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[xmca] Re: xmca Digest, Vol 45, Issue 13

Good day to all highly respected disputants
As you know I am not actively involved in this discussion list, but I read it carefully. I made my mind to interrupt highly respected participants because of two reasons. First, it seems to me that before doing conclusions the researcher should investigate the topic as deep as possible. Second, my name was mentioned in Andy's message, which gives me right to reply, not in defence, but in respect to make things clear. 

As A. Pushkin wrote: Mislead me please, since I am glad to be misled.

Andy wrote:


Then when I turned to read "Consciousness is a problem for behaviourism" I
found the style of presentation a bit confusing at times, and then I read
the translator's (Veresov's) claim that this was in fact *not* the speech
which caused such a shock in January 1924, which was yet another document.
So I think to myself "I have been wrong all along!" So I tracked down the
speech and transcribed it.
Of course it is almost word-for-word the same as the "Consciousness is a
problem ..." one.

So Mike was not misleading me. The difference between the two documents is
an academic nicety (from where I'm coming from.)
The papers of Vygotsky (1) "The methods of..." based on his presentation made at 1924 Congress in Petrograd and (2) "Consciousness as a problem" reflect different periods of his scientific evolution. I mean the transition from reflexological model to behaviouristic one. What can mislead the reader of this paper is only the radical lack of academic knowledge of what is the difference between reflexology and behaviourism. It is true, that the papers are connected. But what is also true, that there is a deep difference in approaches in these two papers. I made the comparison of them in my book, no need to repeat it here, but let us just take two places from each. In the first paper, criticising the dualism of psychology, he argued the necessity to combine "subjective psychology" and reflexology on the basis of "an objective" method of study of the human consciousness. In the second one he rejected the idea of any reflexological explanation of consciousness: "we should beware of any direct transportation of reflexological laws into psychology" (Vygotsky 1982, p. 83). There is a number other places in the both papers, which show the differences between them - what is needed to see them, is just to open your eyes.
There is one more point here, which cannot be missed. These two papers belong to two periods and it means that they must be analysed together with the other papers made during the same period. I mean, particularly, that the "Methods of..." is the result of Vygotsky's work in Gomel (definitely before 1924). It means, that Vygotsky was working in the psychology not in 1924 but long ago (he himself wrote that he started his studies in psychology in 1917). "Pedagogical psychology" was written also in Gomel, and this book is reflexological, at least it is NOT behaviouristic (social behaviouristic). Even more, it could be a surprise to Andy, that at Petrograd Vygotsky made not one presentation, but three (the Program of the Congress is available in the Internet and in the book of Gita Vygodskaya). If we take all these papers together we will see very clear, that there is absolutely nothing about social behaviourism in them, including "The methods...". On the contrary, Vygotsky called himself than a bigger reflexologist than Pavlov (Vygotsky, 1982c, p. 58; Vygotsky, 1994, p. 40). Of course, his reflexology was not Pavlovian, it was in search for the objective method of study of subjective phenomena. This important period of Vygotsky's work is missed in Jussi's paper, which is very sad since it completely destroys his overall construction.
On the other hand, "Consciousness as a problem..." also was not a lonely paper made from nothing. It reflects the period when LSV was working in Moscow in a field of defectology (1924-19245), particularly with deaf and dumb children. In his experimental studies he went to the conclusion that the concept of reflex is not valid to explain the point and it is needed to search for another concept. Here again to understand the point we have not to separate the "Consciousness as a problem..." from the other works of that period. I doubt whether Andy knows LSV papers made during that period (1924-1925), whereas they ALL reflect the movement of Vygotsky from reflexology to behaviourism. Behaviouristic model was not satisfactory and LSV had to reject it very soon, but this is another story I have no time to discuss. I just want to say, that before comparing papers and made conclusions that the "only difference is their academic nicety" one have to investigate all the matters, which are behind and which are clear for those who have academic background. Otherwise the analysis will remain superficial. A golden ring and a wooden wheel also look similar, and so what? 

Nikolai


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Subject: xmca Digest, Vol 45, Issue 13



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Today's Topics:

  1. Re: Vygotsky and Behaviourism (Andy Blunden)
  2. Re: Vygotsky and Behaviourism (Mike Cole)


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

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:29:57 +1100
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Behaviourism
Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Message-ID: <498A6B45.2050109@mira.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed

Apologies all. :( In typical fashion, after declaring
ignorance of this topic, I try to "correct" others, then
have to "correct myself", then withdraw my correction, and
now want to correct myself again. :( "Shoot first, answer
questions later!"

I have always based my understanding of Vygotsky's entrance
into the world of psycholgy on Mike's Introduction to "The
Making of Mind" referring to the speech at the 2nd Congress
of blah blah blah in January 1924. That was why I objected
to the claim that Vygotsky started out as a "social
behaviourist" or *any kind* of behaviourist.

Then when I turned to read "Consciousness is a problem for
behaviourism" I found the style of presentation a bit
confusing at times, and then I read the translator's
(Veresov's) claim that this was in fact *not* the speech
which caused such a shock in January 1924, which was yet
another document. So I think to myself "I have been wrong
all along!" So I tracked down the speech and transcribed it:

http://marx.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/reflexology.htm

Of course it is almost word-for-word the same as the
"Consciousness is a problem ..." one.

So Mike was not misleading me. The difference between the
two documents is an academic nicety (from where I'm coming
from.)

So I just want to ask teh advocates of Vygotsky I, II and
III a couple of questions to help me understand:

(1) By "social behaviourist" do you mean a follower of GH
Mead? Or do you mean someone thinking along the lines to
which GH Mead would come? Can you define the central idea?

(2) The idea of construction of self (I) via Other (me) is
not sufficient basis for calling someone "social
behaviourist" is it? Whether you track this idea to Hegel
(1807), Mead (1932), Kojeve (1937), or elsewhere?.

(3) Do you agree that Vygotsky's January 1924 speech is a
full-on attack on Behaviourism, which was at that time the
dominant creed at the Congress? He also attack the otehr
speakers at the Congress.

(4) Do you think it makes sense to call someone engaged in a
critique of all existing views, who knows they do not yet
have an adequate theory and are just at the beginning of
their critique, any "ism" ?

Serious questions. I'm trying to understand where you guys
are coming from.

Andy

Andy Blunden wrote:

Mmmm. After re-reading this material myself, I have to now put myself
into a "Don't Know" basket. Interesting material, but I withdraw my
attempts to make any claims about it.
Andy
Andy Blunden wrote:

On the question of Vygotsky as a "social Behaviourist before 1929", I
have scanned two pages From the Introduction to Б─°Mind in Society,Б─² 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



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

Message: 2
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 20:32:16 -0800
From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky and Behaviourism
To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Message-ID:
<30364f990902042032n3d5363dbj79636d60c73657a2@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

There is a russian phrase, which, loosely translated, means
"assholes are everywhere."
and so
it
goes
m

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:


Apologies all. :( In typical fashion, after declaring ignorance of this
topic, I try to "correct" others, then have to "correct myself", then
withdraw my correction, and now want to correct myself again. :( "Shoot
first, answer questions later!"
I have always based my understanding of Vygotsky's entrance into the world of psycholgy on Mike's Introduction to "The Making of Mind" referring to the speech at the 2nd Congress of blah blah blah in January 1924. That was why I objected to the claim that Vygotsky started out as a "social behaviourist" 
or *any kind* of behaviourist.
Then when I turned to read "Consciousness is a problem for behaviourism" I 
found the style of presentation a bit confusing at times, and then I read
the translator's (Veresov's) claim that this was in fact *not* the speech
which caused such a shock in January 1924, which was yet another document. 
So I think to myself "I have been wrong all along!" So I tracked down the
speech and transcribed it:

http://marx.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/reflexology.htm

Of course it is almost word-for-word the same as the "Consciousness is a
problem ..." one.
So Mike was not misleading me. The difference between the two documents is 
an academic nicety (from where I'm coming from.)

So I just want to ask teh advocates of Vygotsky I, II and III a couple of
questions to help me understand:

(1) By "social behaviourist" do you mean a follower of GH Mead? Or do you
mean someone thinking along the lines to which GH Mead would come? Can you 
define the central idea?

(2) The idea of construction of self (I) via Other (me) is not sufficient
basis for calling someone "social behaviourist" is it? Whether you track
this idea to Hegel (1807), Mead (1932), Kojeve (1937), or elsewhere?.
(3) Do you agree that Vygotsky's January 1924 speech is a full-on attack on Behaviourism, which was at that time the dominant creed at the Congress? He 
also attack the otehr speakers at the Congress.

(4) Do you think it makes sense to call someone engaged in a critique of
all existing views, who knows they do not yet have an adequate theory and
are just at the beginning of their critique, any "ism" ?
Serious questions. I'm trying to understand where you guys are coming from. 

Andy

Andy Blunden wrote:
Mmmm. After re-reading this material myself, I have to now put myself into a "Don't Know" basket. Interesting material, but I withdraw my attempts to 
make any claims about it.
Andy
Andy Blunden wrote:


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<http://joyx.joensuu.fi/%7Ejsilvone/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/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>+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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