RE: RES: [xmca] Vygotskii-Lewin as gestaltists and the critics of gestaltism in '30s

[Achilles Delari Junior <achilles_delari@hotmail.com>]

João, about Vygotsky's own positions on "Structural psychology", we can also see: Выготский, Л. С. "Проблема развития в структурной психологии (критическое исследование)" = Vygotsky, L.  S. The problem of development in structural psychology (a critical study); from 1934 - Tom. 1 of Russian and Spanish Editions of "the works" (6 volumes) In Portuguese at "Vigotski, L. S. O Desenvolvimento psicológico da criança. São Paulo: Martins Fontes". A long text about "structural psychology". pages 243 - 319.

> From: jbmartin@sercomtel.com.br
> To: the_yasya@yahoo.com; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RES: [xmca] Vygotskii-Lewin as gestaltists and the critics of	gestaltism	in '30s
> Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:14:20 -0300
> CC: 
> 
> Where the text was published?
> 
> Joao 
> 
> -----Mensagem original-----
> De: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] Em nome
> de Anton Yasnitsky
> Enviada em: quarta-feira, 24 de abril de 2013 21:23
> Para: Martin Packer; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Assunto: [xmca] Vygotskii-Lewin as gestaltists and the critics of gestaltism
> in '30s
> 
> Oh, this one is pretty easy. Two points:
> 
> 
> Point 1. The source is fairly idiosyncratic and should be almost totally
> distrusted. Firstly, Vygotsky never wrote this text:
> 
> Leontiev (A.N.) and Zaporozhets did. This text was generated on the basis of
> the notes the two guys were taking 
> 
> during Vygotskii's several hours long presentation, and only God knows what
> exactly the whole talk was about.
> 
> Naturally, the title was invented by the publishers of these notes
> --Leontiev A.A. and Ryabova (Akhutina)--who 
> 
> released it for the first time in 1968. Then, the textological hybrid was
> republished in the Collected Works, with grave mistakes in chronology, but,
> quite  possibly, there are also other involuntary mistakes and deliberate
> censorship in the style of Yaroshevskii's usual brutal editing of
> Vygotskii's texts.
> 
> 
> Luckily, some notes that Vygotskii prepared BEFORE the talk have preserved
> and--
> 
> hurray, hurray!--were published fairly recently by Zavershneva. 
> I guess, furthermore, we also published the stuff in English some time ago.
> Quite a bonus, I would say. 
> So, it might be pretty interesting to compare the two sources, whatever
> brief and fragmentary both are.
> 
> Anyway, all this needs to be kept in mind as long as this publication is
> concerned.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Point 2. To the matter: "cultural-historical gestalt psychology" as a
> synthesis of Soviet Luria-Vygotskian and, on the other hand, German-American
> gestalt psychology. Regardless of what Vygotskii--or, rather Leontiev,
> Zaporozhets and Yaroshevskii--say in this paper "The problem of
> consciousness", there is overwhelming evidence of most intensive 
> 
> and productive contacts between the two groups of scholars and, if not
> mutual convergence, then most enthusiastic attempts to integrate
> German-American gestaltist scholarship in the Soviet Union. I could probably
> try to relate this story here, but for the time being would refer to the
> work that has already been done.
> 
> It took me several [already published] papers to provide arguments in
> support of this claim. 
> Some of these are in Russian, but the just of one of these is available in
> English (and some other languages), too. 
> All these are available here, right after Keiler's seminal work that shows
> that Vygotsky never spoke of "cultural-historical psychology" or, for that
> matter, "higher psychic functions" (vysshie psikhicheskie funktsii):
> 
> 
> http://www.psyanima.ru/journal/2012/1/index.php
> 
> 
> FYI, Russian paper provides numerous footnotes not in Russian that might
> give some idea of the contents of the paper.
> 
> Also, there are a couple of nice original documents published as
> Illustrations within this Russian paper.
> 
> 
> Still, the paper does not deal directly with the issue of theoretical
> synthesis. Well, in fact, such paper is not written yet.
> 
> In a couple of words, though, the idea is as follows, I guess: profoundly
> influenced by gestaltist holism from late 1929 
> 
> onwards, Vygotskii, however, moves closer to Kurt Lewin, who, in turn,
> started expressing his criticism of gestaltist
> 
> preoccupation with holism in favour of more balanced view that would take
> into consideration the wholeness and, 
> 
> on the other hand, the life of organs and the processes in the sub-parts of
> the whole, including the processes of
> 
> separation and fragmentation. This development looked too revisionist for
> the hardcore gestaltist, and fairly renegade.
> It is pretty much in this sense Vygotskii was--along with Lewin--a most
> devoted gestaltist and, at the same time, 
> its staunch critic. This is how I would interpret  Lewin's and Vygotskii's 
> both holism-gestaltism and its critic to the extent 
> 
> of the danger of excommunication from the ranks of faithful gestaltists.
> This is true of the decade of 1930s, but not earlier.
> 
> 
> AY
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>  From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> To: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture,
> Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 6:20:34 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis" (timeo
> Vygotskii et dona ferentem)
>  
> 
> Hi Anton,
> 
> In "The problem of consciousness" (Collected Works, vol. 3), LSV writes that
> gestalt psychology makes the mistake of assuming that the psychological
> functions form a specific kind of unified structure. He says that he wants
> to treat this assumption as the problem: to explore the connections among
> the psychological functions, and how these connections change dynamically.
> 
> Certainly one can read this as an influence of gestalt psychology on his
> work. But it doesn't seem much of a movement towards a synthesis, or to
> encourage such a synthesis. What's your take on this?
> 
> Martin
> 
> On Apr 23, 2013, at 7:54 PM, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > As I mentioned this on several occasions, a synthesis of Vygotskian ideas
> with the solid system of gestaltist thought--
> > 
> > the "cultural-historical gestalt psychology", if I may--looks like a very
> interesting and most promising option
> > 
> > for the development of Vygotskiana in psychology today. 
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