[xmca] déjatel’nost

Dear Haydi,
Thank you for mentioning D. N. Uznadze…..a very deep thinker from Georgia, who incorporated art, aesthetics, the unconscious into his thinking. A. Asmolov (1998) states: “D. N. Uznadze’s theory of set from the very beginning protested against the rational image of a human being as an isolated creature, pulled out from the world of evolution. A super  goal for D. N. Uznadze was the study of the human being as an active creator of the “biosphere” (the term was introduced by D. N. Uznadze in 1923 independently of V. I. Vernadsky). Therefore, the ideas of goal determination of life activity and ‘functional tendencies’ of personality as the source for self-movement of activity were inherent in D. N. Uznadze’s methodology from the first stages of the development of the theory of primary set” (pp. 15-16).
There is an excellent short history of Uznadze on the following site: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/uznadzee.pdf
A general interest I am developing is the “relationship” between so many things…the space,
gap, “firing potential,” etc. In the article listed it states something interesting: “ For Uznadze, the set is a reality that is far removed from any opposition between the subjective and the objective. Uznadze’s set mediated the relationship not only between the physical and the psychological but also between psychological processes….” (p. 8, with much more to follow in that article).
 
Regarding “for” or “against”…..For me personally, I view ONE school. Perhaps the image of a tree I would often see in the Golden Key Schools represents it the best…..with the roots representing Vygotsky. No matter what, there is one tree, so being “for” or “against” is not a part of my overall view, although I believe that with that understanding, it is necessary to have in-depth discussions.  I totally agree with Dmitry Leontiev who wrote the following answer to my question about disagreements with A. N. Leontiev and D. N. Uznadze: “It was an alternative school in the USSR, but on the deep metatheoretical plane both theories had much more in common than with any other psychological theory. In a sense, they are complementary. Uznadze was a deep thinker, why not translate his texts? For instance, he did write on psychology of freedom and choice as early as in 1940! I would recommend this chapter.”
 
Now, I am not sure if the Journal of Russian & East European Psychology has published some of the works of Uznadze…I could not find anything from 2000 on….I do have a book in Russian by Uznadze (2004, Symsl Publishers). There are chapters on psychological set, the psychology of emotional perezhevanie, and many other interesting chapters. If he has not been published in the journal, it might be interesting to see if there is any interest. A book in English was published around 1966, but I have not read it.
 
Greetings to all,
Dot
 
Asmolov, A. (1998). Vygotsky Today: On the Verge of Non-Classical Psychology.  Nova Science.
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Received on Fri Oct 10 08:42 PDT 2008