----- Original Message -----
From: HowHtJ@aol.com
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: 17 October 2001 16:23
Subject: Re: LSV's 'Crisis' Week 2: Section 8
Howard wrote:
<I have heard that "positivism" has a slippery semantic slope, but I think
of Vygotsky differently than as developing a positivist discourse. I see
him as attempting to define a materialist and a methodological space between
three poles, positivism, pan-textualism and uncritical Marxism, all idealist
positions.>
I think you're spot on re positivism. While you might refer to his discourse
as scientistic, objectivist, realist or modernist (or other scare words for
post-modernists), I think describing it as positivist is misleading as a lot
of it (see section 8) is aimed precisely against positivism as a theory of
knowledge acquisition. (A couple of months ago I posted another rant on the
topic of how positivism is not the same as scientific method! It also
relates to the discussion of the relationship of research methods to
conceptual framework we had at the start of this reading.)
<One pole is the phenomenalist positivism of Mach and the behaviorists.
"Epistemological consciousness as part of the antinomy 'subject-object' is
confused with empirical, psychological consciousness and then it is asserted
that consciousness cannot be material, that to assume this would be Machism.
And as a result one ends up with Neoplatonism, in the sense of infallible
essences for which being and phenomenon coincide. They flee from idealism
only to plunge into it headlong.” TwoPsychologies >
I can't find the quote here, but I think the point he was making was aimed
at Soviet psychologists who strung together quotes from Lenin's 1908 attack
on Mach in order to produce a 'materialist psychology' which reduces
everything to the movement of matter while rejecting the idea that
consciousness can be material. This crude approach to materialism ends up
reproducing idealism, says LSV. I think all the references to Machism have
to be read in the context of Machism being identified as an ideological
enemy of the emerging Stalinist 'Leninism' without there being any real
analysis of what was wrong with it and how it could be avoided in
psychology.
<The second pole he rejected was the Geisteswissenschaft, "science of the
soul". I don't understand his total position, but I get the feeling that he
might have foreseen an idealist pan-textualism of some postmodernisms. >
Yes.
<The third pole was the uncritical importing of Marx into psychology. Marx
had great insights into psychology, but his distrust of philosophy led him
not to proceed in this direction. To import quotations from Marx without
psychological theory development could be seen as another idealist position.
I wonder if neo-Marxism is playing this role in psychology today? >
I think this relates to the point about Machism and attempts to create a
Marxist psychology by means of pasting together quotes from Marx. LSV
insists that a Marxist psychology (and I see 'Crisis' as incontrovertible
evidence that that - defined in an original way - was what he was trying to
create) must emerge from the specific subject matter of psychology as a
discipline rather than Marx's 'Critique of Political Economy'.
Psychology must 'write _its own_ Capital'.
< I see Vygotsky's modernist view of truth as being tempered because it is
truth only in relation to its supporting theory, not divine truth with a
capital "T". Given the thorough critique of postmodern postcolonial
thought, is there any hope for this sort of materialism today or would
Vygotsky have rethought this completely? >
Big questions. I think they underlie the debate we're having. I tend to
favour the first position, as you probably have gathered.
Bruce
<I am a "Johnny come lately" here. Is this the wrong way to see Vygotsky?
Does anyone else have a different view. >
Howard
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