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Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!



A close textual analysis of the nice journal article on the sociointellectual biography of Vygotsky convinces me that this was not written by the same person who has been sending provocative messages to xmca. I feel that after all I may continue to quote Vygotsky without fear that (a) it was an editorial insertion (b) a mistranslation of the Russian or (c) later condemned by Vygotsky himself.
Andy

Martin Packer wrote:
Hi Anton,

I have to say that I like your chapter very much. I am pleased to say that you don't, in fact, make the case here that Vygotsky was 'utterly derivative.' What you do provide, I think, is an account that is nicely balanced between a discussion of the influence on his work of other people of the time (and earlier times), and a discussion of the innovations and discoveries that he and his colleagues made in the course of this work, including their ambition to create something importantly new. Whether they were successful or not is a judgment on which readers will of course differ, and I think you appropriately refrain from passing such a judgment yourself.

Thanks for sharing it.

Martin

On Mar 22, 2012, at 10:22 PM, Anton Yasnitsky wrote:

Yep, I have a chapter in the book, and, sure, Vygotsky is utterly derivative, although not completely so. However, I am afraid, I did not make this point perfectly clear in this chapter.

As to you second question, I am not quite sure what the editors were looking for: there were three of them and each of them, I guess, was looking for something different.

Anton

From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
To: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 11:11:44 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!

Anton, do I have this right? You have a chapter in a book on Pioneers in Developmental Psychology, where your principal point is that Vygotsky's work is derivative?

Was that what the editors were looking for?

Martin

On Mar 22, 2012, at 9:26 PM, Anton Yasnitsky wrote:

Let's put somewhat aside the question if anybody can actually *discover* an *idea* or a *concept*: I tend to think that we rather *construct* and *introduce* them, like any other neologisms. Anyway, this is just a remark aside, let's get straight to the matter.

I need to think if Vygotsky in fact ever said anything on "mediated action" (if anybody is aware of specific locus in any Vygotsky's text where he actually says "mediated action" I would greatly appreciate the reference to the source). As to the other two, I am inclined to look towards the Gestaltists, primarily Kurt Koffka along with such peripheral participants and fellow-tavellers of Gestaltpsychologie movement as Kurt Lewin and Kurt Goldstein as the guys who approximately one hundred seventeen times better and way earlier expressed pretty much the same ideas, but in slightly different terms than Vygotsky vaguely did with his "unit of analysis" and "social situation of development". I am not sure, but I guess I briefly suggested this here:
Yasnitsky, A. (2011). Lev Vygotsky: Philologist and Defectologist, A Socio-intellectual Biography. In Pickren, W., Dewsbury, D., & Wertheimer, M. (Eds.). Portraits of Pioneers in Developmental Psychology, (Vol. 7, pp. 109-134).

Vygotsky, in turn, only started learning from the great Germans (Americans, Jews, etc.) when he died.
Unfortunately, though, I am not so sure that these ideas have in fact revolutionized psychology, at least so as long as mainstream (i.e., empirical, North American, ahistorical, non-cumulative, reductionist, etc.) psychology is concerned.

Anton



________________________________
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
To: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 8:43:14 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!

So Anton, to whom should we be attributing ideas like "unit of analysis", "social situation of development", "mediated action" which have revolutionised psychology, and we have been thinking were discoveries of Vygotsky? Is there someone else who should be credited?

Andy

Anton Yasnitsky wrote:
Indeed, thanks a lot to all those researchers, editors, translators, and other volunteers and enthusiasts who made this -- and will make several forthcoming  -- journal issues possible!!


As to Vygotsky's archives, well, it is a little bit different. For instance, as one paper argues, on the contrary, archival materials of one of arguably Vygotsky's works were NOT preserved, and the Russian text of the work was blatantly retranslated (or just translated) into Russian from English (this was a much later copy that actually WAS preserved, or, for that matter, was NOT preserved either, but was "reconstructed" some time in the 1950s or 1960s).

Yet again, as we know, the manuscript of yet another work, commonly believed to be a central work of Vygotsky, was NOT preserved either. The same holds for yet another allegedly most important Vygotsky's book.


So, in sum, I would not be that thankful to those who have been in charge of keeping Vygotsky's archival stuff  alive and, for that matter, accessible.


Anton



________________________________
 From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
To: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Cc: Alexey Kuznetsov <alexey.math@gmail.com>; Ющенкова Дарья Викторовна <dashulya-psy@mail.ru>; Anton Yasnitsky <anton.yasnitsky@gmail.com>; Мещеряков Борис Гурьевич <borlogic@yahoo.com> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 11:04:02 AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Special issue on Vygotsky's legacy: groudbreaking discoveries in PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological Journal!
Thanks to all who carried out this work. Thanks also to those who kept the archival materials alive.
mike



2012/3/21 Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>

A special issue of PsyAnima, Dubna Psychological issue has been released lately. This thematic multilingual issue combined a few studies on textology, chronology and historical development of  Vygotsky's works. Several highlights include:
- first ever rigorous historical reconstruction of the list of Vygotsky's major works and the chronology of their composition

- the sensational finding: Vygotsky never wrote the "History of development of higher mental (psychological) functions" and "Tool and symbol (sign)" the way we know these texts in Russian now

- a discussion of Vygotsky's " Tool and Sign" (alias "Tool and Sign"), i.e. the first half of what we all know as "Mind and Society" (1978, chapters 1-4): was Russian text translated from the English one, or the English text translated from Russian one, or both?
- numerous fakes and falsifications in Vygotsky's various published works & the problem of reliability: is it the Vygotsky that we know or rather -- the Vygotsky that we DO NOT know?

- full list of editorial interventions in the three editions of Vygotsky's "Thinking and speech" of 1934, 1956, & 1982

- a historical, first ever republication of early Vygotsky's articles on art, theatre and literature of 1922: the unknown Vygotsky of his Gomel' period (1917-1924)

All these and some other materials, in Russian, English, Portuguese, and French are available FREE, 24/7 online @ http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2011/4/index.php

The editorial team are presently considering publishing a follow-up issue of the journal that would build on these studies, so any queries, comments, suggestions, and even paper proposals (in virtually any language and of virtually any length) will be greatly appreciated!
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608461459/
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608461459/

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