Re: [xmca] Vygotsky Circle as a Personal Network of Scholars: Restoring Connections Between People and Ideas (Vygotsky & Luria, 1929))

[Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>]

Here is a brief response to the first of David's questions:


> a) In the section on Phase Two (1927-1931) you are arguing that the
> "troika" was essential a "dvoika" (???) with Vygotsky-Mozart and
> Luria-Beethoven at the end of the 1920s. You do this on the impeccable
> evidence of co-authorship and co-participation (rather than the MUCH less
> reliable evidence of correspondance--people write all kinds of stuff in
> letters and then they kiss and make up). But didn't Leontiev ALSO co-author
> the "Fate and Function"Paper presented in New Haven, along with Luria (and
> Levina)? Thinking and Speech says he did! 


Yes, I do mean to say that both Vygotsky and Luria were 
(a) administrative superiors in their respective fields: Luria in Psychology, whereas Vygotsky was more associated with Defectology (roughly equivalent with the mixture of Special Education and Clinical Psychology) and Pedology (alias Paedology, an interesting field of studies that covered roughly Developmental, Child, and Educational Psychology and Psychophysiology)
(b) quite active socially and fairly well connected nationally and internationally and
(c) prolific authors who published a lot, and also together during the period of 1920-1930s.

So, yes, this was a "dvoika" (the two) in the centre with numerous -- and increasingly growing! -- connections.

Then, to the second part of the question, formally nobody else but Vygotsky and Luria were formally (officially) mentioned as the co-authors of their presentation at the IX International Congress of Psychology at Yale in 1929. Luria presented, Vygotsky stayed home. Other guys [of the Vygotsky Circle] certainly contributed to research behind the presentation, but no -- there were only two authors. Just in case, the text in English of the publication of Vygotsky & Luria (1929), is available online -- http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/59654.html at online group blog on the history of Russian psychology http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/ ; info and join here: http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/profile


AY




----- Original Message -----
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Cc: 
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 11:25:39 PM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky Circle as a Personal Network of Scholars: Restoring Connections Between People and Ideas

Could you summarize the official hagiographic account for us and who are the
officials, David? Your comments are meant to span up to 1956 or so? I am
trying to keep separate the period up to 1934-35 and the later accounts of
these people as I encountered them in 1962-63 and subsequently. Having all
those early connections spelled out is very helpful.

For example, I believe the influence of Bernshtein on Luria and a number of
x-kharkovites and muskovites was profound. Zinchenko's recent writing draws
out these and other connections in interesting ways. Its a topic worth
study. It helps when tracing the links between gibsonians and vygotskians,
for example.

mike

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 6:13 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:

> Congratulations, Anton--on delivering what has to be the driest howler I
> have ever seen in a reference list, namely this one:
>
> Feofanov, M.P. (1932) Teoriya kul'turnago razvitiya v pedologii kak
> electricheskaya (sic) kontseptsiya, imeyushchaya v osnovnom idealisticheskie
> korni (The theory of cultural development in pedology as an electric [sic]
> theory that has mainly idealistic roots). Pedologiya (1-2), 21-34.
>
> I admit, though: some of the electricity this produced in my nervous system
> was of a rather tragic sort: this was probably one of the last issues of the
> journal that Vygotsky co-edited for so long.
>
> As always, your work prompted three questions, two easy ones (what Spinoza
> would call "existential" questions) and a more difficult essential one for
> discussion.
>
> a) In the section on Phase Two (1927-1931) you are arguing that the
> "troika" was essential a "dvoika" (???) with Vygotsky-Mozart and
> Luria-Beethoven at the end of the 1920s. You do this on the impeccable
> evidence of co-authorship and co-participation (rather than the MUCH less
> reliable evidence of correspondance--people write all kinds of stuff in
> letters and then they kiss and make up). But didn't Leontiev ALSO co-author
> the "Fate and Function"Paper presented in New Haven, along with Luria (and
> Levina)? Thinking and Speech says he did!
>
> b) At the end of the section on Phase Two, right before the section on Page
> Three, you talk about Luria's work on "hypoboulic" processes, which you
> gloss as "unconscious". But the way I read Luria he's really talking about
> "weak-willed" patients, that is, persons who have trouble controlling their
> own behavior. That is the standard definition of the word (and it's the way
> Vygotsky uses it too)!  The same term appears in your entry on Averbukh in
> the appendix. Was this some special term that psychoanalysts used in Russia?
> That is, did it mean something like "subconscious"?
>
> c) My discussion question has to do with your "Presentist Conclusion: Why
> Bother?"  I think that you are fundamentally right to weight the evidence of
> co-authorship and collaboration over that of the sometimes overwrought
> correspondance (I notice you don't even mention the 1929 letter to "Five
> Faced Kuzma Prutkov" where Vygotsky himself suggests that there was a troika
> followed by a pyaterka, or the bitter exchange of letters with Leontiev in
> which the latter hints at suicide).
>
> But for me, just as the weight of co-authorship and collaboration is more
> important than the correspondence and personalism, the issues of methodology
> and approach really outweight even those of co-authorship and collaboration.
>
> It seems to me that the struggle between the official hagiographic account,
> including the troika and the pyaterka, on the one hand and the
> "revisionists" (in which I count myself) on the other is really a struggle
> over method and approach and even theory.
>
> The obvious analogy is with the authorship of Voloshinov's works
> ("Freudianism" with its attack on Luria, and the even more influential
> "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language") . For much of the eighties and
> nineties, there was a rather poisonous debate over whether his books were
> authored by Bakhtin or not. Beneath the apparently insoluble historical
> issues, though, there was an important problem of principle and method: is
> Voloshinov Marxist, or is he just pretending to be?
>
> Actually, I think Bakhurst solved the historical problem of Voloshinov's
> authorship by using a NON-historical method: he simply pointed out that
> although Bakhtin COULD have written "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language"
> as a joke, it is very hard to imagine that, as a non-Marxist, he would have
> wanted to make a major contribution to Marxist theory in so doing.
>
> It seems to me that the issue between the official account and the revision
> is similarly resolvable by non-historical means. The official account
> considers that Leontiev's critical stance towards Vygotsky's emphasis on
> semiotic processes rather than "activity" was ultimately correct; Vygotsky
> was wrong to pursue word meaning as the central form of mediation involved
> in all higher psychological processes. That's why Leontiev warns that
> language is not the demiurge of mind.
>
> The revisionist account considers that Leontiev's attitude, whether it was
> in good faith ror not, was incorrect: children do not work, and the idea
> that play is a form of pre-labor, and that child development occurs without
> crises, and that activity is the molar unit of human consciousness is
> entirely wrong.
>
> Wertsch and Zinchenko on the one hand, and Lindqvist and Kozulin on the
> other do not phrase it in historical terms (although as you point out A.A.
> Leontiev and Gita Vigodskaya, for understandable reasons, do see it that
> way). Instead, it's a psychological issue, and even a methodological one of
> the very first rank. But history can certainly EXPLAIN how it got the first
> rank, and what is at stake, and I think your study is a very valuable step
> in doing that.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>
> --- On Tue, 6/14/11, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky Circle as a Personal Network of Scholars:
> Restoring Connections Between People and Ideas
> To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 10:21 AM
>
>
> Not only were they socially motivated, Mike, but also, as I argue, directed
> against not Vygotsky, dead by then, but against his socially successful
> former
> associates: Luria, Zankov, Elkonin et al.
>
> AY
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Tue, June 14, 2011 1:00:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky Circle as a Personal Network of Scholars:
> Restoring
> Connections Between People and Ideas
>
> Yes, Anton, I think it is safe to say that those critiques were socially
> motivated!
> Thanks for all the new materials.
> mike
>
> On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 6:50 AM, Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com
> >wrote:
>
> > P.S. Oh, yes, speaking of Vygotsky's followers and their integrative
> > theory.
> >
> >
> > I have just been informed that the previously announced paper on Vygotsky
> > Circle
> > has just been released as an Online First publication, see:
> >
> > Yasnitsky, A. (2011). Vygotsky Circle as a Personal Network of Scholars:
> > Restoring Connections Between People and Ideas. Integrative Psychological
> > and
> > Behavioral Science; DOI: 10.1007/s12124-011-9168-5
> > http://www.springerlink.com/content/b34101p383588v95/
> >
> > The paper is quite long and fairly detailed, but the pictures, all five
> of
> > them,
> > are really good and particularly loveable! Also, the Appendix stands out,
> I
> > guess... :)
> >
> > I believe this is the first ever study of its kind that systematically
> > investigates the inter- and intra-group dynamics within the entire group
> of
> > scholars around Vygotsky during his lifetime and after his death. The
> > rationale
> > for such study was provided somewhere else: please see discussion of the
> > urgent
> > need in understanding collaborative and experimental aspects of Vygotsky
> &
> > Co's
> > integrative science of cultural and biosocial development of mind, brain,
> > and
> > behaviour, closer to the end of the paper under the section "Programmatic
> > Conclusion: What Needs to Be Done and How?" in
> >
> > van der Veer, R. & Yasnitsky, A. (2011). Vygotsky in English: What Still
> > Needs
> > to Be Done. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science; DOI:
> > 10.1007/s12124-011-9172-9 @
> > http://www.springerlink.com/content/278j5025767m2263/
> >
> >
> > AY
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Sent: Tue, June 14, 2011 8:57:56 AM
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] help-me -- Rudneva, E. I. (1937/2000). Vygotsky's
> > Pedological Distortions
> >
> > No problem.
> >
> >
> > Speaking of Vygotsky "falling out of favor in Moscow", one needs to
> > understand
> > that, quite contrary to traditional fairly simplistic accounts, 1934-1936
> > was
> > truly a "Golden Age" for -- dead by   then -- Vygotsky and his -- still
> > alive --
> >
> > followers: lots of stuff, including Vygotsky's stuff, was published by
> the
> > group, for Vygotsky--posthumously. The discussion of this "Golden Age"
> > first
> > appears, I believe, in Yasnitsky, A. (2011). Lev Vygotsky: Philologist
> and
> > Defectologist, A Socio-intellectual Biography. In Pickren, W., Dewsbury,
> > D., &
> > Wertheimer, M. (Eds.). Portraits of Pioneers in Developmental Psychology,
> > vol.
> > VII, but I am not so sure about that.
> >
> > Thus, Rudneva's critique, as well as the critique of several other
> > individuals
> > that appears to have been directed at Vygotsky, despite appearance quite
> > likely
> > targeted not the dead man, but his socially and academically successful
> > followers. Among others, most often several names were pronounced, such
> as
> > Luria, Zankov, Elkonin, Shif, and Leontiev. Thus, in other words, we do
> not
> > truly know what motivated these critiques and how they really affected
> the
> > carreers and, generally, the course of events back there and then, but
> > chances
> > are the critique was originally meant by their authors much more socially
> > than
> > theoretically. By the way, for other critical publications of that time
> > please
> > see a marvelous issue of the Journal of Russian and East European
> > Psychology
> > that Rene van der Veer published more than a decade ago (Volume 38,
> Number
> > 6 /
> > November-December 2000 of Journal of Russian and East European
> Psychology):
> >
> >
> >
> http://mesharpe.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=issue&issn=1061-0405&volume=38&issue=6
> >6
> >
> > OR      http://mesharpe.metapress.com/link.asp?id=n73424205223 (both
> links
> > seem to be good, I just am not sure which one might work this time,
> > luckily,
> > both)
> >
> > FYI, all materials that came out in this journal have been digitized and
> > from
> > January 2011 are accessible/downloadable.
> >
> > AY
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu>
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Sent: Tue, June 14, 2011 6:18:56 AM
> > Subject: RE: [xmca] help-me -- Rudneva, E. I. (1937/2000). Vygotsky's
> > Pedological Distortions
> >
> > Thanks for sharing this piece. I've read many summaries about why LSV
> fell
> > out
> > of favor in Moscow, but this is the first truly contemporary (published
> in
> > 1937
> > originally, and reproduced here) vituperative attack that lays out the
> > complaint.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On
> > Behalf
> >
> > Of mike cole
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 12:06 AM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] help-me -- Rudneva, E. I. (1937/2000). Vygotsky's
> > Pedological Distortions
> >
> > Thanks Anton--
> > Bad fellow that LSV. No end of mischief, to this day.
> > Well, he got his just deserts. He died young of tuberculosis and totally
> > avoided lead poisoning!
> > mike
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 6:01 PM, Joao <jbmartin@sercomtel.com.br> wrote:
> >
> > > Thanks, Anton
> > >
> > >
> > > João Martins
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > On
> > > Behalf Of Anton Yasnitsky
> > > Sent: segunda-feira, 13 de junho de 2011 19:44
> > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] help-me -- Rudneva, E. I. (1937/2000). Vygotsky's
> > > Pedological Distortions
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message ----
> > > From: Joao <jbmartin@sercomtel.com.br>
> > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > Sent: Mon, June 13, 2011 5:34:22 PM
> > > Subject: [xmca] help-me
> > >
> > > People... i need of text
> > > Rudneva, E. I. - Vygotsky's Pedological Distortions, published at
> Journal
> > > of
> > > Russian and East European Psychology, V. 38, N. 6, P. 75-94 -
> > > November-December 2000
> > >
> > > Can Someone help-me?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > >
> > > João Martins
> > >
> > > __________________________________________
> > > _____
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