I think you raise a really important question that needs to be fleshed out
a number of levels. I've been thinking a lot about these issues lately,
which often means I become unintelligable when trying to sort them out.
One thing I felt I have had to do is seperate the geologically based
evolutionary theory that runs from Darwin (by way of Lyell) through
people like Stephen Jay Gould, from primatology/comparative psychology.
This is because, it seems to me, they deal with fundementally different
issues, different questions. Social historical theory interacts with both,
but in different ways. The issue, I think, for primatology, and the way
it relates to social historical theory is one of direct species contiguity
between other species and the human species. It seems to me that social
historical theorists are interested in contiguity, but in a fundementally
different way than primatologists/comparative psyhologist in the United
States. The social historical theorists want to establish contiguity
by making the claim that the very young child has basically the same
thinking skills as more advanced other species. The coming together
of biological development and cultural development in ontological development
creates a qualitative break between humans and all other species. This means
there has to be a strict division between any cultural historical phenomenon
(such as the cooperative use of tools) and the behavior of species.
The argument both Vygotsky and Leontiev seem to make is that even though
certain interactions among non-human species may superficially resemble
our cultural historical interactions (e.g., mutuality, tool use) these
interactions are biologically based, while our interactions have a
cultural historical base. the differences between humans and other
species is _qualitative_. It seems to me that primatologists/comparative
psychologists in the United States have an agenda of looking for a more
seemless contiguity between other species and human. They want to make
the argument that differences in tool use (especially say language) is
more a quantitative difference than a qualitative difference. I think
it is important to recognize this difference...it can lead to a very
rich discussion about the relationship between humans and other species.
I have probably gone on too long, but I want to take one moment to
talk about affect, because it is related to the point I was trying to
make above. Affect in social historical theory, at least for Leontiev
is qualitatively different for humans than for other species. It is
somewhat epiphenomenal of efforts to meet a cooperative motive as a
community (e.g., why are you happy when you get a paper accepted by a journal
....because it bears a positive relationship to your role as a member of
the cooperative in its attempt to fulfill its collective motive. It is
superficially the same as affect in other species, but qualitatively
different.
Michael Glassman
University of Houston
P.S. I have a commentary in the latest _American Psychologist_ responding
to the Geary article Mike mentioned which might hopefully make some
of the ideas expressed here a little bit clearer.