It appears to me that your review of Vygotsky as a dialectician is unique (at least in the English language) with the possible exception of two articles in English written by Koczanowicz, Leszek.leszek@ii.uni.wroc.pl whose written considerably on Vygotsky and Mead but nearly all in Polish. The two articles of his in English (which I've not read) are:
Analyses of Human Action. Relation between Mind and Action in Behaviourism, G.H. Mead's Social Pragmatism and L.S. Vygotsky's Psychological Concepts. Wroceaw 1990 and "G.H. Mead and L.S. Vygotsky on Meaning and the Self", Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 8 (1994): 262-276
Koczanowicz teaches at Opole University and SUNY Buffalo. In the short description of his early work on Mead and Vygotsky (from a very short biography introducing a lecture of his for the The Pittsburgh Area Realtime Scientifiction Enthusiasts Club).
"Professor Leszek Koczanowicz is a philosopher and psychologist at Opole University, Poland, where he has been teaching courses in history of psychology and social philosophy. Currently Dr. Koczanowicz is a visiting professor at SUNY at Buffalo. His doctoral dissertation (1987) compared L.V. Vygotsky's historical cultural approach to the mental life with G.H. Mead's social behaviorism. His later work has been devoted to the concepts of the self in American Pragmatism. His current research deals with social philosophy and psychology. Dr. Koczanowicz studied and taught at University of Wroclaw, Poland, UC at Berkeley, SUNY at Stony Brook, SUNY at Buffalo, Institut f_r die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna (Austria), and Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Holland).
That's about all that's currently available on (the net) Leszek's writings on Mead and Vygotsky.
The rest of the material on relations between Mead, Dewey and Vygotsky appear to be all oriented towards educational issues and most emphasize the historical relation between Vygotsky and Dewey (after all LSV does refer to Dewey's work) rather than compare them. And then you have Patty Farrah's article, Rationalism, Empiricism, and Pragmatism The Three Major Epistemological Traditions and their Influence on Instructional Design ITC 575 November 28, 2001 www.whps.org/schools/norfeldt/libraryweb/ MediaResources/TermPaper.PDF where Vygotsky is touted as a Russian Symbolic Interactionist and pragmatist!
Victor
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Blunden
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2003 3:30 AM
Subject: Re: George Herbert Mead
I have read the very useful PDF article you recommended, Victor, but I find it somewhat unsatisfactory. (1) The writer, Michael Glassman, seems to have a slightly different Vygotsky than the one I know, and (2) the article is of course very much focused on pedagogy, whereas my specific interest was social psychology.
The article by Vygotsky on Ethical Education in the 1926 "Educational Psychology" I found an exhilerating read, partly because of how much Vygotsky saw it as essential to foster critique and self-management on the part of the students, and how far away it was from Stalinist ideas of schools as institutions for the socialisation of kids into the status quo and inculcation of existing values (except that for Vygotsky revolution clearly was such a value!). The article seems to contrast Dewey and Vygotsky by portraying Vygotsky as an advocate of what I would see as a Stalinist view of education. Vygotsky simply says that a school cannot raise itself above the society of which it is a part.
Secondly, I was particularly impressed by Vygotsky's observation that development always requires an element of invention on the part of the child, since imitation is impossible for her, and this element seems to be missing in the writer's otherwise valid description of how Vygotsky sees the role of a teacher as a mentor and setter-of-problems, rather than simply as facilitator.
The article is about pedagogy and is probably addressed to teachers, so it is natural that it should focus on the role and intentions of the teacher. However, it seems to me that Vygotsky is not just a teacher of teachers. There seems to be a school of interpretation of Vygotsky which emphasises the two-sided negotiation involved in learning and development. But surely this is just the product of "teachers eye view" when reading Vygotsky.
For example, the experimental methods (as described in the famous article by Sakharov) are clearly expressions of how a scientist should intervene *in pursuit of the goals of science*, but this should not be read as descriptive of learning and development itself. Most people do not have a cognitive psychologist around when they are learning.
Do people have a view on these matters? Victor led me to the Glassman article, but I fear I may have the same kind of problems with a Valsiner article. The reason for my interest is critique of Axel Honneth, a "student" of Habermas's who has substituted for Habermas's use of Piaget for empirical backing, the use of George Herbert Mead. A step forward I think, but I need help in focusing on the critique of Pragmatism, since I think the necessary empirical backing must come from the Vygotsky School.
Andy
At 11:13 AM 17/10/2003 +0200, you wrote:
Valsiner, Jaan and Rene Van de Veer. "On the social nature of human
cognition: An analysis of the shared intellectual roots of George Herbert
Mead and Lev Vygotsky. In Lev Vygotsky: Critical Assessments: Vygotsky's
theory Vol 1 edited by Peter Lloyd. New York: Routledge (1999):145-164.
Also check out the online pdf article ]Dewey and Vygotsky: Society,
Experience, and Inquiry in Educational Practice at
www.aera.net/pubs/er/pdf/vol30_04/AERA300402.pdf - 16 Oct 2003. True, this
refers to Dewey rather than Mead, but Dewey and GH are very similar in
theory. This article suggests that Mead, through Dewey had considerable
influences on Soviet theory of education and social psychology.
"Dewey and Vygotsky in Historical Context There are historically based
explanations for both the strong similarities
In 1928 Dewey visited the Soviet Union (although the schools were closed for
vacation for most of the time he was there). Prawat (2001) recounts how
Dewey visited Second Moscow University during this trip at the time Vygotsky
was a rising young star there. Dewey certainly met with Blonsky, Vygotsky's
compatriot, and Prawatt (2001) builds a fairly strong circumstantial case
that Dewey actually met with Vygotsky. This only adds to the probability
that Dewey influenced Vygotsky's early work.
Enough for now
Victor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 3:15 AM
Subject: George Herbert Mead
> Do any of you xmca-ers have a critique of George Herbert mead from the
> Vygotsky perspective at your finger tips? or a "compare and contrast"?
>
> Andy
>
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