Re: [xmca] "The Teaching About Emotions" in Russian?

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

Just after Natalja posted her link, I read this in Volume Six of the English Collected Works (p 130)
 
"Thus, Dumas is scarcely the first to reduce the problem of the connection between the James-Lange theory and Cartesian teaching on the passions..." not to surface resemblances but to a profound inner link.
 
That "scarcely the first" is a little flat, I thought. This whole section is about how psychology has recognized surface resemblances, but has not yet really taken the profound link far enough. It's not like Vygotsky to play out of tune like this. 
 
So then Natalja puts up the link and I can check. Here's what Vygotsky REALLY wrote (I think): "Таким образом, Дюма едва ли не впервые сводит вопрос о связи между теорией Джемса  - Ланге и картезианским учением о страстях..."

So it's really something like: "In this way, Vygotsky is almost the first to reduce the the problem of the connection...." etc. 
 
It's an easy mistake to make, and a tough mistake to catch--but if you don't catch it, you alter the whole meaning of the paragraph and turns a beautiful argument into something ugly and out of key (and spread it from English to unsuspecting languages like Korean). 
 
It's hard to describe the SYMPHONIC effect of Vygotsky's writing when you really have it right--he comes to the end of an argument (e.g. the James-Lange theory fits the then new facts on adrenalin and its effects on vasomotor control, the Cannon-Bard theory fits the newly discovered facts on sensory traffic in the thalamus...), builds to what looks like an inevitable climax (e.g. this allows us to show how emotion is embodied in real time, it helps us to build a theory which has both higher cortical and lower thalamic emotion)...and then......Well, and then Vygotsky tells you that it's all wrong again, and he'll explain why in the next section. 
 
You see, if Vygotsky just ended each section with a crash, like a rock star, a sour note here or there wouldn't matter. But he is far too subtle for that...after the crash, he will have a single slender oboe come out and play on. So every note counts, and the way the whole thing is orchestrated for English really does matter. 
 
Copious gratitude to Natalja, and to all the xmca Russophones who share their invaluable expertise with tin-eared rookies like me. (Maybe a little envy too....)
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education 
 

--- On Sun, 2/20/11, Natalia Gajdamaschko <nataliag@sfu.ca> wrote:


From: Natalia Gajdamaschko <nataliag@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: [xmca] "The Teaching About Emotions" in Russian?
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Sunday, February 20, 2011, 8:42 PM


Hi David,
Take a look here, for example:

http://www.caute.net.ru/spinoza/rus/vygotsky.html

Cheers,
Natalia.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kellogg" <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
To: "xmca" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 7:37:21 PM
Subject: [xmca] "The Teaching About Emotions" in Russian?

Does anyone know where I can get an e-text or a pdf of Vygotsky's "The Teaching about the emotions: Historical and psychological studies" in the original Russian?
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education



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