Dear Peter and Carol-
Peter wrote,
> A. A. Leont'ev, in his 2003 biography of his father, claims that
> "until recently" he was proud that neither ANL, nor any other
> student of Vygotsky, had ever criticized Vygotsky "in print."
I was a witness of Vasiliy V. Davydov's public (oral, in front of a bid
audience at MSU and his Institute) critique of Vygotsky for lack of
"dialectic thinking" with regard of Vygotsky's concept development. It was
in late 1970s. I remember Davydov claiming that Vygotsky "surrendered" to
Piagetian way of reasoning (or even "worse" - to the formal logic) when
Vygotsky considered the concept development in his book Thinking and Speech.
Although, Davydov was not a direct student of Vygotsky, he was a student of
Leont'ev. I do not know if Davydov published his critique of Vygotsky in
1990s or - anybody knows?... Also, Davydov talked in details about
disagreements between Leont'ev and Vygotsky which reminds me the points that
van der Veer and Valsiner discussed in their book (I never heard anything
about Luria from Davydov - or at least I do not remember that). Davydov's
critique of Vygotsky was very sympathetic and friendly - Davydov highly
respected the work of Vygotsky. Of course, Davydov's critique of Vygotsky in
1970s was NOT a political event but rather a part of healthy professional
discourse.
The issue is not about ANL or Luria's critique of Vygotsky - Vygotsky was
not afraid to be criticized and I think he would encourage a professional
critique from his colleagues. From all sources we know, Vygotsky was a very
democratic person. The issue was that according to some sources, ANL and
Luria participated in political attacks on Vygotsky just before his death of
TB in 1934. As I said before, if it was true I refuse to judge ANL and Luria
because the conditions were terrible in the Great Terror (I do not know how
I would behave then).
If you ask me, I, personally do believe in ANL/Luria's participation in
political attacks on Vygotsky because I got this info from several sources
although all of them were highly mediated (including people who heard some
stories from Davydov). I think Jaan Valsiner might have direct evidence or
testimony. Rumors about Luria/Leont'ev publications "criticizing" Vygotsky
for lack of Marxism before his death were very strong in 1970s in the USSR
among academic circles (I was on a periphery of those circles). I do not
know if it was true but I heard that after Vygotsky's death, his wife
refused to talk with Luria and Leont'ev. By the way, the meaning of
"publication" can be very different in those days. You do not need to
publish in print your "critique" (=political attack) - it was enough to do
it orally at some important professional or party meeting. The political end
effect was the same.
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carol Macdonald [mailto:macdonaldc@educ.wits.ac.za]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 10:30 AM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: Motives and goals: Leont'ev and Axel
>
> Hi-
>
> ..... AAL does not say in detail what was the nature of
> the criticism of LSV in this article, but does state that "criticism
> of Vygotsky at that time was formally required."
>
> Can anybody tell us WHY this was so, and what was politically correct at
> that time?
>
> You know, Piaget said that we couldn't understand him if we couldn't read
> him in the original French, and at times like these, I really wish I could
> read Russian. What subtleties are we missing in translation?
>
> Carol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Moxhay [mailto:moxhap@portlandschools.org]
> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 6:44 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: Motives and goals: Leont'ev and Axel
>
>
> > What are some articles criticizing Vygotsky for being insufficiently
> > Marxist written by Luria and/or Leontiev?
> >
>
> A. A. Leont'ev, in his 2003 biography of his father, claims that
> "until recently" he was proud that neither ANL, nor any other
> student of Vygotsky, had ever criticized Vygotsky "in print."
>
> However, he goes on to say that in 1998 a manuscript by
> ANL, critical of Vygotsky, was found by I. V. Rabich-Shcherbo
> in the archive of the Psychological Institute. This was called
> "The doctrine of the medium in the psychological works
> of L. S. Vygotsky (a critical study)," and seems to have been
> written in 1937. AAL does not say in detail what was the nature of
> the criticism of LSV in this article, but does state that "criticism
> of Vygotsky at that time was formally required."
>
> It would be interesting to know if AAL's account agrees with what
> other people know about criticism (or the lack of it) of LSV by
> Leont'ev, Luria, and others.
>
> Peter
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