[Xmca-l] Re: Hegelian sources of CHAT

[Huw Lloyd]

The "four concepts", for me, are four aspects of one understanding -- they
imply each other.

Quoting this passage:

"The ‘abstract generality’ referred to above by Hegel, Vygotsky aptly
called a ‘pseudoconcept’ - a form of abstract generalization, uniting
objects by shared common features, which resembles conceptual thinking
because, within a limited domain ofexperience, they subsume the same
objects and situations as the true concept indicated by the same word.
The pseudoconcept is not the exclusive achievement of the child. In our
everyday lives, our thinking frequently occurs in pseudoconcepts. From the
perspective of dialectical logic, the concepts that we find in our living
speech are not concepts in the true sense of the word. They are actually
general representations of things. There is no doubt, however, that these
representations are a transitional stage between complexes or
pseudoconcepts and true concepts. (Vygotsky, 1934/1987, p. 155)"

My impression from your text, Andy, is that you are misreading Vygotsky's
"Thinking and Speech". Implicit LSV's whole text of vol. 1 is an
appreciation for different kinds of conception (3 levels: pseudo, formal,
and dialectical), but the terminology of "concept" is only applied to the
formal concept, i.e. where Vygotsky writes "concept" one can read "formal
concept".

In vol. 1, the analysis of the trajectory of the thought of the child is
towards a crowing achievement of employing formal concepts. These formal
concepts are only called "true concepts" (not to be confused with Hegel's
true concept) in relation to the pseudo (fake or untrue) formal concepts.
The pseudo concepts pertain to a form of cognition that is considered by
Vygotsky (quite sensibly) to precede the concepts of formal logic.  This is
quite obvious to any thorough-going psychological reading of the text.

However, within the frame of analysis of the text there is another form of
conception which is Vygotsky's approach towards a dialectical
understanding. None of Vygotsky's utterances about dialectics (in this
volume) should be conflated with the "true concept" which he is using as a
short-hand for the "true formal concept", similarly none of Vygotsky's
utterances about "pseudo concepts" should be confused with formal concepts.

I hope that helps,
Huw






On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 at 06:37, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:

> I'd dearly like to get some discussion going on this:
>
> It will be shown that at least four foundational concepts of Cultural
> Historical Activity Theory were previously formulated by Hegel, viz., (1)
> the unit of analysis as a key concept for analytic-synthetic cognition, (2)
> the centrality of artifact-mediated actions, (3) the definitive distinction
> between goal and motive in activities, and (4) the distinction between a
> true concept and a pseudoconcept.
>
>
> https://www.academia.edu/s/7d70db6eb3/the-hegelian-sources-of-cultural-historical-activity-theory
>
> Andy
> --
> ------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Hegel for Social Movements <https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
> Home Page <https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
>
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