[xmca] more on Vygotsky's relevance

There are a lot of things I like about Martin's paper, many already
touched on. Two immediate standouts for me are the way Martin shows
how Vygotsky's conception of history is the basis of his approach to
child development. And I really liked the way Martin draws parallels
between Vygotsky, Engels and Hegel on freedom and necessity. And
there is much more.

I am not certain, however, (to stimulate some discussion), that this
key statement in the paper is quite right: "Marx provided Vygotsky,
most importantly, with a conception of history."

This seems to be saying that Vygotsky's vision of a new psychology can
be successfully reduced (more or less) to his Marxist conception of
history, or to put it another way, that Vygotsky's conception of
history is the "most" important aspect of Vygotsky's Marxism. I agree
that his conception of history is essential to his work - I am
certainly not wanting to downplay that: I am pleased as can be with
the job Martin did with explaining Vygotsky's conception of history, a
real contribution to the literature - but I hesitate to lose sight of
other essential parts of Vygotsky's overall approach.

For example, Vygotsky's philosophical and "methodological" (a favorite
Marxist term) approach seems especially important as well. The Crisis
manuscript is loaded with philosophical and methodological concepts,
not just conceptions of history. His discussion of science and the
evolution of scientific ideology, for example, is one of the richest I
have seen in Marxist literature, and very much builds on Engels'
Dialectics of Nature, which had been recently published in Russian.
Vygotsky describes the difference between dialectical materialism and
historical materialism in chapter 13 and argues that what we now call
"cultural-historical psychology" is an application of dialectical
materialism that must be distinct from historical materialism because
it is based on a field of reality that operates under different laws.

Perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way, but it seems to me that
Vygotsky is doing something much broader and deeper than just being
provided with and applying a conception of history.

I also wonder if Vygotsky's commitment to socialism, working class
revolution, and developing a communist human being can be acccurately
folded under the umbrella "conception of history." Marxists (most
anyway) don't consider socialism to be an inevitable or determined
outcome of history, but something that must be struggled for. (Rosa
Luxembourg famously summarized this uncertainty as "socialism or
barbarism.") I think Martin lays excellent and very much needed
groundwork for showing how important Marx's conception of history is
in Vygotsky's work - picking up on work for example by Sylvia Scribner
on this, among others - but I wonder if we aren't short-selling LSV
some if we limit our analysis and emphasis of his vision of a new
psychology to that piece of the whole.

Another aspect of the paper that stood out for me was Martin's
argument that the development of "self-mastery," and not just the
beginning or "intrapsychological" stage of that process,
internalization, constitutes the heart of Vygotsky's approach to
ontological development. This very important point seems to shed
useful light on the unit of analysis/concrete universal/cell of
psychology discussion, especially when combined with Vygotsky's and
Luria's work on auxiliary stimulus-means. I find Martin pointing us
in many very fruitful directions in this paper.

PS. I really like Mike's suggestion that we discuss Martin's paper
methodically - it really is a gem in the way it clearly lays out so
many critical questions for students of Vygotsky to consider, and in
such a clear and accessible writing style.

- Steve
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Received on Sat Mar 8 12:41 PST 2008