[xmca] Vygotsky on Leading Activity

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

I have just started re-reading Vygotsky's "Historical Crisis" from the 
beginning, for the first time for many years (I have looked a cetain 
"hot" topics, but not read it from the beginning for years). There is a 
pair of insights which he offers which I'd like to remind people of.

(1) He says that at different stages in the history of psychology, one 
or another branch of psychology plays the "leading role." First the 
psychology of the normal adult person, then pathology and then the 
psychology of the unconscious. He asks: "Which discipline should lead, 
unify, and elaborate the basic concepts, principles, and methods, verify 
and systematise the data of all other areas?

He then goes on to consider the same problem in a slightly different 
way: "What makes the most diverse phenomena into psychological facts - 
from the salivation in a dog to the enjoyment of a tragedy, what do the 
ravings of a madman and the rigorous computations of the mathematician 
share?" In other words, what is the concept of psychology and its 
subject matter? He then goes on to look at three competing answers, 
based on reflections of the proposed leading roles to be given to 
subjective psychology, animal psychology or psychoanalysis: "For general 
psychology the three answers mean, respectively that it is a science of 
(1) the mental and its properties, or (2) behaviour; or (3) the 
unconscious." This leads very directly to a consideration of the concept 
of psychology in terms of a unit of analysis.

Could we give an answer to the question as to which branch of general 
psychology plays the "leading role" today, in these very 
historical/objective terms?

Andy
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hegel Summer School: The New Atheism: Just Another Dogma? 
<http://ethicalpolitics.org/seminars/hss2011.htm>

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