[Xmca-l] Re: BBC: Mind Changers

Mon Jul 13 08:14:42 PDT 2015

The evidence of LSV having read at least some of Dewey is clear. Check the
indexes of his collected work in English.

Their meeting is, as Peter says, a matter of speculation. The similarities
of their ideas in many respects is a matter of considerable interest/debate.
mike

On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 8:06 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> Greg, as far as I know, the evidence is shaky, which hasn't stopped
> speculation. One such effort:
> Richard Prawat: Dewey Meets the “Mozart of Psychology” in Moscow: The
> Untold Story American Educational Research Journal September 21, 2000 37:
> 663-696,
>
> I remember when it came out, it got some attention on xmca, which you can
> find in the archives I'm sure. p
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Thompson
> Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 10:24 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: BBC: Mind Changers
>
> Francine,
> Don't forget that there was also that guy John Dewey that published The
> Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology in 1896.
> An important critique of behaviorism before it was cool.
> I once heard that Vygotsky might have read Dewey, but I've never seen
> evidence of this. Anyone?
> -greg
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 12:31 AM, larry smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Message from Francine:
> >
> > Hi David,
> >
> > In regard to the BBC's crediting Harlow with making a breakthrough in
> > the nature-nuture debate:  XMCAr's who where not educated in American
> > psychology departments in the post WWII era don't realize how peculiar
> > the intellectual climate was back then.
> >
> >  B. F. Skinner's Behaviorism dominated American psychology from the
> > 1950's through the 1970's as a rigid Stimulus-Response Psychology. So
> > much so, that American psychologists were proclaiming a Cognitive
> > Revolution in psychology  in the 1980's - not realizing that Vygotsky
> > had already pioneered the study of  cognitive processes mediating
> > between stimulus and response. In 1924, when Vygotsky first presented
> > his theory, he had then credited Pavlov's later writings on the second
> > signal system. Since Mind in Society was first published in 1978,
> > American psychologists were only beginning to understand Vygotskian
> > theory - and just beginning to think in terms of dialectical psychology
> (such as nature-nurture interactions).
> >
> > In my pre-Vygotsky days, as a graduate student at the University of
> > Chicago during the 1970's Skinnerian behaviorism dominated the field,
> > Piaget's theory was the hottest new theory (imagine cognitive
> > developmental stages !!!), and Humanistic Psychology was the third
> > Force in psychology as an alternative to Behaviorism and orthodox
> > Freudian Psychoanalysis.
> > I knew there had to be something more - gradually I discovered books
> > on ego psychology
> > (neo-Freudians) that the School for Social Work Administration
> > assigned as texts for their courses. Then in 1976, when I was hired
> > full-time as a community college professor, I found two books in that
> > library that were just awesome - Klaus Reigel's Dialectical Psychology
> > - and Werner and Kaplan's Symbol Formation. One of my professor's at
> > U.C. actually told me that I did think like an American psychologist
> > (meaning that I don't fit in the department) - he said  "you think
> > like a European psychologist." In
> > 1984-1985 I translated the three Vygotsky papers on the development of
> > imagination and creativity and became a Vygotskian (or neo-Vygotskian,
> > whatever).
> >
> > And now American psychologists are just waking up to the fact that the
> > rest of the world has never used the American Psychiatric
> > Association's DSM system for diagnosis of psychiatric or psychological
> > disorders. Effective this October the ICD 10 (International
> > Classification of Diseases) has to be used to be in compliance with
> > HIPAA - I wonder what will happen to all those Abnormal Psychology
> > textbooks that are based exclusively on the DSM's five axes
> > categorical system.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2015 12:45:08 +0900
> > > From: dkellogg60@gmail.com
> > > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: BBC: Mind Changers
> > >
> > > I've listened to the first two (that is the last two) of them (Arden
> > House
> > > and Harlow's Monkeys) and I'm always impressed by how very
> > > IDEOLOGICAL
> > they
> > > are. I mean ideological with a capital I, in the sense of
> > > reinforcing whatever idea happens to dominate the dominant minds of
> > > the dominant
> > class,
> > > and I also mean that both the experiments themselves and their
> > > re-presentations by the BBC are ideological.
> > >
> > > So for example the in the Arden House experiments two graduate
> > > schools devise an experiment that is designed to show how
> > > life-affirming and life-enhancing consumer choice is and how
> > > life-denying and life-deadening it is to be taken care of by people.
> > > Amusingly, the BBC then has to re-present this experiment by gushing
> > > that the two graduate students had absolutely no idea of what they
> > > would find (because of course even the
> > BBC
> > > understands that if an experiment simply reinforces our prejudices,
> > > it's not very significant in the history of psychology).
> > >
> > > The programme on Harry Harlow's experiments follows more or less the
> > > same model. Harlow designs an experiment to prove that "love" and
> "attachment"
> > > (which are apparently sufficiently represented by a wrapping a
> > terry-cloth
> > > towel around a wire cylinder) are crucial to parenting. The BBC
> > re-presents
> > > this as an astonishing experiment by claiming that in the 1950s the
> > > big debate in psychology was over whether behavior was entirely
> > > innate or entirely learned, something that has not been true of
> > > psychology since Pavlov. Then the Beeb includes some criticism of
> > > Harlow--but much of it has to do with animal rights! The best
> > > critique came from Harlow himself, who assessing his own work,
> > > remarked that he had succeeded, through sheer sadism and at no
> > > inconsiderable government expense, in convincing psychologists of
> > > something everybody else has known for thousands of
> > years.
> > >
> > > David Kellogg
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Martin John Packer <
> > > mpacker@uniandes.edu.co> wrote:
> > >
> > > > This week the BBC has a series of interesting radio documentaries
> > > > on classical psychological studies:
> > > >
> > > > <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008cy1j/episodes/player>
> > > >
> > > > Martin
> > > >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
>

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