Re: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis" (timeo Vygotskii et dona ferentem)

[Anton Yasnitsky <the_yasya@yahoo.com>]

Interesting, indeed. However, just one caveat: Vygotsky's thinking is always--and particularly during the last

2-3 years of his life--is very much in a state of flux, intensely reading and exchanging, most notably with German-
American gestaltists, continuously  revising and changing previously held views, self-negating and, therefore, 
self-contradicting; therefore, it is highly problematic to discover a system where there is none.


Yet another caveat. Social environment in this case is as vital as intellectual one. Perhaps, not only in this case (if Marx was right). All these intellectual developments took place not in a vacuum, but in a very rich 
socio-cultural environment of Stalin's Great Break, industrialization, collectivization, and cultural revolution, 
and it is really amazing

to what extent the scientific discourse of Soviet psychologists does in fact reflect all key twists and turns

in Bolshevik cultural and economic policies during the period of the First Five-Year Plan.

Vygotsky and Luria

are definitely no exception to that rule, and it is truly unbelievable how much they in fact borrowed from 

Bolshevik newspeak during this time of early 1930s: from emphasis on personality and wholeness to the idea

of straightforward economic determination of human psychological functioning (evident in, e.g., Vygotsky's 1930 paper 

on "Socialist alteration of man" or Luria's attempt to demonstrate how collectivization and participation in 
socialist collective farms radically changes human thinking and perception within just a few months).


Fine, overall we call this dialectic approach, although to me this looks more like desperate search for a 
psychological theory under enormous pressure to have one instead of very much discredited and compromised
"instrumental psychology". Numerous borrowings and related inconsistencies--apart from intense intellectual work--

are notable in Vygotsky's discourse of this time. Uncovering these is a task for  an historian, perhaps. 
A psychologist, on the other hand, should be aware of all these deficiencies and, thus, not to be looking for a 
completed original system of thinking and methodology of empirical research where the author failed to create one.


As I mentioned this on several occasions, a synthesis of Vygotskian ideas with the solid system of gestaltist thought--

the "cultural-historical gestalt psychology", if I may--looks like a very interesting and most promising option

for the development of Vygotskiana in psychology today. 
Especially so since this is what was really happening during the tumultuous 1930s. Till death did them part...


AY

 
P.S. Yet again, reminder: have a look at the link; a most curious quote on value and meaning
from Koffka, 1935 has been added most recently:

http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/80047.html




________________________________
 From: Achilles Delari Junior <achilles_delari@hotmail.com>
To: "xmca@weber.ucsd.edu" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 7:21:18 PM
Subject: RE: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis" (timeo Vygotskii et dona ferentem)
 

Anton... Introspection by itself is not the mayor problem, you talk about "introspection reincarnated and rehabilitated in contemporary [post-]cognitive psychology", seems to be fine. OK. But methodologically, we have a challenge: do not turns the absence of method to understand the "mystery of consciousness" in an assumption of "mystery" itself as a methodological category. I have maybe two or three questions that your last note remember me: (1) In 1934, in chapter 1 from "Thinking and speech" Vygotsky said that we can not assess "perezhivanie" in another way that no through speech: "Общение, основанное на разумном понимании и на намеренной передаче мысли и переживаний, непременно требует известной системы средств, прототипом которой была, есть и всегда останется человеческая речь." I
 don't have this book in English, but it is the Chapter 1 from "Thinking and Speech" - wrote in 1934. (2) In 1993-34 in the text "The crisis of Seven Years", Vygotsky talk about two units of analysis, but to understand two different objects of analysis: meaning - a unit for thinking an language; and perezhivanie for personality and environment. Perezhivanie shows to be broader than "meaning", but how communicate "perezhivanie" without speech? (3) Another note from "Problem of consciousness" (1933-34): "Sense is what enters into meaning (the result of the meaning) but is not consolidated behind the sign. The formation of sense is the result, the product of meaning. Sense is broader than meaning." - Sense is broader than meaning but is [potentially] contained in meaning - I guess we are dealing with a dialectical way of think.

This is very interesting.Achilles.


> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:32:29 -0700
> From: the_yasya@yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis" (timeo    Vygotskii et dona ferentem)
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> 
> Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that Vygotsky did talk about "meaning" (i.e. of a word) as a unit of analysis,
> 
> but definitely no in the sense that for Vygotsky this was the unit of analysis of thinking-and-speech.
> 
> But meaning [of a word] definitely does not work as the unit of the analysis for the study of consciousness.
> According to Vygotskii, that is.
> 
> In fact, Vygotsky is struggling for identifying the unit of analysis of consciousness during two-three years of his life, 
> 
> but hardly comes to any definite solution. In fact, at the very end of Thinking and Speech, the posthumous unauthorized
> collection of Vygotsky's works of at least two distinct periods of his thought development of roughly 1928-1934,
> 
> Vygotsky speculates that thinking and speech are the key to the problem of consciousness and clearly confesses
> 
> that he is only at the threshold of the problem of consciousness, -- but this is the best what we have.
> 
> 
> On a number of occasions, Vygotsky discusses some other possible units of analysis of psychological phenomena
> other than thinking-and-speech, such as, for instance, 
> 'smysl' (sense, Sinn) which is not the same of 'word meaning' or 
> 'perezhivanie' (literal translation of Erlebniss; roughly, 'emotional sense-making' or 'meaningful life experiencing'), etc.  
> 
> 
> However, quite unfortunately, no or, more precisely, virtually no empirical studies were done, therefore, all these 
> 
> metaphors and phrases remained not operationalized and pretty void. Perhaps, with "perezhivanie" 
> (as emotional experiencing) we are more or less safe, that is, quite well know what and who 
> inspired Vygotsky talking about Erlebniss and, therefore, know where and who to look at. -- 
> This is Kurt Lewin and his numerous 1920-1930s studies on action and emotion. By the way, Vygotsky and his Circle
> 
> were absolutely fascinated by these studies and most enthusiastically replicated them during 1930s.
> 
> They even had plans for Topological Meeting in Moscow or Kharkov in 1936. Isn't it nice? :) 
> 
> 
> Still, 'smysl' as presumably a unit (?) of analysis (??) of consciousness (???) is very much problematic, --
> 
> not as a speculative notion, but as a conceptual tool for an empirical study. The main complexity is:
> 
> how one would operationalize "smysl/sense"? Hmmmm...
> 
> 
> In this respect, I am glad Achilles mentioned introspection. Indeed, it seems in our quest for consciousness
> 
> we return to the age-old method of introspection, or, if one prefers a somewhat newer parlance, "verbal protocol",
> or "think aloud protocol": introspection reincarnated and rehabilitated in contemporary [post-]cognitive psychology,
> if I am not mistaken, by Eriksson and Simon.
> 
> 
> Still, for the study of consciousness I guess I would go for introspection, anyway... :)
> 
> 
> AY
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
>  From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> 
> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 5:07:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis" (timeo Vygotskii et dona ferentem)
>  
> 
> Yes, couldn't we take LSV to be saying that an analysis of "meaning" is central to the scientific study of consciousness? Just as Marx considered an analysis of "value" to be central to the scientific study of capitalist society? And then Thought and Language would be an illustration of such an analysis - of meaning as it circulates through the word, the concept, the thought...
> 
> Doesn't seem so hyperbolic to me.
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> On Apr 23, 2013, at 3:55 PM, Achilles Delari Junior <achilles_delari@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Thank you Anton,
> > 
> > I agree with the repetition of the use of "hyperbole" as language figure in Vygotsky's texts is a fact that difficult textual analysis (oh, if can exist such a thing like a method of "textual analysis"). Really, for instance, there are many "central problems" of psychology in Vygotsky different works ("mediated action", "freedom", "higher psychological functions"...). But, if you take "meaningful word" as analytic unit for "consciousness [problematic] problem" (if it is posed as a "problem", we can suppose that is problematic, don't we?), is not without propose, nor sou chimeric,  to quest for "A" (not necessarily "THE", even because in Russian there is no such grammatical class: "definite article" or "indefinite article")  kind of method of analysis. Leaving this aim totally out of our research goals also is not so interesting, because interpretative task can fall in relativistic proceeding, and nothing will make really any sense beyond that of the
>  own introspection of the subject and of the researcher. The studies from Vygotsky and Sakharov, Vygotsky and Shif, was some kind of attempt to understand the development of meaning (this is a semantic aspect of human life), and indirectly, the [problematic] development of consciousness, through its unit of analysis, for instance. You can not study directly the hole "mysterious  character" of consciousness, but you even can study of object of analysis of psychology through it's clues, semiotic "indexes". Nobody will know directly how really is a simple "atom", even so, some guys try to understand objectively it through its manifestations, reconstructing theoretically the way from inside to outside and vice versa - this is a more moderate Vygotsky's analogy that we find in "Historical sense of the crisis of psychology", for instance...
> > 
> > Vygotsky uses several "hyperbolic" statements, but he was not so fool, to take this so literally. Also not me, naive but no so fool...
> > 
> > Болшое спасибо. До свиданиа. 
> > 
> > Achilles.
> > 
> > P.S. And about the creation of a new kind of biological socialist human being, I completely agree with you, this was a serious mistake, "nonsense dream".
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:28:21 -0700
> >> From: the_yasya@yahoo.com
> >> Subject: Re: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis" (timeo    Vygotskii et dona ferentem)
> >> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> 
> >> It is absolutely impossible to disagree with Rauno's comment. Indeed, the "semicheskii analiz" of Vygotskii
> >> 
> >> is one of those programmatic statements, quite characteristic of this person, who, inter alia, would repeatedly claim that
> >> 
> >> QUOTE
> >> 
> >> The new society will create the new man. 
> >> When one mentions the remolding of man as an indisputable trait of the new mankind and 
> >> the artificial creation of a new biological type, 
> >> then this will be the only and first species in biology which will create itself...
> >> 
> >> http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/crisis/psycri14.htm
> >> 
> >> END of QUOTE
> >> 
> >> Indeed, such--and similar utopian and programmatic, yet thoroughly and hopelessly scientifically ungrounded--
> >> Vygotskii's statements are not to be taken for granted.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> So, regardless of whether we agree or disagree (i.e., fully agree? mainly agree? partially agree? 
> >> disagree on most points? fundamentally disagree in virtually any respect?) with Vygotskii, 
> >> the really meaningful question,
> >> 
> >> I believe, is what exactly, *ACCORDING to VYGOTSKII*, is the  
> >> "Semiotic [and/or "semantic" = semicheskyj] analysis" that, yet again according to this guy,
> >> "is the only adequate method for the study of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness." 
> >> 
> >> And, more specifically, how exactly did ipse Vygotskii perform this kind of analysis?
> >> 
> >> The answer, I guess, is as follows:
> >> Vygotskii DID NOT KNOW how exactly perform this "the only" analysis, and in this respect 
> >> he did not go much further his usual programmatic, but pretty void from scholarly standpoint statements.
> >> 
> >> So, if we dismiss the numerous "Vygotskian", including Wertsch's, 
> >> interpretations of the Master's Teaching as irrelevant to our main question here, --
> >> on the excellent criticism of the "Vygotskians" see Miller's "Vygotsky in perspective"
> >> http://upbo.com/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107412477&ss=fro --
> >> 
> >> then the three points made here previously are very much worth considering:
> >> 
> >> 1. Nobody (even ipse Vygotsky!) has invented a method which reveals the structures of consciousness. 
> >> 2. The very concept of consciousness is ... empirically ... problematic. 
> >> 3. There is no single method that would reveal the secrets of consciousness. 
> >> 
> >> Good luck with the search for meaning anyway! Perhaps, some Gestaltists' work will help?
> >> If interested feel free to check the link: http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/80047.html -- 
> >> most stuff in Russian, but some references in English are certainly of help.
> >> Also, you might want to explore how those Russian guys attempted to do the 
> >> "semicheskii analiz" to the extent they understood this idea roughly in mid-1930s.
> >> But in order to do this, one needs to be able to read Russian, too. Yet again,
> >> see the entry, it might help: http://psyhistorik.livejournal.com/80047.html
> >> 
> >> Good luck again! ;)
> >> 
> >> AY
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> ________________________________
> >> From: Achilles Delari Junior <achilles_delari@hotmail.com>
> >> To: "xmca@weber.ucsd.edu" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> 
> >> Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 11:56:11 AM
> >> Subject: RE: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis". Can you help me?
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Thank you. This problematic concept is the object of study for Vygotsky's psychology. This is the problem for those people who agree with Vygotsky.
> >> Achilles.
> >> 
> >>> From: rakahu@utu.fi
> >>> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> Subject: RE: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis". Can you help    me?
> >>> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:43:28 +0000
> >>> 
> >>> Hello,
> >>> 
> >>> You should not take Vygotsky's remark (the only adequate method for the study of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness) so seriously. Nobody has invented a method which reveals the  of structures of consciousness. The very concept of consciousness is both empirically and philosophically problematic. There is no single method that would reveal the secrets of consciousness.
> >>> 
> >>> Rauno Huttunen
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Achilles Delari Junior
> >>> Sent: 23. huhtikuuta 2013 7:29
> >>> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> Subject: [xmca] "semiotic/semantic [semicheskyj] analysis". Can you help me?
> >>> 
> >>> Greetings for all,
> >>> 
> >>> Please, I understand that I have a major methodological problem in my nearest research project: "how to understand human making-sense through the concrete acts of a person's speech?". Along many years I had thought about Vygotsky's claim that ""Semiotic [and/or "semantic" = semicheskyj] analysis is the only adequate method for the study of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness." (see http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1934/problem-consciousness.htm). But it is not so clear how to proceed "Semiotic/semantic analysis". Then, if you pleased, could somebody help me, shining my mind about the (im)possibilities about somebody really learn *how to do* such kind of analysis? Here in Brazil, close to me, there is nobody working with something in this direction, then I have no local resources to ask for... Forgive me about the naive character of the question, but I really want to learn about.
> >>> 
> >>> Thank you very much, once more. Best wishes.
> >>> 
> >>> Achilles from Brazil.
> >>> 
> >>>                            __________________________________________
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