“ ‘Society’ and ‘individuals’ do not denote
separable phenomena” (Cooley, 1902, pp. 1-2).
The "Emergence in Psychology" article currently posted
on XMCA's site has some historical information exploring connections
between Vygotsky and pragmatism. On pages 7-8, I discuss how
emergence thinkers influenced both Mead and Dewey in the 1920s, with
specific quotations from them crediting the British emergentist
philosophers working in the early and mid 1920s. Both were also
heavily influenced by James, Cooley, Bergson, and Whitehead--each of whom
drew on emergentist elements in their theories--and we know that Vygotsky
was familiar with James and Bergson at least.
On page 13, I argue that many of the ideas that we associate with
Vygotsky were widely discussed and shared among thinkers in the early
decades of the 20th century; not only the American pragmatists but also
French and German scholars. (I agree with King Beach that Valsiner
has done excellent scholarship exploring these connections.)
One of the first articles that I know of that pointed out connections
between Vygotsky and the pragmatists is: John-Steiner, V., & Tatter,
P. (1983). An interactionist model of language development. In B. Bain
(Ed.), The sociogenesis of language and human conduct (pp. 79-97).
New York: Plenum Press. It is an excellent article. (Mike
Cole wrote the foreword to this book.)
I also agree with King that the fact that we are noticing these
connections is an interesting fact of intellectual history in
itself. I myself discovered the pragmatists first; when I then read
Vygotsky, I remember thinking that I didn't see much that was
different. I feel that the pragmatists provide a more useful, more
elaborated set of writings to ground socioculturalism.
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