The cultural historical theory of higher psychic (mental, psychological)
functions. Verseov, who has done a lot of historical research of Vygotsky's
texts argues as follows,
"As for the Western term "cultural-historical theory of activity" which has
no equivalent in Soviet and Russian literature, it can be defined as the
"secondary result" of incorrect presentation of the theoretical and
historical relations between two different theories - the
cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky and the psychological theory of
activity of A. N. Leont'ev. Vygotsky himself never called his approach "
the cultural-historical theory of activity", but "the cultural-historical
theory of the development of higher psychical functions/processes" and A.
N. Leont'ev always called his approach the psychological theory of
activity. To understand the methodological relations between these two
theories is not possible without adequate historical and terminological
analysis, in particular, without the reconstruction of the pre-history of
cultural-historical theory, presented in Vygotsky's works before 1928. On
the other hand, A. N. Leont'ev's theory of activity can by right be
considered as one of the possible ways of development of ideas of
Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory; perhaps because of political and
ideological circumstances in the Soviet Union, it was the only possible way
of such development."
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/vbeforev.html
The founders of the Golden Key Program, descendants of the Vygotsky
lineage, use cultural historical theory to differentiate Vygotsky from
Leontiev's early Activity Theory. They argued that Activity Theory
initially divided objective from subjective, cognition from creativity etc.
Davydov addresses this issue in Perspectives of Activity Theory in which he
argues along similar lines in that we don't need activity of particular
function (creativity, perception etc) which is generally how activity
theory has been interpreted in the CHAT perspective. The cultural
historical approach in this context being one without divisions of
objective/subjective, intellect/affect, education/upbringing, sense/meaning
etc.
In general, I see Vygotsky's theory more historical than cultural with the
cultural component being the third wave in the CHAT approach. As is argued
at http://www.helsinki.fi/~jengestr/activity/6a.htm the second generation
of CHAT, particularily Mike Cole, were concerned about issues of cultural
diversity. In the collected works "Problems of the Theory and History of
Psychology" Vygotsky uses the instrumental method which he differentiates
very much from Dewey.
(page 88)
"By its very essence the instrumental method is a historic-genetic method.
It introduces a historical viewpoint in the investigation of behavior;
behavior can be understood only as the history of behavior. The main areas
of investigation of the instrumental method can be successfully applied to
are a) the area of socio-historical and ethnic pdychology, which studies
the historical development of behavior, its various stages and forms; b)
the area of investigation of higher, historically developed mental
functions - higher forms of memory, attention, verbal, and mathmatical
thinking; c) child and educational psychology. The instrumental method has
nothing in common with the theory of instrumental logic of Dewey and other
pragmatists."
If I was to take the acronym (CHAT) apart it would be (C) Mike Cole,
Cultural Psychology, cultural diversity; (H) Vygotsky and Luria and their
emphasis on the historic-genetic method; (AT) Leontiev, Engestrom and other
approaches of activity theory. And as Engestrom argues what unifies the
components is their focus on mediation and knocking down the Cartesian
walls that divide mind from activity, world etc.
Nate
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Robinson <bruce.rob who-is-at btinternet.com>
To: xmca list <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 1999 3:47 AM
Subject: Re: Talking about CHAT...
> At a tangent to Eva's question, something that I was thinking of today in
> relation to something I'm writing. There are lots of references to
> Vygotsky's 'Cultural Historical Theory', but his Cultural Historical
Theory
> of what?? Of human development? Of
> psychology? Of mind?
>
> Can someone please point me to where he himself used this description of
his
> theory? Or was this title attributed to his theory by others? A quick
skim
> of Mind in Society and Van der Veer and Valsiner's chapter on the CHT
don't
> seem to give an answer.
>
> Bruce Robinson
>
>