This study begins with the statement that European psychology is undergoing schism and crisis. Proceeding from the principle of the primacy of the whole over its parts, structural psychology (Gesta...

The Routledge Classic Edition of Daniels’ influential 2001 text _Vygotsky and Pedagogy_ explores the growing interest in Vygotsky and the pedagogic implications of the body of work that is developing under the influence of his theories. With a new preface from Harry Daniels this book explores the growing interest in Vygotsky and the pedagogic implications of the body of work that is developing under the influence of his theories. It provides an overview of the ways in which the original writing (...) has been extended and identifies areas for future development. The author considers how these developments are creating new and important possibilities for the practices of teaching and learning in school and beyond, and illustrates how Vygotskian theory can be applied in the classroom. The book is intended for students and academics in education and the social sciences and will be of interest to all those who wish to develop an analysis of pedagogic practice within and beyond the field of education. (shrink)

Lev Vygotsky has acquired the status of one of the grand masters in psychology. Following the English translation and publication of his Collected Works there has been a new wave of interest in Vygotsky, accompanied by a burgeoning of secondary literature. Ronald Miller argues that Vygotsky is increasingly being 'read' and understood through secondary sources and that scholars have claimed Vygotsky as the foundational figure for their own theories, eliminating his most distinctive contributions and distorting his theories. Miller peels away (...) the accumulated layers of commentary to provide a clearer understanding of how Vygotsky built and developed his arguments. In an in-depth analysis of the last three chapters of Vygotsky's book Thinking and Speech, Miller provides a critical interpretation of the core theoretical concepts that constitute Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, including the development of concepts, mediation, the zone of proximal development, conscious awareness, inner speech, word meaning and consciousness. (shrink)

This chapter considers four areas in the differences between Vygotsky's concept of reason and ‘Enlightenment rationality’ in its familiar characterisation. These areas cover: (1) foundationalism and anti‐foundationalism, (2) the conception of science, (3) the conception of development and (4) idealism and materialism. The last is developed more by Ilyenkov, although, given its Hegelian and Spinozist provenance, it can be reasonably interpreted as part of the general direction of Vygotsky's work. Two indications of the importance of Hegel for understanding Vygotsky are: (...) first, the absence of an unbridgeable epistemological chasm between thought and world, and second, the conception of development as a non‐linear process embedded in historical resources. Marx's and Hegel's ideas of history and development influenced every aspect of Vygotsky's thinking on concepts. Vygotsky's work provides no blueprint for teachers and educational administrators, but it does provide a frame of ideas within which questions concerning education can fruitfully be pursued. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Revisiting Vygotsky and Gardner:Realizing Human PotentialNinah Beliavsky (bio)The two individuals who have had a tremendous influence on my own theories and my own philosophy of education are the Russian psychologist, intellectual, and social activist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934), and the leading American developmental psychologist Howard Gardner (b. 1944). The philosophies of Vygotsky and Gardner have much in common, even though their lives have been separated by different continents, different (...) political regimes, different languages, different cultures, and almost a century of innovative research in the fields of psychology and education.I argue that Vygotsky's ideas should be viewed through the prism of Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences. The combination of these concepts can shed new light on education—on teaching and learning. By doing so, we would enable the students to reach a higher level of cognitive development.This article intends to suggest that Vygotsky's dream of maximizing the Zone of Proximal Development can be realized by utilizing Gardner's approach of nurturing the students' combination of intelligences. This idea of teaching and learning will allow educators to teach ahead of development, to teach for understanding, to motivate and promote the students' creativity and imagination, and to encourage their personal, social, and academic growth.Lev VygotskySeventy-two years have passed since Vygotsky died on June 11, 1934. He was only thirty-seven years old. "Vygotsky was a product of his time: an intellectual, [End Page 1] a Jew, [one] who took as much pleasure in thinking through the intricacies of speech impediments and language acquisition as he did in contemplating Shakespeare's Hamlet or the psychology of Art."1 Fundamental to Vygotsky's theory was the idea that higher mental functions, such as thinking, logical memory, and human consciousness, have their origins in human social life.Vygotsky believed that culture should be passed down to future generations in a Socratic, rather than a dogmatic, way. He believed that everyone should be given the tools to live up to their highest potential. For Vygotsky, psychological development could not be separated from human history and human culture. The notion of development as growing out of the interactions of human beings with one another, especially the interaction of adults and children, offers a collectivist vision of human psychological growth that is especially different from American ideas of individualism and predetermined stages of psychological growth.2 Vygotsky believed that the child has to be exposed to the array of intellectual and cognitive "tools" developed over the centuries by human beings—tools such as language, mathematics, music, and art.He stressed that systematic instruction in the formal disciplines—Latin, Greek, mathematics, and composition—is beneficial to the development of students' mental facilities in general. Studying the formal disciplines would lead to higher-order thinking and thus enhance "scientific" concepts. In other words, the systematic learning of scientific concepts in one field translates into developmental changes, abstract thinking, and greater logical thinking and logical flexibility. Recently, this notion is being welcomed by American psychologists. For example, in one study in the United States a group of American psychologists demonstrated that specialized training in medicine, law, and psychology seems to have an effect on real-life problem solving requiring statistical and logical reasoning.3In American educational psychology, Vygotsky is famous for his concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Behind this is the notion that a child's cognitive development occurs within a social milieu. The teaching-learning process (instruction) does not occur in isolation. The role of instruction for enhancing cognitive development is a joint activity—a collaborative effort between the child and a more knowledgeable partner, such as an older sibling, a parent, a teacher, etc. Therefore, the analysis of cognitive functioning requires studying how a child's social interaction with more competent peers of their culture is mastered and internalized. In other words, to understand a child's cognitive development, we need to examine specific patterns of social interaction in which the child participates.4The most detailed description of the concept of ZPD can be found in a lecture entitled "Dinamika umstvennogo razvitia sckol'nika v svjazi s obucheniem," delivered by Vygotsky at the... (shrink)

_Vygotsky Philosophy and Education_ reassesses the works of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky work by arguing that his central ideas about the nature of rationality and knowledge were informed by the philosophic tradition of Spinoza and Hegel. Presents a reassessment of the works of Lev Vygotsky in light of the tradition of Spinoza and Hegel informing his work Reveals Vygotsky’s connection with the work of contemporary philosophers such as Brandom and McDowell Draws on discussions in contemporary philosophy to revise prominent readings (...) of Vygotskian psychology and revisits educational debates where Vygotsky’s ideas were central Reveals the limitations of appropriations of Vygotsky which fail to recognize the Hegelian provenance of his work Shows the relevance of Brandom’s inferentialism for contemporary educational theory and practice. (shrink)

Despite increasing studies and applications of Vygotsky’s theory of learning and development, little has been written connecting Vygotsky specifically to moral education. The most comprehensive attempt at formulating such an account is given by Mark Tappan. I critically evaluate Tappan’s account before raising several problems for his approach. I then offer suggestions for resolving these issues by turning to research in socialization theory and recommending additional sociocultural artifacts that can supplement moral education.

By reconciling the linguistic device and the linguistic person, his book argues for a Vygotskyan cognitive science.

Although many facets of Lev Vygotsky’s life have drawn considerable attention from historians of science, perhaps the most popular feature of his personal narrative was that his work was actively chastised by the Stalinist government. Almost all contemporary references to Vygotsky’s personal history emphasize that from 1936 to 1956, it was forbidden to either discuss or disseminate any of Vygotsky’s works within the Soviet Union. Although this ‘Vygotsky ban’ is both widely acknowledged and frequently cited by a variety of scholars, (...) the exact nature of this alleged Communist party censure has received far less historical attention. Through focusing on the logistics of Soviet ‘bans,’ this article attempts to shed light on this historical mystery and augment the growing body of revisionist literature that serves to deconstruct the mythologized persona of Lev Vygotsky. (shrink)

The approach taken here is to begin to understand the focus from abstract to concrete in learning to master the principles of methodology, which are different from Western methods and procedures. This methodology is opposed to the empiricist approach of establishing rules and procedures from the concrete to the abstract. The initial discussion revolves around an explanation of the use of metaphor, metatheory, and psychology understood as a non-classical science. There is then a discussion on dialectics, dialectical synthesis, and metafacts. (...) The core of the article is dedicated to a metatheoretical description Vygotsky uses as an abstract outline of possible guidelines in better understanding how to implement a model for non-classical psychology, using the example of a table being reflected in a mirror. A represents the actual table, while a represents the object being reflected in the mirror, and X represents the processes that take place in the mirror . Therefore, Vygotsky concludes that both A and X are real processes and that a is their apparent, i.e., unreal result. The reflection does not exist, but both the table and the light exist. The result is that the objective existence of X and A independent of a is a dogma of materialistic psychology. There is a discussion on the interfunctional relationships of importance in such a model, and the role of consciousness, and language. The focus of this metatheoretical framework supports Vygotsky's intentions of reaching individual inner freedom and freedom of action, together with Spinoza's social determinism. (shrink)

The article analyzes Lev Vygotsky’s attempts to utilize Spinoza’s philosophical ideas in solving the methodological crisis of psychology in the 1920s and 1930s. Vygotsky had a manuscript, Uchenie ob emocijakh, where he scrutinized the doctrines of the effects on Descartes and Spinoza. Whilst Descartes’ doctrine built on a dualistic soul versus body premise, Spinoza’s starting point was monistic. Despite his clear sympathies for Spinoza’s solution, which according to him was more compatible with Marxism, too, Vygotsky did not manage to finish (...) his study. One may, indeed, doubt whether Spinoza was able to deliver the decisive key for the solution of the dualism problem, since his philosophy built on metaphysical postulates that were unacceptable to Vygotsky. (shrink)

L’importance de l’apport du psychologue russe Lev Vygotski est largement sous-estimée. Au-delà du dualisme qui domine toujours la psychologie et la psychanalyse, Vygotski ouvre la voie, par sa conception spinoziste des affects et de la transindividualité, à une pratique inédite de la dynamique collective dépassant l’opposition freudienne de l’individu et de la société. Un nouvel art des passions en commun serait la condition d’une régénération des individus déficients aussi bien que de la psychanalyse elle-même.

This article looks at three historical efforts to coordinate the scientific study of biological and cultural aspects of human consciousness into a single comprehensive theory of human development that includes the evolution of the human body, cultural evolution and personal development: specifically, the research programs of Wilhelm Wundt, Lev Vygotsky and Albert Bandura. The lack of historical relations between these similar efforts is striking, and suggests that the effort to promote cultural and personal sources of consciousness arises as a natural (...) foil to an overemphasis on the biological basis of consciousness, sometimes associated with biological determinism. (shrink)

This paper argues that sociocultural accounts of learning fail to answer the key question about learning—how is it possible? Accordingly, we should adopt an individualist bootstrapping methodology in providing a theory of learning. Such a methodology takes seriously the idea that learning is staged and distinguishes between a non-comprehending engagement with things and a comprehending engagement. It suggests that, in the light of recent work in psychology with insights from Wittgenstein, there is rich scope for a bootstrapping account of learning. (...) The paper also argues that sociocultural approaches when pushed, either require some such bootstrapping account, or they collapse into an obscure Ficthean metaphysics in which individual abilities are ‘summoned into being’ by the attitudes of others. (shrink)

Este artigo tem como objetivo apontar algumas relações entre a teoria do reconhecimento de Hegel e a teoria psicológica de Vygotsky. Aqui serão apresentadas duas hipóteses. A primeira é que Vygotsky foi profundamente influenciado por Hegel. Esse fato da obra vygotskyana não é muito destacado por seus intérpretes, mas pode ser confirmado nos próprios textos do autor. Uma segunda hipótese: a estrutura teórica desenvolvida por Vygotsky está vinculada ao quadro teórico do reconhecimento elaborado por Hegel. Analisaremos algumas passagens das obras (...) dos dois teóricos que evidenciam as hipóteses levantadas. (shrink)

This chapter concentrates on the philosophic tradition informing Vygotsky's work. Its aim is to make explicit in Vygotsky's work what many commentaries leave unsaid: namely, that it has a definite philosophic provenance that conditions and shapes its arguments. Comparisons of Vygotsky and Piaget are commonly made from the point of view of psychology, but attention in the chapter is directed to the less well‐aired, but no less important, philosophic differences between them. The chapter puts these differences in context by considering (...) parts of the philosophy of Hegel and Spinoza that are relevant for Vygotsky's conception of mind and world and its differences from that of Piaget. It underlines how Vygotsky's criticism of Piaget brings to light the differences of philosophic approach employed. (shrink)

The chapter provides illustrations of the link between Hegel's work and Vygotsky's and shows how the argument that Vygotsky employed an abstract decontextualised form of reason, is groundless. Kant sets out to resolve the dualism of world and mind by positing the categories of understanding. Although Kant's later work moved towards overcoming the rigid separation of concept and intuition and of spontaneity from receptivity, dualism remained. Hegel dealt with dualism from a radically different standpoint, and this transformed the terms in (...) which it can be posed. In contrast to Kant, he rejected the categorical separation of subject and object, thereby opening a philosophical space within which the antinomies of dualism could be transcended. Most reactions to Hegel after Marx were intermingled with reactions to Marx. Misinterpretation of Hegel is communicated to readings of Vygotsky, where the influence of Hegel is read as evidence of hierarchical conceptions of abstract reason. (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)

The diffusion of Vygotsky’s work in Italy was analysed by first considering the issues related to the translation of his texts since the 1970s, particularly with regard to the project promoted by the publishing house of the Italian Communist Party and supervised by the author of this article. Second, the reception of cultural-historical theory was discussed in the context of Italian psychology and medicine in the 1970s and 1980s. After an early acceptance of Pavlovian theory by a few Italian psychologists (...) linked to the Communist Party, the need was felt to overcome physiological reductionism in relation to the new social and psychological problems connected with the development of Italian society. Finally, a brief reference was made to Italian neo-Vygotskyan trends in various areas of contemporary psychological research. (shrink)

The book suggests a transition from a relational worldview premised on the socio-political ethos of adaptation towards a transformative worldview premised on the ethos of solidarity and equality. Expansively developing Vygotsky's revolutionary project, the Transformative Activist Stance integrates insights from a vast array of critical and sociocultural theories and pedagogies and moves beyond their impasses to address the crisis of inequality. This captures the dynamics of social transformation and agency in moving beyond theoretical and political canons of the status quo. (...) The focus is on the nexus of people co-creating history and society while being interactively created by their own transformative agency. Revealing development and mind as agentive contributions to the 'world-in-the-making' from an activist stance guided by a sought-after future, this approach culminates in implications for research with transformative agendas and a pedagogy of daring. Along the way, many key theories of mind, development and education are challenged and radically reworked. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 75-90.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dialogical and creative character of pedagogic work by analyzing the affinities between Martin Buber's I-Thou relation and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. Backed up by empirical studies on the teacher-student relation, we understand that education can only result in students' development if meaningful processes are undertaken. The paper asserts that education shall primarily aim at promoting relational possibilities.

The author argues that the idea of freedom guided Vygotsky’s research from his very first steps in psychology, when he was deliberating on the “overman” and on “mastering one’s own behavior” by mea...

It is one thing to deal with any aspect of Lev Vygotsky’s work from a purely scholarly standpoint. It is something quite different to deal with Vygotsky’s work from both an academic standpoint and also that of someone who is involved in East–West editorial and commercial projects. This article sheds light upon what it meant to work on Vygotsky’s theories for someone who was formally affiliated to West European academia and who also became involved more or less at the same (...) time in various East–West publishing projects related to Vygotsky and his circle. (shrink)

The Vygotsky Anthology brings together, for the first time, a selection of extracts from the best translations available of Vygotsky's writings, spanning the entire arc of his career. Vygotsky was arguably one of the greatest educational psychologists of the 20th century. Grounded in his experience as a teacher, an expert in special education, a research psychologist and an outstanding theorist, the editors of this unique anthology chart his enormous influence on professionals working in education and child development around the world. (...) The extracts are introduced by the editors' commentaries, helpfully setting them in the context of Vygotsky's life and work, providing a collection of work that adequately represents his writing, and conveying some of the great pleasures of reading him. In the passages selected here, his voice is clearly heard, the intellectual brilliance of his insights is reflected, his line of argument is clear, and his humour and humanity are evident. With its inclusion of recent translations of essential texts, this anthology will help students to understand the full diversity of Vygotsky's influence on today's classrooms. Seen as a companion volume to Myra Barr's previous work Vygotsky the Teacher (Routledge, 2022), the value of this text to teachers, educational psychologists, and other practitioners working in the field of education and child development, will be significant and lasting. It is a key reference book for new generations of Vygotsky students. (shrink)

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The term ‘Bakhtin Circle’ is used to refer to a group of Russian thinkers centred around Mikhail Bakhtin in the years following the 1917 Revolution. The group's prime concern was with the importance of questions of language-use in social life, and with the way in which language-use registered conflicts between social groups and classes. Prominent members, as well as Bakhtin himself, included P.N. Medvedev and V.N. Voloshinov. Between 1929, when a number of members were arrested, and his death in 1975, (...) Bakhtin continued to work on the issues which had occupied the group. (shrink)

This article offers a preliminary analysis of Vygotsky’s theatrical reviews from his Gomel period against the background of Russian theatrical history. For several years Vygotsky published theater reviews of performances by local and travelling companies in the local newspaper. His writings show him to have been a very knowledgeable and demanding theater critic who knew both the Russian-language and the Yiddish theater perfectly well. Some parallels with his later psychological works are suggested.

Drawing upon in-depth analyses of Lev Vygotsky’s theories of early childhood and investigating the ways in which his ideas are reflected in contemporary educational settings, this book brings into sharp relief the numerous opportunities for preschool learning and development afforded by Vygotskian approaches. Discussion of recent developments in the understanding and implementation of Vygotsky’s ideas in Western and Russian contexts facilitates comparison, and provides readers with fresh impetus to integrate elements into their own practice. Chapters are clearly structured and address (...) the multitude of aspects touched upon by Vygotsky, including cognitive development, communication and interaction, play, literacy and the quality of preschool settings. Providing a comprehensive exploration of current stances on Vygotsky's ideas in diverse cultural-historical contexts, Vygotsky's Theory in Early Childhood Education and Research will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, educators and politicians involved in early years education. (shrink)

In the quest for a new social turn in philosophy of science, exploring the prospects of a Vygotskian perspective could be of significant interest, especially due to his emphasis on the role of culture and socialisation in the development of cognitive functions. However, a philosophical reassessment of Vygotsky's ideas in general has yet to be done. As a step towards this direction, I attempt to elaborate an approach on scientific representations by drawing inspirations from Vygotsky. Specifically, I work upon Vygotsky’s (...) understanding on the nature and function of concepts, mediation and zone of proximal development. -/- I maintain that scientific representations mediate scientific cognition in a tool-like fashion (like Vygotsky’s signs). Scientific representations are consciously acquired through deliberate inquiry in a specific context, where it turns to be part of a whole system, reflecting the social practices related to scientific inquiry, just scientific concepts do in Vygotsky’s understanding. They surrogate the real processes or effects under study, by conveying some of the features of the represented systems. Vygotsky’s solution to the problem of the ontological status of concepts points to an analogous understanding for abstract models, which should be regarded neither as fictions nor as abstract objects. -/- I elucidate these views by using the examples of the double-helix model of DNA structure and the development of our understanding of the photoelectric effect. (shrink)

Vygotsky has become an authority, but the authority has more to do with justifying a sociocultural relativism than it has with his Marxist objectivist approach to psychology and pedagogy. This paper is an attempt to understand Vygotsky's perspective in relation to Marxist epistemology, and will critically examine the sociocultural interpretation of Vygotsky but within the light of his own perspective. It will be shown that the relativism of the sociocultural school not only takes Vygotsky's zone of proximal development out of (...) its social and historical context, but as a consequence downplays the zone of proximal development as a dynamic research methodology. As an extension of the discussion of the zone of proximal development, this paper will also examine the sociocultural interpretation of Vygotsky's relation between scientific and everyday concepts, and the pedagogical consequences of such an interpretation. (shrink)