These files are maintained strictly for historical reference, research, and recordkeeping purposes,
and the content has not been altered or updated since archiving.
Content on this site may not meet current digital accessibility standards.
If you require an alternative, accessible format of any information found on this site,
please contact Bruce Jones, bjones@ucsd.edu to request an accommodation.
These files are maintained strictly for historical reference, research, and recordkeeping purposes,
and the content has not been altered or updated since archiving.
Content on this site may not meet current digital accessibility standards.
If you require an alternative, accessible format of any information found on this site,
please contact Bruce Jones, bjones@ucsd.edu to request an accommodation.
******************************** First, on semiotic mediation.Jussi's discussion of Vygotsky's theory of semiotic mediation being the basis of consciousness, formulated late in Vygotsky's short career, and how it transitioned from an instrumentalist concept, seems to be his paper's strongest aspect, where Jussi assembles the most persuasive quotes and arguments. I believe this assemblage adds up to an unfortunately narrow assessment of Vygotsky's overall approach to psychology and consciousness, but Jussi makes a strong case that needs to be taken very seriously. I applaud his scholarship and work on this. He offers a worthy argument. It appears that his work dovetails very nicely with many of David Kellogg's insights into Vygotsky's last and most important work, Thinking and Speech, including David's emphasis on semiotic mediation.
I owe Sasha a serious response to his recent comprehensive post, which replied, among other things, to my objection to what I perceived as an erroneous reduction of Vygotsky to a theory of sign mediation. Again, as above, I claimed that reducing Vygotsky - meaning, Vygotsky I, II or III, to use David's terminology - to his 1932-34 theory of semiotic mediation, is a narrow assessment of his approach to psychology. Have I managed to climb my way out on a limb? We'll see ... :-))
My question at this point, since Jussi has spoken so well, is to Sasha - what is your evaluation of Jussi's take on Vygotsky's theory of semiotic or sign mediation? Do you agree, for example, with Jussi's description of Vygotsky's views on sign mediation, for example, in the section "Sign and Meaning" (pg 11) where Jussi says things like:
"If the lower forms of activity are characterised by the immediacy of psychological processes, the higher psychological functions are characterized by sign-mediation."
"It is clear for him [Vygotsky] that the sign mediation ‘is the most important distinguishing characteristic of all higher mental functions.’ (L. S. Vygotsky, 1999b, 41)."
"The use of signs results in a completely new and specific structure of behaviour in man, a structure that breaks with the traditions of natural behaviour and creates new forms of cultural-psychological activity. (L. S. Vygotsky, 1999b, 47)."
"There is no sign without meaning. ‘The formation of meaning is the main function of sign. Meaning is everywhere where there is a sign --- meaning is inherent in the sign.’ (Vygotsky, 1997h, 134, 136)."
Also, Sasha, if you would, please repeat, even if ever so briefly, what you find incorrect about Vygotsky's views here, as Jussi has expressed them.
************************************* Second, on socio-behaviorism.Another theme in Jussi's paper is that Vygotsky went through three stages, the first, behaviorism.
David sees Jussi's three stages as overlapping quite a bit with his Vygotsky I, II, and III, which he bases on Norris Minick's analysis. Similar how? They strike me as quite different, except for perhaps seeing 1932-1934 as a specific phase. I like Minick's analysis myself - it is a good starting point for a very important study. Certainly, Vygotsky was in constant transition his whole career.
But was there really more than one Vygotsky? Were there enough Vygotskys to satisfy both David's and Jussi's sequences? Are there enough LSV's for each of us to have several Vygotsky's of our very own? :-)) Anyway, Plenum CW Vol 1 is on Google Books (yay!) and here is the Minick article. "The Development of Vygotsky's Thought: An Introduction" I see no discussion of a behaviorist phase by Minick, btw.
http://books.google.com/books?id=u8UTfKFWb5UC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=vygotsky+collective+works+minick&source=web&ots=VAYusF0J-0&sig=xOE1A6IM58poswGLWdrpqawx7hU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA33,M1Jussi does well discussing the aspects of the transition from an instrumental to semiotic viewpoint, from early to late CHP, but I find his discussion of Vygotsky's so-called "socio-behaviorist" phase unconvincing. His focus on pg 3-5 in his paper on a 1925 essay by Vygotsky, found in Plenum CW Vol 3. Jussi offers a reading of that essay that is, in an important way, the opposite of mine. I appreciate that Jussi's paper got me to take this close look at Vygotsky's 1925 essay. I had looked at it before, but somewhat quickly. This time, I read it with great interest. In some passages, Vygotsky does sound like a behaviorist. And it is true that in this essay Vygotsky restricts himself to the terms of the behaviorism- reflexologism of his time, which was dominated by Pavlov (and according to Minick, Bekhterev) in the Soviet psychology of the time. My reading, which is certainly somewhat speculative, not having done the thorough study of Soviet psychology in the 1920's that this kind of inquiry requires, is that Vygotsky was doing everything he could to prove, using Pavlovian terminology and his persuasive writing abilities, that the central subject of psychological research should be consciousness, not reflexes, and that behaviorism was simply dead wrong about that and a lot of things. My reading is that Vygotsky was attempting to **defeat** behaviorism in that essay, using its own terms. Or more precisely, relegate it to the study only of animal and human reflexes, which it indeed was making important discoveries in.
I think Jussi is right on a very important observation: Vygotsky is certainly, from our point of view looking back, being somewhat contradictory at this point in his career, in 1925. But rather than assess Vygotsky as "committed to behaviorism," I would assess him has committed to **anti**-behaviorism and **anti**-reflexology, but still not having found sufficient arguments and evidence to fully dismiss and move beyond them, that is, replace them. So, as part of his searing critique (and Vygotsky sure could cook, one of the things we love about him), he is forced to use behaviorism's own discoveries and terms to try to defeat them as serious contenders for hegemony in Soviet psychological research. At the time, this was a David and Goliath endeavor.
For that moment in time, the behaviorist approach was one of the most advanced materialist psychology's available, but hopelessly and erroneously committed to denying the importance or even existence of consciousness and will. It was a materialist counterpoint, but a badly mistaken one, to subjectivist psychology. Vygotsky, to my knowledge, was unwavering in this assessment of behaviorism - its objectivist materialism was equally erroneous in its approach to human psychology as was the subjectivist idealism of other schools. One understated mind and ignored it, the other overstated and isolated it. That 1925 essay may have been, in fact, LSV's goodbye letter to behaviorism, his funeral address to it. He was going to go study consciousness, and so should all psychologists. 'Nice knowing y'all. 'Bye!'
In other words, my take on the 1925 essay Jussi cites is that Vygotsky was using dialectical thinking to challenge and stretch this mechanical materialist trend to its extremes, to force it over the boundaries it refused to cross, with a very deliberate intent on breaking its back in the process. His 1924 speech that started his Moscow career was in that spirit, as was his 1926-27 Crisis monograph wherever it mentions behaviorism, and to my knowledge, everything he ever said about behaviorism was also written with these intents. No one confuses cultural psychology or cultural-historical research with behaviorism in any way today. The record shows Vygotsky always opposed it. It does not appear historically supportable to characterize Vygotsky as a behaviorist, a socio-behaviorist, a reflexologist, or a reactologist, even for a month, let alone from say 1917 through 1927. He was a die-hard opponent, and never an advocate of those schools. Yes?
I should add that I don't think discarding this aspect of Jussi's paper takes away from the insights he offers in the above-discussed portions. If anything, it removes a distraction.
Something that is always hard to do from a distance, and especially from the future, let alone a different country, is fully grasp the rhetorical issues and contexts that drive a given piece of ideological writing. Vygotsky in 1925 was still establishing his own turf, still even getting his doctorate, still integrating himself as a psychologist. Things were changing very fast in the USSR, and all over the world. These observations are only indicative, and of course don't prove that my reading is "better" than Jussi's. My point is that there can be much more going on than meets the eye when one studies the meanings of quotes. To understand the quotes Jussi offers, we need to look at them historically for their full meaning.
One interesting viewpoint on this 1925 essay and Vygotsky's view of behaviorism, is that of AN Leontyev, who wrote and introduction to the Russian version of this volume of the CW, "On Vygotsky's Creative Development," where he discusses this essay and Vygotsky and behaviorism on pg 14 of the Plenum Vol 3 of the CW. There is no hint from Leontyev that Vygotsky went through a behaviorist phase. (Btw, what is "socio"-behaviorism?) I am interested in who else has offered commentary on the relationship of Vygotsky and behaviorism. I know I for one would benefit from others that have looked into this. And Jussi may have more insights and views in addition to those he shared in his paper.
******************** Finally, on Vygtosky's supposed epistemological breaks.Here, Jussi, in my opinion, is on very thin ice. I am afraid that neither Althusser nor Foucault are much help to Jussi's thesis, since neither were discussing Vygotsky. Just because it might rain in London does not mean it is. The biggest problem with Jussi's thesis is that Vygotsky never claimed or observed he underwent a change in outlook of the magnitude of an "epistemological break." (Or am I wrong? Please correct me on this if I am!) The second biggest problem is that Vygotsky was very clear, from at least the early 20's, that he was ontologically and epistemologically a dialectical materialist. From this he never budged - in fact, he consistently grew more confident and capable as a Marxist theoretician. He consistently applied the methodology of dialectical and historical materialism to psychology. As a matter of fact, he made some significant improvements to Marxist methodology, making him one of the preeminent Marxist theoreticians of the 20th Century. In my opinion, no epistemological assessment of Vygotsky makes sense without fully assessing him as a Marxist philosopher and methodologist.
This is part of the content of those sharp words, "narrow," "one- sided," I have used in this regard. For me, to view Vygotsky as first and foremost a semiotic mediationist, a theoretician of sign mediation, would be like regarding Marx as first and foremost an economic analyst with an interesting theory about labor. This would be a narrow, one-sided assessment of Marx's work, as I think it is Vygotsky's.
At the same time, Jussi's chart and discussion of "The development of Vygotsky’s theory of signs as semiotic mediators" needs to be scrutinized closely and given serious consideration. He suggests not one but two epistemological breaks, one between LSV's supposed socio- behaviorism phase and instrumentalist (early CHP) phase, and another, which he puts a question mark over, between early CHP, and late CHP, when LSV solidified his his semiotic approach to consciousness. I like, by the way, the way Jussi looks for "explanatory concepts" and "methodology of inquiry" to make his analytical comparison. Thumbs up to the thinking that went into that. It does not demonstrate epistemological breaks, in my view, but it does suggest ways to look at the development of many of Vygotsky's ideas, in addition to his theory of signs as semiotic mediators.
But restricting one's view of Vygotsky's overall trajectory, ideological development, research work and discoveries to just his work on signs - and judging "epistemological breaks" therefrom - to me loses sight of far too many other important contributions by Vygotsky - and this is very important - the contributions of Vygotsky **and his associates**. Vygotsky was the leader of something much bigger than himself, something which was broken up by the Stalinist machine - but by no means killed off. Just delayed.
What is this something? As I hope I emphasized above, Jussi makes some valuable contributions to better understanding some important **parts** of this something. But, I think, one has to step back and look at much more than just Vygotsky's innovative ideas about the role of semiosis (sign use) in human consciousness and meaning-making to evaluate his work epistemologically, methodologically, and above all, as the founder of this "something," place-named for the time being cultural-historical psychology. Much more. Yes?
Best, - Steve On Jan 29, 2009, at 10:42 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
David, I am being quite frank when I said I know nothing of this topic. I responded because I was asked to. But in any case, re Vygotsky vs. Behaviourism, I think I was basing myself on the Introduction to "Mind in Society" so perhaps Mike could clarify for me.Andy David Kellogg wrote:In defense (!) of Louis Althusser. He is really talking about the youth of a science being the SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS of newness, and as such it's a pretty good metaphor. It's in the context of Althusser's essay on Freud and Lacan (in Lenin on Philosophy and other Essays). My dear Andy, behaviorism was the official psychology of the USSR in 1923, when they barely even had an official army? When the Commissar of War, Leon Trotsky, was a fan of Freud's writings? And Vygotsky "trashed" behaviorism in a paper that claimed that consciousness could be explained as the structure of behavior? Doesn't seem likely, does it? Unlike Andy, I agree completely with Jussi's point on semiotics. Why else would LSV say that word meaning is a microcosm of human consciousness? When Vygotsky says that the mind is made of semiotic material, he is explaining exactly how it is that it becomes possible to internalize social relations as psychological ones and exactly why it is that human minds develop from the outside in rather than from the inside out. In Hegel's Phenomeonology of the Mind (section 157) he discusses the "inverted world", the moment where two modes of existence are mapped on to each other (e.g. being onto concept). We find this particular trope throughout Vygotsky whenever we pass from (e.g.) the phylogenetic semiohistorical timescale to the sociocultural one, or from the sociocultural semiohistorical timescale to the ontogenetic one. (And also from the ontogenetic to the microgenetic.) In the inverted world, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. (Or, as Mike says, the only thing we really know for sure about the mirror is that right is left is right is left.) For example, on the phylogenetic timescale sex differentiation is late emerging but on the sociocultural timescale it's very early. This, and not some purely functional difference, is why tools are different from signs. Tools are late emerging in phylogenesis, but they are very early emerging in sociocultural history, but the mastery of tools is late again in ontogenesis, and on the other hand comparatively early in the microgenetic mastery of a skill. Signs (in the form of signals) are very early emerging in phylogenesis, but very late (in the form of written symbols) in sociocultural history, and again very early in ontogenesis. The SIGNIFICANCE of signs (that is, there signifying as opposed to their indicative function) is late emerging in microgenetic development. It seems to me that THIS more than anything accounts for the CRITICAL differences we find in development when we change time scales. Of course, on one level, it's a little like comparing weather and climate (or climate and global warming). We are always talking about time and the changes wrought thereby. But the changes wrought are qualitatively different and not simply quantitatively so. When we change semiohistorical timescales (when ontogenesis erupts into sociocultural history, as when children grow up and create social progress, or when sociocultural progress changes the course of evolution, as when clothes replace fur and houses replace caves), the very order of things is changed. At some point the first must BECOME last and the last must BECOME first. That critical tipping point is not a matter of smooth development; it's a moment of violent crisis. In ontogenesis, signs do not replace tools in a gradualistic, benevolent, Biblical manner after the beatitudes; they must lay violent hands upon them and overthrow them by force. The same is true of microgenesis, at least from what I've seen. The transition from a first language to a foreign one is a profoundly uprooting experience and only much later liberating (In first language learning, we find that deliberate control of phonemes is very late, but in second language learning it's at the very beginning; conversely, in first language learning, fluency occurs almost immediately while in foreign language learning it comes late if at all.) Contrary to what Foucault says (and what Stalin thought), discourse is part of the SUPERSTRUCTURE of society. That is the very opposite of what Stalinist linguists like Ya Marr (and also Stalin himself) claimed. It's also AGAINST what Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan say today (they believe that language is the base and not the superstructure of society). Of course, if we say that language is part of the ideological superstructure and not part of the productive base of sociocultural progress (that is, cultural historical change), this does not mean that it is insignificant. But it DOES mean that it is not causative, at least with respect to cultural history. Language does not by itself bring about a transformation in the relations of production. On the semiohistorical timescale of cultural history, language cannot create or destroy state power; it is a result and not a reason, a consequence and not a cause. Of course, as we know, results can become reasons, and consequences can become causes. But when that happens, there is a qualitative change in the very domain, the timescale, of history. But late Vygotsky, Vygotsky III, knows that ontogenesis is special, distinguishable, distinct from cultural history. It's distinct precisely because in ontogenesis (but not in cultural history) language IS a reason and not just a result, word meaning IS a cause and not just a consequence. In fact, verbal thinking and imagination (and of course play) are precisely the result of the INABILITY of object oriented human activity to provide for the child's wants, needs, and desires. Here, actually, there IS a parallel with cultural history, for throughout sociocultural change, man has created literature and art precisely as a result of the INABILITY of human labour to provide from man's wants, needs, and desires for a harmonious society without the exploitation of man by man. But of course in sociocultural history, play is late emerging and in ontogenesis it's quite early, because the first shall always be last and the last shall be first. I also agree with Zinchenko's point on two paradigms: the paradigm of mediated action at the core of activity theory is NOT the paradigm of word meaning at the core of a cultural historical psychology. I think that Mike and other founders of CHAT founded it as a loose federation between two rather incompatible Vygotskies, the Vygotsky of mediated action and the Vygotsky of wod meaning, with the assumption that a common tradition and a set of common practices would hold it together. That assumption has proved quite justified. In China, we say that a good marriage is the same bed and different dreams. Otherwise, what do you talk about over breakfast? David KelloggSeoul National University of Education _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 Skype andy.blundenHegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden: http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca