Vygotsky was invited to Moscow to take up a position at the Institute
and soon formed a research group (the ‘troika’) with two of Kornilov’s
young assistants, Alexander Luria, at the time an advocate of
psychoanalysis, and Alexei Leontyev.
-clip-
For all the problems, the old society had been shattered. The Soviet
Union in the 1920s was a cauldron of creativity. Physical and
intellectual conditions were desperately inadequate. The entire
resources of the country which had not been destroyed were mobilized
in an ideological atmosphere which was highly charged. But nothing was
impossible or out of bounds. History was being made everywhere. These
three young men could never have met but for the Revolution, let alone
find themselves charged with the task of revolutionizing the entire
science of psychology.
^
CB: Of course , the entire science of psychology had only been in
existence for a few years at this time ( smile).
Vygotsky developed the idea of the ‘unit of analysis’ for a science.
As Marx points out in the preface to the first edition of Capital, the
commodity relation is the germ or cell of economics. All the phenomena
of capitalism can be unfolded from this simplest and most primitive of
relations, the exchange of commodities, just like the cell of biology
and the molecule of chemistry. This idea originated with Goethe and is
a key methodological principle for both Hegel and Marx.
Finding that the relation between thinking and speaking was the
central problem for psychology, he concluded that resolving this
problem was a microcosm of the whole problem of human consciousness.
He went on to conclude that word meaning was the unit of analysis for
the study of intelligent speech (1987), and more generally, that the
basic unit of psychology is joint, artefact-mediated action, with word
meaning a special case.
^
CB: I'm trying to think what the unit of analysis is in ethnology (smile).
Interesting that Vygotsky settles on the relation between thinking and
speaking as the central problem of psychology. The issue of the
relationship between thought and language is taken up by the
contemporary analytical philosophy wasn't it ?
^^^
To make a beginning in their investigations, the group developed a
novel approach to psychological experimentation. Vygotsky pointed out
that the usual approach which emphasized ‘scientific objectivity’ and
observed the behaviour of individual subjects, isolated from
interaction with other people, especially the experimenter, was
incapable of capturing psychological functions in the process of
development, but was limited to the observation of finished process.
Treating subjects like laboratory rats in this way, it was impossible
to understand psychological processes, which are not innate, but
originate from the collaborative use of cultural products.
The team developed what they called the ‘functional method of double
stimulation’ (Vygotsky 1987): the subject was given a task to perform;
then they were offered some artefact which they could use to complete
the task. By assisting the subject to use an artefact, such as an aide
mémoire, to complete a task, the researchers could actually foster the
development of a new psychological function, such as ability to
memorize. The use of a ‘psychological tool’ allows the subject to
modify their own psyche. The fact is that a universal characteristic
of human psychology is the disposition of human beings to use cultural
products to control their own behaviour. By collaborating in this, the
researcher can unlock the developmental processes of the psyche
CB: To me, this is the fundamentally important aspect of Vygotsky's
and associates' approach: Giving primacy of attention to the
relationship between the social/cultural and the individual in trying
to understand the development of the individual. Psychology is the
study of _individual_ humans, but for humans the social and cultural
is especially important in the development of individuals. Thus, the
name _Cultural_ Psychology indicates the revolution in psychology in
itself.
More later
___
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
