Re: [xmca] Redundancy in "Tool and Sign" (teh beginning of the "Second Vygotskian Revolution")

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Anton, could I use a parallel of the translation of Marx's manuscripts? 
I think it fair to say that Marx's legacy had in many ways better 
conditions, but nonetheless, controversy has raged down the decades over 
what Marx really said. In the wake of the Russian Revolution, there was 
a big effort to transcribe his work, and rescue his legacy from the 
Second International, and since the 1990s especially there has been a 
wave of "back to the real Marx" aimed at rescuing the "real Marx" from 
the Third International and other currents.

My observation is that this is a complex process in which translation, 
editing and exegesis are a subordinate part. Every generation has 
re-interpreted Marx in the light of current conditions (a point you make 
yourself). So the process of reconstructing the theory and rediscovering 
the founder's own words are two processes which work side-by-side, 
mutually aiding one another.

My only concern is that while we all work at reinventing a Cultural 
Psychology (or Nonclassical Psychology or Activty Theory or whatever you 
want to label it) we continue to work on excavating the real Vygotsky, 
but that one task is never an obstracle to the other, that doubts about 
the legacy never act as a blockage to interpretation of the legacy in 
our new circumstances.

Andy

Anton Yasnitsky wrote:
> ... Furthermore, as an aside, I am now torn apart between apparently contradicting desire to retranslate the whole of Vygotsky exactly as the stuff was published or ever existed in manuscripts, AND, on the other hand, inclination NOT to retranslate BUT rather reinterpret the theory in terms of contemporary psychological discourse. 
>
>   


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