I was curious who were these Vygotskians. I can see this to a certain
extent if we are talking about neo-vygotskians such as Tharp and
Gallimore's description of the ZPD. If we are talking about Vygotsky
himself , I would have to strongly contest such a characterization. The
development of a function, process, knowledge etc. did not become
internalised in its social form but had a history of its own which the
individual had a role in shaping. Even in his more Pavlovian days he
utilized his "double stimulation" approach in which the subject went
through two reactions one from the stimulus, and another inside the head
prior to the effect. To describe this procedure he used Marx's famous
quote on reflection (bees) that is in *Mind in Society*. I think a point
that needs to be remembered with Vygotskians is what they are contesting.
Vygotsky came into psychology within the theory of "idealistic"
constructivism, rather than the behaviorism he was attempting to overcome.
Within this context the active role of the individual/s is assumed not
contested. Vygotsky's genetic law makes no sense without an assumption of
constructivism - a "material" constructivism.
The Cobb quote sound familiar, maybe the messages from the *Contexts for
Learning* review. To say that mathmatical understanding can not be
abstracted from interpersonal relations and cultural tools does not mean
its directly derived from tools and interpersonal relations. I do however
think the quote points to the importance of keeping one eyes on all sides
of the coin and more importantly the relationship between those sides.
> Their emergent approach, then, becomes associated with L&C's
> second branch. This works for me, in that I've more or less assimilated
> their second branch as all approaches that frame a dialectic
> between inner mental life and outer social practices. Importantly,
> as L&C point out, a dialectic is not a reduction of one to the other.
> This interpretation of Cobb also squares with L&C's emphasis in the
> second branch on the "as if" character of social engagement--
> paralleling one interpretation of Cobb's "taken-as-shared" knowledge.
I may be misunderstanding the first approach, but I assume it could be as
dialectic, non reductive as the emergent approach. It would seem in
certain situations the individual/s as a social macrocosm would have
certain benefits. For example, some of the more post-modern, discourse
approaches are overly "productive", as in telling one how a discourse is
produced, but rarely deals with the consumption issue. I find Wertsch's
"mediated action" as fitting into the first approach and offers a way to
keep subject/world/tools as a dialectical unit. For me its a double nature
of "mind in society" and "society in mind". Vygotsky in *Psychology of
Art* and in discussing his "instrumental approach" saw them connected
rather than appossitional. An approach that was concerned with ethnic
psychology and the developmental history of the individual. I would assume
Activity Theory would not negate one for the other. One could take a
perspective of a subject and study the externalization (more competence) or
internalization (developmental, individual change).
Nate