Re: leont'ev: externalization/internalization etc

From: Helena Worthen (hworthen@igc.org)
Date: Tue Oct 31 2000 - 08:13:06 PST


Peter, your messages do not come out in weird format on my screen.

When I read something that's new and hard to understand, I go for grasping just
enough of it to carry back something useful to my own work; if there is more
there, especially things that seem excessively focused on something I don't worry
much about, I just let it float on past. I proceed with this system as long as it
doesn't generate contradictions in the pile of knowledge that I use for my work.
After a few years have gone by and I've read a bunch of things and talked with a
bunch of people and the contradictions are only coming in at distant intervals, I
begin to think I know something about the subject at hand.

This is actually a confession that some of you may find shocking!

Oh well...So now I'll try to respond to Peter's struggle with the
"external/internal" issue. Tell me if this helps, or if I'm just ironing out all
the interesting complexities of his/your contribution. Here is what passes for
sufficient for me, to help me understand what all the fuss is about
internal/external:

It's from Bakhurst's Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: from the
Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov, page 63:

"Vygotsky believed that psychology was trapped between two approaches to the mind
that, though they appeared to be the only alternatives, were both unsatifactory.
Russian psychology, for example, was divided between the "objectivist" approach of
the behaviorists and reflexologists, and the instrospectionism of the
"subjective-empirical" school. The former sought to explain al human behaviour in
"stimulus-response" terms, which made no essential reference to mental phenomena.
They held that talk about the mental, insofar as it is relevant to the explanation
of behvarior, can be reduced to talk in terms of responses. In contrast, the
subjective-empirical school, while recognizing the signiificance of the
stimulus-response framework for the explanation of behavior, argued that no purely
objective account can capture consciousness, the inner dimension of mental life.
They insisted that this inner realm remains a legitimate object of psychological
investigation even though it is in pricniple beyond the reach of scientific
method, accessible to the psychologist on throught the introspective reports of
the subject."

So these are the two camps. Vygotsky "internalization" concept was a way of
thinking about how the outside gets in and how the inside gets out (or, better,
how the two interact). But these ideas were offered in a context of high stakes
debate.

So, forty (?) years later, this is still the multifold problem that Leont'ev is
facing -- how to justify the study of consciousness and how to explain it as a
central focus of psychology -- and then, how to talk about consciousness within
psychology, how to think about its development in history and its function in the
world. That's what we're reading now.

Have I got it right enough? (Anyone know the concept of the "good enough mother"
-- the mother who may not be a star, but at least doesn't drive her family nuts
and hurt them? I'm asking if this is right ENOUGH?)

Helena Worthen

"Peter JONES(SCS)" wrote:

> 31 october 2000
> from peter jones, sheffield hallam university
> Friends
> this message has been stewing for a few days as i've been really struggling
> both with the book and with the many ideas thrown up in discussion, including
> dot's earlier email (and her later clarifications) which provoked a lot of
> interesting debate, and in particular, some issues which are not so easy to
> resolve. i wanted to return to the issue of external/internal and
> externalization/internalization (and i've harped on about this before, so
> apologies!). the cultural-historical position is usually expressed as follows
> (and indeed vygotsky put it this way): the direction of development is from
> social to individual (= external to internal). this way of expressing things
> cannot be right (i should stress that i don't think vygotsky actually
> understood it in this way, despite the way that it is expressed). it is wrong
> because the individual IS THE SOCIAL BEING (marx)!! think about it: if social
> means 'external' then the process of 'internalizing' the external cannot
> therefore be social - it cannot be part of the 'social process' and
> consequently the individual (the person, the personality) is not a social
> phenomenon! but this is absurd! the process of 'internalization' (however we
> construe it) is part of the (SOCIAL!) process of becoming of the individual
> person, the (individual ) social being. it is absolutely wrong, therefore, to
> counterpose the individual to the social; the internal to the external in this
> way. there is of course a valid distinction between 'collective' and
> 'individual' activities etc but this is not to do with the former being social
> and the latter not. the 'inner' states of the individual mind are just as much
> social phenomena as the stock exchange. i understand the 'social' to mean the
> concerted, co-action, co-operation etc of particular individuals; it means that
> in everything the individual person does (or thinks) other people are present,
> other people are 'addressed' (to use Felix Mikhailov's term - 'obrashchenie')
> whether directly in immediate practical circumstances of active cooperation
> where, as individuals we must start our personal journey, or indirectly in
> 'inner speech' and private contemplation. as marx put it (i think we've looked
> at this quote before): 'Social activity and social enjoyment exist by no means
> ONLY in the form of some DIRECTLY communal activity and directly COMMUNAL
> enjoyment, although COMMUNAL activity and COMMUNAL enjoyment - ie activity and
> enjoyment which are manifested and affirmed in ACTUAL direct ASSOCIATION with
> other men - will occur wherever such a DIRECT expression of sociability stems
> from the true character of the activity's content and is appropriate to the
> nature of the enjoyment. But also when i am active SCIENTIFICALLY, etc - an
> activity which i can seldom perform in direct community with others - then my
> activity is SOCIAL because i perform it as a MAN. Not only is the material of
> my activity given to me as a social product (as is even the language in which
> the thinker is active): my OWN existence IS social activity, and therefore that
> which i make of myself, i make of myself for society and with the consciousness
> of myself as a social being.' this is from the early writings (1844) and goes
> on in similar vein in a way which is directly relevant to the discussion i
> think.so the development of our physical and mental powers as individuals, of
> our capacity to act, think, plan, imagine, feel, etc etc is not a movement from
> 'social to individual': it IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL ITSELF - my
> individual 'progress' is the 'progress' of other people too; the development of
> the individuals (together, through and with one another) is the development of
> the community! if an individual solves a problem it is our solution - humanity
> as a whole has solved it. (conversely an individual's problems are everybody's
> problems!). leont'ev does not, i don't think, make this equation 'social =
> external' although sometimes his remarks seem a bit cryptic. but for instance
> (section 3.2): 'Human psychology is concerned with the ACTIVITY OF CONCRETE
> INDIVIDUALS that takes place either in conditions of open association, in the
> midst of people, or eye to eye with the surrounding object world - before the
> potter's wheel or behind the writing desk'. He goes on in the same section to
> criticise a view which is 'limited by the concept "socialization" of the psyche
> of the individual' although this implies that he sees the concept of
> "socialization" of the psyche as valid within certain liimits. his discussion
> of 'internal' and 'external' is very nuanced - and in section 3.4 he accepts
> some kind of interaction or dialectic of internal and external - 'the existence
> of regularly occurring transitions in the opposite direction also, from
> internal to external activity' although he general insists on the primacy of
> internalization as the process of formation of the individual "psyche". but
> there are problems with this. it seems to me (partly because of the exclusive
> focus - at least in detailed analysis - on individual activity) that the
> categories of 'internal' and 'ideal' (theoretical etc) activity are conflated
> (and perhaps this is the force of yrjo's early comment on the whole book. but
> the two distinctions do not match up: remember marx on the architect and the
> bee! the architect does his/her planning on paper on the drawing board - this
> is completely external! the 'plan' is the thing, the sensuous (super-sensuous,
> ie ideal) object in front of him/her being altered in advance of the real
> thing. of course there is activity going on 'inside the head' of the architect
> too (ie internally) which is of course, part of the planning process; but this
> 'internal' activity in the head is part of any activity! if activity is truly
> conscious and purposeful (ie it has an object, motive in leont'ev's sense) then
> how can 'external activity' not be/include (at the same time) 'internal
> activity' in leont'ev's sense?? so that his distinction between
> external/internal breaks down. theoretical (or in general ideal) activity is
> just as 'external' as any other activity, as witness this discussion we're
> having about the meaning of his book! paul's point about the pre-eminence of
> production over consumption is a good, one, i think but it does not really make
> the point that he wants to make. production is purposeful activity - it runs
> its course (cf marx on the labour process) according to a purpose which
> (ideally) precedes (and guides) the actual transformation of object into
> product. so in leont'ev's (inadequate?) terms production is 'externalization'
> of the 'internal'!! yours in some confusion!
> P
> PS: why do my messages come out in a weird format? should i be pressing some
> button??



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