Vygotsky's scientific psychology: Terra incognita by Mohamed Elhammoumi (original) (raw)
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Recovering the cornerstones of vygotsky’s marxism, 2022
Here we present the first ever complete edition of Lev Vygotsky's classic The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology translated directly into Spanish from Russian by Alejandro Ariel González. Published with "The Socialist Alteration of Man" and "Thought and Language," it provides an entryway to Vygotsky's work and his "historical-cultural" theory that censorship had kept closed for decades: that of Marxist philosophy and methodology. At the same time, it offers an understanding of the author's anti-capitalist and revolutionary strategic political objectives, directly related to the fight against any dogmatism of any kind.
From Vygotsky to Vygotskian psychology: Introduction to the history of the Kharkov School
Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2008
Around the end of the 1920s, Vygotsky introduced his integrative framework for psychological research to the Soviet Union. This framework was not abandoned and forgotten until its rediscovery in Russia and America in the 1950s, as some claim. In fact, even after his untimely death in 1934, Vygotsky remained the spiritual leader of a group of his former students and collaborators, who became known as the Kharkov School. This paper reconstructs the early intellectual history of Vygotskian psychology, as it emerged, around the time of Vygotsky's death, in the research program of the Kharkov School. INTRODUCTION: VYGOTSKIAN PSYCHOLOGY AND THE KHARKOV SCHOOL Not only was Lev Vygotsky an extremely talented and versatile psychologist, he was also a gifted teacher, fostering a generation of younger scholars who continued his wide-ranging research, even after his untimely death in 1934. From the 1920s through the early 1930s, Vygotsky, his closest collaborators-Alexander Luria and Aleksei N. Leontiev-and their associates, conducted a wide range of psychological studies on verbal thinking and practical intellect in children, the development of memory and attention, concept formation, educational psychology, the psychology of art, human developmental pathology, neuropsychology, and the ethno-cultural study of minorities. Behind this seemingly eclectic array of studies initiated by Vygotsky stands a profound, highly ambitious theoretical and methodological framework (Vygotsky, 1927/1997). For a variety of reasons, Vygotskian psychology after Vygotsky developed in several directions that no longer readily reveal their common source. For example, there is no immediately apparent link between Luria's early cross-cultural Central Asian expeditions and his neuropsychology; Leontiev's theorizing on activity, consciousness, and personality; Zaporozhets' psychology of perception, movement, or emotion; Zinchenko's psychology of involuntary remembering; Elkonin's research on the psychology of play and learning; Galperin's quest to define the object of distinctly psychological research; or Bozhovich's psychology of personality development (Minick, 1997). Furthermore, while the names of Luria and Leontiev are quite familiar in the West, outside Russia little is known about other students of Vygotsky and their work. James Wertsch (1994) is right to say that "This lacuna in our knowledge is clearly our loss."
Vygotsky's Theory of the Higher Psychological Processes: Some Criticisms
Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory is discussed, especially the distinction between lower and higher psychological processes. The distinction is criticized, based in part on discussions in Soviet psychology. In particular, it is shown that Vygotsky separated the lower and higher psychological processes too sharply, and that his conception of lower processes as 'natural' and 'passive' is false. The authors suggest that these shortcomings can be overcome within the cultural-historical framework. Vygotsky's theory is not only of historical value, but continues to play a role in contemporary psychology.
Theoretical Psychology: Vygotskian Writings
"Object_Oriented_Activity Leontiev's_Synthesis_of_Behaviourism and Cognitivism, Categorization_Induced_Social_Identity Garai's_Synthesis_of_Social_Psychology_and_Psychoanalysis" Synthesis_of_the Activity Theory and the Social Identity Theory
Soviet Psychology Comments by Jean Piaget 1962
It is not without sadness that an author discovers, twenty-five years after its publication, the work of a colleague who has died in the meantime, when that work contains so many points of immediate interest to him which should have been discussed personally and in detail. Although my friend A. Luria kept me up to date concerning Vygotsky's sympathetic and yet critical position with respect to my work, I was never able to read his writings or to meet him in person, and in reading his book today, I regret this profoundly, for we could have come to an understanding on a number of points.
We do not want a brand-new and trivial name from history. We want a name covered by the dust of centuries. We regard this as our historical right, as an indication of our historical role, our claim to realize psychology as a science. We must view ourselves in connection with and in relation to the past . . . That is why we accept the name of our science with all its age-old delusions as a vivid reminder of our victory over these errors, as the fighting scars of wounds, as a vivid testimony of the truth which develops in the incredibly complicated struggle with falsehood. La psychologie ne détient donc nullement le "secret" des faits humains, simplement parce que ce "secret" n'est pas d'ordre psychologique [Psychology by no means holds the "secret" of human affairs, simply because this "secret" is not of a psychological order]. (Politzer, 1928: 170) Pourquoi la théorie? Comme le plus court chemin vers la realité. (Verret, 1999: 10) introduction Vygotsky, whose premature death occurred at the age of thirty-seven in 1934, was a serious loss to Marxist psychology. He will be remembered for three things. Firstly, he played a major part in reviving the Marxist approach to psychology, which had been suppressed by the positivism-scientism versions of Marxism. Secondly, in his major works, Vygotsky made a positive and original application of Marx's method, which in Marx's works often suffered from vulgar dialectical materialism. Thirdly, Vygotsky is the Feuerbach of psychology, but not yet the Marx of psychology. Vygotsky had read many texts by Marx and on Marxism. His ideas were grounded in a philosophy that was both dialectical and materialist.
Is there a Vygotskian psychology after Marx
2006
Is there a Vygotskian psychology after Marx? "we must be profoundly historical and must always present man's behavior in relation to the class situation at the given moment. This must be the fundamental psychological technique for every social psychologist" (Vygotsky, 1926/1997, p. 212). When Vygotsky's texts were first translated into English some psychologists in the US noted that his work had strong connections to Marx's analysis of capitalism. But more often these connections have gone unnoticed. Even when they have been acknowledged and examined there has been little consensus about their character, or their significance. Some have assumed that any scientist working in the Soviet Union had to pay lip service to Marx, and that Vygotsky did this and nothing more. Some have taken Vygotsky's references to Marx merely as a political rallying call. Others cannot grasp the relevance to psychology of an economic critique. In addition in the US there has been among academics since the McCarthy purges a nervousness about Marx and Marxism, something that has never existed in the UK, for example. Perhaps Russian writers on Vygotsky have inadvertently contributed to the problem when they write that Vygotsky "absorbed the new ideology of Marxism, its philosophical theory, which became an established feature of the social consciousness…" (Yaroshevsky, 1989, 10). The term 'ideology' has strong negative connotations for western readers, and indeed Yaroshevsky notes that some translations of Vygotsky's work have omitted references to Marx and Engels, or treated these as "a forced concession to official ideology."
Prospect of development of L.S. Vygotsky’s ideas in clinical psychology
Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 2016
This work is dedicated to the development of L.S. Vygotsky's ideas in clinical psychology and the clarification of some basic points of the cultural-historical concept. The paper presents a thesis about the development of man in ontogeny as the result of his interaction with the cultural environment, which transforms natural mental functions into higher mental functions. This process can be attended by a whole range of psychopathologies. The issues discussed include voluntary regulation of higher mental functions, determination of the involuntariness and "post-voluntariness" of functions, the internalization of actions, the differentiation of affect and emotion (including as higher mental functions), the "cultural" socialization of non-mental functions (sex, sleep, excretion), and the discord between natural and "cultural" entities in a person. The basis for the ontological development of man is the genesis of "subjectness", like all the forms of higher activity that emerge when encountering cultural restrictions and requirements causing specific mental disorders. The supposition is made that there are no significant restrictions to explaining either mental or non-mental functions with the cultural-historical approach. Recommendations for further research are suggested.