[xmca] Teresa in Ecstasy

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

On page 214 of Volume 6 of the Collected Works, we've got this:
 
"If the naturalistic theory were simply to see the phenomena of holy or spiritual love, it would at the same time see from any facts pertaining to the sphere of vital love, that it could not in any way fail to understand them nor could it escape them."
 
Which makes no sense at all in English. Here's the Russian:
 
 
Если бы натуралистическая теория просто видела феномены святой или душевной любви, она бы вместе с тем видела, что их никак нельзя ни понять из любых фактов, относящихся к сфере витальной любви, ни вывести из них.
 
Vygotsky is talking about the naturalistic theories of emotion (he has in mind reflexology, James-Lange, the theories which attempt to explain emotions as responses to physical sensations from eithe outside the body or inside it). 
 
I think what he is saying is that these theories either do NOT recognize the existence of spiritual love at all, or if they do (which of course James does in his lectures on the varieties of religious experience) they see no way of deriving spiritual love from the various manifestations of physical love.
 
Well, Bernini did! 
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Saint_Theresa
 
Vygotsky does say that the real purpose of descriptive psychology is to provide a scientific road down the same paths blazed by poets, painters, playwrights and novelists. But he should have added at least one sculptor!
 
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education



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