Re: [xmca] more on Vygotsky's relevance

Thanks, Martin. I think your paper is a valuable step forward in
increasing our understanding of Vygotsky on several levels. It shines
a spotlight on Vygotsky's quest for a new psychology, and on *Crisis*,
which is his most important overall writing effort on that. This is
an important aspect of Vygotsky that is often neglected, or not
understood, or perhaps, not agreed with. I think you do capture many
key inner parallels between the Marxist conception of history and
Vygotsky's approach to psychology, which as you say, is developmental,
genetic and historical in its approach. I think you are on to
something very significant when you draw a connection between the
Marxist concept of human sociological development as mastering nature
and society, and Vygotsky's concept of human ontological development
as self-mastery. I am suggesting that it is possible to build on your
research on the role of the Marxist conception of history in
Vygotsky's work by studying how Vygotsky's dialectical materialist and
socialist methods and beliefs also played key roles.

BTW, your paper refers to another paper of yours, where you discuss
some problems you have with Vygotsky's conception of history, such as
the "primitive" consciousness issue, and his lack of attention to
social class in child development. "Packer, M. J. (2006) Is there a
Vygotskian psychology after Marx?. Paper presented at the symposium
"Is Vygotsky relevant today? Educational research with a socio-
political commitment, annual meeting of the American Educational
Research Association San Francisco." Is this available online?

- Steve

On Mar 9, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Martin Packer wrote:

> Steve,
>
> I can't disagree much with what you've said here. Let me simply make a
> couple of points. First, I tied to avoid saying that V had simply
> taken over
> Marx's conception of history (just as I tried to dodge the issue, as
> Andy
> pointed out some time ago, of how to judge whether or not V was
> Marxist). I
> wanted to describe V's conception of history because it doesn't seem
> to have
> been described before and because it's a bit unusual. The degree to
> which it
> is drawn from/builds upon Marx (and which texts?), Engels and Lenin
> is way
> beyond my knowledge. At times, though, I couldn't avoid sounding as
> though V
> just picked up something that Marx produced.
>
> Second, I do think his conception of history occupied a central role
> in V's
> psychology. It is, for example, what that psychology is a
> *developmental*
> psychology. His methodology is in large part a *genetic* analysis.
> The task
> of creating a new society by helping transform people (or helping
> people
> transform themselves) is grounded in an understanding of history as a
> process we can 'master.' This is not to say that his psychology can
> be *reduced* to a conception of history, but that it is a complex
> whole in
> which history plays an important organizing part.
>
> Martin
>
> On 3/8/08 3:39 PM, "Steve Gabosch" <sgabosch@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> 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 Mon Mar 10 07:25 PDT 2008