[xmca] Vygotsky and Freud...

[Achilles Delari Junior <achilles_delari@hotmail.com>]

Hi, XMCA.

I have some doubts about Freud's role in Vygotsky's
"Theory of emotions".

1) 1931-33 - In "The teaching of emotions", Freud is quote by
Vygotsky only twice:
1.1 - At chapter 18, Freud is sawed as "involuntary
Descartes' disciple", i.e., a dualistic approach to 
emotions. Much more importance is given to Chabrier 
than to Freud. But, of course the main name is Spinoza,
not dualistic approach, and not supposed a "Descartes'
diciple"...
1.2 - At chapter 19, only an allegorical quote to do
an rhetoric analogy with a sample of a Freud's patient,
nothing theoretically relevant.

2) 1927 - In "Historical sense of the Crisis of psychology",
Vygotsky have several arguments against methodological
fusion between marxism and psicanalisis.
2.1 - Medical materialism is not the same that dialectical
materialism.
2.2 - Freud himself do not care to be called monist.
2.3 - Freud has many metaphysical influences, namely
Lipps, and Schopenhauer (this assumed explicitly by
Freud himself, in the words of Vygotsky)

3) 1925 - In the "Psychology of art", Vygotsky refuses
important principles very important to Freuds theory:
3.1 - Pan-sexualism (in Freud's view about Da Vinci and
Dostoyevsky)
3.2 - Infantilism (idem)
3.3 - Energetic hypotesis (in Freuds explation to the
jocoseness).


Of course there is one important "praise" - that all know,
about "death drive" (I don't know the English term, it is
the Thanatos), but Vygotsky recognize that is a good
question, but said that Freud didn't have the right answer.
This is at a preface from Vygotsky and Luria to Russian
edition to Freud's "Beyond Pleasure Principle", and again
in "The crisis of psychology"... For instance some influnce
of "Beyond Plesure Principle" is founded in Vygotsky "Theory
of play" too, but nothing directly linked to "Thanatos" (see
Mind in Society - Chapter seven)

Both in "Psychology of Art" and in "Imagination and Creativity
in Childhood", Vygotsky's quotes Freud in agreement about
Emotions be consciouss process, but in "The Crisis of psychology"
he said that this idea was not really from Freud, but from
Lipps... Than this is not any criteria to approximate Freud and
Vygotsky.

In "Psychology of art" seems to be some approximation too
because "catharsis"  concept, but we can't be so far without
compares this with ancient Greek chatarsis concept too, mainly
Aristotle. Chatarsis as a purification process provide by art,
mainly Tragedy...

And, there was, of course several posite quotes to Freud in
"Pedagogical Psychology", but that was only a hand-book,
Pavlov was abundantly quote too, equally in very posite
fashion.

It's all the main that I remember about Freud in Vigotski,
except of course something in "Thinking and speech" about
unconscious as a developed form of consciousness, and
the text about unconscious has a methodological problem,
but no great role to Freud in a historical cultural theory of
emotions. In the contrary.... We have deep doubts from
Vygotsky about psychoanalysis can be a historical world
view. This is express not only in 1927 but again in 1934

In 1927:

"In its more “concrete” works as well, psychoanalysis 
displays not
dynamic, but highly static, conservative, 
anti-dialectic and
anti-historical tendencies. It directly 
reduces the higher mental
processes – both personal 
and collective ones – to primitive,
primordial, essentially 
prehistorical, prehuman roots, leaving no room
for history. 
The same key unlocks the creativity of a Dostoyevsky 
and
the totem and taboo of primordial tribes; the Christian 
church,
communism, the primitive horde – in psychoanalysis 
everything is
reduced to the same source. That such 
tendencies are present in
psychoanalysis is apparent 
from all the works of this school which deal
with problems 
of culture, sociology and history. We can see that here
it
 does not continue, but contradicts, the methodology of
 Marxism. But
about this one keeps silent as well."
(Vygotsky, 1927 - The Crisis of psychology - chapter 7
- you can check in marxists.org)

And in 1934:

"the deep psychology* affirms that things are what they
was" (See Volume I - Spanish, and Russian - the text
"The problem of consciousness; I don´t have the English
to this source)

* You know Vygotsky refers to psychoanalysis as "deep
psychology", this is explicit in the chapter 18 from "The
teaching of Emotions"...

It seems to me that freudian psychoanalysis was not the
major occidental contribution to Vygotsky's "theory of
emotions", nor to his entire general psychology, any way.
To accept "good questions" is far way to accept a whole
epistemological view in which these questions are supposed
to be answered by that approach...

Its only what, SEEMS, to me... at the works that could 
cover until now... of course can be many other Vygotsky's
sources that I didn't examine to find references to Freud.

But... Nothing is impossible today...

Best wishes.

Achilles
>From Brazil.


 




 
 
 		 	   		  
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