[Xmca-l] Re: Soviet Psychology Overview Article

[Andy Blunden]

I found this paper extremely interesting.
It's rather confronting opening, saying that Soviet 
Psychology had "failed," is really crediting the 
world-conquering ambition of Vygotsky's vision expressed in 
the "Crisis of Psychology" text, towards forming not a 
"Marxist psychology" (i.e. yet another school) but "general 
psychology" - that is, he aimed to reorganise psychology 
internationally. I think we take for granted now, that 
psychology is fragmented into myriad schools, but in those 
times, the interwar years, this fragmentation of psychology 
was emblematic of the world crisis manifested in the rise of 
fascism and stalinism and the evident termination of 
progress in Europe. It was a central problem for all theory! 
At that time, it was still expected that Psychology would 
develop like the natural sciences. So I accept the author's 
characterisation, together with the claim that Vygotsky's 
vision is gradually being fulfilled and his school has made 
a crucial contribution to the eventual achievement of an 
international psychology. The paper is very optimistic in 
that respect.
I like the perspective for International psychology - the 
merging of universal, cultural and indigenous currents of 
research. Very interesting. Also the view that Psychology 
will develop along too distinct paths - the reductive 
neurophysiological and the humanistic - with Luria in a 
founding role in both! This seems a valid description, and 
emphasises the importance of promoting understanding of 
Luria's life.
I have made a very modest effort to trace how Hegel's 
efforts in philosophy to create what could be conceived of 
as a cultural psychology took about 80 years before 
manifesting in Vygotsky's ideas. And it seems there is a 
second phase of that journey being described in this paper. 
A grand vision cannot directly translate into a global 
research program. It has to arise bit by bit.
The characterisation of the internationalisation process as 
spread of mainstream Psychology + interest in cultural 
variation. I don't know about this one.
I did find a couple of criticisms of Vygotsky odd, mainly 
that Vygotsky did not give a prominent place to 
*collaboration* in his psychology (while Piaget did) because 
he "took collaboration for granted" - I think this is an 
error. "Collaboration" is one of the ways  Vygotsky's ideas 
connected up with people in the West.
The author's ideas about how research is transmitted, or 
taken up, are interesting too. That theories are 
appropriated piecemeal and put to work in the research 
project which is doing the appropriation.
The three reasons why Vygotsky's school "failed" to win over 
to an international psychology: (1) stalinist repression (2) 
lack of attention to experimental research and the careful 
documenting of their protocol - seem reasonable, though I 
think the ideological gap and the uniqueness in time and 
place of the conditions of the revolutionary ferment which 
gave birth the CHAT ought to be mentioned too. The author 
instead refers to "overemphasis on theory".
Wonderfully comprehensive review of the development of 
international psychology!
Thanks for that Mike (and for your contributions as document 
in the chapter!)
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
On 8/12/2015 4:45 AM, mike cole wrote:
> Yes, Huw.  I found that odd too. Perhaps it is the date? I also posted it
> on a Russian site. It will be interesting to see what they have to say.
>
> Yes, Larry, that is an amazing archive. I did not have time to peruse it.
>
> mike
>
> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 8:10 AM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Mike,
>> The entire edited volume seems a treasure trove of tracing the formation
>> and dissemination of knowledge(s) moving through time. A profound work of
>> scholarship.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "Huw Lloyd" <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
>> Sent: ‎2015-‎12-‎07 7:40 AM
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Soviet Psychology Overview Article
>>
>> It seems completely nuts to describe the soviet research program as a
>> failure.  They demonstrated far more success than any other endeavour in
>> scientific psychology that I have studied.  Most psychology projects can't
>> even establish a coherent theory, let alone apply it.  They are forever
>> wading around in hypotheses and impressions, or focusing upon incoherent
>> slices of phenomena without regard to its origins.
>>
>> "Psychology today is undergoing a transformation. It is becoming an
>> international science, which aspires to uncover universal laws of human
>> behavior and cognition as well as to account for their cultural variation.
>> How can we understand the transformation of concepts, ideas, and approaches
>> involved in this process? In this chapter, I examine a historical precedent
>> for the globalization of psychology. In the 1920s–1930s, a group of Soviet
>> researchers led by L.S. Vygotsky proposed a new kind of scientific
>> psychology that would be international in scope. It was revolutionary in
>> its assumption that the study of mind and behavior, in phylo- and
>> ontogenesis,
>> had to be grounded in the study of the cultural and material conditions in
>> which people live. Although this research program as such largely failed,
>> the Soviet psychologists contributed much of value, and their ideas were
>> taken up—and transformed—by Western psychologists. These ideas form the
>> basis of the genuinely international psychology that is only just emerging
>> today, and to which the “cultural-historical” psychology of the Soviets was
>> a precursor."
>>
>> http://www.edition-open-access.de/studies/1/30/index.html#2
>>
>> Best,
>> Huw
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6 December 2015 at 19:45, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> This morning I stumbled over the attached historical overview of Soviet
>>> Psychology in relation to international psychology that I thought would
>> be
>>> of interest to MCA-o-philes.
>>>
>>> http://www.edition-open-sources.org/studies/1/30/index.html
>>>
>>> fyi
>>> mike
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
>>> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch
>>>
>
>