Activity and Mediation

In this note I try to distinguish several meanings of the two terms
"activity" and "mediation" that I consider important in our
discussion about the relation of Rubinshtein and Vygotsky. This is
all the more necessary because there are severe problems of
translating these concepts developed in the Russian language into
English. It seems to be somewhat easier to translate them into
German, maybe because they have been developed from originally
German texts (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Engels).
Because I cannot read or speak Russian, I have to work from the
German or English translations.

I would like to start with this observation: In the works of
Rubinshtein "activity" (translated into German as "Taetigkeit") is
a very general term meaning essentially *process* and *interaction*
(Wechselwirkung). In one of his latest works ("Being and
Consciousness", 1957; German translation "Sein und Bewusstsein",
1963) he distinguished:

- "reflectory activity", a term borrowed from Pavlov to designate
neuronal processes realizing (complex) conditioned reflexes,

- "psychische Taetigkeit", a term that can be translated as
"mental activity" if "mental" is understood as broader than
"conscious", designating the material process "realizing the
relation between the individual and the world", and

- human activity in general - usually differentiated into
practical and theoretical - that produces the human world, and
is *regulated* by mental activity.

He defined the main task of psychology as "uncovering the internal
mental conditions that mediate the psychological effect of external
causes on the subject, and the internal lawfulness of externally
conditioned mental activity" (1963: 209).

In this wording Rubinshtein's well known "principle of
determinism" is apparent: External causes (the objects of activity)
determine the behaviour of the subject - not directly, but
"refracted through the prism of internal conditions". What is not
so apparent here is that Rubinshtein was mainly interested in
*epistemic behavior*: He wanted to explain thinking and scientific
practice as lawful processes determined *by the objects* to be
known while being mediated by the mental activity of the subjects.
In a simplified schema we can summarize Rubinshtein's concepts
of activity and mediation thus:

objects as external causes =>
mental activity as internal mediation =>
cognition of the world (Erkenntnis) as lawful result.

There is another very famous psychologist whose main goal was to
explain the epistemic abilities of humans: Jean Piaget. In contrast
to Rubinshtein, he stressed the internal structure of organic
activity as the main source of human knowledge. He has argued, for
instance, that mathematical knowledge is not abstracted from the
objects, but is generalized from the operative structure of actions
that is modified by the complementary processes of accomodation to
and assimilation of objects. Thus, in Piaget's theory the objects
function as mediators of the effect that the organism's actions
have on themselves. Piaget's schema (again much simplified) is:

organic activity as internal cause =>
objects as external mediators of self-development =>
cognition of the world as genetically determined result.

Both of these *process-oriented* meanings of "mediation" must be
contrasted with the meaning that Vygotsky has introduced into
psychology (e.g. in "Mind in Society" 1978: 54, written in 1930):
He proposed "mediated activity" as a general concept for both tool
use and use of signs, and explicitly based his proposal on Marx
analysis of the process of labour in chapter 5 of "Capital".
This is a *product-oriented* meaning of "mediation", to be sure,
because tools and signs both are not reducible to their momentary
use. They empower humans exactly because they have independent
existence, because they can be societally reproduced outside the
use situation.

Vygotsky also added a qualification that in a way puts together
both of the above schemata:

A most essential difference between sign and tool ... is the
different ways that they orient human behavior. The tool's
function is to serve as the conductor of human influence on the
object of activity; it is *externally* oriented; it must lead to
changes in objects. It is a means by which human external
activity is aimed at mastering, and triumphing over, nature. The
sign, on the other hand, changes nothing in the object of a
psychological operation. It is a means of internal activity
aimed at mastering oneself; the sign is *internally* oriented.
... The mastering of nature and the mastering of behavior are
mutually linked, just as man's alteration of nature alters man's
own nature. (1978: 55)

There has been much confusion about the meaning of the two
different "directions" of activity that Vygotsky named in defining
the different functions of tools and signs. But from the above
quotation it seems clear to me that it is not the topological
meaning (literally "inner" vs. "outer" regions, e.g. "private mind"
vs. "public world") that he wants to express so much as the
difference between directedness:

- at the material object to be transformed ("external"), and
- at the know-how and knowing-that of the persons ("internal").

"Internalization" of the structure of external activities then must
mean mainly an *increase in self-regulation* that is brought about
by building and using an "internal", i.e. *symbolic*, model of the
world to anticipate the resistance of the material objects, and to
overcome them somehow (nowadays the phrase "triumph over nature"
has a very bad ring) in order to ensure our reproduction on earth.
Vygotsky's assertion that "internal" activity "changes nothing
in the object of a psychological operation" is also somewhat
misleading, because "the" object may well be symbolic in a certain
phase, and if it is, this statement becomes non-sensical. It is
therefore necessary to distinguish between the *original* object of
some activity, and its various transformations and symbolic re-
presentations during the process of self-regulation.

As far as I have been able to study Rubinshtein's work, this
latter distinction was glossed over repeatedly, but never taken
seriously. There is a tendency with Rubinshteinians, very marked in
Brushlinski's work "Psychology of Thinking and Cybernetics" (1970,
German 1975), to deny the importance of the symbolic products of
thinking -- in favour of stressing the fluidity and creativity,
i.e. the essential process character, of mental activity.
I strongly doubt that it is possible to fully understand the
power of human cognitive functioning without a product-oriented
approach.

Andrei Brushlinski has chosen to label Vygotsky's line of reasoning
as "non-activity approach". In the light of the above argument, I
can accept that only if I translate it as *non-process* approach.
But then I must add that the Marxist account of material production
also falls under this rubric, and thus my option is clear: For the
time being I will stick with the "product approach" to activity and
mediation.

Arne Raeithel.