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Re: [xmca] Vygotsky's Plural Discourse!!
Some comments on Jussi's very interesting paper. Semiotic mediation,
socio-behaviorism, epistemological breaks.
********************************
First, on semiotic mediation.
Jussi's discussion of Vygotsky's theory of semiotic mediation being
the basis of consciousness, formulated late in Vygotsky's short
career, and how it transitioned from an instrumentalist concept, seems
to be his paper's strongest aspect, where Jussi assembles the most
persuasive quotes and arguments. I believe this assemblage adds up to
an unfortunately narrow assessment of Vygotsky's overall approach to
psychology and consciousness, but Jussi makes a strong case that needs
to be taken very seriously. I applaud his scholarship and work on
this. He offers a worthy argument. It appears that his work
dovetails very nicely with many of David Kellogg's insights into
Vygotsky's last and most important work, Thinking and Speech,
including David's emphasis on semiotic mediation.
I owe Sasha a serious response to his recent comprehensive post, which
replied, among other things, to my objection to what I perceived as an
erroneous reduction of Vygotsky to a theory of sign mediation. Again,
as above, I claimed that reducing Vygotsky - meaning, Vygotsky I, II
or III, to use David's terminology - to his 1932-34 theory of semiotic
mediation, is a narrow assessment of his approach to psychology. Have
I managed to climb my way out on a limb? We'll see ... :-))
My question at this point, since Jussi has spoken so well, is to Sasha
- what is your evaluation of Jussi's take on Vygotsky's theory of
semiotic or sign mediation? Do you agree, for example, with Jussi's
description of Vygotsky's views on sign mediation, for example, in the
section "Sign and Meaning" (pg 11) where Jussi says things like:
"If the lower forms of activity are characterised by the immediacy of
psychological processes, the higher psychological functions are
characterized by sign-mediation."
"It is clear for him [Vygotsky] that the sign mediation ‘is the most
important distinguishing characteristic of all higher mental
functions.’ (L. S. Vygotsky, 1999b, 41)."
"The use of signs results in a completely new and specific structure
of behaviour in man, a structure that breaks with the traditions of
natural behaviour and creates new forms of cultural-psychological
activity. (L. S. Vygotsky, 1999b, 47)."
"There is no sign without meaning. ‘The formation of meaning is the
main function of sign. Meaning is
everywhere where there is a sign --- meaning is inherent in the
sign.’ (Vygotsky, 1997h, 134, 136)."
Also, Sasha, if you would, please repeat, even if ever so briefly,
what you find incorrect about Vygotsky's views here, as Jussi has
expressed them.
*************************************
Second, on socio-behaviorism.
Another theme in Jussi's paper is that Vygotsky went through three
stages, the first, behaviorism.
David sees Jussi's three stages as overlapping quite a bit with his
Vygotsky I, II, and III, which he bases on Norris Minick's analysis.
Similar how? They strike me as quite different, except for perhaps
seeing 1932-1934 as a specific phase. I like Minick's analysis myself
- it is a good starting point for a very important study. Certainly,
Vygotsky was in constant transition his whole career.
But was there really more than one Vygotsky? Were there enough
Vygotskys to satisfy both David's and Jussi's sequences? Are there
enough LSV's for each of us to have several Vygotsky's of our very
own? :-)) Anyway, Plenum CW Vol 1 is on Google Books (yay!) and here
is the Minick article. "The Development of Vygotsky's Thought: An
Introduction" I see no discussion of a behaviorist phase by Minick,
btw.
http://books.google.com/books?id=u8UTfKFWb5UC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=vygotsky+collective+works+minick&source=web&ots=VAYusF0J-0&sig=xOE1A6IM58poswGLWdrpqawx7hU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA33,M1
Jussi does well discussing the aspects of the transition from an
instrumental to semiotic viewpoint, from early to late CHP, but I find
his discussion of Vygotsky's so-called "socio-behaviorist" phase
unconvincing. His focus on pg 3-5 in his paper on a 1925 essay by
Vygotsky, found in Plenum CW Vol 3. Jussi offers a reading of that
essay that is, in an important way, the opposite of mine. I
appreciate that Jussi's paper got me to take this close look at
Vygotsky's 1925 essay. I had looked at it before, but somewhat
quickly. This time, I read it with great interest. In some passages,
Vygotsky does sound like a behaviorist. And it is true that in this
essay Vygotsky restricts himself to the terms of the behaviorism-
reflexologism of his time, which was dominated by Pavlov (and
according to Minick, Bekhterev) in the Soviet psychology of the time.
My reading, which is certainly somewhat speculative, not having done
the thorough study of Soviet psychology in the 1920's that this kind
of inquiry requires, is that Vygotsky was doing everything he could to
prove, using Pavlovian terminology and his persuasive writing
abilities, that the central subject of psychological research should
be consciousness, not reflexes, and that behaviorism was simply dead
wrong about that and a lot of things. My reading is that Vygotsky was
attempting to **defeat** behaviorism in that essay, using its own
terms. Or more precisely, relegate it to the study only of animal and
human reflexes, which it indeed was making important discoveries in.
I think Jussi is right on a very important observation: Vygotsky is
certainly, from our point of view looking back, being somewhat
contradictory at this point in his career, in 1925. But rather than
assess Vygotsky as "committed to behaviorism," I would assess him has
committed to **anti**-behaviorism and **anti**-reflexology, but still
not having found sufficient arguments and evidence to fully dismiss
and move beyond them, that is, replace them. So, as part of his
searing critique (and Vygotsky sure could cook, one of the things we
love about him), he is forced to use behaviorism's own discoveries and
terms to try to defeat them as serious contenders for hegemony in
Soviet psychological research. At the time, this was a David and
Goliath endeavor.
For that moment in time, the behaviorist approach was one of the most
advanced materialist psychology's available, but hopelessly and
erroneously committed to denying the importance or even existence of
consciousness and will. It was a materialist counterpoint, but a
badly mistaken one, to subjectivist psychology. Vygotsky, to my
knowledge, was unwavering in this assessment of behaviorism - its
objectivist materialism was equally erroneous in its approach to human
psychology as was the subjectivist idealism of other schools. One
understated mind and ignored it, the other overstated and isolated
it. That 1925 essay may have been, in fact, LSV's goodbye letter to
behaviorism, his funeral address to it. He was going to go study
consciousness, and so should all psychologists. 'Nice knowing y'all.
'Bye!'
In other words, my take on the 1925 essay Jussi cites is that Vygotsky
was using dialectical thinking to challenge and stretch this
mechanical materialist trend to its extremes, to force it over the
boundaries it refused to cross, with a very deliberate intent on
breaking its back in the process. His 1924 speech that started his
Moscow career was in that spirit, as was his 1926-27 Crisis monograph
wherever it mentions behaviorism, and to my knowledge, everything he
ever said about behaviorism was also written with these intents. No
one confuses cultural psychology or cultural-historical research with
behaviorism in any way today. The record shows Vygotsky always
opposed it. It does not appear historically supportable to
characterize Vygotsky as a behaviorist, a socio-behaviorist, a
reflexologist, or a reactologist, even for a month, let alone from say
1917 through 1927. He was a die-hard opponent, and never an advocate
of those schools. Yes?
I should add that I don't think discarding this aspect of Jussi's
paper takes away from the insights he offers in the above-discussed
portions. If anything, it removes a distraction.
Something that is always hard to do from a distance, and especially
from the future, let alone a different country, is fully grasp the
rhetorical issues and contexts that drive a given piece of ideological
writing. Vygotsky in 1925 was still establishing his own turf, still
even getting his doctorate, still integrating himself as a
psychologist. Things were changing very fast in the USSR, and all
over the world. These observations are only indicative, and of course
don't prove that my reading is "better" than Jussi's. My point is that
there can be much more going on than meets the eye when one studies
the meanings of quotes. To understand the quotes Jussi offers, we
need to look at them historically for their full meaning.
One interesting viewpoint on this 1925 essay and Vygotsky's view of
behaviorism, is that of AN Leontyev, who wrote and introduction to the
Russian version of this volume of the CW, "On Vygotsky's Creative
Development," where he discusses this essay and Vygotsky and
behaviorism on pg 14 of the Plenum Vol 3 of the CW. There is no hint
from Leontyev that Vygotsky went through a behaviorist phase. (Btw,
what is "socio"-behaviorism?) I am interested in who else has offered
commentary on the relationship of Vygotsky and behaviorism. I know I
for one would benefit from others that have looked into this. And
Jussi may have more insights and views in addition to those he shared
in his paper.
********************
Finally, on Vygtosky's supposed epistemological breaks.
Here, Jussi, in my opinion, is on very thin ice. I am afraid that
neither Althusser nor Foucault are much help to Jussi's thesis, since
neither were discussing Vygotsky. Just because it might rain in
London does not mean it is. The biggest problem with Jussi's thesis
is that Vygotsky never claimed or observed he underwent a change in
outlook of the magnitude of an "epistemological break." (Or am I
wrong? Please correct me on this if I am!) The second biggest problem
is that Vygotsky was very clear, from at least the early 20's, that he
was ontologically and epistemologically a dialectical materialist.
From this he never budged - in fact, he consistently grew more
confident and capable as a Marxist theoretician. He consistently
applied the methodology of dialectical and historical materialism to
psychology. As a matter of fact, he made some significant
improvements to Marxist methodology, making him one of the preeminent
Marxist theoreticians of the 20th Century. In my opinion, no
epistemological assessment of Vygotsky makes sense without fully
assessing him as a Marxist philosopher and methodologist.
This is part of the content of those sharp words, "narrow," "one-
sided," I have used in this regard. For me, to view Vygotsky as first
and foremost a semiotic mediationist, a theoretician of sign
mediation, would be like regarding Marx as first and foremost an
economic analyst with an interesting theory about labor. This would
be a narrow, one-sided assessment of Marx's work, as I think it is
Vygotsky's.
At the same time, Jussi's chart and discussion of "The development of
Vygotsky’s theory of signs as semiotic mediators" needs to be
scrutinized closely and given serious consideration. He suggests not
one but two epistemological breaks, one between LSV's supposed socio-
behaviorism phase and instrumentalist (early CHP) phase, and another,
which he puts a question mark over, between early CHP, and late CHP,
when LSV solidified his his semiotic approach to consciousness. I
like, by the way, the way Jussi looks for "explanatory concepts" and
"methodology of inquiry" to make his analytical comparison. Thumbs up
to the thinking that went into that. It does not demonstrate
epistemological breaks, in my view, but it does suggest ways to look
at the development of many of Vygotsky's ideas, in addition to his
theory of signs as semiotic mediators.
But restricting one's view of Vygotsky's overall trajectory,
ideological development, research work and discoveries to just his
work on signs - and judging "epistemological breaks" therefrom - to me
loses sight of far too many other important contributions by Vygotsky
- and this is very important - the contributions of Vygotsky **and his
associates**. Vygotsky was the leader of something much bigger than
himself, something which was broken up by the Stalinist machine - but
by no means killed off. Just delayed.
What is this something? As I hope I emphasized above, Jussi makes
some valuable contributions to better understanding some important
**parts** of this something. But, I think, one has to step back and
look at much more than just Vygotsky's innovative ideas about the role
of semiosis (sign use) in human consciousness and meaning-making to
evaluate his work epistemologically, methodologically, and above all,
as the founder of this "something," place-named for the time being
cultural-historical psychology. Much more. Yes?
Best,
- Steve
On Jan 29, 2009, at 10:42 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
David, I am being quite frank when I said I know nothing of this
topic. I responded because I was asked to. But in any case, re
Vygotsky vs. Behaviourism, I think I was basing myself on the
Introduction to "Mind in Society" so perhaps Mike could clarify for
me.
Andy
David Kellogg wrote:
In defense (!) of Louis Althusser. He is really talking about the
youth of a science being the SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS of newness, and as
such it's a pretty good metaphor. It's in the context of
Althusser's essay on Freud and Lacan (in Lenin on Philosophy and
other Essays). My dear Andy, behaviorism was the official
psychology of the USSR in 1923, when they barely even had an
official army? When the Commissar of War, Leon Trotsky, was a fan
of Freud's writings? And Vygotsky "trashed" behaviorism in a paper
that claimed that consciousness could be explained as the structure
of behavior? Doesn't seem likely, does it?
Unlike Andy, I agree completely with Jussi's point on semiotics.
Why else would LSV say that word meaning is a microcosm of human
consciousness? When Vygotsky says that the mind is made of semiotic
material, he is explaining exactly how it is that it becomes
possible to internalize social relations as psychological ones and
exactly why it is that human minds develop from the outside in
rather than from the inside out.
In Hegel's Phenomeonology of the Mind (section 157) he discusses
the "inverted world", the moment where two modes of existence are
mapped on to each other (e.g. being onto concept). We find this
particular trope throughout Vygotsky whenever we pass from (e.g.)
the phylogenetic semiohistorical timescale to the sociocultural
one, or from the sociocultural semiohistorical timescale to the
ontogenetic one. (And also from the ontogenetic to the microgenetic.)
In the inverted world, the first shall be last and the last shall
be first. (Or, as Mike says, the only thing we really know for sure
about the mirror is that right is left is right is left.) For
example, on the phylogenetic timescale sex differentiation is late
emerging but on the sociocultural timescale it's very early. This,
and not some purely functional difference, is why tools are
different from signs. Tools are late emerging in phylogenesis, but
they are very early emerging in sociocultural history, but the
mastery of tools is late again in ontogenesis, and on the other
hand comparatively early in the microgenetic mastery of a skill.
Signs (in the form of signals) are very early emerging in
phylogenesis, but very late (in the form of written symbols) in
sociocultural history, and again very early in ontogenesis. The
SIGNIFICANCE of signs (that is, there signifying as opposed to
their indicative function) is late emerging in microgenetic
development.
It seems to me that THIS more than anything accounts for the
CRITICAL differences we find in development when we change time
scales. Of course, on one level, it's a little like comparing
weather and climate (or climate and global warming). We are always
talking about time and the changes wrought thereby.
But the changes wrought are qualitatively different and not simply
quantitatively so. When we change semiohistorical timescales (when
ontogenesis erupts into sociocultural history, as when children
grow up and create social progress, or when sociocultural progress
changes the course of evolution, as when clothes replace fur and
houses replace caves), the very order of things is changed.
At some point the first must BECOME last and the last must BECOME
first. That critical tipping point is not a matter of smooth
development; it's a moment of violent crisis. In ontogenesis, signs
do not replace tools in a gradualistic, benevolent, Biblical manner
after the beatitudes; they must lay violent hands upon them and
overthrow them by force. The same is true of microgenesis, at
least from what I've seen. The transition from a first language to
a foreign one is a profoundly uprooting experience and only much
later liberating (In first language learning, we find that
deliberate control of phonemes is very late, but in second language
learning it's at the very beginning; conversely, in first language
learning, fluency occurs almost immediately while in foreign
language learning it comes late if at all.)
Contrary to what Foucault says (and what Stalin thought), discourse
is part of the SUPERSTRUCTURE of society. That is the very opposite
of what Stalinist linguists like Ya Marr (and also Stalin himself)
claimed. It's also AGAINST what Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan say
today (they believe that language is the base and not the
superstructure of society).
Of course, if we say that language is part of the ideological
superstructure and not part of the productive base of sociocultural
progress (that is, cultural historical change), this does not mean
that it is insignificant. But it DOES mean that it is not
causative, at least with respect to cultural history. Language does
not by itself bring about a transformation in the relations of
production. On the semiohistorical timescale of cultural history,
language cannot create or destroy state power; it is a result and
not a reason, a consequence and not a cause. Of course, as we know,
results can become reasons, and consequences can become causes. But
when that happens, there is a qualitative change in the very
domain, the timescale, of history.
But late Vygotsky, Vygotsky III, knows that ontogenesis is special,
distinguishable, distinct from cultural history. It's distinct
precisely because in ontogenesis (but not in cultural history)
language IS a reason and not just a result, word meaning IS a cause
and not just a consequence. In fact, verbal thinking and
imagination (and of course play) are precisely the result of the
INABILITY of object oriented human activity to provide for the
child's wants, needs, and desires. Here, actually, there IS a
parallel with cultural history, for throughout sociocultural
change, man has created literature and art precisely as a result of
the INABILITY of human labour to provide from man's wants, needs,
and desires for a harmonious society without the exploitation of
man by man. But of course in sociocultural history, play is late
emerging and in ontogenesis it's quite early, because the first
shall always be last and the last shall be first.
I also agree with Zinchenko's point on two paradigms: the paradigm
of mediated action at the core of activity theory is NOT the
paradigm of word meaning at the core of a cultural historical
psychology. I think that Mike and other founders of CHAT founded it
as a loose federation between two rather incompatible Vygotskies,
the Vygotsky of mediated action and the Vygotsky of wod meaning,
with the assumption that a common tradition and a set of common
practices would hold it together. That assumption has proved quite
justified. In China, we say that a good marriage is the same bed
and different dreams. Otherwise, what do you talk about over
breakfast? David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
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