Unit, activity, experience...
Elena A Savina (esavina who-is-at usd.edu)
Tue, 23 Mar 1999 17:07:04 -0600 (CST)
Hi Mike, Nate and everybody,
I think, because Vygotsky pretty systematicaly used dialectic as a method
of concept's construction there are several units of analysis
in his writings: meaning of a word, social situation of development,
peregivanie (experiencing)and a cultural tool. And I agree with Mike that
Vygotsky never considered activity/context as a unities of analysis.
What Vygotsky tryed to do is to show that any age is characterised by
specific social context which was defined as social situation of
development. The experiencing (peregivanie) is an experiencing by a child
of his/her place in the system of social relationships. This is some kind
of cognitive-affective formations, a child's subjective perception
of social situation. I suppose, this concept can not be substituted by
the concept of activity and can not be utilized to create the concept of
"leading activity". I think the concept of experiencing is less developed
in Soviet cultural-historical psychology. Probably, because Soviet
Psychology was mostly interested in instrumental aspects of activity. Now
experiencing is used in Russian psychology pretty widely. But, it is used
as "giving meaning". So,it is a little different from Vygotskian use.
Also I disagree with discrimination of activity into leading activities
and goal-directed activities (Nate's quotation of Kosulin,1990). I suppose
that all types of activity are goal-directed by definition. If activity
is not goal-directed, it is not activity at all.
One more disagreement. Veresov mentions (again from Nate's message)
that Russia has two words for Activity: one coming from German
(Leont'ev) and Vygotsky's use of activity which was more Pavlovian in
origin. I believe that Soviet psychology has the only one definition of
activity which is strongly connected with Marx's philosophy. Vygotsky
used the term "reflex".
All the best, Elena.