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Re: [xmca] Vygotsky, Saussure, and Wolves with different dreams



Mmm, well I had a read of the relevant passage in Hegel again last night, Steve, and again modified my opinion of its meaning. Here is a link to the point which is the nearest Hegel comes to this relation:

http://marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sp/ssconsci.htm#SS334

I find this prettty opaque quite honestly, but I think if you read it on the assumption that Hegel is talking about the differentiating out of (c) individual consciousness (which is what Hegel meant by "psychology") from (a) animalistic action/reaction and (b) the collective consciousness of a cultural group, you might just get some sense out of it.

LSV put it this way:

"All cultural development of the child passes through three basic stages that can be described in the following way using Hegel’s analysis." (LSV CW v. 4 p. 104) My paraphrase of the rest of the paragraph: the development of a gesture as (1) reaching for an object, (2) a reaction arises, but not on the part of the object, but another person, who completes the grasping for the child, and in being directed towards another person, the gesture becomes contracted, and (3) becomes a gesture for oneself. And I think this is as good as any a representation of the Hegel passage I have given the link to.

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Vygotsky may have learnt about this passage secondhand from Lewin. But everyone knew about the Hegelian phrases "thing-in-itself", "thing-for-us" and "thing-for-itself", since these were part of the popular discourse around Hegel in Marxist circles. So I presume "concept-in-itself," the "concept-for-others" and the "concept-for-myself" is a kind of play on these concepts. But "concept-for-myself" is just not something you'd find in Hegel. The concept is always objective for Hegel.

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Now what Vygotsky meant by it:

"Concept-in-itself" I take to be the unconscious use of words by a small child as an indivisible part of an action, a "handle" for a thing. This is close to the Hegelian idea, because the child is not yet conscious of having a concept or thing-name at all; it is indissolubly connected to the object itself.

"Concept-for-others" I take to mean the use of a word for communicative action, e.g. asking an adult for assistance, and it is directed at the adult.

"Concept-for-myself" is the use of language by the child to control its own actions, speech growing in, as they say, towards silent speech. I don't know if I entirely concur with Kozulin in saying this, but the idea you quote from Kozulin is certainly closely connnected, because the use of words to achieve intelligent *control* of one's own actions is surely closely connected with awareness of one's own consciousness (and behaviour). And I think you can link LSV and Hegel with (a) and (b) but I can't see it with (c).

That's where I'm at with all this Steve.

Andy


Steve Gabosch wrote:
Thanks, Andy. I think I am being a little dense here, because now I am uncertain of both what Vygotsky meant, and what Hegel meant as well! LOL

I get the **sense** of these distinctions, of course, but I don't think they are yet registering for me as clear **concepts**. I might even be able to more or less correctly answer a question or two about what Vygotsky said on a school quiz, but I can tell I would only be doing so on the basis of pseudoconceptual reasoning, because I can memorize the genetic order that Vygotsky says that the concept-in-itself, the concept-for-others and the concept-for-myself appear in the child - but not because I really understand **why** they appear in that order, or because I understand just **what** these kinds of concepts actually are. I couldn't, offhand, give you clear examples of these three kinds of concepts. Your quote from Hegel is helpful, but I have not fully conceptualized Hegel's treatment of these ideas, either. I'm not so sure how I'd get very far on a school quiz on that! LOL

So let me refine my questions regarding Vygotsky's points. First, what did Vygotsky mean by the terms "concept-in-itself," "concept-for-others" and "concept-for-myself"? Second, what are some examples of these kinds of concepts? Third, why does he claim that the first two, as a rule, precede the latter in a child's intellectual development?

For further thought, here are some relevant quotes from the paper, from Vygotsky, and from Kozulin.

Here is what Paula and Carol said (pg 236 in Wolves):

"It is in this respect that Vygotsky notes that the genetic preconditions of the “concept-for-myself” are already present in the pseudoconcept in the form of the “concept-in-itself” and the “concept-for-others”, because these occur earlier in the child than the “concept-for-myself”: he further asserts that this sequence is not restricted to conceptual development because it occurs as a “rule rather than the exception in the intellectual development of the child” (p. 124)."

Here is the passage by Vygotsky from Alex Kozulin's translation of Thought and Language they refer to (pg 124):

"The concept-in-itself and the concept-for-others are developed in the child earlier than the concept-for-myself. The concept-in-itself and the concept-for-others, which are already present in the pseudoconcept, are the basic genetic precondition for the development of real concepts. This peculiar genetic situation is not limited to the attainment of concepts; it is the rule rather the exception in the intellectual development of the child." (7)

In Footnote (7) to the above passage in Thought and Language (on page 268), Kozulin comments:

"7. Vygotsky's discussion of the phenomenon of pseudoconcepts has far-reaching philosophical implications. First of all, if the conscious awareness of one's own intellectual operations ("concept-for-me") is only a secondary achievement, which follows the practical use of these operations, then the individual cannot be considered a self-conscious center of activity. [Note from Steve: I don't grasp what Alex just said.] The individual appears rather as a "construction" built at the crossroads of the inner and outer realities. Second, the phenomenon of functional equivalence between real and pseudoconcepts warns us against taking the functional appearance of communication for its ultimate content. The usage of "one and the same" words and subsequent "understanding" may be illusory. Such illusion of understanding, based on the confusion between functional and essential characteristics, constantly emerges in child-adult communication, in the dialogue between different social groups, and in contacts between different cultures. For further discussion of this point, see Alex Kozulin, "Psychology and Philosophical Anthropology: The Problem of Their Interaction," *The Philosophical Forum*, 1984, 15(4):443-458."

<end>



On Aug 4, 2009, at 7:58 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:

Steve Gabosch wrote:
What did LSV mean by a "concept-for-myself," (a phrase, I understand, is derived from Hegel)?

Hegel would never have used quite the phrase, "concept-for-myself", but the way Vygotsky is using the idea: first concept in-itself, then for-others, and only last for-myself - i.e., self-consciousness, is quite consistent with Hegel's idea. It's really a play on Hegel.

For example from Hegel's Introduction to the History of Philosophy:

"But consciousness really implies that for myself, I am object to myself. In forming this absolute division between what is mine and myself, Mind constitutes its existence and establishes itself as external to itself. It postulates itself in the externality."

Andy
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