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Re: [xmca] Vygotsky reference to Lenin



Thanks, Andy. I have read that section and others, and have not yet found any place where I recognize Lenin making the point Vygotsky attributes to him - "that contrasting the mental with the physical is absolutely necessary within the strict confines of the statement of our epistemological goals, but that beyond these confines such a contrast would be a gross mistake."

Below is the larger quote again. I think Vygotsky had good reason to describe his proposal as novel. I like it, but it has me thinking about stuff, such as the innovative way he is relating the ontological, epistemological, and psychological - and whether Lenin or other classical Marxists actually said these specific things about the mental and physical, as Vygotsky suggests. I would be very happy to be pointed to where. I am not seeing this point about the "gross mistake" brought up in the Ilyenkov or Bakhurst studies of Lenin's book, either. But maybe I am looking right at the relevant passage in this book - and just not seeing it.

Vygotsky:

"Dialectical psychology's whole uniqueness precisely resides in the attempt to define the subject matter of its study in a completely novel way. This subject matter is the integral process of behavior which is characterized by the fact that it has its mental and its physiological side. [Dialectical] psychology studies it as a unitary and integral process and only in this way tries to find a way out of the blind alley that was created [by the old psychology]. We remind you here of the warning that Lenin [1909/1984, p 143] gave in his book "Materialism and empiriocriticism" against the incorrect understanding of this formula. He said that contrasting the mental with the physical is absolutely necessary within the strict confines of the statement of our epistemological goals, but that beyond these confines such a contrast would be a gross mistake.

"It is indeed a methodological difficulty of psychology that its viewpoint is a genuinely scientific, ontological one and that here this contrast would be a mistake. Whereas in epistemological analysis we must strictly oppose sensation and object, we must not oppose the mental and physiological processes in psychological analysis."

- Steve


On Jul 20, 2010, at 10:38 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:

The Russian text is available at
http://www.psylib.ukrweb.net/books/lenin01/index.htm
I think the English edition of v. 14 of LCW has similar page numbering, which would mean you are looking at Chapter 3, subsection 1. "What is matter?"

English translation is here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/three1.htm

I can't find an exact copy for that form of words, Steve, but Lenin makes the same point over and over and over and over and over and over and ... as Lenin was wont to.

Andy

Steve Gabosch wrote:
Thanks, Andy. Have been looking in those, and other sections, but no luck yet. It would help me a lot to know for sure what part of the Russian online version corresponds to the page Vygotsky's publishers refer to in the 1984 Russian edition - page 143 - which I could translate on google or babelfish - and then find in English.
- Steve
On Jul 20, 2010, at 7:05 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
Actually, maybe it's this one:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/four8.htm
andy
Andy Blunden wrote:
It's gotta be somewhere in here Steve:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/five2.htm
Andy
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