Vygotsky:1934 The Problem of Consciousness 意識問題
張漢良客座教授 2008-2010
2009 SS Cultural historical Psychology: Ministry of Education
文化歷史心理學經典導讀
外語學院視聽教室LA-VA 216
輔人大學比較文學研究所
1. materials supplied by Gabriel and the assigned text for discussion
a Lev Vygotsky,“Consciousness as a problem in the Psychology of
Behavior”(1925) in Vygotsky Internet Archive 2000;.
b Lev Vygotsky, “The Problem of Consciousness”(1934)(text)
“The Problem of consciousness”,ch.9 of The Collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3. Problems of the Theory and history of psychology. ed. Robert Wrieber and Jeffrey Wollock.
2. “consciousness”?
a Gabriel:“Consciousness is an important issue in many different areas.”(e-mail,5th January 2010)
b Daniel Dennett:“With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle.
Consciousness stands alone today as atopic that often leaves even the most
Sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused.”(Consciousness Explained,
Little, Brown, 1991, 22)
3. V’s definition of psychology,“the science of consciousness”, apparently refers to And comments on the notion of the time:“but about c psychology hardly knew anything.” What is his target, and how is it? Lips? “classic psychology” or “classical psychology”?
4. ‘formal’ laws of consciousness:(1)its uninterrupted nature;(2)its relative clarity; (3)its unity,(4)its identity,(5)its stream. None of these laws are available even Today, otherwise, consciousness would have been “explained”
5. My problem with the language: e.g. ., The ’nonspatial”‘quality’ (?) of c. Why are “nonspatiality”,“immutability”,“stability”(i.e.,“not developingness”) “nonqualitative”?
Are not these Aristotelian – kantian a priori categories including
‘time’,‘space’,‘auantity ’,and‘quality’itself qualities? Is Criticizing his predecessors and/or contemporaries for denying these qualities to consciousness or is he making his own description of consciousness
6. My problem with the conceptual context and the discourse that represent the context.
Are we to understand the aforesaid in terms of history of philosophy(e.g.,) Husserl and Diltheyor that of philosophy , as in the case of William James (on Consciousness)”? Why is“the relation between function and phenomenon” the problem of “intentionality”?In which senses are these words used? Does the obscurity result from imperfect translation , or from the specific conceptual contexts one is not familiar with , or from the author’s confusion?
7. Why can’t consciousness be considered“a system of functions”or “a system of phenomenon”?
8. Is there not some kind of biological determinism in the following postulate?
“consciousness determines the fate of the system, just like the organism determines” the fate of the functions.“More on this later, e.g., phylogenesis versus ontogenesis”
9. sign and consciousness:
“Each interfunctional change must be explained by a change of consciousness as a whole”(130).“…the sign changes the interfunctional relationships.”(131).Function = meaning in sign (e.g,. tools).
“Consciousness…has a semantic structure”(137): meaning (?)in“relation to the External world”(137).
“Speech is a correlate of consciousness, not of thinking.”
“Speech is a sign for the communication between consciousnesses.”Doesn’t the Word “consciousnesses”stand for interlocutors, to be consistent with his discussion of Communication and socialization (138)?
All the statements make“sense”individually but fail to make sense when read together. What’s going on in his head? The first statement in conclusion (137) seems Promising at first sight but disturbing at second:“semiotic analysis is the only adequate method for the study of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness.”
10. “Man differs from the animal by his consciousness.”(132).
This is truism! But
How does
Language/speech/sign
11. sign and meaning and sense
12. inner speech and thought
13. the phasical and the semantic (semiotical) differentiation is confusing.
“The first word is phasically a word but semiotically it is a sentence”(133). Is the difference then between the lexical and the syntactical, but as sign even the lexical(word)must be segmentalized as the signifying part (sound)and the signified part(sense),and syntaxization carries signification to the higher order of sign. Saussure would dismiss the pre lingual“psychological”aspect of language(language)because either they cannot be described by available linguistic methods or even if they can they make no sense(semantic)and are therefore empty. On the other hand, semiotics operates on the basis of semiotics (the generating process sign)which follows two laws: substitution and inference. Therefore, one cannot really say that
14. LV
When he tackles the biological foundation of psychology in terms of the Darwinian Dialectics of heredity and adaptation , developed by the Lamarquian Emst Haeckel (1934-1919).V discusses H’S concepts of Phylogenesis /ontogeny; phylogenesis/ Ontogenesis (Haeckel 1866), in his 1925 essay on consciousness and throughout his writing on the history of psychology.
Phylogenesis: The evolution of the tribe or race, or of any organ or feature in thru race.
Ontogenesis: The origin and development of the individual living being (as distinguished from phylogenesis).
Haeckel develops the controversial recapitulation theory (“ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”) claiming that an individual organism’s biological development, or phylogeny. NO handouts ¬es. If necessary, use the blackboard discuss the issue.
