Re: [xmca] Vygotsky on Leading Activity

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Odd to think there is a single answer to the question posted in #1, Andy.
Seems like this is some version of the discussion of paradigms and paradigm
shifts with a "leading" element tossed in.

mike

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> 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
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