I agree with Mike from the other day, Andy, David etc. that an
historical analysis of behaviorism, reflexology, reactology etc.
would be very helpful.
On one of Andy's questions, Vygotsky has a clear and helpful
answer. He explains, in simple textbook descriptions, reactions
and reflexes in Educational Psychology (1926/1997). This book has
a style and form of writing I have not seen anywhere else in
Vygotsky's work, and has a very different purpose. He is not
trying to reflect his own thinking, per se, but generalize on the
ideas of reflexology - and world psychology - in ways useful to
teachers. It is an "experimental textbook." The book must be read
with this in mind.
He explains "... in the present book, I have often had to present
the views of other researchers, and to translate concepts developed
by other writers into my own terminology, as in any systematic
presentation. I have been able to express my own thoughts only in
passing, and mixed in with those of other writers. Nevertheless, I
am of the belief that the present volume represents not just a
novel experiment in the construction of a course of educational
psychology, but also an attempt at the construction of a new type
of textbook." pg xix
Anyway, back to Andy's question. Chapter 2, The Concept of
Behavior and Reaction, has a description of the three components of
a reaction - the sensory component, the component associated with
transforming the stimuli into an internal process, and the motor
component, which in higher animals may be termed the central
component, the central nervous system.
It goes on to describe reactions and reflexes. "In animals that
possess a nervous system, reactions tend to assume the form of what
is known as a *reflex*. By a reflex we generally understand in
physiology any act of the organism that is induced by some external
stimulation of the nervous system, which is transmitted along an
afferent nerve to the brain, and from there along an efferent
nerve, automatically inducing a movement or a secreting of a
working organ .... Certain scientists have recently begun to insist
on referring to human reactions as reflexes, and have begun to call
the science of human animal reactions, *reflexology*.
"However, such a substitution of terms is unwarranted. As can be
easily seen from its description, a reflex is only a special case
of a reaction, that is, it is a reaction of the nervous system.
Thus, a reflex is a concept which is narrowly physiological in
nature, while a reaction is one which is broadly biological in
nature." pg 15-16.
- Steve
On Feb 10, 2009, at 11:12 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
It would be helpful to clarify this wouldn't it, David.
In Vygotsky's speech, when he says:
"Classical reflexology ... reduces everything to a common
denominator. And precisely because this principle is too all-
embracing and universal it does not yield a direct scientific
means for the study of its particular and individual forms."
I took this to be a damning criticism of reflexology, but maybe
"reaction" is different from "reflex"?
On "Behaviourism," I have always taken this word in a very broad
sense as including all those approaches which say that
"consciousness" is not a legitimate object for science.
Vygotsky says: "Consciousness is only the reflex of reflexes"
which he says have a "social origin". And he says this in the
context of praising Wm James. But he goes on to *criticise*
reflexology for *excluding* mental pheneomena from its
investigations, i.e., he criticises reflexology for what I have
always called behaviourism (though I may be eccentric in that use
of the word).
So my reading he criciises reflexology and behaviourism, but to
different readers he is both a reflexologist and a
behaviourist. :) As he says: "Kings are not always royalists."
As Alice would say: "mysteriouser and mysteriouser."
Andy
David Kellogg wrote:
eric--
On p. 31 of "Making of Mind", Luria writes of arriving in Moscow
from Kazan in 1923:
"The situation in the institute when I arrived was peculiar
indeed. All of the laboratories had been renamed to include the
term 'reactions': there was a laboratory of visual reactions
(perception), of mnemonic reactions (memory), of emotional
reactions, and so forth. All this was meant to eliminate any
traces of subjective psychology and to replace it with a kind of
behaviorism." Luria clearly thinks that "reactology" really was
a kind of relabelled behaviorism. So do I!
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 Skype
andy.blunden
Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca