What Are Concepts, and How Might They Be Taught?

Aaro—
a) I agreed (and I agree) with Andy. Vygotsky’s epistemology is that of Lenin in “Materialism and Empiriocriticism”, although later he did take on the Lenin of “Philosophical Notebooks”. I did state this early on. I also stated why Vygotsky thought it was not useful to begin with definitions when teaching concepts. Teaching is my principal concern here (and elsewhere).

b) The excerpt you describe in the video mostly consists of me reading a quotation from Vygotsky’s Thinking and Speech. I do add something to it, because I am trying to explain the key bridge from the pseudoconcept to the actual concept. We usually think of the concept as a generalization of the pseudoconcept (because previous steps from associative to collection to chain to diffuse complexes were all generalizations of generalizations. I was arguing that it is an abstraction (a paring down, a reining in, a limiting of generalization. But the part where you say I am rejecting Vygotsky’s epistemology by not starting with definitions and axioms is actually written by Vygotsky.

c) Likewise, the distinction between interests and concepts is taken from Chapter Nine and Chapter Ten of the Pedology of the Adolescent. There is, of course, no mention of the zone of proximal development, because the zone does not arise in Vygotsky’s work until 1932, and the Pedology of the Adolescent was written between 1929 and 1930.

I am very sorry we have disappointed you, Aaro. Vygotsky can be very disappointing sometimes, particularly if you are reading the candle-lit earlier work by the bright daylight of the later work.

My Dear Aaro–

I am not sure why you think that I have rejected Vygotsky’s epistemology.

I certainly agree that nobody should be trying to guess what is in the teacher’s mind. I don’t think that’s how concepts are taught at all. At the same time, I do recognize that simply spelling things out in words doesn’t always do the trick either.

As you said, an epistemology is frequently implicit. So what exactly is this implicit epistemology of Vygotsky’s that I have rejected?

David, all,

It is interesting. First you write that I did not answer Andy’s remark. Andy made a remark that the only claims he knows Vygotsky made about epistemolgy were in “Crisis”. There is no question; the remark is clearly about what Andy knew. He also had a question: “It would help if you explained what other epistemology you are imputing to Vygotsky.” This question I answered immediately in my next comment. So, what is your question that I could answer?

Then you ask about your remark on “salto mortale”. But, again, there was no question. In addition, I could not understand, how it was relevant in respect of the question I asked. Vygotsky died 86 years ago. This particular idea you mention, he wrote in 1927. Soon a century ago. He wrote, indeed, that definitions should be given not in the beginning but after necessary knowledge is created. But it was written when his own psychology was just emerging. A century later we should be much further than in the stage of a definition as a “point of view” in Vygotsky’s words (“первое определение дает точку зрения”). Which also means that we should be far beyond the stage of the development of psychology that was created before Vygotsky constructed most of his theory.

I would also like to remind that I commented on your ideas that “the way in which science gets underway is not theoretical speculation or epistemology” – I would add now, that you contradict yourself here. Because “definition as a point of view”, that, according to Vygotsky, should stand in the beginning of a science, is essentially the same as “theoretical speculation”. If you agreed with what Vygotsky wrote in this particular note, then why do you disagree with what he wrote in the same note and on the same subject a few words before the quote you brought?

Third, your remark that, according to Vygotsky, “cultural historical” is not an adequate name for his approach. Actually it seems he wrote nothing about “cultural historical” in this note. He wrote about “historical” and about “cultural”, but not on “cultural historical”. Further, in this note he discussed the question, what could be a correct NAME for his approach (and ended up with “historical theory of higher psychological functions”, p. 161). Your comment was written immediately after the letter where I provided reasons to suggest that Vygotsky found parallels in cultural and child development. Parallels between cultural and child development, which Vygotsky clearly suggested, is one issue; how would be the best way to name his approach according to himself, is another. What was there to respond?

Finally, you say that Vygotsky developed his theory further from the writings I cited as evidence for his support to parallelism between cultural and child development. It is correct. But where did he explicitly abandon the idea of such parallelism in his later works?

If you would ask questions, I would be happy to answer. But to respond to remarks that are not related to the subject of discussion may just have led to losing track (what happened anyway).

Altogether:
1. I do not think I should discuss what Andy (or anybody else) knows.
2. Almost a century has passed since Vygotsky, in the beginning of creating his theory, suggested that science cannot begin with definitions but rather with points of view on how something could be defined. Humanity knows much more today than in Vygotsky’s time. Time to be satisfied with “points of view” should be left behind.
3. The question of how Vygotsky was looking for a correct NAME for his science seems not to be related to the question about parallels between cultural and child development I was discussing.
4. I am happy to be educated about aspects of Vygotsky’s theory I have not discovered yet.

With best wishes
Aaro

The reason I am referring Aaro to a diagram (which I don’t seem to be able to attach here), is that this diagram is schematic of much of the work I was involved in in tracing a developmental process by way of exploring “active orientation”. This diagram depicts four particular concerns which can easily be mapped onto what I believe Aaro is concerned about, namely contemporary realisations of Aristotle’s dialectics (not formal logic as is often attributed to him).

Then there is much in the theoretical section (part 1) which goes into details about how larger organs (qua perspectives) can be formed from simpler varieties. Notably it doesn’t (IIRC) go into “dialectical connections” between these functions, but it does demonstrate this dialectical relation through the deployment of signs, which reveals the connection in support of the feedback process depicted in the diagram.

It so happens that this study helps me to answer assertions attributed to the video clip concerning my description of good ways of achieving conceptual understanding, which thereby are indirectly about definitions of concepts in the sense of how personal concepts can arise. The study helps because it pertains to a study of “active orientation” and it is active orientation which I claim is critical for the appropriate engagement of agents (students etc) to acquire conceptual appreciation.

It so happens, additionally, that this sketching out of active orientation posits a version of “the object of activity” which allows us to modestly re-import much of the work that Aaro considers must necessarily be swept aside. This study also posits “operations” as elements (rather than LSV’s LMFs). Going by Aaro’s avoidance of this point above (the extensive answer to which was requested from me, but was not responded to) suggests that this is a sensitive area. But all this is really saying (or pointing to) is that LSV posited theoretical aspects that themselves didn’t sit particularly well with the / a “meta theory” and its requirements.

Regarding the meanings behind “epistemology”, there is, of course, bound to be different senses at play. But these senses are not divorced from each other, and by pointing to particular parts of this study I think this helps to show that these concerns are being taken into account. I am happy to take these up further off line.

I think Aaro has excellent contributions to make. The issue, it seems, is his means of trying to communicate them. Invoking guessing games, pinning his forceful language on un-elaborated words, throwing in some rhetorical questions, and casting dispersions — apparently I am seasoned, and an expert, but according to the institutions for which “expert” was invented, I am sadly lacking in basic qualifications. It seems to me that when Aaro is answering his questions he is doing good work. Perhaps it is simply that his devotion to this cause has not given much scope for refining skills in “how to win friends and influence people”, for which I have some sympathy, but less so for the rhetoric.

Now, given that I was pulled into this thread by “mischievous”, albeit accidentally, circumstance, it may be that I can now withdraw.

By-the-by, I would suggest that any new sub-topics or side topics be placed in their own thread.

Best,
Huw

Aaro,

I would suggest you look at fig. 8 on p.25 of the third paper: https://www.academia.edu/42233038

Dear all,

I listened to Andy’s talk about “whether concepts are more ‘verb’ than ‘noun’” Anthony referred to. So, what would it mean to say that everything is a process? We grasp things as processes? As Andy says, it cannot be strictly correct. I think it is strictly incorrect :-). It seems to me that what Andy says supports what I just wrote; Andy says that in process there is one state, then process and then another state after the process; one state turns into another. If things were processes then, I think, the world should be a continuous flow of processes, every next moment new and new states emerge none of them fixed. But to create a narrative to grasp things as processes, there must be beginning, the state 1 and an end, the state 2. How to distinguish states, if the world would be a continuous process? I think it would be impossible. Every moment comprises a state and could be taken as the beginning state of a narrative; so where to start? And where to stop, if every next moment a different state would emerge? Narrative about the thing-process would be a process itself, it would turn continuously and constantly from one state to another, that is different state, a different narrative. If a process and narrative about that process are both processes, then how narrative could remain a narrative about the narrated process?

The whole situation becomes immediately understandable and definable, if we understand that states are actually things as materially stable units, structures of matter, and processes are dynamic changes of things, the ways how one thing becomes another.

There is still an interesting problem. To know what a thing is can take place only in a process of a study. We can know what something is only by studying its development, coming into being and ceasing to exist. If a thing is not in a process, it cannot be known. But it does not follow that there are no things. It follows that we need a methodology (!) to understand how to analyse processes into things and their (changing) relationships. Physics and biology have succeeded in this, psychology is still struggling, today even more than in Vygotsky’s time; in his time psychologists were better in analysing than today. But physics and biology also prove that it can be done in psychology, because, as Vygotsky (among others) put it: “mind is a property of highly organized matter” (Notebooks, p. 144 (Russian)/108 (English)). Thus, there is always matter, there are always distinguishable (not necessarily separable!) things; process is dynamics of interactions of those things. The process cannot be understood in principle without knowing things that are in the process. This is so because things have to be qualitatively different, not everything can become anything else. Concept, in that sense, has also to be a thing.

With best wishes
Aaro

Huw, Anthony, all,

Huw – I read the paper and it seems we are talking about different things. And in different languages. The text contains ideas from many authors, often with mutually exclusive approaches. Vygotsky’s way, for instance, does not fit with most other approaches the theory is built. It also means that the theory becomes open for criticism from all different perspectives.
Epistemology is mentioned there also many times, but I was not able to understand, what is meant by the term. Epistemology is theory of knowledge to me. I could not find what theories of knowledge are discussed in the paper. Perhaps it is so because of the epistemology I have accepted. Not every definition would be definition from structural-systemic perspective.

But your point is important: “Yet how one sees the world is contingent upon one’s epistemology.” This is usually so, but not necessarily. Epistemology is usually understood as an area of philosophy. For me it must become into the realm of science (the difference between philosophy and science was well expressed by Dewey: “The objects of both science and philosophy obviously belong chiefly to the secondary and refined system. But at this point we come to a marked divergence between science and philosophy. For the natural sciences not only draw their material from primary experience, but they refer it back again for test.”).

Scientific theory of knowledge belongs to the area of psychology. It is a question of correspondences between the structure of the world and knowledge supposed to represent it. Essentially epistemology is a theory of the organization of the world at the most general level of analysis. Therefore all specific scientific theories about the world can be used to test it. We can constantly question whether our epistemology, our way to see the world, corresponds to what is known (or believed/supposed/assumed to be known) about it. I would say, we can (and should) take a metaepistemological perspective, to study different epistemologies and see whether they correspond to what is known. (This I have also done in my book linked above). Metaepistemological perspective opens epistemology for modification. But this needs explicit, conscious theory about epistemologies.

Anthony – is your question about how to teach to understand the concept, or how to teach writing on the basis of that concept? First is easy – you almost did it already in your letter: Texts can be read differently and therefore writer’s intentions may not be understood. This should not be hard to understand.

But to write in this way is another issue. There are two problems. One is that there are different ways to read depending on the experiences, the personality of the reader. “One way fits all” is therefore impossible. The other problem is that writers may not realise what their intentions are.

From this the teaching strategy emerges: a student must learn what the different ways to read texts are, and to learn to reflect on own intentions as a writer. And then the student has to learn, how to write so that writing matches the readers’ perception.

So, superficially it might look easy. But if to think about the content, I am not sure necessary knowledge exists today. So this knowledge needs to be created first. Teaching does not have to wait until full understanding is achieved (I am not sure whether it would be even possible; likely not). But it is possible to improve teaching together with advancement of knowledge. As human kind has done over many millenia already in other areas of knowledge and skills.

With best wishes
Aaro

Any thoughts and/or tips are appreciated ~

Based on the discussion above (or not), how might the following concept be effectively taught/learned/developed: the concept of “impression management”?

In the context of my classroom, ‘impression management’ refers to the way writers try to create a near-match between their own intentions and between readers’ perceptions. It also refers to a reader’s intention to understand texts as the writer intended them to be understood. [This works with other mediums or artforms as well, but my class mainly deals with writing/reading.]

Developing this concept can be quite generative, with big payoff, but my approaches have been hit or miss over the years. So I’m asking for ideas, either specific or generic. It’s worth a shot.

So thank you.

P.S. Also, based (I think) on the discussion above, Andy has talked a bit more about whether concepts are more ‘verb’ than ‘noun’ here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ6GM1KtD_4

Dear all,

It seems this discussion has come close to the end. It goes in new directions that are only very remotely related to the question I asked in the beginning. I had two related questions. First was about epistemology – what kind of information should a definition contain? This question can also be expressed in this way: What kinds of information science is aimed at achieving? There was a reason why I asked the question: All five scholars in the video expressed ideas that were suggested to be related to Vygotsky’s theory. But clearly these answers (and also publications and other lectures given by the same scholars) did not correspond to Vygotsky’s understanding of the aims of science. From there came the second question – Why the scholars rely on an epistemology that is different from Vygotsky’s?

Huw came closest to answering the questions but still with no justification as to why rely on morphogenetic epistemology (which looks flawed to me, but this is another story). So, altogether, it seems that Vygotsky’s epistemology is abandoned. But Vygotsky’s theory, I suggest, becomes something qualitatively different, if grounded on another epistemology. It is not his theory any more.

It would not be a problem in principle. Vygotsky’s theory will be soon a century old. He might have been wrong. The problem to me is that I think he was not wrong. His theory is not ready. There are many questions he did not ask but that must be answered. I would say a new theory is needed. But that new theory can be built in large part to the basic ideas he formulated.

Vygotsky’s program was clear: he aimed at building a unifying theory of psyche. I think a theory of the psyche, if it is to be satisfactory for understanding psyche, must (!) follow certain principles.
First, this theory must rely on justified epistemology. Why? – because there are several different, partly nonoverlapping and sometimes not overlapping at all, epistemologies. If to assume that world is organized and knowable (otherwise science makes no sense), then all epistemologies cannot be justifiable because epistemology must correspond to the world as it is.
Second, acceptable theory of psyche must be simultaneously based on at least three psychological approaches: study of the history of the human culture, developmental psychology of the child, and neuropsychology (together with so-called cognitive psychology). Why? – because mind is a wholistic phenomenon that emerges in the interaction of an individual and his/her environment. History of culture grounds understanding how the specifically human environment emerged and how it is organized. Neuropsychology is needed to understand the individual, biological ground, the potential for the development of the human mind. And developmental psychology is needed to understand emergence and further development of the human mind in the interaction of the cultural environment and the individual.
Third, the studies are by necessity always conducted from very particular perspectives; there is no way to study everything at the same time. So every study must be designed with clear understanding how it relates to the psyche as a whole.

Vygotsky’s theory is the only theory I am aware of that explicitly followed these general principles. Nikolai sayd in one of his interviews that Vygotsky’s theory should be taken as a whole. I fully agree. But so far I have not seen theories that would have done it – with one exception. Luria did it and also ended up in advancing important aspects of Vygotsky’s theory. All other approaches (in the limits of my knowledge, obviously) that are related to Vygotsky’s name, are partial at best. In that sense I would say none of them is Vygotsky’s or even vygotskian. These theories are created after Vygotsky, so it might be that they are better. But this needs to be demonstrated, not just declared. This demonstration, I think, must begin with explaining, why Vygotsky’s epistemology was wrong. Because these new approaches, with no exception (in the limits of my knowledge) do not rely on that kind of epistemology.

Altogether, I think there is a lot to discover in Vygotsky’s theory – I think it has huge potential not realised yet.

With best wishes
Aaro

Aaro,

Reference to “Vygotsky’s Theory” suggested to me that there was, in existence, a little pamphlet going by the same name in which all the fundamental points are laid out and the document is signed “The Real Vygotsky”. But alas, I have yet to stumble across this artefact and have only the translated works in which changing opinions and conclusions are expressed, and where fundamentals of the theory are scattered about here and there. Evidently, “Vygotsky’s Theory” is something one has to dig for, piece together, and scrutinise oneself.

In faithful response to your further questioning, I offer the following responses. Hopefully this clarifies things for you.

1a. Maruyama’s paper expresses the points simply. It clarifies the relevance of the label ‘epistemology’ whilst also connecting it with the contents of my draft papers.

The comparison between forms and processes are similar, if not equivalent, to ‘systems’ and ‘functions’. But for this one might need to go further back in history.

1b. Strategy: method; the structure of a process intended for obtaining an outcome.

3. On p.79 of English (1997, Plenum) Vol.4 of the collected works (the chapter “Analysis of Higher Mental Functions”) we have a diagram showing the connections A-B and A-X-B. On p.80 we have: “Stimulus A elicits a reaction that consists in finding stimulus X, which in turn acts on point B. Thus, the connection between points A and B is not direct, but mediated. This is what the uniqueness of the selection reaction and all higher forms of behaviour consist of.” and (next paragraph) “With a neutral formation of a connection, a direct conditioned-reflex connection is established between the two points A and B.”

For clarity, I shall re label these terms: the relation A-B can be re-labelled (S)stimulus – (R)response or S-R; the relation A-X-B can be relabelled (S)timulus-(I)nterpretation-(R)response, or S-I-R. Now we can again assign CHT terms to these labels and consider S-R as sign – (Re)action and S-I-R as sign – interpretation – action. Without conscious interpretation, the meaning of the sign is outside of the control of the agent.

These relations are also discussed in vol.3 (Problems of the Theory and History of Psychology), ch.5, p.86, “The Instrumental Method on Psychology”.

The expression “active orientation became in your understanding into something that can express something” does not make sense to me, but perhaps my answers to the remaining points will help.

4. LMF as a collection of “natural processes” are not, for me, a productive way to proceed. Hence my previous reference to a “shopping-list” of functions: memory, perception, planning, speech, naturalistic thinking, emotion, etc. For me, with respect to ‘mental functions’ it is productive to distinguish: attention, movement, and emotion; or more precisely: attention, attention to movement, and attention to emotion — there is simply a variety of forms of attention.

i) Perception manifests as a “pre-perceptual” field which is attended to. The act of attention informs what is seen (corroborated phenomenologically, e.g. by visual illusions or ambiguities). The “pre-perceptual” field is a given, it is always present and is not a “psychological function”.

ii) Similarly memory is always present, it is “built in”. Memory is “exercised” by attention. Hence we can improve our memory in manners similar to how we can strengthen a muscle. However we can form specialised memorising “functions”, such as the action of taking notes etc.

iii) “Speech” (as a pre-verbal “LMF”) is simply particular movements, achieved by certain forms of attention.

iv) “Naturalistic thinking” is a combination of signs (attention) movements, and affective response.

v) “Planning” according to my schema is a developed “function”, in fact a key part of cognitive development. This is to be expected when I predicate much upon the agent’s strategy or method of undertaking actions / activity.

4.1 With respect to these LMFs we should note that most of them are not “real” in that they do not manifest in pure form. There is no such thing as “pure memory”, “pure planning”, “pure perception” etc, yet as I understand it LMF is supposed to be grounded in “elements”.

4.2 There is a close correspondence between attention and signs. The act of attending for the purposes of action entails the making of a sign. This was used, for example , by Gal’perin in which the action of “checking” was interpreted as evidence for attending.

4.3 Instead of “LMF” I posit nothing. Hence, for me, there is no “Higher” mental function. Rather there are functions that are undertaken consciously (called “actions” in line with AT) and that implicate interpretation and planning (qua S-I-R), and functions undertaken unconsciously (called “operations also in line with AT) implicating S-R (unless overridden consciously, hence autonomic). Also in line with AT, concomitant with conscious interpreting and planning that is deemed to take place with actions, these ‘functions’ generally take place sequentially. Operations, on the other hand, may take place concurrently. This distinction is also quite significant with respect to developmental processes.

4.4 Consciousness (in the sense of Mental, cognitive) is attention, it is frequently entailed in sign use, i.e. to employ things or impressions as signs (but not necessarily artefacts named as signs like sign posts etc).

4.5 Re systemically naive:

i) The “shopping list” approach to mental functions.

ii) Vol.3 Problem of the Theory and History of Psychology, ch. 6 On Psychological Systems
p.91: “I would like you to bear in mind that however primitive and simple we may have interpreted the higher psychological functions, we nevertheless resorted to some more complex, more integral concept of the personality… Hence it is understandable that as the work moved forward we had to fill that gap, to justify the hypothesis and gradually transform it into experimentally verified knowledge.”
P.92: “Its main (and extremely simple) idea is that in the process of development, and in the historical development of behaviour in particular, it is not so much the functions which change (these we mistakenly studied before). Their structure and the system of their development remains the same.”
And p.107: “We must take interest in systems and their fate — it seems to me that for us the alpha and omega of our next work must reside in these four words.”

iii) Luria’s and Vygotsky’s distinction between function and system. They treat these as two separate kinds of structures, whereas once the “LMFs” have been cleared away, they may be seen as two perspectives upon the same logical organisation, i.e. there is no necessity for merely two levels, the ‘function’ or ‘system’ can be applied hierarchically and recursively, whilst retaining the dialectic relation between parts (sub systems) and “whole” (larger system).

iv) These systemic views can be further refined, however I won’t get into that here.

5. I would expect that much applied work employing AT may not be concerned with development issues and might therefore simplify the functions such that the dialectical relation (if that is your concern) between functions was either discounted or approximated for in other ways (e.g. one function being substituted for another after time trials etc). Certainly from what I have seen with SSAT, which has its own particular focus and problem-tasks in relation to industrial psychology, developmental issues do not seem to be a primary focus. This does not necessarily invalidate the approach, however, it depends upon its application.

In addition to these points there are others that I bring in to active orientation, for example Gordon Pask’s “p-individual” which recognises the “conversations” that can take place between sub-systems or perspectives (quo orientations) that extend the sense and architecture of social distribution and help explain developmental processes via the synthesis and reorganisation of systems. Most of the work was undertaken a few years ago so it is not quite level with my current understandings. Nevertheless, you might find the papers interesting.

Best,
Huw

Aaro, and others

Here is a lengthy reply to the issues raised:

1a. Regarding my epistemology, this can be said to be morphogenetic, e.g.: there is no such thing as a uni-direction process; there is no complete separation between ‘things’; forms are processes and vice-versa; “what something is” is merely an inaccurate way of referring to how something comes to arise; objects are construed; it is our distinctions (and their emergence) that are the basis of construal, identification and determination of “what something is”. See [1].

1b. The strategy of the agent comprises the strategy by which I studied him or her. We may look at their method, the parts of their method, how the parts have enduring forms of organisation, how the morphology of the parts changes with respect to their activity, how the enduring organisations embedded in the activity increase in organisation complexity and scope with respect to the coordination of parts making up the activity, how this organisation itself may change over time with respect to projected forms of development. See my study of active orientation [2].

1c. Certain complexities of epistemology must be catered for when studying the development of agents’ activity (psychology). Not only is it relevant to consider the researchers epistemology, it is necessary, too, to consider the epistemological contribution to the agents’ ontology and scope of interpretation as a developmental trajectory. Therefore the epistemology of the researcher must accommodate the developmental possibilities of the agent, whilst, of course, also catering to the possibility of changes arising from their own personal insights. See [2].

1d. We should also heed the fairly obvious case that we come to understand our activities after initially undertaking them, see [3]. Exceptions might apply to logically familiar activities, i.e. that can by synthesised in the imagination. Our epistemological assumptions are therefore liable to incompleteness, as was Vygotsky’s with respect to his naivety of and subsequent learning about systems.

2. Regarding the rhetoric around research question with respect to epistemology (which, as per 1d above, is self-limiting when applied as a research axiom of “Define your terms!” we not only need to cater for our own search (and development) but given the epistemological assumptions around heterogeneity (which is cognate with morphogenetics, see [1]) we should recognise that questions may sometimes form a mesh rather than a linear hierarchy and it would be incongruent and self-limiting to treat them so. See [4].

3. Regarding “why active orientation?”, this caters to the need to accommodate the agent’s interpretation of situations and the disposition for actions in relation to their cognitive capabilities. Simply put, it is the interpretation aspect of the triad sign-interpretation-action. As Vygotsky shows, the relation sign-action pertains to stimulus-response processes and can be ascribed to processes of automatic (autonomic) behaviour. The active orientation can be shown to express the agent’s unit of analysis for their own determined activity (i.e. not the activity that the researcher might seek to impose). Active orientation therefore pertains to a unit of a unit of analysis (of behaviour or activity).

4. Regarding HMF and LMF. Much of this, for me, largely consists of a fairly naive approach to systems which attempts to shoe-horn facets of psychology that have piqued reachers interest into a system. Hence we have shopping lists of functions that supposedly form a system as if they were akin to organs making up an an organic system. I do not have the references to hand, though I recall research explicating the development of (so called) lower mental functions which appeared to contradict LSV’s claims. For me, the useful distinction was between conscious (interpreted) use of signs and non-interpreted use of signs which, as unconsciously applied, may still play a role and may undergo movement within the ‘stream’ of an activity. See [2].

5. Regarding the comments about AT being uni-directional, I can only infer this to be a reference to issues such as those highlighted by Alexander Surmava [5]. Rather than get into this, I may simply state that if a unit of analysis is good for you as a researcher, then why is not appropriate for the agent? To brush off a whole collection of research because of philosophical uncertainties does not seem to me a productive response. Again, first we find things that work, then we find out why (we think) they work. To impose the reverse is not very productive (although we may imaginatively and logically build upon what we have confidence in). Besides, the projected development of organisation of activity that I used was sufficient for my purposes and fits my bi-directional notions of relations between activity-based requirements and their (psychological) organisation, as befits the movement ‘upstream’ of signs in activity etc.

6. Finally, regarding epistemological issues, I am no stranger to this as a social problem and I believe you would be correct to assume that many Western practitioners would benefit from deeper reflection on this. My brief account in my introduction to my study [2] refers to such problems. These were sufficient to necessitate that I undertook my work independently, having to abort the process I experienced within a UK university with their (nigh on UK-universal) fixation on methods of description and statistics in the social sciences, which of course are unsatisfactory for developmental studies. If anyone reading this would like to see this study formally published as part of accepting them as a PhD, please let me know.

I trust this is sufficient explanation.
Best,
Huw

[1] Maruyama (1978) Heterogenistics and Morphogenetics: Toward a New Concept of the Scientific. https://www.jstor.org/stable/657025
[2] My studies of active orientation:
https://www.academia.edu/42233039/A_Study_of_Active_Orientation
https://www.academia.edu/42233036/A_Study_of_Active_Orientation_Part_1_A_Perspective_Based_Theory_of_Cognitive_Development
https://www.academia.edu/42233037 A_Study_of_Active_Orientation_Part_2_Basis_for_an_Experimental_Study_of_Active_Orientation_Focused_Upon_the_Formation_of_Handwriting_Skills_of_Letter_Formation
https://www.academia.edu/42233038/A_Study_of_Active_Orientation_Part_3_A_study_of_the_formation_of_a_childs_handwriting_skill
[3] Wertsch (2011) Saying More than You Know in Instructional Settings. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4419-7582-9_9
[4] De Landa (1997) A Thousand Years of Non-Linear History
[5] Surmava (2005 in Russian) LIFE, PSYCHE, CONSCIOUSNESS

Erratum:
I got lost with the last sentence. “The latter” must be “the former”: “Therefore a logical concept is impossible before sufficiently differentiated everyday conceptual systems have emerged.”
Aaro

Erratum:

Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew would be “primitive” languages, because of their elaborate grammaticalization system for eking out tri-consonantal roots into a vast array of vocabulary.

But you can see just from this error that this criterion for determining “development’ is arbitrary–it’s like Descartes explaining to the Princess Elizabeth that a full stomach causes the emotion of happiness but an empty stomach makes you sad. When Elizabeth, possibly after overindulging, objects, Descartes just says well then it must be the other way around….

The distinction Vygotsky refers to in the final chapter of Thinking and Speech–the distnction between pointing, naming, and signifying–is even more useless in comparative linguistics. There are no languages that do not point, name or signify. Whether what they signify are complexes or concepts is likewise a matter of intra-lingual and not inter-lingual variation. “Development” applies to registers (e.g. scientific English vs. everyday English). But it doesn’t apply to whole languages any more than it applies to accents.

David,

Yes, Vygotsky never (as far as I know) suggested that the development of higher psychological functions in general, and word meaning structure/concepts in particular, is identical to the development of culture. In the “Pedology of the adolescent” he also mentioned that there are “formal” similarities between the certain moments of the development of the species and the development of an individual (p. 58).

I do not (I also did not) suggest that these two lines of development are the same. As I wrote, there is difference in content, difference in the level of within-stage development. Also, actually most importantly, there is very clear difference in the mechanisms of development. “Ideal form” is present for children since thay are born, but in cultural development it has to be created. So the former can be based on the processes of internalization whereas the latter requires externalization of discovered novel cultural achievements by the creators before such discoveries/creations become an ideal form.

I think when Vygotsky denied parallels in two lines, he was talking about such differences. But still, there must be a similarity. I am suggesting, based on Vygotsky’s works, that this similarity is in the development of the word meaning structure. In this (and only this?) aspect, both lines must be similar.

Vygotsky has written in several places about “primitive cultures” (I use his term; no value attached to it; just signifying less developed form). Primitive culture is different from developed culture qualitatively, not quantitatively (e.g., people in primitive cultures think in complexes). A child born into a primitive culture develops to the level of the ideal form of that culture. I do not know a single place, where Vygotsky would have suggested that this less developed stage in child development is not about the syncrets-complexes-scientific-true concepts stages (but he was not always specific that it is). Ideal form for children exists in social-cultural relationships. Word meaning structure is about relations between words (or linguistic signs in general). Therefore, ideal form in that respect has to be expressed with relations between words as they are used by more developed individuals in the environment of the developing child. If these forms have not existed since the beginning of culture (they are not, otherwise there would be no primitive cultures), then these forms had to develop also. And they had to develop over structurally the same stages, because child development corresponds to what can be learned in the interaction with the social-cultural environment.

As far as I remember from reading Vygotsky, he provided here and there (mostly in Ape, Primitive …; where he wrote two first chapters, but not the last) explicit parallels in that respect attributing thinking in complexes to primitive cultures and, in addition to this form, thinking in scientific and true concepts to more developed cultures. Or, sometimes he was not specific, but nevertheless explained the reasons why the development of an individual stops at an earlier stage (!) with lack of the ideal form in the environment of the developing children.
I do not know a single place, however, where Vygotsky would have written that cultural development proceeds over a different sequence of stages or any other kind of qualitative steps. And he definitiely rejected the idea that development can be just about quantity, about more knowledge but all the same kind in psychic structure.

So, altogether, I think Vygotsky was quite consistent in this: both cultures and individuals pass through the same hierarchy of stages of word meaning structure development. In that respect, the individual development recapitulates the cultural development.

With best wishes,
Aaro

Hi David,

So I am right about the Milky Way? 🙂
My question was not about Milky Way and whether it is vegetable or not. My question was about thinking, knowledge and science. I thought that these subjects are close to you.

I think we need to take a closer look at the two Vygotsky’s works, you refer to, Pedology of the Adolescent and Problem of the environment.

First, the Pedology. Yes, Vygotsky criticized in Chapter 4 of that book certain views of recapitulation. But already the second line of that chapter makes it clear, that this critique is irrelevant to our question: He criticized theories of BIOgenetic parallelism. (see also p. 55, 4th para, where he makes it clear that he disagrees with biogenetic parallelism). I never wrote that I or he supported this view. I am talking about what Vygotsky discussed under the term HISTORICAL development and its parallelism to child development.

In this book when he discusses historical development, his views are in agreement with what I have proposed. For example:
(1) In primitive societies, “standing at the lowest level of cultural development”, the period of the sexual maturation marks the end of (cultural) development of an adolescent (p. 73).
(2) It is culture that creates the developmental crisis in puberty; “It is culture, it is historical development of the human kind that breaks biological harmony of maturation …” (p. 75)
(3) A child from a working class passes a shortened path of the cultural maturation, because his life tasks are different; it does not arrive at the highest level of cultural development, the latest acquisition of the humanity (p. 164); A child belonging to the bourgeois class does not need to work for survival and can extend his/her period of development (p. 165)

So: culture develops and depending on the level of the development of a culture, child’s cultural development may stop either because there are no higher forms available in the culture, or they are accessible to only a part of the society.

If culture develops – historically – then it has to be parallel to child development. Why it is so, can be also explained with the help of the “Problem of environment”. From there the following ideas are relevant (The Vygotsky Reader, 1994):
(1) in child development that which it is possible to achieve at the end and as a result of the developmental process, is already available in the environment from the beginning (p.347-348) (He calls it “final or ideal form”; child’s own form, in the beginning of development, is “rudimentary”)

The key question is, how this ideal form came into being?
(2) Could one imagine, in the context of human development, that when the most primitive man had only just appeared on earth, a higher final form already existed, a man of the future as it were and that this ideal form could somehow directly influence the first steps the primitive nnn was taking? One cannot imagine this. (p. 349)

Therefore, culture had to develop.

Perhaps the development of culture proceeds through some other stages (because Vygotsky clearly has rejected the idea that development can be only quantitative)? But:
(3) … the environment’s role in the development of higher, specifically human characteristics and forms of activity is as a source of development. (p. 351)

We know that children develop to achieve, in the end, thinking in true concepts. The source of it is the cultural environment that has developed historically. So it is cultural environment that is the source of the development for thinking in true concepts. As we saw above – in primitive cultures the cultural development has not achieved this level and so children also do not develop further; they remain at the level of their own “primitive” culture.

Further:
(4) Humanity created it [speech] during the entire course of its historical development. … I mastered this power of speech following the historical laws of my development and through the process of interaction with the ideal form. (p. 352)
So: individual development follows the laws of HISTORICAL development.

Altogether: Child development proceeds over four hierarchical stages towards the highest ideal form available in its culture. In the primitive cultures and also in more developed cultures with limited access to the highest ideal form, the ideal form attained by a child does not reach the level of true concepts. Central-Asian adults with no access to formal education, for instance (Luria’s expedition), achieve only thinking in complexes/everyday concepts. Because this developmental stage is available in their culture.

I think Vygotsky has bee quite consistent in assuming parallels in cultural and child HISTORICAL development also in the two works you mention.

With best wishes
Aaro

David, all

David – I fully agree with you: Vygotsky did reject application of the biogenetic law to child development. I totally agree also that cultural history does not recapitulate evolution of life.

But if you take a look at what I actually wrote, you find that I did not suggest anything like that also. I was not talking about BIOgenetic recapitulation. I wrote: “child development recapitulates cultural development”. I suggested that CULTURAL development of the child must proceed through the same stages as the development of culture. This is not about biological evolution; rather it is what Vygotsky discussed under the term “historical development”. There are quite many places where Vygotsky suggests that the development of specifically human, semiotically mediated thought proceeds through the same stages in the history of the development of human kind and in child development.

I was even more specific, I suggested that I am talking about the stages of word meaning structure development. Vygotsky clearly distinguished three, but in some places hints that there are four stages: syncretic concepts, complexes = everyday concepts, “scientific” concepts, and “true” conceps (sometimes he was not clear about the distinction between the last two). Most of his works in that perspective are related to child development. But take this: “It is at this stage of thinking in complexes that the primitive man primarily stands . His words are proper or family names, that is, signs for individual objects or signs for complexes. The primitive thinks not in concepts, but in complexes . This is the most essential feature that distinguishes primitive thinking from ours.” (“Etjudy po istorii povedeniya”/”Studies on the history of behavior”) In his “Tool and symbol” the same parallel of the development of human culture and a child is also implied (e.g., Conclusions: The use of tools in animal and human behavior). So “primitive man” and a child both think with complexes/everyday concepts before scientific/true concepts develop.

It is important that Vygotsky did not say that child development and the development of the human culture are identical. This is exactly, what I wrote also: “not in content and also not in the level of elaboration, i.e. in the level of within-stage development”. I would add to it, that children develop in a cultural environment and their development is therefore mostly based on internalization of cultural already existing “extracerebral connections”. Cultures can develop on the opposite basis; first the novel form is created by someone and externalized; after internalizing that novel form by others, it becomes a a new aspect of the social-cultural environment.

But the general stages of these two lines of historical development are the same for cultures and individuals; both begin from syncretic concepts and develop until true concepts.

However, David – I do disagree with you in this: “And the way in which a science gets underway is not theoretical speculation or epistemology”. There are two aspects:

(1) Science does not begin with theoretical speculation, you say. I think science begins with a question: could it be that things are in this way? Question, it does not matter whether explicit or implicit, is absolutely necessary. This is so because the world can be described in infinitely many ways. A way to understanding has to begin from selecting what is assumed to be relevant and important. Such selection is grounded in the scientific questions, hypotheses, if you like. First questions-hypotheses must be speculative. So science does begin with theoretical speculation.

(2) Science does not begin with epistemology, you say. I think it does. But not from explicit epistemology but implicit. Science cannot, and does not accept all kinds of descriptions as scientific knowledge. If knowledge is based on authority, for example, and not on justification, it is not scientific. “Einstein said” is not sufficient for his statements to be scientific. Only part of what Einstein said about the world became scientific knowledge; it is the part where statements were justified. Distinction between scientific and nonscientific knowledge was there since the beginning of science; this is implicit epistemology. If we were in the beginning of science, we would be justified not to have explicit epistemology. But explicit epistemology – theory of what is (scientific) knowledge – was created already long time ago. We are not any more in the beginning of science. Vygotsky could describe what kind of knowledge he thought must be discovered in scientific studies in just a few sentences. (Wundt did the same. And many other continental European psychologists of the late 19th-early 20th century.) And he/they aimed at discovering exactly these kinds of knowledge in answering specific questions about psyche. Why it is so hard for you to formulate similar sentences?

I insist that without epistemology there can be no scientific knowledge. For example: I tell you (following Münsterberg) that Milky Way is a big vegetable. I suggest that it is a scientific fact BECAUSE I find this idea funny and I like funny ideas. Could you reject this “well-justified” statement about Milky Way as scientific without epistemology? How?

With best wishes,
Aaro

Hello all,

I still think it is noteworthy that my questions did not get any answer. Vygotsky described his epistemology in sufficient details. And followed these principles also. If this fact is ignored, we lose Vygotsky’s theory also. We get another theory, even if that theory is illustrated with quotes from Vygotsky’s texts.

Of course it is possible that Vygotsky was simply wrong. But, in my opinion, more and more evidence is emerging after Vygotsky’s death, that is in accordance with his theory. For example, Vygotsky assumed that child development recapitulates cultural development (in a certain sense, only in terms of the principal structure of the word meaning; not in content and also not in the level of elaboration, i.e. in the level of within-stage development). Today this idea is rejected. But, if to apply Vygotsky’s epistemology to his understanding of psychic development, the only possibility is that these two lines must be similar. And, I am repeating, there is a lot of evidence to support the idea.

Let us take another example. Anthony got exactly to the point with his last question: definition of what concept is and how it develops underlies teaching practices (another issue is that often teachers even do not realize that they have a certain theory; the theory is implicit). I do not know, how Vygotsky would define what concept is according to his own epistemology. I think the reason for that is that in his time there was not sufficient understanding of what he called “natural” processes; biotically emerging processes that ground the development of higher or cultural processes. But Vygotskian way to define a concept would be different from all four we can find in the video we are discussing here (Not five, because Huw wrote he did not answer this question). When reading all the definitions Anthony put nicely next to each other, I would say it becomes also evident that it is hard to turn them into practice. Mostly because none of the definitions really defines, what it is what is expected to develop. Vygotsky’s epistemology (with its materialist ground; that is important) calls to achieve undrstanding what a studied thing or phenomenon IS. (We should not define concepts or words in science; definitions must be about the things and phenomena; definition of a gene in biology is a nice structural-systemic example of how a definition should look like also in Vygotskian theory).

David – I agree that I call to get definitions “right”. But not from the outset. It is impossible. What a thing or phenomenon is is something that needs to be discovered in science. Such discovery, however, requires necessarily a definition from the beginning, before the studies. But in the beginning the definition is a hypothesis, that is checked with studies. Explicit definition can be rejected and replaced with a better one. Implicit definition cannot be rejected and therefore no understanding can also emerge Look, for instance, back to last 30 years of studying what consciousness is. Following Crick, it is assumed that the understanding just will happen, when neural correlates of conscoiusness are discovered. I would say, this program is nonsense: how we can know that neural correlates of consciousness have been discovered, if we cannot (hypothetically, in the beginning!) say what consciousness is? 30 years of studies have been wasted.

Andy – I see many points of agreement now. Yes, I also think that concept is something that emerges in development. I also see, how concepts can represent this process: concepts as realizations of their developmental path necessarily represent this path; different paths end up in different things, as you also write. I also fully agree that the only way to understand concepts is to study their development (I even wrote a book chapter (2009) on why developmental approach in strustural-systemic epistemology is the ONLY possible path to understanding). As to “contradiction” – this term can be understood in too many different ways. Hegelian idea in the context of thesis-antithesis-synthesis cycle is too abstract; if to bring it to materialist understanding, it makes a lot of sense. All novel structures emerge only in the synthesis of minimally to to-become-parts of the new whole. So, in such synthesis, there is always something and something else, not-this-something.

Mike – I am looking forward to your comments.

With best wishes,
Aaro

I’m puzzled. Or maybe I simply don’t agree that avoiding sexual exploitation is well-described as either skill or knowledge; I don’t think the formation of any concept can be adequately described as either. I can’t agree that this is something “developed” by or in a child, both because that destroys the Vygotskyan distinction between learning and development and because it suggests an anti-Vygotskyan innatism. And as a translator with late-acquired and as a result rather poor Russian, I am genuinely humble and curious, Aaro. If you think that “teaching” is not permissible in this context, how exactly WOULD you translate Vygotsky’s term “обучение”?