This paper discusses theoretical issues concerning Vygotsky’s work that have remained unaddressed in the dominant interpretations of his work, either in the former Soviet psychology or in the dominant Western interpretations. This paper builds on interpretations of Vygotsky’s concepts oriented by the unity of emotional and cognitive processes and focused on the search for new psychical unities on which to build a systemic representation of the human mind. Because Vygotsky did not provide a definite position on such questions, I have (...) centered on the analysis of the consequences of his legacy for the development of a definition of subjectivity from a cultural-historical standpoint. (shrink)

This paper discusses theoretical issues concerning the topic of subjectivity as it has been recently developed within a cultural – historical framework. This provides a new theoretical and epistemological basis to this issue that does not lead to the misinterpretations of subjectivity found in the modern philosophical approaches to theorizing consciousness. This paper builds on interpretations related to Vygotsky’s theory of consciousness that do not follow the current dominant interpretations in Western Psychology. The analyses take departure in the concept of (...) ‘sense’ introduced by Vygotsky at the end of his work and proceeds to propose the concept of subjective sense as the corner stone for the study of subjectivity. The concept of subjective configuration is discussed and finally, the concept of social subjectivity is introduced understood as those symbolic processes and subjective senses that characterize social scenarios and institutions. (shrink)