At the end, he points to Vygotsky's own triple dialectics, of
individual ontogenesis, of historical change and contingency,
and of biological evolution in nature as foregrounding the
differences between developmental agendas and those of philosophical
dialectics, or dialectics applies to these other aspects or
levels.
What I think we may understand today better than in Engels' day,
or in Vygotsky's, is the close interdependence of these three sorts
of dialectics or dynamics. Their former clear separability has now
blurred for us and been replaced by new concepts and units of analysis
in which the biological-natural and social-cultural are not so
distinct any more, and in which evolution and development are
intimately integrated, and in which the different time scales of
ontogenesis, historical change, and ecological evolution help
rather than hinder formation of an integrated theory. We do not
yet have such a fully integrated theory, but I think it is now
within our grasp, and that most of the bits and pieces are around
somewhere, if only in sketchy forms.
Perhaps Michael G. is right that a purely philosophical approach
to dialectics is not enough, and may even tend to misdirect us.
We need I think a very material view of dialectics, or at least
one which does not oppose the dialectics of self-organization in
material systems to the dialectics of cultural change mediated by
symbolic resources for meaning (i.e. for meaningful behavior,
which is always also material in its medium and effects). We need
ways of conceptualizing such systems that would let them teach
us dialectics even if we had never had a philosophical preview
of it. This, too, I think is beginning today to happen.
One of the most radical readings of Michael's arguments would be
that psychology as a discipline, if we want to make dialectics
its basis, must relinquish even more than it already has the
claims to autonomy inherent in its guiding questions and key
concepts. But then so must sociology, cultural anthropology,
and maybe history (a different principle of definition, I think).
There is just one science here, not many. Perhaps a big problem
in this century has been that the long-standing strategy of
success in the physical sciences and part of biology (to
specialize) doesn't work for our issues, that we must learn
instead to synthesize (which is much harder, perhaps requiring
collaborative research efforts on larger scales and longer periods
of time and continuity). It's all too obvious how our institutional
arrangements work against this. Eppur si muove! [Nonetheless, it
does move -- Galileo.] JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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