READING “THINKING AND SPEECH”
NIKOLAI VERESOV
March 5th, 2010
Reading 'Thinking and Speech" (Vygotsky) Part I from Nikolai Veresov on Vimeo.
I. Higher mental functions and their development: framework of cultural-historical psychology. General genetic law of cultural development.
“To understand the mental function means to restore both theoretically and experimentally the whole process of its development in phylo- and ontogenesis” (Vygotsky & Luria, 1992).
The one-sidedness and erroneousness of the traditional view (emphasis mine – NV) ...on develoment of higher mental functions consist primarily and mainly in an inability to look at these facts as facts of historical development, in the one-sided consideration of them as natural processes and formations, in merging and not distinguishing the natural and the cultural, the essential and the historical, the biological and the social in the mental development of the child; in short – in an incorrect basic understanding of the nature of the phenomena being studied...
…
… Putting it more simply, with this state of the matter, the very process of development of complex and higher forms of behaviour remained unexplained and unrealised methodologically. (Vygotsky, 1997, Selected Works, Vol. 4, p.2)
Односторонность и ошибочность традиционного воззрения на факты развития высших психических функций заключаются прежде всего и главным образом в неумении взглянуть на эти факты как на факты исторического развития, в одностороннем рассматривании их как натуральных процессов и образований, в смешении и неразличении природного и культурного, естественного и исторического, биологического и социального в психическом расвитии ребенка, короче – в неправильном принципиальном понимании природы изучаемых явлений.
...
... Проще говоря, самый процесс развития сложных и высших форм поведения оставался при таком положении дел невыясненным и методологически не осознанным. (Собрание сочинений, Т. 3, с. 7-8)
The matured higher mental functions (“flowers of development”) are closed for direct investigation and this circumstance requires different approach.
Even more, when functions become ingrown, i.e., when they “move within”, an extremely complex transformation of all of a function’s structure takes place, and their entire construction becomes indiscernible. Galperin describes this so, that when the functions are developed they ‘recede into the depths’ and are covered by phenomena of a completely different appearance, structure, and nature” (Galperin, 1996, p. 26). In this sense traditional classical quantitative methods are not valid and must be replaced by qualitative ones.
The subject matter of cultural-historical theory is about higher mental functions.
BUT:
The subject matter is the PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT of higher mental functions
We can formulate the general genetic law of cultural development as follows:
“...any function in the child’s cultural development appears on stage twice, that is, on two planes. It firstly appears on the social plane and then on a psychological plane. Firstly it appears among people as an inter-psychological category, and then within the child as an intra-psychological category. This is equally true with regard to voluntary attention, logical memory, the formation of concepts and the development of volition.” (Translated by
Мы можем сформулировать общий генетический закон культурного развития в следующем виде:
Всякая фукция в культурного развития ребенка появляется на сцену дважды, в двух планах, сперва – социальном, потом – психологическом, сперва между людьми, как категория интерпсихическая, затем внутри ребенка, как категория интрапсихическая. Это относится одинаково к произвольному вниманию, к логической памяти, к образованию понятий, к развитию воли. Vygotsky, L. (1983). Sobranie sochinenii. Volume 3,
We can formulate the general genetic law of cultural development as follows:
“...every function in the cultural development of the child appears on the stage twice, in two planes, first, the social, then the psychological, first between people as an intermental category, then within the child as intramental category. This pertains equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, to the formation of concepts and to the development of will. …” (Vygotsky, 1983, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p.106.)
In “Mind in society” (1978) the formulation of the general genetic law is given in the following way:
"…Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57)
According to Vygotsky, the function does not and cannot appear in the social relations.
“…every higher mental function was external because it was social before it became an internal, strictly mental function; it was formerly a social relation of two people”. (Vygotsky, 1997, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 105).
Всякая высшая психичкская функция была внешней потому, что она была социальной раньше, чем стала внутренней, собственно психической, функцией, она была прежде социальным отношением друх людей. (Собрание Т. 3, с. 145)
Social relation is not the “area”, not the field, and not the “level” where mental function appears- the social relation itself becomes human individual function – herein lays the answer.
Yet, if every higher mental function was a social relation between two or more people, does it mean that every social relation can become a mental function?
It should be a special kind of relation. The name of this type of relation is……
CATEGORY,
WHICH IS
THE DRAMATICAL COLLISION BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE
II. Psychological systems and the idea of systemic and sense-based construction of human consciousness
The results of research were summarized by Vygotsky in a lecture “Psychological Systems“ presented on October 9th, 1930, in the Clinic of Nervous Diseases. In that work he presented a "ladder of experimental data" with the goal of formulating a new idea:
Vygotsky, L.S. (1930).The Instrumental Method in Psychology, http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1930/instrumental.htm (Text of a talk given in 1930 at the Krupskaya Academy of Communist Education.)
English in: Collected Works, Vol. 3, 85-89.
Russian in: Vygotsky, L. (1930/1982). Инструментальный метод в психологии. Sobranie sochinenii. Volume 1,
In each stage of development and in each form of loss we see a unique and changing set of relations. My report is dedicated to this very theme. Its main (and extremely simple) idea is that in the process of development, and in the historical development of behavior in particular, it is not so much the functions which change (these we mistakenly studied before). Their structure and the system of their development remain the same. What is changed and modified are rather the relationships, the links between the functions. New constellations emerge which were unknown in the preceding stage. That is why intra--functional change is often not essential in the transition from one stage to another. It is inter--functional changes, the changes of inter--functional connections and the inter--functional structure which matter. The development of such new flexible relationships between functions we will call a psychological system, giving it all the content that is usually attached to this, unfortunately, too broad concept.
2. Higher mental functions are not built on the top of elementary processes, like some kind of second storey, but they are new psychological systems comprising a complex nexus of elementary functions that, as part of a new system, begin themselves to act in accordance with new laws. (Translated by
2. Высшие психические функции не надстраиваются, как второй этож, над элементарными процессами, но представляют собой новые психологичкские системы, включающие в себя сложное сплетение элементарных функций, которые, будучи включены в новую систему, сами начинают действавать по новым законам; каждая высшая психическая функция представляет, таким образом, единство высшего порядка, определяемое в основном своеобразным сочетанием ряда более элементарных функций в новом целом.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1984). Sobraniye sochinenii.
2. Higher mental functions are not built up as a secondary story over elementary processes, but are new psychological systems that include a complex merging of elementary functions that will be included in the new system, and themselves begin to act according to new laws; each higher mental function is, thus, a unit of a higher order determined basically by a unique combination of a series of more elementary functions in the new whole. (Vygotsky,1930) Vygotsky, Selected Works, Vol. 6, p. 43.
III. The problem of theoretical and experimental analysis of human consciousness. Analysis by units and the problem of the unit of analysis.
Mediated operations can, without remainder, to the very end, be decomposed and reduced to natural ones, just like any machine (or technical tool) can, without remainder, be decomposed into a system of natural forces and processes.
Vygotsky, The Instrumental Method in Psychology, 1930, In: Collected Works, Vol. 3, 85-86.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1930).The Instrumental Method in Psychology, http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1930/instrumental.htm (Text of a talk given in 1930 at the Krupskaya Academy of Communist Education.). English in: Collected Works, Vol. 3, 85-86. Russian in: Vygotsky, L. (1930/1982). Инструментальный метод в психологии. Sobranie sochinenii. Volume 1,
7. Искусственные (инструментальные) акты не следует представлять себе как всерхьестественые или надьестественные, строящиеся по каким-то новым, особым законам. Искусственные акты суть те же естественые, они могут быть без остатка, до самого конца разложены и сведены к этим последним, как любая машина (или техническое орудие) может быть без остатка разложена на систему сетественных сил и процессов. (Собрание Т. 1, С. 104)
7. We should not conceive of artificial (instrumental) acts as supernatural or meta-natural acts constructed in accordance with some new, special laws. They can, without remainder, to the very end, be decomposed and reduced to natural ones, just like any machine (or technical tool) can, without remainder, be decomposed into a system of natural forces and processes.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1930).The Instrumental Method in Psychology, http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1930/instrumental.htm (Text of a talk given in 1930 at the Krupskaya Academy of Communist Education.). English in: Collected Works, Vol. 3, 85-86.
Russian in: Vygotsky, L. (1930/1982). Инструментальный метод в психологии. Sobranie sochinenii. Volume 1,
We formulate this relation in the most general aspect, saying that all higher forms of behavior can always be divided completely and without any remainder into the natural, elementary neuromental processes that make it up, just as work of any machine can, in the last analysis, be reduced to a definite system of physicochemical processes. For this reason, the first task of scientific studies when they approach any cultural form of behavior is to give an analysis of the form and disclose its component parts. An analysis of behavior always leads to one and the same result, specifically, it demonstrates that there is no complex, higher apparatus of cultural behavior which would not consist in the final analysis of several primary elementary processes of behavior Vygotsky, History of development of higher mental functions, 1931, In: Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). Collected Works. Vol. 4. Plenum Press, p.80
In our view, an entirely different form of analysis is fundamental to further development of theories of thinking and speech. This form of analysis relies on the partitioning of the complex whole into units. In contrast to the term "element," the term "unit" designates a product of analysis that possesses all the basic characteristics of the whole. The unit is a vital and irreducible part of the whole. The key to the explanation of the characteristics of water lies not in the investigation of its chemical formula but in the investigation of its molecule and its molecular movements. In precisely the same sense, the living cell is the real unit of biological analysis because it preserves the basic characteristics of life that are inherent in the living organism.
Vygotsky . Minick trans. (1987), Thinking and speech, p.46
Нам думается, что решительным и поворотным моментом во всем учении о мышлении и речи, далее, является переход от этого анализа к анализу другого рода. Этот последний мы могли бы обозначить как анализ, расчленяющий сложное единое целое на единицы. Под единицей мы подразумеваем такой продукт анализа, который в отличие от элементов обладает всеми основными свойствами, присущими целому, и который является далее неразложимыми живыми частями этого единства. Не химическая формула воды, но изучение молекул и молекулярного 
движения является ключом к объяснению отдельных свойств воды. Так же точно живая клетка, сохраняющая все основные свойства жизни, присущие живому организму, является настоящей единицей биологического анализа. (Мышление и речь (1934), 6-7.)
CONCLUSIONS:
TWO LINES OF DEVELOPMENT OF VYGOTSKY’S THOUTHT
1. ????????
2. ????????
References
Galperin, P. (1966) K ucheniu ob interiorizatsii. Voprosy Psihologii, 6, p. 20-30
Luria, A & Vygotsky, L. (1992). Ape, primitive man, and child: Essays in the history of behavior. N.Y.: Harvester Wheat-sheaf.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1930).The Instrumental Method in Psychology, http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1930/instrumental.htm (Text of a talk given in 1930 at the Krupskaya Academy of Communist Education.). English in: Collected Works, Vol. 3, 85-89. Russian in: Vygotsky, L. (1930/1982). Инструментальный метод в психологии. Sobranie sochinenii. Volume 1,
Vygotsky, History of development of higher mental functions, 1931. In: Vygotsky L. S. (1997). The Collected Works, Vol. 4: The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions. Plenum. Also in Russian: Vygotsky, L. S. (1983) Sobraniye Sochinenii, Vol. 3: Проблемы развития психики.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes.
Vygotsky, L. (1983). Sobranie sochinenii. Volume 3,
Vygotsky, L. (1997). Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky, Volume IV, The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions.
