The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky: The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions

301 Pages·1997·14.272 MB·Cognition and Language

by  Robert W. Rieber (auth.), Robert W. Rieber (eds.)

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
L. S. VYGOTSKY
Volume 4
The History of the Development of
Higher Mental Functions
COGNITION AND LANGUAGE
A Series in Psycholinguistics • Series Editor: R. W. RIEBER
Rt'cellt Voll/lllt's ill this St'ries:
AMERICAN AND CHINESE PERCEPTIONS Al\D BELIEF SYSTEMS:
A People's Republic ofChina--Taiwancse Comparison
Lorand B. Szalay, Jean B. Strohl, Liu Fu, and Pen-Shui Lao
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF L S. VYGOTSKY
Volume I: Problems of General Psychology
Volumc 2: Thc Fundamcntals of Dcfcctology
(Abnormal Psychology and Learning Disabilities)
Edited by Robcrt W. Rieber and Aaron S. Carton
Villume 3: Problems or the Theory and History or Psychology
Edited by Robert W. Rieber and Jeffrey Wollock
Volume 4: The History of the Devclopment of Higher Mental Functions
Edited by Robcrt W. Rieber
THE DISCURSIVE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF EVIDENCE:
Symbolic Construction of Reality
Salomon Rcttig
EXPERIMENTAL SLIPS AND HUMAN ERROR:
Exploring thc Architccture of Volition
Edited by Bernard J. Baars
THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE AND COGNITION
Robert W. Rieber and Harold J. Vetter
TIME. WILL. AND MENTAL PROCESS
Jason W. Brown
UNDERSTANDING MEXICANS AND AMERICANS:
Cultural Perspectives in Conflict
Rogelio Diaz-Guerrero and Lorand B. Szalay
VYGOTSKY'S SOCIOHISTORICAL PSYCHOLOGY
AND ITS CONTEMPORARY APPLICATIONS
Carl Ratner
A Continuation Order Plan is;J\ ailablc for this series. A continuation order \\ ill bring dcii\ ('r:
of each 11(,\\ volume immediately' upon publication. Volumes arc hilled only upon actual
shipmcnt. For further information plea:-.e contact the publisher.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
L. S. VYGOTSKY
Volume 4
The History of the Development of
Higher Mental Functions
Translated by
MARIE J. HALL
Prologue by
JOSEPH GLICK
Graduate School and University Center
City University o/New York
New York. New York
Editor of the English Translation
ROBERT W. RIEBER
John Jay College o/Criminal Justice
and the Graduate Center
City University o/New York
New York. New York
SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC
The Library of Congress cataloged earlier volumes of this title as follows:
Vygotskii. L. S. (Lev Semenovich), 1896--1934.
The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky.
(Cognition and language)
Translation of: Sobranie Sochinenii.
VoI. 1- includes bibliographies and indexes.
Contents: v. 1. Problems of general psychology.
1. Psycho10gy I. Rieber, R. W. (Robert W.) II. Carton, Aaron S.
BF121.V9413 1987 150 87-7219
This volume is published under an agreement with the
Russian Authors' Society (RAO)
ISBN 978-1-4613-7721-4 ISBN 978-1-4615-5939-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-5939-9
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Origina\ly published by Plenum Press in 1997
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 19 97
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microtllming, recording, or otherwise.
without written permission from the Publisher
PROLOGUE
Joseph Glick, Professor
City University of New YOrk,
Graduate School and University Center
The forms and structures of academic publication, and the manner in which
professional fields move and develop, have a great deal to do with how thinkers
are understood and interpreted by their colleagues. In L. S. Vygotsky's case, these
underlying dynamic forces, seldom commented upon except in history books, are
dramatically revealed.
Unraveling History
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky died in 1934 but many of his publication dates,
both in Russian and in English, are contemporary. The order of appearance of his
works in publication in either language does not replicate the order of their pro
duction. Some of the works published in his name are pastiched selections woven
into a seamless text but representing fragments from different years, snatched from
more complete works which had not been published.
All of this leads to a sense of historical dislocation in dealing with Vygotsky's
works, and the contemporary uses to which they are put. 1934 is not 1962/1986/1987
(the dates of publication of Thought and Language in Russian and in various English
versions respectively), 1925 is not 1971 (the dates of publication of the Psychology
of An), nor is 1978, which is the date of publication of Mind in Society, the same
as the late 1920s and early 1930s.
How is Vygotsky to be understood? As a hidden treasure who can now be
revealed to the world? As an historical figure; part icon, part relic? As the con
struction of an historical figure used for contemporary purposes to ventriloquate
contemporary arguments? As a lost contemporary, speaking to us across time?
There is no exclusively correct choice among these alternatives, he is all of these.
Indeed, in reading Vygotsky within the context of contemporary debates within
which he is often inserted, I have been time and again struck by the dual character
of Vygotsky's writings only one pole of which is developed as he is introduced into
contemporary arguments. On the one hand he is actively engaged in debate with
his forebears and contemporaries, with the frequent invocations of names such as
Wundt, Thorndike, Kraetchmer, Kohler, Piaget, Pavlov, Biihler, Stern, Werner, etc.,
with respect to whom Vygotsky articulates his positions, seeing in some conceptual
allies and in others positions to be surpassed. In this regard Vygotsky is remarkably
v
VI Joseph Glick
in and of his time with a wide knowledge of developments in a number of languages
and continents. At the same time his texts seem to transcend his historical location,
and seem to speak directly to us about matters that matter here and now.
Vygotsky wrote in an exciting but dangerous climate. Not everything could be
published. And what was published had to be couched in an acceptable language.
It awaited Stalin's death in 1956 for the English translation of Vygotsky's capstone
Thought and Language to be published in 1962. The epochal Tool and Symbol, writ
ten in 1930 by Luria and Vygotsky and intended for the first Carmichael's Manual
of Child Psychology, didn't make it to the light of day until it first appeared as a
fragment in Mind in Society published in 1978, and as a whole piece (from the
English manuscript) in 1994. Some works of Vygotsky and Luria (his close collabo
rator) appeared first in English and then only later in Russian.
There were politics with dire consequences operative in Vygotsky's time which
impacted on what did and did not appear in publication, in what order and with
what theoretical language that framed the issues. These historical features lead in
turn to a unique weaving of the full tapestry of Vygotsky's work. Things have ap
peared out of sequence and, at least in the case of English language publications,
at great temporal distance from the original writing.
Our normal habits of reading the development of a life's work have to be
reorganized. We cannot rely on order of publication as a direct "clue" to the order
of the development of ideas. Factors other than the mternal development of Vy
gotsky's thinking are at work, and factors other than authorial intent governed what
saw the light of day and what didn't.
These must be factored into our understanding of Vygotsky. We have to factor
into our reading the principles of selection employed. We have to understand what
was selected, and therefore highlighted, against what was not selected, and hence
left for later discovery or for obscurity.
In short, particularly in the case of Vygotsky, we must understand the principles
by which texts and a body of work are constructed, and, by such analysis, decon
struct the processes of textual production in order to have a hope of reaching across
the time period that separates us from him. We must "see through" our own habits
of reading in order to enter into the fullness of his theoretical milieu.
Given this, there is an almost irresistible temptation to explain Vygotsky and
to translate theoretical positions for contemporary audiences. Indeed there is no
shortage of such attempts. There has been a steady expansion of both an exegetical
literature and the publication of original sources made available for the modern
reader.
But, such exegesis can obscure the fact that Vygotsky seems to be speaking
both then and now. While this is a normal process of text construction, the problem
with respect to Vygotsky is profound, since we are separated by some 62 years from
his death and 100 years from his birth. Many of his contemporaries are unknown
to us, except perhaps in the most superficial ways. In a basic sense we do not share
his history and, given no history, contemporary discussions of Vygotsky tend to cen
ter on his theoretical contrasts with a figure whose early work was known to Vy
gotsky and whose work as a whole we know in a more contemporary way-Jean
Piaget.
In 1996 (the time of this writing) it seems that you cannot avoid centennial
conferences commemorating the century that has passed since the birth of two of
the giants of developmental analysis, Vygotsky and Piaget. No matter that Vygotsky
died in 1934 and that Piaget was active until his death in 1980. Indeed, this cir
cumstance has accentuated a trend for Vygotsky and Piaget to be analyzed in re-
Prologue vii
lation to each other, with grounds sought either for their irreconcilable differences
or their deep-seated similarities.
But, this contest between Vygotsky and Piaget is unevenly constructed. Many
of us have seen Piaget's work as it unfolded within the contemporary field. We
know both his original works and the works of followers and critics. Vygotsky, we
are just getting to know. He has been resurrected and placed into contemporary
debates as a new voice-with a difficult to construct history, and as a solution to
contemporary problems. In short, we know Piaget and Vygotsky in different terms
and we know them as subjected to very different scrutiny. The problems, both em
pirical and theoretical, with Piaget's approach are well known and have been hotly
debated over the past few decades; Vygotsky is still new, and in the process of
being discovered in contemporary terms. In short, we know Piaget through his fol
lowers and Vygotsky through his disciples.
On the Dangers of Exegesis
It is tempting to look to the introduction of a work to find a short-cut to
understanding that work. The introducer often takes the role of highlighting the
important arguments and winnowing them down into a sort of conceptual index to
the piece being introduced. Such exegetical moves are, in Vygotsky's case, danger
ous. The temporal distance that separates reader and audience from author requires
a more circumspect approach, all the more so since there is ample evidence that
the crucial factor in the popularity of Vygotsky's writings in contemporary discourse
is not only the strength, clarity and force of the arguments made, but, as well, the
contemporary state of the field within which Vygotsky's texts are inserted.
For example, the first major presentation of Vygotsky's thinking in English is
the 1962 publication of Thought and Language, translated by Eugenia Hanfmann
and Gertrude Vakar and introduced by Jerome Bruner. While those who were close
students of developmental psychology read and were impressed by the book, it did
not "take off." Very little work in the "Vygotskian mode" followed it. It seemed a
one-time event, the discovery of a refreshing historical root.
Even those who would later be closely associated with bringing Vygotsky to
prominence in the United States, Michael Cole and Sylvia Scribner, had scant ref
erence to Vygotsky in their seminal book on cross-cultural psychology Culture and
Thought: A Psychological Introduction. Vygotsky was referred to through reference
to Luria, and only then in the narrow context of some cross-cultural studies that
had been performed by Vygotsky and Luria.
Sixteen years after the first book-length publication of Vygotsky in English,
and 4 years after Culture and Thought, the publication of Mind in Society carrying
Vygotsky's name, but carefully composed from many sources (including selections
from The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions) edited by Cole,
Scribner, John-Steiner and Souberman, was a hallmark event.
The Vygotsky of Mind in Society took off, spawning many publications dwelling
on and expanding its basic concepts, and leading to an active era of publications
by and about Vygotsky. 1983 and 1984 saw the launching and publication of 5 vol
umes of Vygotsky's collected works in Russian (of which this Plenum series is a
translation). 1985 saw Wertsch's scholarly exegesis of Vygotsky's thought in Vygotsky
and the Social Fonnation of Mind and in the same year a collection of papers edited
by Wertsch devoted to Vygotskian topics, Culture, Communication and Cognition:
Vygotskian Perspectives. 1986 saw a retranslation of Thought and Language by
Kozulin, and in the very next year the first volume of this Plenum series on Vygotsky
Vlll Joseph Glick
led off by Minick's retranslation now titled Thinking and Speech followed in 1990
by Kozulin's intellectual biography of Vygotsky, and in 1991 by Wertsch's integration
of Vygotskian and Bakhtinian perspectives in J-iJices of the Mind. Van der Veer and
Valsiner in 1991 produced another Vygotsky biography, Understanding Vygotsky: A
Quest for Synthesis, and in 1994, The Vygotsky Reader containing many complete
texts (such as the complete text of Tool and Symbol) and other heretofore unpub
lished articles. The list could go on easily listing hundreds of Vygotsky-related or
Vygotsky-inspired articles.
Something happened between 1962 and 1978 to affect the interest in and fas
cination with Vygotsky's ideas, or what were taken to be Vygotsky's ideas. In 1962
the publication of Thought and Language seemed a one-time event. In 1978 Mind
in Society spawned a generation. It is unlikely that one can find an answer in looking
at the development of Vygotsky's ideas themselves. Thought and Language was writ
ten after the pieces that were assembled into "Mind in Society." The reasons lay
elsewhere.
It is an examination of what some of those reasons might possibly be which
should lead one to be cautious about any attempt at a contemporary exegesis of
VygotSky' since it is likely that what anyone takes to be the core Vygotskian ideas
are precisely those ideas which address a contemporary theoretical need, and which
do not reflect the full scope of Vygotsky's thinking on its own terms,
Behaviorism, Piaget and Vygotsky
In the United States, positivism, theoretical and methodological behaviorism
dominated psychological thinking until the early 1960s. For a number of reasons,
the constraints imposed by this narrow conception of psychological processes began
to be recognized-and a new discipline, Cognitive Psychology, began to emerge.
Chomsky's 1959/1964 review of Skinner's behaviorist account of language was
a hallmark event, as was Neisser's 1967 publication of Cognitive Psychology which
reviewed studies that, even in narrow experimental terms, seemed to necessitate a
more complicated psychological architecture than behaviorism invited. And, in de
velopmental psychology, Piaget was discovered.
The opening shot in this discovery of Piaget was in 1962 with the publication
of a SRCD monograph, edited by Kessen and Kuhlman, titled Thought in the }bung
Child.
Clearly, something was happening in the 60s-and the something that was hap
pening was a rediscovery of "structure" and the placing of structural issues at the
core of inquiry. The essence of the cognitive movement was to recognize that there
were structural aspects of behavior and thinking that necessitated a form of theo
rizing that went beyond the physicalistic metaphors of behaviorist canon.
Recognition of these structural aspects further indicated that treatments of hu
man learning and development must take into account such structural limitations.
The shift involved a refocusing from learning to structure-dependent development.
Since structure-dependent development was a focal concern of Piaget he became
a center of focal concern for developmental psychologists. 1963 saw the publication
of Flavell's distillation of Piagetian theory for English-speaking audiences, along
with a steady stream of Piaget's books. From the mid 60s to the late 70s Piagetian
concepts and their verification or refutation occupied center stage.
It was against this backdrop that the initial English language publication of
Vygotsky's Thought and Language appeared in 1962. While Vygotsky focused on a
number of deep developmental problems, the emphasis of his writings, as known
Prologue ix
through the early translation of Thought and Language, did not hit the fascination
with structure dead center.
The era from the early 60s through the late 70s saw many aspects of the
Piagetian paradigm battered from a number of directions, not all of which were
relevant to core Piagetian ideas. The issues were not so much Piagetian theory as
intended by Piaget, but rather the way in which Piagetian theory was consumed by
the English-speaking psychological establishment.
There were three foci of concern with received Piagetian theory-all related
to the underlying problematic implications of the structure-dependency idea. In the
American context these amounted to:
• A attempt to escape the inherently conservative and limiting aspects of the
structure-dependency position-which saw possible future developments as
constrained by initial conditions. Studies were conducted to show the limits
of such structure dependency by showing that what Piaget treated as de
velopmentally constraining factors could be overcome by "training" which
could show accelerated acquisition.
• A rejection of the "universalism" associated with the structure-dependency
idea. Studies were designed to test the limits of the notion of structure, by
examining whether supposedly common underlying structures showed up
in different content areas (the problem of horizontal decalage) or by com
paring differing populations to see if they attained the same structural land
marks at approximately the same developmental age.
• A questioning of the "processes" presumed to underlie development. For
Piaget, constrained developmental structures were seen as a result of the
dynamics of a "constructive" process depending heavily on initial states in
interaction with a physically constrained world. The constructive idea was
challenged from three different directions: (1) an emerging "nativism"
which, expanding on the structural aspect of Piaget's theory, saw many as
pects of that structure as "inbuilt" and not constructed or, alternatively and
from another direction, (2) a shift from the consideration of construction
as an intra-individual process to an exploration of social structuring proc
esses, and (3) a focus on the "knowledge base" and strategies that char
acterized particular domains, which were seen as defining "expertise" in
an area, which was posited as a more relevant factor than structure con
straints.
Clearly, Piaget was under frontal attack from a number of directions. It was
at this point that Vygotsky was reintroduced to the English-speaking audience via
the publication of Mind in Society in 1978. In contrast to the earlier introduction
of Vygotsky in Thought and Language the Vygotsky of Mind in Society proved gen
erative.
This publication came at the point of disenchantment with the Piagetian treat
ment of structure-and hence seemed to be an answer to the problems encountered
over a two-decade involvement with Piaget. And, not incidentally, the rediscovered
Vygotsky seemed to be more compatible with the stress on learning that behavior
ism had championed before being put into retreat by the Piagetian onslaught.
The Vygotskian Approach
Many of the main tenets, as understood by modern scholars, of Vygotsky's
approach seemed particularly well suited as an answer to Piaget.
x Joseph Glick
• The concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was given center
stage since it was taken to mean that development structure dependency
was not an absolute limiting factor. Rather than following development and
depending on it, learning could be seen to actually lead developmental
change (Vygotsky, 1978, pp. 86-91)
• The concept of "mediation" similarly implied that factors external to the
developing organism could influence its development (Vygotsky, 1978, pp.
52-55)
• And, the assertion of the social origins of development was given law-like
status, asserting that every function appears twice, first in interpersonal
process and then as intrapersonal process (Vygotsky, 1978, pp. 56-57).
By now these three notions are currently quite well understood and seem to
be the essential characteristics of the Vygotskian approach.
But things are not quite so simple. To a large extent, the Vygotsky as received
by the field of developmental psychology via Mind in Society was a subtly different
Vygotsky from the one introduced in 1962. Some of the topics now taken as central
to a Vygotskian view are topics which showed a slight alteration between Thought
and Language and Mind in Society.
In general, the shifts had to do with whether one sees the central concepts of
Vygotsky as representing "laws of acquisition" of advanced behaviors, or as an at
tempt at "differential diagnosis" of differing developmental levels. The Vygotsky of
Mind in Society was received as if his central concern was with acquisition, while
the Vygotsky of Thought and Language and the present volume (The History of the
Development of Higher Mental Functions) seems more concerned with the analytic
problem of sorting out the compositional structure of various levels of behavioral
development. This shift is marked in the manner in which the texts are developed.
There is one Vygotsky who is engaged with the analysis of the concrete details of
empirical phenomena and examining the nuances of behavior that allow one to
make differential diagnoses, and another Vygotsky who is seen, in a more general
sense, as giving new processes and new laws of developmental change.
As an example of this shift we can look at the treatment of the "zone of proxi
mal development" in the two volumes (and much of the work that followed each).
In Thought and Language (1962 version) the ZPD is mentioned and is discussed
in 3 pages (pp. 103-105), and is not given an index entry. The discussion of the
ZPD is framed within a treatment of a particular topic-the development of a par
ticular kind of concept, which Vygotsky termed "the scientific" concept (or alter
natively, the "academic" concept). Vygotsky's treatment is tipped toward the
interpretation of the ZPD in "diagnostic" terms. The basic idea behind the ZPD
as expressed in Thought and Language concerned the issue of developmental as
sessment. It is quite elegant in concept. The idea is that most tests of developmental
level consider that level to be defined by the level of achievement that the child
is capable of on her own, under some form of noninteractive and noninterventive
testing regime. Vygotsky argued that this only allows us to see the "completed"
part of development and does not give us a view of developmental potential-which
can be indicated by the degree to which a child can profit from external interven
tion. Vygotsky bounds his discussion quite clearly in the development of school-like
concepts-precisely those concepts which are not capable of being individually
"constructed" and which were not of particular interest to Piaget.
In Mind in Society, the concept of the ZPD reappears, but it is treated in a
different manner. Rather than being a subtopic within a discussion of the diagnosis
of children's abilities and readiness to profit from school-based instruction, the ZPD