life and existence.
> >> >
> >> > How does this relate to Anna and Mike's postings?
> >> > The discussion of corporate *money* controlling who gets to be the
> >> audience
> >> > for researcher's articles [Anna Sfard's question] and the question of
> the
> >> > role of *public* intellectuals who are addressing humanistic questions
> >> and
> >> > Vygotsky's writings as a humanistic writer seem related to the
> concept of
> >> >  Kozulin's 3rd plane of engagement BEYOND narrow academic disciplinary
> >> > discourse.
> >> > Will the university as an institution remain a place for these
> humanistic
> >> > studies and the type of scholarship which Alex captures in his
> biography
> >> of
> >> > Vygotsky's ideas, based on the humanistic model?. How central to
> >> Vygotsky's
> >> > later psychological theories were his earlier reflections on art and
> >> > tragedy?
> >> > Larry
> >>
>