RE: [xmca] Re: One more example: errors in translation/interpretation

Hi, Martin,

you are touching upon the very interesting issue - the Vygotsky's position
concerning the problem of interrelation between phylogenesis and
ontogenesis. Incidentally that is one of alternative formula of the problem
of historicism, and thus one of the most evident demonstration of the lack
of genuine historicism in Vygotsky's theorizing.
Vygotsky openly rejects Stanly Hall's recapitulation principle as something
obviously naïve. We agree with him, it is utterly naïve to try to explain
child's play with bow and arrows as a recapitulation of hunters stage in
human history or a play with sand pie as a recapitulation of agricultural
stage. But he throws the baby out with the bathwater rejecting not only
naïve realization of the principle, but the principle as it is. In other
words rejecting the principle of recapitulation Vygotsky rejects the
historicism in understanding of humans consciousness. And the issue with
interrelation of thinking and speech is an obvious demonstration of it.
Let’s call a spade a spade. Vygotsky realized the very first steps in
critical overcoming of old metaphysical psychology so that we can compare
his role in the history of psychology with the role of Emmanuel Kant in the
history of philosophy. You surely know that overcoming of the old
philosophical metaphysics needed in additional theoretic work, in insights
of such great figures as Fichte, Shelling, Hegel and Marx. The same
situation we meet in psychology. To approach to dialectical psychology we
need not to stick in Vygotsky’s “cultural-historical theory� (BTW Vygotsky
never claimed that he elaborated something that can be estimated as a
“theory� and never used the notion “cultural-historic� as the original name
of his theoretic approach), but to follow the real history of
cultural-historic ideas in psychology after Vygotsky. I mean the ideas of
A.N.Leont’ev and E.Il’enkov.
But not to sound proofless let’s return to our sheep.
It is obvious that prior to try to find a dialectical interrelation between
thinking and speech researcher needs to have dialectical notion of both
sides of interrelation. Otherwise he risks to face insoluble contradictions
later.
What Vygotsky understood as thinking?
It’s absolutely evident that he shared the sensualistic interpretation of
thinking well-known in formal logic as a process of bringing of sensually
perceived single instance under general concept. From this point of view a
dull schoolchild who thoughtlessly acquire the skill of formal operations
with words and can easily make formal group from words like “aryk�
(irrigation ditch in Central Asia), “water�, “hoe� and “melon� has a more
developed thinking, a thinking approaching the “scientific concepts�,
whereas an illiterate peasant stands “on more primitive� stage so that his
thinking can be estimated as only “thinking in complexes�.
The same situation from dialectical perspective looks quite oppositely. The
peasant who has a real skill of farming melons beyond all doubt has genuine,
albeit practical, not theoretical concept (pon’atie) of all listed objects
whereas our scholarlike schoolchild has only general notion (obschee
predstavlenie), understands only common meaning of words and there is every
likelihood that he/she has only one real idea (pon’atie): how to eat melons.
Thus the understanding of thinking in Vygotsky’s theorizing is far from
dialectic not only materialistic dialectic of Marx, but idealistic one of
Hegel as well.
Now let’s consider Vygotsky’s understanding of speech.
In his “ Tool and sign in child’s development� Vygotsky tells us highly
interesting experiment in which psychologist “plays� with a little child in
renaming of objects.
Thus a child easily agrees to rename say a pencil into a spoon and acts with
the pencil as with a spoon “feeding� a doll.
But the same child positively rejects a proposal to rename a knife into a
chair. He/she looks at the experimenter with suspicion and “explains� him
that it is quite impossible to rename a knife into a chair because it is
foolish to sit on the knife.
The key is Vygotsky’s interpretation of this fact.
Vygotsky explains us that a child displays in this experiment the
undeveloped character of his/her thinking, that “a child doesn’t discovers
the relation between a sign and its meaning in the beginnings of speech and
long after doesn’t come to awareness of this connection� (Nel'zya yasnee
vyrazit' tot fakt, chto rebenok ne otkryvaet svyazi mezhdu znakom i
znacheniem v samom nachale vozniknoveniya rechi i dolgoe vremya ne prihodit
k osoznaniyu etoi svyazi).
Paying attention to this issue Vygotsky displays a brilliant researchers
intuition as well as complete misunderstanding of this interesting fact from
dialectical perspective. From our point of view the child from the very
beginning of his/her life demonstrates the object oriented character of
his/her thinking. From this perspective the naming is an inalienable,
integral part of practical attitude to the object. For a child words are
means or tools of collaborative (with another human) object oriented
activity and not a mean for formal senseless operations or renaming. Thus
his/her “naivety� is much more wise than “sophisticated� position of an
adult, playing with conventional meanings of words. Out of the mouth of
babes and sucklings... To rename a knife into a chair is a lie, and baby
protests against this falsification of reality. (Alas, lately most of us
lose this initial wise position and reconcile us to all forms of social lie,
forfeiting thus the ability to objective thinking.)
In opposition to Vygotsky we insist that (after the age of approximately two
months when occurs the complex of animation (kompleks ozhivleniya)) there is
no stage during which human thinking is not mediated with another person.
The only distinction is that in the early age such mediation exists in the
form of “real life language� (Marx), while later it supplements with the
verbal one. In other words there is no human thinking (acting) without human
language as well as there is no human language in abstraction from real
object oriented activity = thinking. Thus the idea about separate roots of
thinking and speech proves to be quite false, as well as an idea of their
encounter and mutual fertilization.
Generally the dialectic never deals with “unities� of two different things,
but only with identities of oppositions. An alive single whole splitting to
opposite contradictory sides is inevitable basis of dialectical movement,
its condition sine qua non.
And finally I don’t really think that we can find the answers to our
questions in Vygotsky’s texts. I do think that we can acquire it in real
process of investigation of urgent psychological and educational problems.
Vygotsky sincerely declared his intention to elaborate new materialistic as
well as dialectical psychology, which will be based on ideas of Spinoza and
Marx and made the first steps in this direction. Our task is to continue his
work.
Anyhow we, I mean Moscow group of Il’enkov’s disciples philosophers and
psychologists, find both your articles utterly interesting as a fundamental
attempt to settle very urgent problems. Now I am translating both of your
articles into Russian (most of my friends knows only German ;-( ). We are
planning to discuss them in detail.

Sasha
      

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Martin Packer
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2008 8:36 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: One more example: errors in
translation/interpretation

Alexander,

Can't we say that thinking and speech have independent roots within
individual ontogenesis, but that in the longer view of cultural evolution
both have their origins in human biology? I don't have the texts in front of
me, but this seems to me to be the line of Vygotsky's reasoning.

Martin

On 3/24/08 10:59 PM, "Alexander Surmava" <monada@netvox.ru> wrote:

> The first
> idea that thinking and speech have different and independent roots is
> basically incompatible with the next one concerning their "dialectical"
> interaction. Those which are mutually alien are doomed to fruitful
> superficial relation and any genuine dialectical relation in this case is
> totally impossible.

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