(It is also an attached file)
Colleagues: Michael Cole, Joseph Glick, Anna Stetsenko, Helena Worthen &
others
In this posting I outline two ideas in response to your recent exchanges.
I-Vygotsky's grand project
II-Analysis of traces and the concept of history in Vygotsky's writings
Vygotsky and Piaget belong to the generation of grand theories. For Piaget,
psychology is in need of its own epsitemology (Projet Epistémologique). For
Vygotsky, psychology is in need of its own Das Kapital. Let me first focus
on Vygotsky's project.
I-Vygotsky's grand project
1- Vygotsky's cultural historical research program is an area of rapidly
expanding influence that has brought together scholars from a range of
different disciplines such as psychology, linguistics, anthropology,
education, philosophy and sociology. An important part of the psychological
appeal of Vygotsky derives from the fact that he was describing the mental
constructs and rule-governed behavior of human development within social,
cultural, and historical reality. There have been a number of attempts to
create a Marxist psychology during the 1920s and 1930s. These have been less
successful because of misunderstandings of Marxism, and indeed of
psychology. If Marxism drew on German Hegelian philosophy, British political
economy, and French political socialism; then psychology drew on German
materialist physiology, British empiricist philosophy, and French Cartesian
dualism. Marx attacked the Poverty of philosophy and wrote a Critique of
political economy; similarly, Vygotsky wrote Educational psychology and
attacked the poverty of psychology in his magnum opus, Historical Meaning of
the Crisis in Psychology. Vygotsky argued that we must write our Poverty of
Psychology then lay the foundations for a Marxist psychology. That is to
create psychology's own capital. My main argument is that Vygotsky's
cultural historical research is poorly understood as a unitary paradigm that
resulted in various competing versions. Cultural historical theory is deeply
rooted in Marxism. Furthermore, when the issue of Vygotsky's Marxism is not
addressed explicitly or in considerable detail from a dialectical-historical
materialist perspective, we will be left with very little maneuvering space.
In a paper "To Create Psychology's Own Capital" I attempted to clarify three
central theses outlined by Vygotsky: first, psychology is in need of its own
Das Kapital; second, it must create appropriate categories and concepts
which express, describe, and study its object; and third, it must discover
its unit of analysis or psychological cell. Anyone, who could figure out the
answer to these theses, would thereby find the key to psychology as a whole.
2-Die Grundrisse could be treated as a kind of laboratory for scientific
psychology's concepts, which will be elaborated and revised in the writings
of Das Kapital. The reading of Vygotsky's, Politzer's and Wallon's writings
showed that they were aware of these interpretations, but the time was not
on their sides. The rise of Stalinism and the premature death of Vygotsky in
Russia, the excution of Politzer in 1942 by the Nazi, and the
marginalization of Wallon's writings palyed a major role in slowing the
process of creating a scientific psychology (Marxist psychology). Their
works have been dismissed almost in every intellectual activity settings.
3-Vygotsky's approach to psychology was radically different from that of his
contemporaries. His intellectual formation was strongly marked by the
influence of Marx, Engels, Wallon and Politzer, who laid great emphasis on
the need for a dialectical historical materialist psychology. When
Vygotsky, Politzer and Wallon begin their expositions of the so-called
Marxist psychology (Freudo-Marxism, Sechenov's and Bekhterev's reflexology,
Pavlov's conditional reflexes, Kornilov's reactology among others) in which
there is practically nothing Marxist left, they concluded their assessments
with an accurate statement that Marx's ideas are falling before our eyes,
and from their ruins will arise a Marxist psychology largely unknown to the
so-called Marxist psychologists. This new psychology -Marxist psychology- in
the making will be capable of providing guidance and fruitful elements
necessary to the most advanced theoretical reflection on human higher mental
life, consciousness and activity. Vygotsky is perfectly right to remind us
that an objective reading of The German Ideology, Die Grundrisse, Das
Kapital is imperative. Wallon's, Politzer's and Vygotsky's arguments against
hasty syntheses of Marxism and Pavlovism, Marxism and psychoanalysis,
Marxism and behaviorism, Marxism and Darwinism, Marxism and empiricism are,
therefore accurate and compelling.
4- In his book of 1927, Historical meaning of the crisis in psychology, Lev
Vygotsky formulated the four basic assumptions which characterized Marxist
psychology around 1920.These assumptions are, first, psychology is need of
its own concepts in other words it needs its own Die Grundrisse; second,
psychology is in need of its own categories which means that psychology
needs its own philosophy and philosophical categories; third, psychology is
in need of its own method which means the application of dialectical
historical materialism as an appropriate method for psychology; and fourh,
psychology is in need of its own Das Kapital. The system of ideas developed
by Vygotsky in the Historical meaning of the crisis in psychology belongs to
the conceptualization and category of grand psychological theory in the
manner of that of Pavlov and James, Binet and Freud. In my view, Historical
Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology has the prospect of becoming to
psychology what Origin of Species is to biology, Wealth of Nations is to
capitalism, and Das Kapital is to Marxism.
II-Analysis of traces and the concept of history in Vygotsky's writings
The following is an excerpt of my conversations with Vygotsky's written
texts ("Free Conversations with Lev Vygotsky Written Texts", 200 pages, to
be appeared)
Elhammoumi: Marx introduced a new revolution in the concept of history in
his theory "the materialist conception of history" which played an important
role in your theoretical reflection. What do you mean by history?
Vygotsky: "The word history for me means two things: (1) a general
dialectical approach to things - in this sense, everything has its history;
this is what Marx meant: the only science is history, natural science = the
history of nature, natural history; (2) history in the strict sense, i.e.,
human history. The first history is dialectic; the second is historical
materialism". C.H.P. 54-55.
"The development of higher functions is governed by historical laws". C.H.P.
55.
"Usually it is said that history interprets the traces of the past, whereas
physics observes the invisible as directly as the eye does by means of it
instruments. The instruments are extended organs of the researcher. After
all, the microscope, telescope, telephone etc. make the invisible visible
and the subject of immediate experience. Physics does not interpret, but
sees." C.W.3. 273.
"To interpret, consequently, means to re-create a phenomenon from its traces
and influences relying upon regularities established before. There is no
fundamental difference whatsoever between the use of a thermometer on the
one hand and the interpretation in history, psychology, etc. on the other.
The same holds true for any science: it is not dependent upon sensory
perception." C.W.3. 273.
Elhammoumi: In your article of 1927 you have outlined the biogenetic law in
psychology and education. What do you mean by biogenetic law?
Vygotsky: "Scientists have long noticed the somewhat odd relationship that
exists between the ontogenesis and phylogensis of organisms, i.e., between
the development of species and the development of the individual. In the
human embryo, for example, gills, tails, scalp may be observed at a certain
stage, a stage that is, moreover, analogous to those long-gone stages of
evolution when man's ancestors dwelled in the water and possessed tails.
There is a multitude of facts that point to a correspondence between the
histories of the development of the species as a whole. These circumstances
lead Haeckel to formulate the biogenetic law in roughly the following form:
the history of the individual constitutes an abbreviated and compressed
history of the species. Thus, the evolution of the organism repeats the
evolution of the species, and in the course of their own development, the
embryo and young of any species pass through all those stages through which
the development of the species passed." E.P. 65-66.
"In its general course, the child's whole development repeats the entire
historical development of mankind. The only thing we can be absolutely
certain of is that individual points in the child's development may be
associated together in a relation that, at times, is closer to, at times
more distant from, individual points in mankind's history." E.P. 67.
Elhammoumi: You used the geological metaphor and archeological metaphor to
study human mental life.
Vygotsky: "Forms of behavior that have emerged very recently in human
history dwell amongst the most ancient. The same can be said of the
development of children's thinking". C.W.1. 160.
Elhammoumi: The human mind is unique and complex. It is co-constructed and
distributed. How do we approach the study of the mind?
Vygotsky: "The uniqueness of the human mind lies in the fact that both types
of history (evolution +history) are united (synthesis) in it." C.H.P. 55.
Elhammoumi: In this sense, the natural properties of psychological phenomena
at a certain level of knowledge are purely historical category.
Vygotsky: "Nature has provided man with aesthetic need, it enables him to
have aesthetic ideas, tastes, and feelings. But precisely which tastes,
ideas and feelings a given person in the society of a given historical
period will have cannot be deduced from man's nature; only a materialistic
conception of history can give the answer." C.W.3. 243-244.
Elhammoumi: You have developed a new method of analysis termed analysis of
traces. Could you explain this to me in greater detail?
Vygotsky: "We are reminded of Engels' words about the ants and the
limitations of our eye. How do the sciences proceed in the study of what is
not immediately given? Generally speaking, they reconstruct it, they
re-create the subject of study through the method of interpreting its traces
or influences, i.e., indirectly. Thus, the historian interprets
traces-documents, memoirs, newspapers, etc.-and nevertheless history is a
science about the past, reconstructed by its traces, and not a science about
the traces of the past, it is about the revolution and not about documents
of the revolution. The same is true for child psychology. Is childhood, the
child's mind, really inaccessible for us, does it not leave any traces, does
it not manifest or reveal itself? It is just a matter of how to interpret
these traces, by what method. Can they be interpreted by analogy with the
traces of the adult? It is, therefore, a matter of finding the right
interpretation and not of completely refraining from any interpretation.
After all, historians too are familiar with more than one erroneous
construct based upon genuine documents which were falsely interpreted."
Elhammoumi: What conclusion follows from this?
Vygotsky: "Is it really that history is "a paradise forever lost"? But the
same logic that calls child psychology a paradise lost would compel us to
say this about history as well. And if the historian, or the geologist, or
the physicist were to argue like the reflexologist, they would say: as we
cannot immediately experience the past of mankind and the earth (the child's
mind) and can only immediately experience the present (the adult's
consciousness)-which is why many falsely interpret the past by analogy with
the present or as a small present (the child as a small adult)- history and
geology are subjective, impossible. The only thing possible is a history of
the present (the psychology of the adult person). The history of the past
can only be studied as the science of the traces of the past. "
Elhammoumi: Jean Piaget in his discussion of the nature of sociological
thought has shown the importance of Karl Marx's work and especially his
theory of the materialist conception of history and his theory of ideology.
He pointed out that "Le mérite de Marx est, en effet, d'avoir distingué
dans les phénomènes sociaux une infrastructure effective et une
superstructure oscillant entre le symbolisme et la prise de conscience
adéquate, dans le même sens (et Marx lui-même le déclare explicitement) où
la psychologie est obligée de distinguer entre le comportement réel et la
conscience. La substructure, ce sont les actions effectives ou les
opérations, consistant en travail et en techniques et reliant les hommes en
société à la nature: rapports "materiels' dit Marx... La superstructure
sociale est à l'infrastructure ce que la conscience de l'homme individuel
est à sa conduite [The great merit of Marx is to have distinguished within
social phenomena, between an effective basis and a superstructure which
oscillates between symbolism and an adequate consciousness, in the same
sense (as Marx himself explicitly said) psychology is obliged to make a
distinction between actual behavior and consciousness. The substructure is
formed of practical actions or operations, i.e. work and activity, which
bind individuals in society to nature: or material relations, as Marx called
them... The social superstructure stands in the same relation to its
infrastructure, as does the human individual consciousness to behavior.
(Piaget, 1950/1965, p. 76-77, my translation).
Vygotsky: "Piaget... developed the most elegant and serious theory of the
first year of life." C.W.4. 245.
"The task of psychology, however, is not the discovery of the eternal child.
The task of psychology is the discovery of the historical child." C.W.1. 91.
Author: Higher mental functions are internalized social relationships and
are created in the collective.
Vygotsky: "Research on the development of higher psychological functions
persuades us that both their phylogenesis and ontogenesis have social
origins." C.W.2. 192.
"The mastering of nature and the mastering of behavior are mutually linked,
just as man's alteration of nature alters man's own nature. In phylogenesis
we can reconstruct this link through fragmented but convincing documentary
evidence, while in ontogenesis we can trace it experimentally." D.H.P.F. 73.
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