The aim of this article is to explore the ways and forms in which history is present, represented and used in Vygotsky’s theorizing. Given the fact that Vygotsky’s theory is usually described as a cultural-historical theory, the issue of history is necessarily implicated in the theory itself. However, there is still a gap between history as implicated in the theory and an explicit theorizing of history – both in Vygotsky’s writings and in Vygotskian scholarship. Therefore it is expected that it (...) would be fruitful to shed light on some possible pathways that can bridge this gap. The prevailing theoretical role of history in Vygotsky’s theory is to serve as a general framework which provides tools for the development of higher psychic functions. Thus, history is recognized as a formative context of psychic life. Further, history appears in Vygotsky’s writings also as a projected better future. All these uses of history presuppose an idea of history as linear progress. But Vygotsky also argues for a stronger epistemological claim – that history is the most powerful explanatory principle. After conceptual and theoretical reflection on history, some limitations of Vygotsky’s historicizing of the history of psychic development will be pointed out and related to general epistemological problems of historicizing. Finally, Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, an edifice built up in the 1930s but relying on the rich philosophical and psychological legacy available up to that time, will be positioned against the pluralistic, postmodern and hermeneutic turn in contemporary social and human sciences. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the ways and forms in which history is present, represented and used in Vygotsky’s theorizing. Given the fact that Vygotsky’s theory is usually described as a cultural-historical theory, the issue of history is necessarily implicated in the theory itself. However, there is still a gap between history as implicated in the theory and an explicit theorizing of history – both in Vygotsky’s writings and in Vygotskian scholarship. Therefore it is expected that it (...) would be fruitful to shed light on some possible pathways that can bridge this gap. The prevailing theoretical role of history in Vygotsky’s theory is to serve as a general framework which provides tools for the development of higher psychic functions. Thus, history is recognized as a formative context of psychic life. Further, history appears in Vygotsky’s writings also as a projected better future. All these uses of history presuppose an idea of history as linear progress. But Vygotsky also argues for a stronger epistemological claim – that history is the most powerful explanatory principle. After conceptual and theoretical reflection on history, some limitations of Vygotsky’s historicizing of the history of psychic development will be pointed out and related to general epistemological problems of historicizing. Finally, Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, an edifice built up in the 1930s but relying on the rich philosophical and psychological legacy available up to that time, will be positioned against the pluralistic, postmodern and hermeneutic turn in contemporary social and human sciences. (shrink)

Compte tenu de l’importance de la symbolisation dans le développement individuel de l’homme, tout comme dans le développement historique de l’humanité, se pose la question de la transformation de la symbolisation dans les conditions postmodernes. L’objectif est de montrer que, derrière les carnavals postmodernes des signes et l’extase de la communication, une profonde désymbolisation du subjectif aussi bien que du social est en train de se produire. La conséquence de ces processus est la disparition des conditions de la possibilité de (...) réflexion et de la critique de la société. Ainsi, sous le slogan de la postmodernité, l’animal symbolicum devient l’animal desymbolicum, vivant dans un désert social, incapable de transcender son expérience locale puisqu’il a dissolu les concepts généraux et mis en danger l’ordre symbolique. Il semblerait qu’il soit tombé dans une amnésie historique et sociale profonde. (shrink)

Taking into account the significance of symbolization for human individual development, as well as for historical development of mankind, a question of transformations of symbolization under postmodern conditions has been raised. The aim is to show that behind the postmodern carnivals of signs and ecstasy of communication a deep desymbolization of the subjective as well of the social is occurring. As a consequence of such processes, conditions of possibility of reflection and social critique are disappearing. Thus, under the banner of (...) postmodernity, animal symbolicum is becoming an animal desymbolicum, living in a social desert, unable to transcend its local experience as it has dissolved general notions and endangered symbolic order. It seems it has fallen into a deep historical and social amnesia. (shrink)

Angesichts der konstitutiven Bedeutung der Symbolisierung sowohl für die individuelle Entwicklung des Menschen als auch für die historische Entwicklung der Menschengattung wird die Frage nach den Wandlungen der Symbolisierung in der Postmoderne gestellt. Es wird gezeigt, dass hinter dem postmodernen Karneval der Zeichen und Ekstase der Kommunikation eine tiefgreifende Desymbolisierung sowohl des Subjektiven als auch des Sozialen sich vollzieht. Als Folgen dieser Prozesse werden Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der Reflexion und gesellschaftlicher Kritik abgeschafft. Das animal symbolicum hat sich im Zuge der (...) Postmoderne schrecklicherweise in ein animal desymbolicum verwandelt, das in einer verwüsteten Gesellschaft lebt, das seine lokale Erfahrung nicht transzendieren kann, weil es die Begriffe aufgelöst hat und die symbolische Ordnung in Gefahr gebracht hat und nach allem, was es begangen hat, in eine tiefe historische und soziale Amnesie gefallen ist. (shrink)

Uzimajući u obzir značaj simbolizacije za individualni razvoj čovjeka, kao i za povijesni razvoj čovječanstva, postavlja se pitanje transformacija simbolizacije u postmodernim uvjetima. Cilj rada je pokazati da se iza postmodernih karnevala znakova i ekstaze komunikacije pojavljuje duboka desimbolizacija kako subjektivnog tako i onog društvenog. Posljedica tih procesa je nestajanje uvjeta mogućnosti refleksije i kritike društva. Stoga, pod parolom postmoderne, animal symbolicum postaje animal desymbolicum, živeći u društvenoj pustinji, u nemoći da transcendira svoje lokalno iskustvo budući da je rastvorio opće (...) pojmove i ugrozio simbolički poredak. Čini se da je upao u duboku povijesnu i društvenu amneziju. (shrink)

There are plausible academic as well as social indicators that qualitative research has become an indispensable part of the methodological repertoire of the social sciences. Relying upon the tenets of the qualitative approach which require a priority of subject matter over method and a necessary socio-historical contextualization, I reconstruct some aspects of a social history that have shaped the quantitative—qualitative dichotomy and the quantitative imperative; these include modern individualism, monological rationality, manufacture operating on the grounds of common human labour, mechanics (...) as the first science, quantification as a technology of distanced objectivity and a search for certainty realized at the expense of qualitative attributes. The so-called renaissance of the qualitative approach starting in 1960s, understood as a kind of a return of repressed qualities, is also socio-culturally contextualized. Both anthropogenetic and sociogenetic reconstructions as well as a microgenetic analysis of the research process demonstrate that choices of subject matter and of methodology are socially and culturally embedded and necessarily linked to broader interests and beliefs. (shrink)