Thanks, Martin. Actually, I need some help with PRECISELY this point
right
now.
I'm writing an article on "word meaning as palimpsest". I want to
use the
seventy-fifth anniversary of Thinking and Speech as a kind of
platform from
which to attack mainstream applied linguistics, for whom language
exists as
a hypostatized formal system and has always done, well, at least since
Saussure.
The mainstreamers like to say that we wild-eyed Vygotskyans are very
nice
people and do interesting work but the problem is that we've got no
theory
of language as a formal system (so says Mitchell and Myles, 1998:
161) and
we can't make the kinds of neat predictions about the rate of
learning and
the route which learning takes which they can't make either (ditto,
p. 162).
Of course the answer (my answer, anyway) is that language is NOT a
formal
system and can't be theorized that way, and that the "rate of
learning" and
the "route which learning takes" doesn't tell us what we want to
know, but
the rate of DEVELOPMENT and the route that takes just might.
And part of the argument goes like this. We Vygotskyans are really not
socioculturalists. We're not even cultural-historicists. We're
just phylo-socio-onto-microgeneticists. For that matter, we're not
really
Vygotskyans. We're Darwinian-Marxian-Vygotskyan-Integrationists.
One of the reasons why Vygotsky didn't like to go around shouting about
Marxian psychology was that if we start appending names to what we
think on
every scale of semio-history at which we think about it then our
discipline
will end up with more principal investigators than an astrophysics
paper.
Another reason is (I think) Vygotsky really rejected supra-theories,
and
for good reason. If you look at Mescheryakov's wonderful little
chart in the
Cambridge Companion, he gives us four "genetic laws", which he renders
something like this, where "^" means something like "is
differentiated into"
and "-->" means something like "is reorganized into".
NATURAL-->CULTURAL
^
SOCIAL-->INDIVIDUAL
^
EXTRAMENTAL-->INTRAMENTAL
^
SPONTANEOUS-->SCIENTIFIC
Of course, it's very tempting to see this as a neat little
palimpsest of
human culture: the first law, in which natural functions are
reorganized
into cultural ones, represents phylogeny, the second represents
cultural
historical progress, the third ontogenesis, and the fourth represents
microgenesis.
But the more I think about this, the fishier it looks. A natural
"law" has
no exceptions whatsoever. A socio-cultural law has infractions that are
legally sanctionable, during ontogenesis, we learn laws (which we
really
need to start calling rules at this point) precisely by flouting
them, and
at the level of microgenesis, we hardly even know the rules are
there unless
we break them. Is there any non-metaphorical sense in which ALL of
these
semio-historical timescales can be said to be "lawful" or
"rule-governed" or
even "patterned"?
Sure enough, when we read Vygotsky (p. 114 of Chapter Four) he's a
lot more
modest. The four laws are all there, but only in the context of
ontogenesis.
Here's the Hanfmann and Vakar version:
"Our investigations show that speech development follows the same
course
and obeys the same laws as the development of all the other mental
operations involving the use of signs, such as counting or mnemonic
memorizing. We found that these operations generally develop in four
stages.
The first is the primitive or natural stage, corresponding to
preintellectual speech and preverbal thought, when these operations
appear
in their original form, as they were evolved at the primitive level of
behavior."
"Next comes the stage which we might call "naive psychology", by
analogy
with what is called "naive physics" – the child's experience with the
physical properties of his own body and of the objects around him,
and the
application of this experience to the use of tools: the first
exercise of
the child's budding practical intelligence."
"This phase is very clearly defined in the speech development of the
child.
It is manifested by the correct use of grammatical forms and structures
before the child has understood the logical operations for which
they stand.
The child may operate with subordinate clauses, with words like
because, if,
when, and but, long before he really grasps causal, conditional, or
temporal
relations. He masters syntax of speech before syntax of thought.
Piaget's studies proved that grammar develops before logic and that the
child learns relatively late the mental operations corresponding to the
verbal forms he has been using for a long time."
"With the gradual accumulation of naive psychological experience,
the child
enters a third stage, distinguished by external signs, external
operations
that are used as aids in the solution of internal problems. That is the
stage when the child counts on his fingers, resorts to mnemonic
aids, and so
on. In speech development it is characterized by egocentric speech."
"The fourth stage we call the "ingrowth" stage. The external operation
turns inward and undergoes a profound change in the process. The child
begins to count in his head, to use "logical memory," that is, to
operate
with inherent relationships and inner signs. In speech development
this is
the final stage of inner, soundless speech. There remains a constant
interaction between outer and inner operations, one form
effortlessly and
frequently changing into the other and back again. Inner speech may
come
very close in form to external speech or even become exactly like it
when it
serves as preparation for external speech – for instance, in
thinking over a
lecture to be given. There is no sharp division between inner and
external
behavior, and each influences the other."
Sure, we can see that the first "stage" is a kind of residue laid
down by
phylogenetic evolution, just as the second one is an archaeological
remnant
of sociocultural progress, and the third represents the remains of the
ontogenetic mastery of tools and signs and self.
But we can also see that to the extent that we can really talk about
"laws", we cannot talk about microgenesis, and to the extent we want
to talk
about "rules" we cannot talk about phylogenesis.
I think it's even stretching it to call microgenesis rule-bound;
"norms" is
probably more suitable, and even then what we are really interested
in is
precisely the nonnormative. It's not just that at each stage some
things
recede into the background and others get foregrounded. It's that
the scale
of development itself has to develop.
On some level, phylogenesis, cultural-historical progress,
ontogenesis, and
microgenesis are all one thing--namely time and the changes wrought
thereby.
But the changes and above all the means by which they are wrought are
qualitatively different.
The laws of phylogenesis are really not useful in describing the
norms of
microgenesis; the connection is of such generality that referring to
it as a
system of laws really has to be a violation of Marx's eleventh
thesis on
Feuerbach.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Thu, 1/1/09, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Thursday, January 1, 2009, 12:22 PM
It's another occasion when access to the Russian original for
"discarded"
would be helpful. After all, Vygotsky wrote of sublation as both
destruction
and preservation. My sense when reading Minnick was that when he
wrote of
Vygotsky trying out and rejecting a series of candidates for unit of
analysis, one might instead see Vygotsky as exploring a complex
totality,
bringing first one aspect and then another to the fore. He wrote that
"When
the word sublation is used in relation to some organic feature, this
does
not mean that this feature is eliminated. Instead, the feature is
sublated
and preserved, embedded somewhere within; it recedes into the
background,
yielding to those regular features which arose at later stages.²
This seems
to me true *in* V's account of development (where reflexes are not
eliminated but embedded) and *of* V's account of development, where
a unit
of analysis isn't abandoned but moves into the background as another
moves
to the foreground.
Martin
On 12/31/08 10:52 AM, "David Kellogg"
<vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
Oh, I don't think that an oak is a sublated willow. And I do think
that LSV
II, the Vygotsky of the psychological system and the criss-crossing
lines
of
development, is a sublation of LSV I, the Vygotsky of the instrumental
act.
Vygotsky himself says this, though, and the end of the beginning of
Thinking
and Speech:
"This book is the product of nearly ten years work. Many of the
questions that
emerged in the investigation were not apparent to us when we began.
We were
frequently forced to reconsider our positions during the
investigation.
Consequently, the results of a great deal of hard work had to be
discarded.
Much of the remainder had to be redone, restructured, or
rewritten." (p. 40).
I take it this is Vygotsky's last word, both because of the phrase
"ten years
work", which covers Vygotsky's entire career in psychology and
because it's
the preface to his posthumously published work (which originally
did not
even
have a Chapter One; internal evidence suggests that in the first draft
the
Piaget chapter was the first one).
So it's LSV III speaking to us from his deathbed, inviting us to
consider
carefully what exactly was discarded, what was redone, and what was
gained
thereby.
And here we are, seventy-five years later, doing exactly that. For
example, a
lot of our discussions seem to revolve around the question of
whether (as
neo-Vygotskyans believe) the fixation on object-oriented activity
is the
work
of a mature, continuing LSVIII or whether it was simply a discarded
part
of
LSV I (as I believe).
My problems with Chapter Five (discussed in this thread) are similar.
They
have to do with whether lines of development themselves become
functionally
differentiated. LSV II says no, but LSV III (as I read him) says yes.
Finally, one of the most enduring threads of xmca has to be the
zone of
proximal development. It seems to me that this was the way in which
LSV
III
sublated the problems with LSV II: the idea of the psychological
system
was
reformulated to include a social situation of development, but this
meant
discarded the idea that lines of development do not functionally
differentiate.
For some problems (which we can call, somewhat misleadingly,
psychological
problems), LSV III's unit of analysis is consciousness and his
explanatory
principle is the social situation of proximal development (the
classroom,
the
playground, etc.), which is in turn composed of two mutually defining
elements: imitation and generalization.
But as Bronfenbrenner points out, some of the most important
problems the
child experiences are in the "exo-system", a set of
relationships (e.g.
parental employment) in which the child has no actual role and cannot
take
part. Where does that fit?
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Wed, 12/31/08, Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
To: packer@duq.edu, "xmc a xmx" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 31, 2008, 12:51 AM
Martin,
I'm really struck by your question as to whether David finds your
counter-proposal (i.e., LSV developing (e.g., cultivating, growing)
his
ideas
dialectically (e.g., seed, sprout, vegetative, florescent))
reasonable,
(I am
supposing) in contrast to David's interrpretation that " ...he
was
constantly throwing everything away and starting over from the
beginning.
".
Insofar as every question presupposes a range of answers (a domain),
what is
the domain over which you expect a response?
Do you imagine a willow might become an oak upon reflection? Are you
casting flies?
I'm curious.
Paul
--- On Tue, 12/30/08, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 1:24 PM
David,
For a while - at least ever since reading Norris Minick's Introduction
(which is insightful in many ways) - I've been thinking that Vygotsky
didn't
so much change his mind as develop in his thinking dialectically. I
know
that's in danger of sounding cliched, but I think I have found places
in
his
texts where his earlier concepts are not simply abandoned or
erased, but
truly aufgehoben (it's that grammatically correct) - maintained and
replaced
at the same time.
I haven't had the time to pursue this point systematically, and right
now I
can't even offer an example (though if I were try to find one it would
one
where reflexes show up again in his late writings). But does the
suggestion
strike you as resonable?
Martin
On 12/30/08 12:14 PM, "David Kellogg"
<vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
Second the motion! I think that one of the reasons why LSV is SO
impatient
with Stern (and also Werner) is that he really can't understand
thinkers who
never change their minds. LSV had only ten years to work (and thought
he
had
less). Yet he was constantly throwing everything away and starting
over
from
the beginning. That's courage.
But of course that means that almost everything we read of
Vygotsky's
has to
be read dendrochronologically, the way we look at tree rings. This is
particularly true of Thinking and Speech, parts of which data from
1929
(Chapter Four) and parts from 1931 (Chapter Five) and parts from his
deathbed
(Chapter Six and Seven).
LSV is always going on about geological strata (Kretschmer). But
perhaps
the best metaphor for reading somebody who scribbles over everything
he's ever
done every three or four years would be archaeological, or better
yet,
textological: a palimpsest.
So far the most useful guide to the Vygotskyan palimpsest I've
read on
this to
date is Minick's intro to Thinking and Speech, now reprinted as
the
very first
chapter in Daniels' mistitled "Introduction (sic) to
Vygotsky", 2005,
Routledge.
Minick's palimpsestization (?) corresponds very well to most
other
periodizations, including Veresov (though Veresov adds a pre-Marxist
Vygotsky
from before 1924 which for rather tendentious reasons he finds very
important). It will be VERY interesting to see if the work Jonna
mentions
confirms it.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
--- On Tue, 12/30/08, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Passages from Chapter 5 of LSV
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Cc: "Jussi Silvonen" <jussi.silvonen@joensuu.fi>
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 8:58 AM
We would welcome Jussi's input, thanks Jonna. We almost have a
"history
of
psych" group here on
xmca at presentl. Perhaps a strength we should find a way to use
better.
mike
a
Mike Cole kirjoitti 29.12.2008 kello 2.55:
Ooops, forgot to cc boris on my reply to david. He is author of,
among
other
interesting articles, the article on "LSV's
terminology"
in the Daniels et
al
Cambridge companion to vygotsky.
I forwarded the message to him.
mike
On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 4:52 PM, Mike Cole
<lchcmike@gmail.com>
wrote:
Thanks for these observations and inferences, David.
The task of reconstructing the chronology of LSV's
thinking is
a
formidable
one. I wonder if anyone anywhere has published such a
chronology.
I will
cc boris meshcheryakov who will know, if anybody does.
mike
On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 10:42 PM, David Kellogg <
vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:
On p. 131 of Chapter Five, LSV already has the concept
of
the
psychological system, that is, the linkage of
disparate
functions into a
single Gestalt, e.g. attention, association,
judgement,
representation,
and
motivation in activity.
But he denies that this linkage of disparate functions
has
any
effect on
the functions themselves. The relations between
functions
change. But
the
functions themselves do not change.
Now, what causes the relationships between these
functions
to
change?
That
is not clear. One possible answer is
"activity",
and
that is the answer
that
activity theorists give. But we can see that LSV is
not
entirely
satisfied
with this answer.
There are two problems. The first is that as Mike
pointed
out
LSV is
using
"activity" in a non-technical sense, it is
really
just the task plus the
contraints. (Note that Prout actually translates
"task" as "problem").
In
other words, an "activity" is just a
subject, an
object, and a tool.
That
brings us back to the old stimulus-response unit with
mediating
artefact!
The second is that Vygotsky suspects that when the
relations
between
functions change, the functions DO change internally
as
well.
We know,
for
example, that when role play is reconstrued as rule
based
games, the
"roles"
of rule based games are quite different, more
abstract. So
is
the goal,
which is not to make an imaginary situation but to win
a
real
prize.
So why does Vygotsky stress in this passage that the
basic
processes of
attention, association, judgment, representation, and
mindset
do not
actually change? I think there are two reasons.
First of all, he is trying to critically appropriate
the
work
of people
like Buhler who deny that there is anything
fundamentally
new
in the
transitional age. His way of doing this is to say that
they
are correct,
but
they are ignoring the way in which the familiar old
functions
are united
in
a new Gestalt.
Secondly, this is old work, first carried out in 1929
and
written up
some
time in 1931. LSV has not yet conceptualized the
actual
mechanism by
which
differentiation takes place WITHIN functions and not
just
BETWEEN them.
That
does not happen until 1932, when he formulates the
zone of
proximal
development, and he does not write about it until
Chapter
Six.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
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