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

[Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>]

Nope. Not "*a* most devoted critic ", but --


TWO most devoted critics,--Kurt Lewin and Lev Vygotskii--and, note, Vygotskii 
was not the first one in this pair of convinced gestaltists.


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 8:40:30 PM
Subject: Re: Vygotskii-Lewin as gestaltists and the critics of gestaltism in '30s
 


A most devoted critic. Okay. 

Martin


On Apr 24, 2013, at 7:23 PM, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com> wrote:

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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