28 sept
from peter jones, sheffield hallam university
dear colleagues
In the spirit of dot's comments about the different lines of theoretical
development, it is interesting to try and identify in this first chapter some
of the more important topics where differences of opinion, approach or emphasis
appeared. I can't do a proper job on this but will try to point out a few
things that seem to be involved. In summarizing the 'indisputable
achievements' of (Soviet) psychology Leontiev (diplomatically?) appears to
present the whole development of this tradition from Vygotsky on as of one
piece, glossing over these differences of emphasis and theoretical
disagreements. But his discussion includes allusions to the important and
groundbreaking work of many scholars who I think took up different positions as
regards Vygotsky's work and/or whose work was the basis for criticisms of the
'cultural-historical' approach, although this does not necessarily mean that
there is a fundamental contradiction between their new discoveries and ideas
and those of Vygotsky.
1. interesting that Leont'ev mentions rubinshtein early on (here is a whole
topic for discussion in itself!). he gives a reference to Rubinshtein's 1934
work: this ignores Rubinshtein's contribution from 1922 on (according to some,
eg A V Brushlinsky, his paper published in 1922 was perhaps the earliest
formulation of an 'activity theory' approach in dialogue with the marxist
tradition).
2. Section 1.3 (the psychology of cognitive processes). Here Leontiev appears
to be alluding to the work of Zaporozhets and others, including his own work
(references to Zap and others plus more detailed discussion of their work comes
later in the book). Zap's work first of all emphasises perception as itself an
activity, and secondly, looks at perception as derived/developed from the
external, sensuous-practical actions with things. Leont'ev comments that 'Only
a few of the most perspicacious thinkers approached the understanding that
behind perception there lies, as if rolled up, practice, and that the touching
hand or eye is not lost in its object only because it has learned to do the
perceptive actions and operations that have been formulated in practice' ( a
very interesting claim and a quite different emphasis from Vygotsky who
focussed on the role of language in the development of perception).
3. Similarly, in relation to thinking, Leont'ev appears to be alluding to the
work of Zaporozhets, Gal'perin and others including himself when he mentions
the 'numerous scientific facts and concepts that appeared as a result of the
psychological study of thought processes in the last decades' (work that is
discussed later with some references).Once again, the thrust of this work is
the idea that thinking is activity and is the internalized form of practical
activity: 'it has been demonstrated that internal thought processes are nothing
other than the result of interiorization and specification of transformation
[appalling translation here as in many places!] of external practical activity,
and that stable forms of transition from one to the other exist' (this latter
point about 'stable forms of transition' is not elaborated at this stage but
clearly is one of the new ideas).
4. This screw is given one more turn: not only does thought activity represent
practical activity 'translated' onto the inner plane but it also has 'the same
basic structure as does practical activity', including consisting 'of action
subordinated to conscious purposes'. We note that, as Paul has pointed out,
thinking is first identified as a form of external practical activity with
objects, ie it appears (or differentiates itself) as a special type or form of
practical activity (modelling, testing etc) which is then 'interiorized'. This
I think is a new, post-Vygotskian idea (although not necessarily contradicting
Vygotsky).
5. One could think, then, that the 'new emphasis' developed post Vygotsky is
the emphasis on 'external' 'practical activity' as itself a form of thinking
and then providing both the content and the form of all (inner) cognitive
activity. On a very general level, this contention does not necessarily
contradict the Vygotskian view of higher psychological functions as
sign-mediated but the emphasis is certainly different. The category of
'activity' emerges not only as a concept or analytical tool for
social-productive activity (labour) but is extended to cognitive activity: it
is extended from the analysis of socially organized production to individual
psychological processes. Moreover, the outer (social, productive) form and the
inner (individual, psychological) form of 'activity' are held to have 'the same
basic structure'. Thus the category of 'activity' becomes generalized - one
could argue that it is overgeneralized and weakened - with the problems that
brings with it (eg how to cope with the qualitative differences between the
practical and cognitive forms of 'activity'). This gives us rather a stark
picture of humanity: 'a separate individual does not exist as a man outside
society, He becomes a man only as a result of the process of carrying out human
activity' (gulp!).
6. Some of the scholars involved in this research and the discussion of its
implications did see it as at least to some extent in contradiction with
Vygotsky. For example, in their introduction to the new edition of Zaporozhets'
selected works, L A Venger and V P Zinchenko argue that Zap put forward in his
candidate's dissertation ('The role of elements of practice and speech in the
development of the child's thinking', 1936) the 'idea that action, and not
meaning, as Vygotsky proposed, is the primary [initial] unit in the analysis of
thinking'. According to the authors, Zap 'went further than Vygotsky and
extended the idea of the mediated character of the mind from the development of
'higher psychological functions' to the whole psychological development of the
child'. From my own limited reading of Zap (help somebody!) I don't think he
saw his work as contradicting Vygotsky, however.
some fantastic stuff is coming out of the discussion - thanks to all
best wishes
P
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