[xmca] Vygotsky and Behaviourism

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

On the question of Vygotsky as a "social Behaviourist before 
1929", I have scanned two pages From the Introduction to 
“Mind in Society,” by Mike Cole and Sylvia Scribner, pp 4-6

POSTREVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY IN RUSSIA

In the early decades of the twentieth century psychology in 
Russia, as in Europe, was torn between contending schools, 
each of which offered partial explanations of a limited 
range of phenomena. In 1923 at the first all-Russian 
psychoneurological congress K. N. Kornilov initiated the 
first major organizational and intellectual shift in 
psychology following the revolution. At that time the 
prestigious Institute of Psychology in Moscow was headed by 
G. I. Chelpanov, an adherent of Wundt's introspective 
psychology and a foe of behaviorism. (He had published the 
sixth edition of his book, The Mind of Man, a critique of 
materialist theories of the mind, in 1917, just before the 
revolution.) Chelpanov assigned a restricted role to Marxism 
in psychology, asserting it could help explain the social 
organization of consciousness but not the properties of 
individual consciousness. In a talk entitled "Contemporary 
Psychology and Marxism" Kornilov criticized Chelpanov both 
for the idealistic basis of his psychological theory and for 
the restricted role he assigned to Marxism in psychology. 
Kornilov, who called his own approach reactology, sought to 
subsume all branches of psychology within a Marxist 
framework that used behavioral reactions as the basic data.

Kornilov's critique of Chelpanov in 1923 won the day. 
Chelpanov was removed as director of the Institute of 
Psychology and was replaced by Kornilov, who immediately 
brought together a corps of young scientists dedicated to 
formulating and promoting a *behavioral, Marxist theory of 
psychology*.

Vygotsky must have produced quite a sensation one year later 
at the second psychoneurological meeting when he gave a talk 
entitled "Consciousness as an Object of the Psychology of 
Behavior." Whatever else one extracted from Kornilov's 
reactological approach, it quite clearly did not feature the 
role of consciousness in human activity, nor did it accord 
the concept of consciousness a role in psychological science.

Vygotsky was *dissenting* from newly established authority. 
He was not, however, promoting a return to the position 
advocated by Chelpanov. In his initial speech and a series 
of subsequent publications, he made it clear that in his 
view none of the existing schools of psychology provided a 
firm foundation for establishing a unified theory of human 
psychological processes. Borrowing a phrase from his German 
contemporaries, he often referred to the "crisis in 
psychology" and set himself the task of achieving a 
synthesis of contending views on a completely new 
theoretical basis.

For Vygotsky's Gestalt contemporaries, a crisis existed 
because established theories (primarily Wundt's and 
Watsonian behaviorism) could not, in their view, explain 
complex perceptual and problemsolving behaviors. For 
Vygotsky, the crisis went much deeper. He shared the Gestalt 
psychologists' dissatisfaction with psychological analysis 
that began by reducing all phenomena to a set of 
psychological "atoms." But he felt that the Gestalt 
psychologists failed to move beyond the description of 
complex phenomena to the explanation of them. Even if one 
were to accept the Gestalt criticisms of previous 
approaches, a crisis would still exist because psychology 
would remain split into two irreconcilable halves: a 
"natural science" branch that could explain elementary 
sensory and reflex processes, and a "mental science" half 
that could describe emergent properties of higher 
psychological processes. What Vygotsky sought was a 
comprehensive approach that would make possible description 
and explanation of higher psychological functions in terms 
acceptable to natural science. To Vygotsky, explanation 
meant a great deal. It included identification of the brain 
mechanisms underlying a particular function; it included a 
detailed explication of their developmental history to 
establish the relation between simple and complex forms of 
what appeared to be the same behavior; and, importantly, it 
included specification of the societal context in which the 
behavior developed. Vygotsky's goals were extremely 
ambitious, perhaps unreasonably so. He did not achieve these 
goals (as he was well aware). But he did succeed in 
providing us with an astute and prescient analysis of modern 
psychology.

A major reason for the continued relevance of Vygotsky's 
work is that in 1924 and the following decade he constructed 
a penetrating critique of the notion that an understanding 
of the higher psychological functions in humans can be found 
by a multiplication and complication of principles derived 
from animal psychology, in particular those principles that 
represent the mechanical combination of stimulus-response 
laws. At the same time he provided a devastating critique of 
theories which claim that the properties of adult 
intellectual functions arise from maturation alone, or are 
in any way preformed in the child and simply waiting for an 
opportunity to manifest themselves.

In stressing the social origins of language and thinking, 
Vygotsky was following the lead of influential French 
sociologists, but to our knowledge he was the first modern 
psychologist to suggest the mechanisms by which culture 
becomes a part of each person's nature. Insisting that 
psychological functions are a product of the brain's 
activity, he became an early advocate of combining 
experimental cognitive psychology with neurology and 
physiology. Finally, by claiming that all of these should be 
understood in terms of a Marxist theory of the history of 
human society, he laid the foundation for a unified 
behavioral science.

--------------------------

The text referred to above and  described on this list as I 
understand it, as evidence of Vygotsky's adherence to a 
variety of behaviourism, is at:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm

Nicolai Veresov's commentary on it claims errors in Mike 
Cole's narrative; but whether Vygotsky's article belongs to 
1924, 1925 or 1926, it is all within what has been spoken of 
as his "social behaviourist" phase:

http://www.marxists.org/subject/psychology/works/veresov/consciousness.htm

For my part, I read this material as documenting that 
behaviourism was declared to be the Marxist Psychology in 
1923 (coincident with the death of Lenin and the rise of 
Stalin to leadership of the USSR) and in the eyes of the 
vast majority of "Marxists", within and outside the USSR, 
remains so to this day.

As I see it, the counter claim begins from Vygotsky's speech 
in 1924 (or 1925 or 1926).

Andy

Jussi Silvonen wrote:
> Hi everybody!
>
> First, I'd like to thank Jonna for introducing my paper and starting the 
> discussion.  I'm sorry about the delay of my comments - sometimes there 
> is life also outside the academy (luckily not too often, as you know), 
> which keeps us out of the office for few days.
> There are already too many issues in this ongoing and extremely 
> interesting discussion to comment in one e-mail. So I will simply start 
> by listing some of the issues mentioned so far. After that I try to a 
> little bit clarify my motivations and point of view, to focus the 
> discussion.
>
> Before that, anyhow,  I have to make confession. I don't know Russian 
> and read Vygotsky only in English and in German. I compiled a 
> bibliography of English translations of LSV's works I know so far 
> (=102), which shows the textual base of my paper. You can find it on my 
> site:
>
> http://joyx.joensuu.fi/~jsilvone/papers/Vygo_bibliography.pdf
>
> (I added original dates of LSV's papers in the references and 
> cross-referenced overlapping versions of  translations, hope this could 
> help those not having the Collected Works in their library). Comments on 
> the bibliography are welcomed, too. Those reading LSV in Russia can 
> probably tell, if something (or what) essential sources, related to my 
> arguments, are missing.
>
> 1.
> Reading very fast the comments so far, at least following topics or 
> arguments were represented:
> - The question of periods in Vygotsky's work. According to David there 
> would be almost a consensus about three Vygotskies ( LSV I, II, III), 
> but this point was questioned. My special contribution to this debate, 
> however, is not the statement of three periods as such, but the opinion 
> that Vygotsky was committed to behaviorism in one moment of his 
> thinking. This point obviously requires more discussion, as Steve and 
> others remarked.
> - The question of the tools by which we should conceptualize the 
> (possible) periods in LSV. My suggestion was that we could integrate 
> some ideas / concepts from Althusser and Foucault to our attempt to 
> understand critically and self-reflective way the development (or 
> non-development) of our tradition. Some agreed to some degree, but the 
> idea was strongly criticized, too (at least Andy).
> - The problem of semiotics or semiotic mediation in LSV is one of the 
> key issues in my argumentation, connected to the hypotheses about 
> epistemological break between LSV II and III. Somebody read my thesis as 
> a statement about the priority on supremacy of semiosis / sign 
> mediation. What I actually said, was that Vygotsky always related 
> different forms of mediation to each other, and that inside this 
> methodological frame his point of view moved from instrumental approach 
> to a semiotic one. I agree with most of David's remarks on this 
> question, but this point requires some clarifications, too.
> - In some comments were seen missing contexts in my analysis. No 
> discussion about Leibnitz, Spinoza, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, 
> Goethe and other key figures in Western philosophy (Andy). I agree, 
> absolutely. The focus of my paper is in the conceptual development in 
> Vygotsky's work, not in the history of philosophy. And the distinction 
> between traditional and non-traditional, or Cartesian and post-Cartesian 
> comes not from Althusser but is a common statement in Vygotskyan 
> traditon (classical and non-classical in Asmolov, Elkonin etc). What I 
> try to do is make sense of this distinction , to conceptualize it 
> someway. Can we do this without a reference to the long perspective of 
> philosophy, is a good question, anyway.
> - One other missing context seen in my paper is Vygotsky's relation to 
> Marxism and dialectical materialism. It is not possible to understand 
> Vygotsky outside the Marxian frame, is claimed. This problem is in 
> brackets, just like the philosophy question, but it is worth to debate. 
> Some people (f.e. Elhammoumi) really see Vygotsky as a Marxist per 
> excellence, but I think this is a too limited approach to Vygotsky. He 
> was not a Marxist at all, if we take Marxism in the form as it exist in 
> Vygotsky's life time. In my interpretation Vygotsky took a Marxian 
> position, which was incompatible with the Marxist-Leninist 
> state-ideology of the USSR  This argument requires a discussion about 
> the concept of dialectical materialism as a methodology, about Marx and 
> Marxism, even about "the Stalinist machine" and Marxist philosophy. I'm 
> not sure how many would be interested in this, but I'm ready to go on 
> this, too.
> - The concept of CHAT was also touched.  Should we talk about CHAT, or 
> about CH/AT, or even about CHP vs AT? Or maybe CH?AT would express best 
> way the state of art ?
> - The was also the question of the actual history of cultural historical 
> school in Russia, the developments after Vygotsky's dead and so on. My 
> paper is focused on texts only, but can read Vygotsky without 
> understanding of the context of his work? In brackets, I agree.
> - And I could add here for example the inconsistent way I used Foucault, 
> which nobody, for some strange reasons, mentioned.
> I picked up topics above fast without any deep reflection.  I guess any 
> of these topics would be worth of  discussion. Before to going on my own 
> comments, I clarify a little the background and the motivation of my paper.
>
> 2.
> It seems to me that some of the comments are based on too fast reading 
> of my paper, resulting in misunderstanding of what I am trying to do. My 
> paper is not meant to be an exhaustive description of all aspects and 
> contexts in LSV's thinking. Many things are consciously put in brackets 
> to make the problematic I am interested in, more focused and clear. I am 
> interested in Vygotsky semiotics. But how I became interested in this 
> topic, then?
>
> One motivation to start a journey through the Collected Works was my 
> dissatisfaction about the way we express our tradition. Some people are 
> talking about Socio-cultural research, some others Cultural-historical 
> psychology. In nowadays Russia they have cultural psychology debating 
> with activity theory. Other labels can be, possibly, found out. And then 
> we have the Mike's way to talk about Cultural-historical-activity 
> theory. I agree with David's evaluation "that Mike and other founders of 
> CHAT founded it as a loose federation between two rather incompatible 
> Vygotskies, the Vygotsky of mediated action and the Vygotsky of word 
> meaning, with the assumption that a common tradition and a set of common 
> practices would hold it together." I understand, somehow, the motivation 
> behind the label CHAT. It can be understood as an umbrella like 
> construction, as a space for discussion and for practices. What's the 
> problem, then?
> If you take a look at the footnotes of my paper, you can realize I'm 
> writing in Finnish context. At least in Finland the CHAT tradition is 
> very strong in empirical investigations, but theoretical contributions 
> are rare. Especially works on the history of "CHAT" are missing, and the 
> possible contradictions between the founders of the tradition are almost 
> taboos.   Consequently CHAT is presented as a coherent theory, in a way 
> which makes discussion about some methodological problems - semiotic 
> mediation for example - difficult or even impossible.
> When involving in ISCRAT I realized the fragmented state of the 
> tradition. In Finland we have one coherent conception (CHAT), on the 
> international plane there are plenty of school and interpretations. The 
> strange thing was, that everybody seemed to claim to be the real 
> Vygotskians. After that impression, it was easy to ask the most simple 
> question: is there something in the founding what could - at least to 
> some extent - explain the situation. And now I have my hypothesis: there 
> are not one, but three Vygotskies, giving possibilities to different 
> theoretical discourses.
> If now go back to the CHAT concept, we can see what it problematic in 
> it. On one hand it is meant to be an umbrella type concept bringing 
> together different parts of the common tradition. But on the other hand 
> it is presented as a research theory, as a tool for empirical research 
> (at least in Finland). We have a common tradition which prefers the idea 
> of mediation. But the interpretations of the nature of cultural 
> mediation are incompatible. So it could be reasonable to talk about 
> cultural-historical approach divided into different - partly compatible, 
> partly competitive - research theories, having their own objects and 
> research interests. I will not continue this discussion about the two 
> levels of methodology. I simply state that it is impossible to combine 
> semiotic and instrumental mediation concepts although it is possible to 
> have a dialogical relation between them. Thus: CH?AT instead of CHAT.
> The difference between a tradition (as a form of discoursive praxis) and 
> a research theory (as a tool) was not clear for me when I started my 
> project. Anyway, I was sure that by reading Vygotsky (and Leontyev) from 
> a new angle I could produce some insights explaining the fragmented 
> situation of CH tradition. To make the moves in Vygotsky's thinking as 
> visible as possible I concentrated just in one aspect where the chances 
> are most evident - in the conception of sign mediation. And I think that 
> the focus of the debate should be about here - in this question. Of 
> course this problem opens up new questions and problematics, as have 
> been shown in this discussion, which are all extremely interesting, too.
>
> 3.
> Above I have only given a list on some topics touched in the discussion, 
> and clarified a little bit  the background on my argumentation. There 
> are many important points to comment. I hope I can do it soon. From 
> practical point of view I can only say, that I am an extremely slow 
> reader and ever slower writer (that's why I love Italy, the beautiful 
> country of slow food!). Because of that I will concentrate on one topic 
> at time: probably first the question of Vygotsky's behaviorism, after 
> that the question of semiotics and maybe after that - if the Lord of 
> Research gives me some time - the Vygotsky Marxism problematic 
> contextualized in the actual history of cultural historical tradition.
>
> Thanks for everybody for thought provoking and inspiring comments - it's 
> a great pleasure to read this discussion. Hope it continues....
>
> JusSi

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
Skype andy.blunden
Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm

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