Hi Sasha,
I think you are quite correct to raise the issue of motivation. My reason
for paying attention to "Crisis" is this. In the US most people have little
idea about Marx or what a Marxist psychology might be, and "Crisis" is one
place where Vygotsky articulated what it meant for him. There is debate here
about what Vygotsky 'took' from Marx (let alone Hegel, Lenin, Spinoza...).
For example, Vygostky had no access to the earlier writings of Marx. One
might imagine that he adopted the official Soviet "diamat." But we also know
that he read Hegel when he was young. Perhaps he had a Hegelian reading of
Marx before this became common. The Crisis ends with the statement that V
wanted "to learn from Marx's whole method how to build a science, how to
approach the investigation of the mind" so in this respect I am interested
in his "methodology."
Regarding your suggestion that we don't need all three terms ontology,
epistemology, and dialectic... To state that dialectic is a theory and logic
of knowledge is only valid if one immediately adds, as you did, that
thinking and being are dialectically identical. Even so, I think there are
reasons for keeping the term ontology. For millions of years, after all,
there was, as far as we can figure out, being of various kinds but no
thinking. And our thinking has not yet become adequate to being. So being
and thinking diverge; epistemology and ontology are not objectively
identical.
And here in the US social scientists are only now becoming comfortable
talking about ontology. The logical positivists' prohibition of this talk as
'unscientific' and 'metaphysical' has cast a long shadow. So most people
assume a dualist ontology, and then Vygotsky is assimilated to Piaget and to
cognitive science, and it is assumed that he is talking only about the
construction of knowledge, a genetic epistemology with artifacts involved.
So to emphasize the ontological dimension seems very important to me, for
both theoretical and political reasons. The proposal that mind itself is
constructed, that people as beings (albeit thinking beings) are created in
practical activity, is still a radically new idea for psychology here. And
it counters the simplistic view that people from different cultural
backgrounds are the same as 'us' but merely know different things - the
wrong things, of course, so they need to be 'educated.' Vygotsky's approach
implies instead, I am sure you would agree, that people from different
cultures have quite differently organized personalities. Perhaps an
appreciation of this could bring us a bit more tolerance.
So whenever Vygotsky says something about ontology I pay careful attention.
To come now to your reading of this little excerpt, I guess I don't
understand why it should be the case that here, as you put it, "Vygotsky
against his Spinozian inclinations acts as pure Cartesian."
Martin
On 12/3/06 9:29 PM, "Alexander Surmava" <monada@netvox.ru> wrote:
> Hi Martin,
>
>
>
> The fragment of “Crisis” which has attracted your interest is worth to
> comment cause it contains both deep insights and equally deep
> contradictions.
>
> But before comment - a little preface.
>
> Deepening into L.Vygotsky’s texts we have to realize what our aim is, what
> are we looking for?
>
> In case of “Crisis…” it is obvious that we can have two motivations: the
> first is a historical interest. We can examine the text from the point of
> view of development of Vygotsky’s ideas.
>
> The alternative motivation takes place if we are seeking the methodological
> ideas in “Crisis…”
>
> Both motivations are looking as equally possible. But actually reading of
> “Crisis…” with “methodological” motivation can be hardly estimated as an
> effective investment of your researcher’s time. I mean that Vygotsky was one
> of the pioneers of investigation of Marx’ method, of dialectic as a
> methodology and he left us a couple of deep insights in this domain like say
> an idea about germ cell, or analysis in units. But…
>
> How do you value an investigator say biologist (not historian of biology
> !!!) who will seek the methods of his current investigations in a monograph
> issued in 1927? I’m afraid that this researcher will have grate problems
> with publication of results of his investigations, cause the majority of
> researchers’ community will estimate his methods slightly fossil while the
> researcher slightly eccentric.
>
> If Vygotsky was right in his theoretic reflection, if human’s creativity is
> based on his culture and if real theoretic culture of Vygotsky was Marxism,
> it means that we in our current investigations have to base on the most
> up-to-date version of dialectical logic instead of classical work written in
> 1927.
>
> Meanwhile between 1927 and 2006 Marxist theory was not dead. In the middle
> of the last century the great step in the development of Dialectical logic
> was made by Evald Il’enkov. So if one wants to continue the Vygotsky’s
> theoretic researches, one need to study Marxist method from more up-to-date
> saucer – the works of Evald Il’enkov first of all Dialectics of the Abstract
> and Concrete, Dialectical Logic, The Concept of the Ideal, Leninist
> Dialectics and Metaphysics of Positivism.
>
> I repeat, if Vygotsky didn’t make a mistake regarding himself as a Marxist,
> so we to go deeper into Vygotskian (=Marxist, or =Dialectical) psychology
> have to study dialectic method rather from Il’enkov then from Vygotsky. I am
> sure that if Vygotsky was alive now he would evidently share this position.
>
> To demonstrate both similarities and differences between Vygotsky’s and
> Il’enkov’s comprehension of Dialectic one need to realize a special
> comparative analysis of their texts. And we (I mean a group of Il’enkov’s
> disciples: Lev Naumenko, Alexander Simakin, Alexei Novokhatko, me and some
> others) are planning to write a multi-author book about this topic. Such an
> investigation was totally impossible in Soviet days because a tiny hint to
> Vygotsky criticism could gave a heavy weapon to enemies of CHAT and shift
> the discussion from academic to ideological soil. On the contrary, now such
> an analysis is the only way to save the school from degeneration into
> eclecticism.
>
> But let’s return to your question about ontological and epistemological
> aspects of psychophysical problem. I think, that the difficulties you have
> experienced in comprehension of the fragment is quite objective, because the
> fragment is really vague. Vygotsky is trying to play an away match
> discussing the problem in Neo-Kantianist terms - Ontology, Gnoseology
> (Epistemology) - while dialectic regards all this notions excessive.
>
> According to Il’enkov as well as Lenin Dialectic is a Logic and Theory of
> Knowledge of Marxism so that we haven’t need in three words because this
> three notions are identical. If you like to examine their arguments in
> detail you can find it in Chapter 9 On the Coincidence of Logic with
> Dialectics and the Theory of Knowledge of Materialism of “Dialectcal logic”
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay9.htm
>
> Now what I think about all of this. Surely the relationship of Geist and
> matter is the most universal formula of the problem of identity of Thinking
> and Being. Substantially, dialectically it was discussed in Descartes’ and
> Spinoza’s reflections and rethought by Il’enkov in the first two chapters of
> “Dialectical logic
> “http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay1.htm
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay2.htm
>
> The problem of so called “Ontological” status of subject and object has two
> simple answers:
>
> 1. ascends to Descartes and supposes an existence of two separate
> substances with opposite ontological status. So Descartes saves the special
> ontological status for realm of thought, will, reflection etc, etc.
> 2. ascends to Spinoza and supposes an existence of only one substance.
> So it insists that there is only one “Ontological status”, that assumption
> of the second bodyless “Ontological status” is a simple return to mythology.
>
> Evald Il’enkov in his “Dialectic of Ideality” summarize all this in
> following words: (s tochki zreniya posledovatel'nogo materializma v mire
> voobsche net i ne mozhet byt' nichego, krome dvizhuscheisya materii, krome
> beskonechnoi sovokupnosti material'nyh tel, sobytii, protsessov i
> sostoyanii…)
>
> (from the point of view of consistent materialism there is not actually and
> can’t be anything but moving matter, but unlimited totality of material
> bodies, events, processes and condition). It is characteristic that Il’enkov
> did this statement in his classical work concerning the problem of ideality.
>
> Thus even hypothetical admission of existence of more than one “ontological”
> state leads us to strong contradiction with the basics of Spinozism. It
> (this contradiction) meant nothing for idealist Hoffding but it was awkward
> for materialist and Spinozist Vygotsky.
>
> Vygotsky declares: “Both mind and body are for us objective, but whereas
> mental objects [geistigen Objekte] are by their nature related to the
> knowing subject, the body exists only as an object for us.”
>
> Here in understanding of objects as having by nature nothing to with any
> subjectivity or cognition Vygotsky against his Spinozian inclinations acts
> as pure Cartesian.
>
> As for subject-object relation it can be understood in different theoretic
> cultures quite differently. In formal logic and in positivist tradition the
> subject-object relation is no more than a grammatical definition. As it was
> clearly described by our colleague David Kellogg:
>
> “I guess for me a subject is a grammatical subject or else a discourse
> subject (that is, a "speaking subject") and an object is either a
> grammatical object or a hearer or listener. So that puts me in the semiotic
> camp rather than the activity theoretic one, though I am willing to accept
> that the activity theoretic camp probably has a lot more interesting things
> to say about animals.”
>
> It is characteristic that some problematic interest from dialectic approach
> he waits only to understand the nature of ungrammatical animals.
>
> The dialectical alternative is in understanding of subject-object relation
> as relation which arises from spontaneous activity of some special sort of
> bodies (we mean living or in terms of Il’enkov “thinking bodies”) so that as
> a result of this activity we have a fact of mutual positioning of Subject
> and its Object (or better Gegenstand or Predmet).
>
> I’m afraid that it’s impossible to comment the last one as briefly as David
> did, so for more details I can only address to my text “LIFE, PSYCHE,
> CONSCIOUSNESS” which is available to download in English from here:
> http://www.voxnet.ru/~monada/articles.php?lng=eng
>
> As for Vygotsky’s sophisticated reasoning about reflection in the mirror it
> gives us one extra prove of his unwilling Cartesianism and a chance to
> demonstrate the potential of activity approach.
>
> But the topic is so tasty and the time in Moscow is so late (or already
> early :-)) that I will leave my comments for the nest post.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sasha
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Martin Packer
> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 4:55 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Empirical Evidence for ZPD
>
>
>
> Given the current discussion of the dialectic this seems an excellent time
>
> to ask for guidance on some passages from Vygotksy's 'Crisis' that strike me
>
> as important, but which I find confusing. Sasha, I'd welcome your
>
> interpretation. Vygotsky is arguing for the need, in a truly 'general'
>
> psychology, to distinguish the epistemological problem of the relation of
>
> subject and object from the ontological problem of the relation between mind
>
> and body, and then of course to solve both problems. Then he writes:
>
>
>
> "³We must not mix up the relation between subject and object with the
>
> relation between mind and body, as Høffding [1908] splendidly explains. The
>
> distinction between mind [Geist] and matter is a distinction in [established
>
> at the level of] the content of our knowledge. But the distinction between
>
> subject and object manifests [establishes] itself independently from the
>
> content of our knowledge.² (323) [The material in brackets is my
>
> modifications to the translations based on the Spanish version; a bit risky,
>
> I know]
>
>
>
> He then quotes Hoffding:
>
>
>
> ³Both mind and body are for us objective, but whereas mental objects
>
> [geistigen Objekte] are by their nature related to the knowing subject, the
>
> body exists only as an object for us. The relation between subject and
>
> object is an epistemological problem [Erkenntnisproblem], the relation
>
> between mind and matter is an ontological problem [Daseinsproblem].²
>
>
>
> I find it difficult to reconcile these two paragraphs. Is he saying that
>
> mind and body are objective for us; we experience them as really existing.
>
> But all objects are such only for a knowing subject, so the body, for
>
> example, exists as a real object only for us, as subjects. This distinction,
>
> between subject and object, arises whether we experience it or not? Or,
>
> since Œknowledge¹ is something valued for V, perhaps he's saying that Geist
>
> and matter are things we can know. They are real. Their relation is a
>
> problem, and it is ontological. Whereas subject and object are how things
>
> appear, or how they can appear, in ³epistemological consciousness,² i.e.
>
> introspection. It follows that the subjective (the for-us) must not merely
>
> be described but also explained, in terms of real objects and real
>
> processes. Mental processes are real processes, not identical with
>
> subjectivity. ³Empirical, psychological consciousness² is, it seems,
>
> non-dualistic. My joy is real (and non-dualistic). My introspection of this
>
> joy introduces dualism.
>
>
>
> A few pages later:
>
>
>
> "³After all, a cornerstone of materialism is the proposition that
>
> consciousness and the brain are a product, a part of nature, which reflect
>
> the rest of nature² (327).
>
>
>
> The last sentence is not grammatical English, so something has clearly gone
>
> wrong with the translation.
>
>
>
> If anyone has access to the original Russian and could comment,that would be
>
> great. (Page numbers are from the version in The Essential Vygotsky.)
>
>
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On 11/30/06 2:43 AM, "monada@netvox.ru" <monada@netvox.ru> wrote:
>
>
>
>> Hi Mike,
>
>>
>
>> I mean the text from the volume 6 of Russian collected works of LSV
>
>> "Utchenie ob emotziakh" or "Spinoza" as it was titled by LSV himself.
>
>>
>
>>
>
>
>
>
>
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