[Xmca-l] The word and the concept in the history of science

[Andy Blunden]

I have been in an exchange on Twitter which began with
someone claiming that it was wrong to refer to "Vygotsky's
concept of internalisation." My response has been to point
to
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1931/higher-mental-functions.htm#genetic-law)
and following paragraphs. We confirmed that in the original
Russian the words "internalisation" or "internalise" do not
appear, but phrases like "from external to internal" abound.
The conclusion therefore is that LSV did have a concept of
"internalisation" but never put a word to it.

I compared this to the situation with "Marx's concept of
commodification" which has a clear basis in
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007)
the /Communist Manifesto/ and
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm)
/Capital/, but in fact the word "commodification" never
appeared in English until a Maoist group in the US used it
in 1970.  (It still isn't recognised by Spellcheck).

So here we have two important cases where the word was
coined long after the concept was formulated in detail by a
creator. "Internalisation" is a concept that had been around
at least since
(https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/locke.htm)
Locke, but there is no doubt that it is meaningful to talk
of *Vygotsky's* concept of "internalisation"; likewise, Marx
did not invent the idea of making something into a
trade-able commodity,  but it is certainly justified to talk
of *Marx's* concept of "commodification."

On the other hand. /perezhivanie/ was a word in
psychological theory before Vygotsky, and LSV himself used
the word in multiple senses, so I think we have consensus on
this list that it is not legitimate to refer without
qualification to "Vygotsky's concept of /perezhivanie"/
because the reference of such a term is entirely unclear and
requires explanation.

It is *not* a general rule that the word is coined after the
concept is formulated. In the psychology of concept creation
I think word-making and concept-making are intimately tied
together; very often old words are redeployed, modified or
joined, and clearly play a part in concept formulation.
Tolstoy's aphorism cited by Vygotsky: "The word is almost
always ready when the concept is ready,"
(https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/words/ch06.htm)
is only in reference to children's conceptual development
and is not quite relevant here.

I have crticised interlocutors of_**_ "dogmatism" for
insisting that it is wrong to refer to "Vygotsky's concept
of internalisation." The above observations are what I would
call "further information" for someone unaware that Vygotsky
did not have the word, rather than a contradiction.

Questions: Am I correct in what I have said, and can people
think of other examples like internalisation and
commodification?

Continuing the previous topic I raised, could I coin the
word "alienism" as the cultural analogue of "anachronism"?

Andy
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
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