Re: [xmca] ego, self, etc.

Intriguing. A couple of things about this that arise from my recent reading.

(1) Valsiner refers to Vygotsky's method of "thesis-antithesis-synthesis"
but so far as I can see all he means by this is that Vygotsky critically
appropriated the work of other writers. This is to me a novel use of a very
odd turn of phrase. "Thesis-antithesis-synthesis" is something of course
that Hegel never spoke of and was invented and attributed to him by a
German populariser after Hegel's death. Marx for example ridiculed Proudhon
for use of this crass formula. Where did LSV get this idea from? Valsiner
refers to LSV's "well-established Hegelianism".

(2) In "The Psychology of Art" Vygotsky quotes Plekhanov's idea of Romantic
art, but what is quoted is from Hegel, and it is sufficiently idiosyncratic
so that either Plekhanov either simply mentioned Hegel's idea or copied it
as his own, or LSV got mixed up about his source.

Perhaps Vygotsky was an admirer of Hegel from an early age, but not
necessarily a fully-fledged Hegel scholar? As I have said elsewhere, the
similarity between much of LSV's work and Hegel's ideas is remarkable to
say the least, and your observation is the first I have heard of evidence
that LSV actually read Hegel, rather than receiving his ideas secondhand.
It would be interesting to know more. But perhaps the historical details of
Vygotsky's knowledge of Hegel's writing is less important than the actual
correspondences.

Andy
At 09:45 AM 5/02/2008 -0500, you wrote:
>Andy,
>
>I'd like to lean more about this too. Regarding Vygotsky specifically, all I
>have to hand is Yaroshevsky's biography, in which we're told that while
>still in school when he started a debating society "Hegel became his idol in
>philosophy; under Hegel's impact, he attempted to apply the general schema
>of thesis-antithesis-synthesis to explanations of the course of historical
>events" (p. 34).
>
>Martin
>
>On 2/4/08 4:41 PM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > I would be interested to hear from anyone who knows about the reception of
> > Hegel in Russia.
>
>
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  Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
mobile 0409 358 651

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Received on Tue Feb 5 15:14 PST 2008