Re: [xmca] more on Vygotsky's relevance

Steve,

I can't disagree much with what you've said here. Let me simply make a
couple of points. First, I tied to avoid saying that V had simply taken over
Marx's conception of history (just as I tried to dodge the issue, as Andy
pointed out some time ago, of how to judge whether or not V was Marxist). I
wanted to describe V's conception of history because it doesn't seem to have
been described before and because it's a bit unusual. The degree to which it
is drawn from/builds upon Marx (and which texts?), Engels and Lenin is way
beyond my knowledge. At times, though, I couldn't avoid sounding as though V
just picked up something that Marx produced.

Second, I do think his conception of history occupied a central role in V's
psychology. It is, for example, what that psychology is a *developmental*
psychology. His methodology is in large part a *genetic* analysis. The task
of creating a new society by helping transform people (or helping people
transform themselves) is grounded in an understanding of history as a
process we can 'master.' This is not to say that his psychology can
be *reduced* to a conception of history, but that it is a complex whole in
which history plays an important organizing part.

Martin

On 3/8/08 3:39 PM, "Steve Gabosch" <sgabosch@comcast.net> wrote:

> There are a lot of things I like about Martin's paper, many already
> touched on. Two immediate standouts for me are the way Martin shows
> how Vygotsky's conception of history is the basis of his approach to
> child development. And I really liked the way Martin draws parallels
> between Vygotsky, Engels and Hegel on freedom and necessity. And
> there is much more.
>
> I am not certain, however, (to stimulate some discussion), that this
> key statement in the paper is quite right: "Marx provided Vygotsky,
> most importantly, with a conception of history."
>
> This seems to be saying that Vygotsky's vision of a new psychology can
> be successfully reduced (more or less) to his Marxist conception of
> history, or to put it another way, that Vygotsky's conception of
> history is the "most" important aspect of Vygotsky's Marxism. I agree
> that his conception of history is essential to his work - I am
> certainly not wanting to downplay that: I am pleased as can be with
> the job Martin did with explaining Vygotsky's conception of history, a
> real contribution to the literature - but I hesitate to lose sight of
> other essential parts of Vygotsky's overall approach.
>
> For example, Vygotsky's philosophical and "methodological" (a favorite
> Marxist term) approach seems especially important as well. The Crisis
> manuscript is loaded with philosophical and methodological concepts,
> not just conceptions of history. His discussion of science and the
> evolution of scientific ideology, for example, is one of the richest I
> have seen in Marxist literature, and very much builds on Engels'
> Dialectics of Nature, which had been recently published in Russian.
> Vygotsky describes the difference between dialectical materialism and
> historical materialism in chapter 13 and argues that what we now call
> "cultural-historical psychology" is an application of dialectical
> materialism that must be distinct from historical materialism because
> it is based on a field of reality that operates under different laws.
>
> Perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way, but it seems to me that
> Vygotsky is doing something much broader and deeper than just being
> provided with and applying a conception of history.
>
> I also wonder if Vygotsky's commitment to socialism, working class
> revolution, and developing a communist human being can be acccurately
> folded under the umbrella "conception of history." Marxists (most
> anyway) don't consider socialism to be an inevitable or determined
> outcome of history, but something that must be struggled for. (Rosa
> Luxembourg famously summarized this uncertainty as "socialism or
> barbarism.") I think Martin lays excellent and very much needed
> groundwork for showing how important Marx's conception of history is
> in Vygotsky's work - picking up on work for example by Sylvia Scribner
> on this, among others - but I wonder if we aren't short-selling LSV
> some if we limit our analysis and emphasis of his vision of a new
> psychology to that piece of the whole.
>
> Another aspect of the paper that stood out for me was Martin's
> argument that the development of "self-mastery," and not just the
> beginning or "intrapsychological" stage of that process,
> internalization, constitutes the heart of Vygotsky's approach to
> ontological development. This very important point seems to shed
> useful light on the unit of analysis/concrete universal/cell of
> psychology discussion, especially when combined with Vygotsky's and
> Luria's work on auxiliary stimulus-means. I find Martin pointing us
> in many very fruitful directions in this paper.
>
> PS. I really like Mike's suggestion that we discuss Martin's paper
> methodically - it really is a gem in the way it clearly lays out so
> many critical questions for students of Vygotsky to consider, and in
> such a clear and accessible writing style.
>
> - Steve
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Received on Sun Mar 9 10:44 PDT 2008